Thomas & the Vidacycle Family - chile
The vidacycle family farm is around 15 hectares in the coastal hills, part of the Maule Valley in Chile.
They have a few thousand olive trees, a couple hectares of grapes (make their delicious natural wine, TINTE) and they grow all their own fruit and veg, plus they are starting to grow a bit of barley for their neighbour. All their decisions are guided by listening, learning and working with nature, but it’s not always easy: “a superfire devastated our farm in early 2017, only the buildings didn't burn.”
After that they needed to rethink the arid landscape and retain more water on the land throughout the long hot Summers. Essentially they needed to build their soil health, so the soil would retain more water - healthy soil can hold 4 times its weight in water!
So recently they started mob grazing a small flock of sheep, growing more diverse cover crops and are excited to add aerobic compost making to their toolbox on this regenerative journey.
