The worms were once baskets that were placed on the donkey and that the labourers used to bring down their products from the farms to the market of the locality. Starting in 2016, it is also the project name they have in place in Lapurdi: Several farmers in the Hazparne area joined and founded Xixtroak that year to offer their products online to the population of the area. Now, the partnership comes with novelties: they offer fresh fish and home baskets are distributed in the area of Bayonne – Guitar-Biarritz.
Local and permanent
The six farms that make up Xixtroa work in a popular and sustainable agriculture, carrying out the whole process from the beginning to the end. They are registered in several certificates or stamps to ensure the quality of the products: Idoki, EHKO, Organic Agriculture (AB) or AOC/AOP, for example. “We want to provide consumer safety with certificates. We want to move forward the popular agriculture that we defend with these regulations,” explained Andde Dubois in an interview by Euskal Irratia.
Petitions are made by families on the Internet and baskets are collected at points of delivery, or now, some at home. Direct contact between farmers and consumers is important for the members of the association.
Consumers make the cart
About 250 families currently comprise the Xixtroak network. Nearby farmers and farmers can complete the cart with a wide variety of processed products: bread, cheese, eggs, dairy, meat, beverages, fruits and vegetables… They have everything in the web catalog. Consumers can choose and make a basket every week.
Now, the project adds to the supply of fresh fish. “She’s a couple from San Juan de Luz, her husband is a fisherman and her wife sells fish. We will offer seventeen euros of silk with seasonal fish, consumers will receive a very fresh fish,” Dubois said on the radio.
The Xixtroak project is a nice example of how new opportunities can be opened by working on a sustainable production model, but also by adapting to the current reality and updating the forms of labour distribution.
