Describe where you live and work, and what is it you do.
Is your work part of what defines you as a person? If so, why?
Does your work allow you to feel a connection to life and its sustainability, not just through the product you provide but by how you acquire it and work with that product?
It has been said that modern day, conventional farming on a large scale no longer involves the intelligent input of the farmer as everything comes out of a packet for maximum yield and uniformity of shape and size. How involved are you in the process of what you do and provide?
Our aim at “Son Real” is to achieve total involvement with our product and by doing so we took a further risk in implementing, for the first time on a commercial farm, the agricultural methods of Gaspar Caballero of Segovia, one of the first ecologically-minded farmers in Spain who devised a way of farming more radically than what we call “organic”. So in the same way that he banned any use of any external material or substance that may fall under the organic category, we at “Son Real” rely on observation, logic and on nature’s resistance.
I live in a farmhouse built on a five acre almond grove on the island of Mallorca, Spain. I work about 20 minutes away, on a plot of land that once belonged to an old monastery, Son Real, just outside the capital Palma.
Surrounded by the now predominantly city landscape, my 2 partners and I, run a biodeverse, sustainable eco- farm that provides organic produce for people to buy, allotments to rent, a shop with traditional foods and wines from the island, and cooking classes to teach everyone what they can create from what comes out of our farm.
I think that if you are lucky, and brave, enough to follow your dream in the work that you do, you undoubtedly put much of who you are into that project. When I built my house, I made sure not one tree was sacrificed in the process and that it was built on architectural ecological principles of sustainability. Our eco-farm “La Real” is, likewise, entirely based on my own principles of sustainability and on my personal focus in the health of our soil, our agricultural methods and our respect for nature.
Manino Oliver,
director of Biogranja La Real, Mallorca, Spain.
At “Son Real” we have addressed the essential components of what it is to be sustainable that as humans we must pay close attention to: Mother Nature and how to form a relationship of understanding with her. The moment when man plunges his hands into her soil in order to coax the riches of her bounty to fruition, is a moment filled with magic that everyone should experience. When we obtain these fruits of our labour, we should do so with humility and with thanks because these fruits have an incalculable value to our health and lives. This connection I feel deeply.
My wife and children, as well as the environment that surrounds me, all give me great joy. Work itself provides me with moments of leisure as I am lucky enough to be master of my own time and be able to do something in my life that I love and feel passionate about. Sailing also gives me great pleasure.
Above all I give thanks to have been born into a developed world where we have been given both privileges and opportunities. These assets we should never take for granted and we should be truly grateful for them every day of our lives.
What makes you happy and content? How do you spend your moments of leisure if there are any? What do you give thanks for?
Visit Biogranja Son Real at:
