Landwords #01
MYOP meets Nicola De Gregorio and FASTUCHERA, his organic farm that cultivates and protects the native Sicilian biodiversity, produces ancient grains and recovers endangered varieties of fruit and legumes.
“Being a farmer is lucky enough to be in contact with living” things “and with a complex world, a world born from the contamination of ideas and peoples: Russello wheat arrived three centuries ago from Ukraine, prickly pears from Central America, oranges and peaches from China, pistachios from Afghanistan and Iran. Pistachio, fistik (from Arabic), fastuca, FASTUCHERA. “
Sometimes it is better to leave the harvest to the earth, which feeds on its own fruits and gives new, multiplied ones. The hands play the sickle, the face touches the clods, the eyes spin the different greens, the blooms, and the thoughts rest on time. So you realize that here, on the field, nothing is refused. It all comes back.
“I learned about my products also thanks to direct contact with the people who eat and cook them. They want to talk to me, they ask me, how I produce, what is my path, what are the properties of the fruits of my land, and they tell me recipes. The best customers, for me, are those who have also solved health problems, with the grains I produce. Dermatitis, loss of appetite due to wheat intolerance. Producing food, which is not only good, but also good, makes me happy. “