The Social Cooperative Enterprise Wildlife and Culture, inaugurating the beginning of its multifunctional farm, in collaboration with the natural farmer Panagiotis Manikis and the Center for Natural Cultivation of Edessa, on October 8 and 9, organized the first experiential workshop for natural farming in Prespes.
The workshop was attended by professional farmers, amateur farmers and smallholder farmers and people that are interested in creating personal food self-sufficiency. The participants traveled from many parts of Greece such as Aegina, Zakynthos, Athens, Thessaloniki and Kastoria.
During these two days we talked about how we can reach nutritional self-sufficiency through Natural Farming, but also how we can use it for professional farming in order to increase the variety of our products, production and manage to have stability to our income and not be depend on monoculture.
More specifically, on the first day, we talked about planning and creating a farm, creating an annual vegetable garden, the use and importance of green manure in all types of farming.
We talked about the process of sowing with clay balls, we made balls with green manure and seasonal vegetable seeds and sowed them in our farm. At the end of the day there was an open discussion and the attendees had the opportunity to ask Mr. Manikis about the various issues they face in their existing farms and advice on different farming ways.
On the second day we saw various fruit trees and talked about their planting, their fruiting, their formation and how we can give a natural shape to a tree that has been pruned and has lost it. We talked about the importance of having many varieties and many species. Finally, we said why, if we want to have healthy trees and ideal production, we should focus on soil health and green manuring.
The big conclusion from this two-day workshop and from everything that Mr. Manikis told us is that we must love, respect and show compassion to nature and not think about how we can get the most possible production from our crops. Let's take care of the health of our soil and plants and only then will they be able to generously give us their fruits.
We would like to thank the natural farmer Panagiotis Manikis who accepted our invitation to come to Prespes and talk to us about natural farming.
Also, we thank the Municipality of Prespa, which is always by our side and supports our every activity.
Finally, we thank the Poliprespa program for the support throughout the event.