The collective garden of Bajo Bidasoa seeks more partners
- The collective orchard Aldatsa began about seven years ago with the participation of residents of the Hondarribia area. However, in January last year, due to a number of changes in the form of production, they decided to renew their name: It is Sorburu Baratza, a plot of 5,000 square meters given by the City Hall of Hondarribia among more than twenty families. “In short, Sorburu Baratza is an agroecology made by the street’s neighbors,” explains Aritz Lekuona Rekalde. It is common that in many villages the large area of orchards is divided into small portions, this is not the case of Hondarribia, where a single vegetable garden is cultivated among all the members. Therefore, their specialty is to work collectively.
The final objective of the project is to produce vegetables for their own consumption, but Sorburu gives them more opportunities. “Some of us have more experience in agriculture than others, but among all of us we are learning and deepening in agroecology, gaining experience,” says Lekuona. From the motor group, directed by five or six people, an annual plan is made to determine the working hours, sowing and planting. In addition to this group, they have a person hired in half a day to carry out the work of the vegetable garden throughout the week.
“Every weekend we get together partners to carry out the work, and the fee to be paid based on the number of working hours also varies,” explains the operation. Vegetable baskets are collected every Saturday in the vegetable garden itself. “Our project is ‘semi-professional’. Every member puts what they can and want, it is not mandatory to go to work, but when we meet it is not usually to work non-stop and suffer. We do lunch, BBQ…”. The project has the participation of neighbors from Hondarribia, Irun and Hendaia, and it has everything in terms of age, age and youth.
Biointensive agriculture
Last year, the members of the project made changes in the way of working the vegetable garden and decided to delve deeper into the path of biointensive agriculture, which in French is called maraîchage sur sol vivant, agriculture of living land. “We don’t turn around, and we use more compost than fertilizer manure following a biointensive system,” says Lekuona. The intensive word has nothing to do with the one used for conventional agriculture, in this case. “Small projects like us are much more labour-intensive, in the use of organic fertilizers… and also, if things go well, the production level per square meter is very high. It’s a big lie that the ecological cannot feed the world,” Lekuona concluded.
Sorburu members have launched a campaign to attract new partners in order to disseminate the project. The idea is to extend the group to 30-35 members, and the closest people have called to participate in it.
