This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

Sa Laurera is located in the heart of Marmilla, a historic sub-region of central-southern Sardinia.
It belongs to Francesco Mascia, a thirty years old farmer from Cagliari; he is also a passionate naturalist and the author of about 80 scientific publications, while he regularly works with associations, institutions and universities, especially in the botanical field.
At Sa Laurera, he has settled down with his family, totally devoted to ecological sustainability and the pristine rural landscape, rediscovering ancient cultivation techniques and recovering historical biodiversity; in particular, Francesco has restored ancient varieties, as well as local ones and wild plants of ethnobotanical interest.

By doing so, Francesco can obtain ever stronger and more productive plants every year.
He actually cultivates everything he needs for his family at different times of the year, respecting the biological rhythms of plants and animals. He painstakingly protects his different crops and their very boundaries, often restoring native species or introducing the most traditional ones.

Crop rotation with traditional and state-of-the-art techniques allow him to thoroughly respect the beautiful environment where he lives in work. The use of machines is very limited, thus dramatically reducing fossil fuel consumption, while chemical products, herbicides, fertilizers and pesticides are never used and completely banned.

Francesco also employs the dry farming technique, to overcome the lack of rain and the scarcity of wells and streams: he simply “train” plants to grow and thrive in non-irrigated fields, thus obtaining fruits with authentic flavours and excellent shelf life.

Francesco Mascia is also part of a naturalistic initiative called “Nature in Marmilla”

http://naturainmarmilla.weebly.com

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)