Soil is life

Soil sustains all life on our planet. And yet, for decades, industrial farming practices have degraded and depleted the soil we depend on. It’s time for a change.

In the following three videos, Matteo Mazzola and Paola Archetti will take you on a tour of their farm on the stunning hillside above Lago d’Iseo, Italy.

In the first video, Matteo explains how he’s promoting a healthy ecosystem from the soil up. Using low-cost, sustainable innovations alongside traditional farming techniques, Matteo and Paola are replenishing the land for generations to come – and proving that modern farming really needn’t cost the earth.

In the second video, Matteo and Paola explain how they are building a probiotic agroecosystem above and below the ground on their farm overlooking Lago d’Iseo.

By using compost, incorporating grazing animals and following intelligent agroforestry design principles, they have dramatically increased the soil’s microbial activity. Thanks to the abundance of beneficial microorganisms, the farm’s immune system has improved, making the plants and animals in the agroecosystem more resilient to disease and providing them with all the nutrients they need to thrive and produce healthy food.

In the third video, Matteo shows us that nature does not waste anything. The whole system that he and his partner Paola are setting up is based on biomimicking nature and trying to create natural productive systems.

The vision is to study, to experiment and get as close as possible to nature’s behaviour, productiveness and efficiency, and in the process enable the amazing ecological services that nature gives the biosphere.