- Izaskun Urbaneta Ocejo and Ainara Baguer González met just over twelve years ago working on an environmental education program. At the time, they both wanted to be closer to the earth, move from theory to practice and launch a project. “At first it was a kind of dream, we started to launch ideas, and there came how important the water mills had in Bizkaia.” A project related to the mill seemed suitable for continuing environmental education, and gradually formed this initial dream and created the agroecological pasta project Txaramela.
This idea of working with water mills came up with bread, stems, etc. But a friend who had just been in Italy asked them, "And why don't you make pasta?" Urbaneta confesses that they never thought of this possibility, but they decided to gradually deepen the idea launched by his friend and move forward. “When we said we wanted to make the orchard and make pasta, the initial reaction was not the best: with fixed work, how do we leave it?” However, it then recognises that they have had full protection from others. “It is also nice that in one of my aitites and amamas of the farmhouse we started grinding in the same mill that grinded corn and wheat,” he adds.
In addition to pasta production, Txaramela members make a vegetable garden in Muskiz. The first few years were devoted to the manufacture of baskets and, although there was an intermediate stop, this activity is now being repeated. “We use vegetables and spices from the orchard to make pasta and get into the baskets,” he says. In fact, in Txaramela, pastes are made with a wide variety of ingredients: beet, garlic, spinach, pumpkin, basil, oregano, curcum, bell pepper... they work with the ecological seal, but beyond that their way of understanding agriculture: “Within agroecology we locate our production”. Wheat and cereals are taken to small Navarran and Israeli producers.
School of Food and Environmental Education
They are mainly sold in nearby markets, shops and consumer groups, but also in schools and restaurants. Looking to the future, they have another project: a worker to make pasta sauces and manipulators.
And along with production, environmental education has been the second axis of the project from the very beginning. They run the "School of Food and Environmental Education" and conduct monthly food and environmental workshops with children and adults. “We perceive that there is an increasing awareness of these issues, but perhaps not entirely from the point of view we would like. Today, everyone's health is much more oriented than the environment. It’s clear that consuming agro-eco-friendly is better for health, but we’d like to stay away from it,” he concludes.