“Having to go to Zarautz to look for organic plants was nothing ecological!”
- This is what occurred to the mondragonese Idurre Aranguren and Nerea Altuna when a few years ago they were engaged in ecological horticulture. “We had an ecological garden for a long time, but to buy plants we had to go to Zarautz, and it was always going around,” they explain from Ekoudalatxe. In 2014, the creation of an ecological nursery began with the objective of covering this district void, renting a land in the Ubera district of Bergara. Seeing that they were able to carry out a small production, they began to look for land closer to their people. In 2017, they managed to move to Mondragón.
In Arrasate there were initial difficulties in accessing the land due to the shortage of land in the area. However, given the difficulty of buying, they were given a new opportunity through some of their clients. “Some doctors who were our clients proposed to leave a small plot at Aita Menni Hospital to put the seminar there. The Earth is not ours, but the nursery and the installation,” the two project members explain. The youngest, thanks to a grant from the program, were able to invest and in return they will offer the Aita Menni Hospital various training courses throughout the year. “They have a group of vegetables, they come every day to work and use our plants,” they say.
Project members have explained that in Euskal Herria there are few ecological incubators, as in Gipuzkoa Blasenea de Zarautz, who before starting the project were looking for plants, and Ekokudalatx are doing it. Aranguren and Altuna tell us about the relationship between these few seminars. “In our country, the earth does not have any kind of chemical treatment, nor does the seeds. On the other hand, plant protection products are special: extracts, oils or bacteria, the so-called “zero waste”, they say. It is commented that as far as possible there is also an attempt to use indigenous seed varieties, although the legal production of plants requires that they be recorded by fingerprints, so they have difficulties.
Eco-friendly, like conventional?
“I would ask the people in the garden: when you buy the product, do you look at the origin of the plants?” they have asked the question. In fact, many gardeners who are engaged in ecology observe that they do not look at the origin of plants, and they do not consider that much importance is attached to the fact that what is cultivated has traveled many kilometres. “In fact, the next thing also has to be as important as what becomes eco-friendly,” they argue.
In addition to the seminar’s work, the members of Ekoudalatxe are dedicated to training: schools and ikastolas, municipalities, university… “We work mainly in winter, when the seminar’s production is very low,” they say.
Gipuzkoako hamaika txokotatik gerturatutako hamarka lagun elkartu ziren otsailaren 23an Amillubiko lehen auzo(p)lanera. Biolur elkarteak bultzatutako proiektu kolektiboa da Amillubi, agroekologian sakontzeko eta Gipuzkoako etorkizuneko elikadura erronkei heltzeko asmoz Zestoako... [+]
Emakume bakoitzaren errelatotik abiatuta, lurrari eta elikadurari buruzko jakituria kolektibizatu eta sukaldeko iruditegia irauli nahi ditu Ziminttere proiektuak, mahai baten bueltan, sukaldean bertan eta elikagaiak eskutan darabiltzaten bitartean.
