Tancos: MP segue pista sobre ex-chefe da Casa Militar. PR diz que deve saber-se tudo, "doa a quem doer"
13.07.2019 HUGO FRANCO, JOANA PEREIRA BASTOS E ÂNGELA SILVA
O Presidente da República disse este sábado que o Ministério Público deve investigar "de alto a baixo" tudo sobre o furto de Tancos. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa entende que os portugueses querem saber "quem furtou, em que condições, se houve cumplicidades internas ou externas e como foi o reaparecimento das armas". É a reação do Presidente à notícia que o Expresso avançou: a defesa de inspetor da PJM quer que o ex-conselheiro de Marcelo, general João Cordeiro, seja ouvido na Justiça
ENFIM UMA ENCENAÇÃO DO CARAÇAS, MUITA FACADA NAS COSTAS DAS FORMIGUINHAS QUE TÊM BONÉ PARA NÃO OLHAREM PARA CIMA , UMA SUPERIORIDADE MORAL DOS ADVOGADOS QUE NÃO ATURAM NENHUMA FALTA DE RESPEITINHO...E CLARO O NÃO SABIA DE NADA DA CLASSE POLÍTICA QUE PELOS VISTOS NÃO MANDAM NADA NEM EM NINGUÉM...
PERTENCE CERTAMENTE AO submundo da blogosfera DE ACORDO COM CIENTÍFICAS CLASSIFICAÇÕES DUNS GAJOS QUE VIVEM DOS MEUS IMPOSTOS E ANDAM A AFUNDAR PORTUGAL
Sunday, July 14, 2019
O MÁRIO TOMÉ TEM POSIÇÃO ANTIMILITARISTA E ANTI-COMANDO DE CERTEZA...
BLOCO DE ESQUERDA
Eleições: Mário Tomé é mandatário nacional do BE
O militar de Abril Mário Tomé será o mandatário do BE nas eleições legislativas. O partido salienta o percurso do militar nas "lutas da esquerda e com uma posição antimilitarista".
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Nós dizemos: o caminho para a democracia popular e o socialismo passa necessariamente pelo derrubamento violento do estado burguês.””A democracia popular há-de nascer da revolução e não de reformas socializantes.”
“A passagem pacífica ao socialismo é uma burla.”
“Ou a burguesia nos esmaga e oprime ou nós oprimimos e esmagamos a burguesia.”
“A função do deputado da UDP na assembleia é a de um agitador revolucionário enviado para o seio do inimigo para sabotar as manobras enganadoras do povo.”
O TEMPO PERDIDO A RECUPERAR OUTRA VEZ O PREC QUE CONTRARIAMENTE AO QUE DIZ O RICARDO SALGADO NÃO É DE DIREITA MAS DE ESQUERDA INTERNACIONALISTA...
TRABALHADORES DE TODO O MUNDO UNI-VOS
A TERRA A QUEM A TRABALHA
NADA DE FRONTEIRAS NEM MUROS E SOMOS TODOS FILHOS DE DEUS...
PS
BONS? MAMADOU BAH E A LÉSBICA TAMBÉM SENEGALESA .QUE MODERNIDADE!
Eleições: Mário Tomé é mandatário nacional do BE
O militar de Abril Mário Tomé será o mandatário do BE nas eleições legislativas. O partido salienta o percurso do militar nas "lutas da esquerda e com uma posição antimilitarista".
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Nós dizemos: o caminho para a democracia popular e o socialismo passa necessariamente pelo derrubamento violento do estado burguês.””A democracia popular há-de nascer da revolução e não de reformas socializantes.”
“A passagem pacífica ao socialismo é uma burla.”
“Ou a burguesia nos esmaga e oprime ou nós oprimimos e esmagamos a burguesia.”
“A função do deputado da UDP na assembleia é a de um agitador revolucionário enviado para o seio do inimigo para sabotar as manobras enganadoras do povo.”
O TEMPO PERDIDO A RECUPERAR OUTRA VEZ O PREC QUE CONTRARIAMENTE AO QUE DIZ O RICARDO SALGADO NÃO É DE DIREITA MAS DE ESQUERDA INTERNACIONALISTA...
TRABALHADORES DE TODO O MUNDO UNI-VOS
A TERRA A QUEM A TRABALHA
NADA DE FRONTEIRAS NEM MUROS E SOMOS TODOS FILHOS DE DEUS...
PS
BONS? MAMADOU BAH E A LÉSBICA TAMBÉM SENEGALESA .QUE MODERNIDADE!
O QUE INTERESSA É QUE AS ARMAS ANDEM EM BOAS MÃOS...
Almada
Desacatos com tiros para o ar no Monte da Caparica
Dois grupos de pessoas protagonizaram, cerca das 18 horas deste sábado, desacatos no Monte da Caparica, Almada, durante os quais foram disparados tiros para o ar.
AINDA VÃO CONCORRER À POLÍCIA DO MINISTRO...
Desacatos com tiros para o ar no Monte da Caparica
Dois grupos de pessoas protagonizaram, cerca das 18 horas deste sábado, desacatos no Monte da Caparica, Almada, durante os quais foram disparados tiros para o ar.
AINDA VÃO CONCORRER À POLÍCIA DO MINISTRO...
Ó JERÓNIMO QUANTOS PRETINHOS SERÃO NECESSÁRIOS MAIS PARA QUE O NOVO POVO VOS VENHA A ELEGER?
"Naturalmente seremos governo quando o povo português quiser e entender"
Um dos mais antigos deputados portugueses, Jerónimo de Sousa continua a liderar o PCP em tempos de votações complexas e à beira de uma campanha em que tem de provar que influenciou o exercício governamental. É o convidado desta semana da entrevista DN/TSF.
DESCULPA LÁ PÁ MAS PORRA ISSO DE TANTO ENTREGAREM À LENINE TUDO O QUE TINHA PRETO E NÃO ERA NOSSO COM LIMPEZA ÉTNICA DO BRANCO E SEM BENS,NUMA EXEMPLAR DEMONSTRAÇÃO DA "AMIZADE DOS POVOS" E DEIXAR A RAPAZIADA A QUEM ENTREGARAM FUZILAR À VONTADE E AGORA ANDAREM A PEDIR A VINDA DE DESILUDIDOS PARA SUBSTITUIR OS TRABALHADORES QUE FOGEM DO VOSSO PARAÍSO SOCIALISTA DÁ NO MÍNIMO QUE PENSAR...A ALGUNS CLARO PORQUE A GRANDE MAIORIA VIVE NO PAÍS MARAVILHOSO DA ALICE COM A PROPAGANDA A MARTELAR DURANTE 24 HORAS E TODOS OS DIAS AS SANTAS VIRTUDES DESTA DEMOCRACIA QUE PELOS VISTOS VAI MORRER ANTES DE O SER...POIS A MALTA ANDA FARTA DE TANTA INTERPRETAÇÃO TRAIDORA...A COMEÇAR PELOS TRABALHADORES QUE ALEGADAMENTE QUEREM TER UM CAPATAZ ESCURINHO QUE PARA O ARMÉNIO SÓ TEM INCONVENIENTE DE FOR DO FMI...
PS
A TERRA A QUEM A TRABALHA O QUE NO MOMENTO ERA UM GRANDE AVANÇO INTERNACIONALISTA!PRETOS, INDIANOS, PAQUISTANESES, TAILANDESES ENFIM DO PLANETA UMA FUTURA FONTE DE NOVOS PORTUGUESES SEMPRE A PRECISAR DE UMA VANGUARDA QUE DEFENDA OS SEUS DIREITOS DIVINOS...
PS1
Despiste em Odemira faz quatro mortos
Despiste de ligeiro de passageiros em São Teotónio faz quatro mortos. Três das quatro vítimas são de nacionalidade indiana e trabalhadores da agricultura. Tinham entre 20 e 40 anos.
PS2
Arménio Carlos: “A próxima legislatura vai ser muito reivindicativa”
Um dos mais antigos deputados portugueses, Jerónimo de Sousa continua a liderar o PCP em tempos de votações complexas e à beira de uma campanha em que tem de provar que influenciou o exercício governamental. É o convidado desta semana da entrevista DN/TSF.
DESCULPA LÁ PÁ MAS PORRA ISSO DE TANTO ENTREGAREM À LENINE TUDO O QUE TINHA PRETO E NÃO ERA NOSSO COM LIMPEZA ÉTNICA DO BRANCO E SEM BENS,NUMA EXEMPLAR DEMONSTRAÇÃO DA "AMIZADE DOS POVOS" E DEIXAR A RAPAZIADA A QUEM ENTREGARAM FUZILAR À VONTADE E AGORA ANDAREM A PEDIR A VINDA DE DESILUDIDOS PARA SUBSTITUIR OS TRABALHADORES QUE FOGEM DO VOSSO PARAÍSO SOCIALISTA DÁ NO MÍNIMO QUE PENSAR...A ALGUNS CLARO PORQUE A GRANDE MAIORIA VIVE NO PAÍS MARAVILHOSO DA ALICE COM A PROPAGANDA A MARTELAR DURANTE 24 HORAS E TODOS OS DIAS AS SANTAS VIRTUDES DESTA DEMOCRACIA QUE PELOS VISTOS VAI MORRER ANTES DE O SER...POIS A MALTA ANDA FARTA DE TANTA INTERPRETAÇÃO TRAIDORA...A COMEÇAR PELOS TRABALHADORES QUE ALEGADAMENTE QUEREM TER UM CAPATAZ ESCURINHO QUE PARA O ARMÉNIO SÓ TEM INCONVENIENTE DE FOR DO FMI...
PS
A TERRA A QUEM A TRABALHA O QUE NO MOMENTO ERA UM GRANDE AVANÇO INTERNACIONALISTA!PRETOS, INDIANOS, PAQUISTANESES, TAILANDESES ENFIM DO PLANETA UMA FUTURA FONTE DE NOVOS PORTUGUESES SEMPRE A PRECISAR DE UMA VANGUARDA QUE DEFENDA OS SEUS DIREITOS DIVINOS...
PS1
Despiste em Odemira faz quatro mortos
Despiste de ligeiro de passageiros em São Teotónio faz quatro mortos. Três das quatro vítimas são de nacionalidade indiana e trabalhadores da agricultura. Tinham entre 20 e 40 anos.
PS2
Arménio Carlos: “A próxima legislatura vai ser muito reivindicativa”
NA LINHA DE SINTRA JÁ SE TREINA PARA VIR A SER POLÍCIA...
VIOLÊNCIA
Confrontos fizeram três feridos esfaqueados e fecharam estação Queluz/Belas
14/7/2019, 1:02102
Uma rixa entre grupos rivais provocou três feridos com esfaqueamentos e levou ao encerramento temporário da estação de Queluz/Belas na Linha de Sintra. Confrontos envolveram cerca de 100 pessoas.
DESTES É QUE OS QUERIDOS INTERPRETADORES GOSTAM.E AI DE QUEM LHES ENCOSTE UM DEDINHO SEQUER...E O CONTRIBUINTE QUE CONTRIBUA SENÃO O FISCO LOGO LHE DIZ COMO É...
OS GAJOS COM DOIS AMORES PÁTRIOS ANDAM A FAZER UMA OBRA NOTÁVEL.DEPOIS DAS BANCARROTAS SUCESSIVAS AGORA O FAROL É A RAÇA MISTA MAS SÓ CÁ DENTRO CLARO...VAI SER UM LUSO TROPICALISMO SEM MÁCULA E SEM QUEIXINHAS...
Confrontos fizeram três feridos esfaqueados e fecharam estação Queluz/Belas
14/7/2019, 1:02102
Uma rixa entre grupos rivais provocou três feridos com esfaqueamentos e levou ao encerramento temporário da estação de Queluz/Belas na Linha de Sintra. Confrontos envolveram cerca de 100 pessoas.
DESTES É QUE OS QUERIDOS INTERPRETADORES GOSTAM.E AI DE QUEM LHES ENCOSTE UM DEDINHO SEQUER...E O CONTRIBUINTE QUE CONTRIBUA SENÃO O FISCO LOGO LHE DIZ COMO É...
OS GAJOS COM DOIS AMORES PÁTRIOS ANDAM A FAZER UMA OBRA NOTÁVEL.DEPOIS DAS BANCARROTAS SUCESSIVAS AGORA O FAROL É A RAÇA MISTA MAS SÓ CÁ DENTRO CLARO...VAI SER UM LUSO TROPICALISMO SEM MÁCULA E SEM QUEIXINHAS...
Saturday, July 13, 2019
COMO SE VÊ O DESERTO DO SARA FOI POR CAUSA DOS MOTORES A GASÓLEO...
FÓSSEIS
Quando o Saara tinha cobras e peixes gigantes
Peixes com 1.6 metros e cobras com mais de 12 metros de comprimento: assim era o "deserto" do Saara. Cientistas estudaram fósseis ao longo de 20 anos e reconstruíram o mar com 100 milhões de anos.
JÁ A PRAGA DE MIGRANTES AFRICANOS SERÁ SEMPRE UMA RIQUEZA PRINCIPALMENTE PARA QUEM TUDO VAI PAGANDO E DIVIDINDO SEM RECIPROCIDADES NENHUMAS.UMA AMIZADE DE POVOS "MARXISTA" NUMA ÚNICA DIRECÇÃO:TUDO PARA OS BONS SELVAGENS , NADA CONTRA OS BONS SELVAGENS.E SEM TRAIDORES NO MEIO QUE TANTO DESCOLONIZAM COMO NOS COLONIZAM COM DIREITOS DIVINOS PARA UNS E CADEIA PARA QUEM REFILAR DA TRAIÇÃO QUE ANDAM A FAZER NAS COSTAS DO PESSOAL TRABALHADOR...
Quando o Saara tinha cobras e peixes gigantes
Peixes com 1.6 metros e cobras com mais de 12 metros de comprimento: assim era o "deserto" do Saara. Cientistas estudaram fósseis ao longo de 20 anos e reconstruíram o mar com 100 milhões de anos.
JÁ A PRAGA DE MIGRANTES AFRICANOS SERÁ SEMPRE UMA RIQUEZA PRINCIPALMENTE PARA QUEM TUDO VAI PAGANDO E DIVIDINDO SEM RECIPROCIDADES NENHUMAS.UMA AMIZADE DE POVOS "MARXISTA" NUMA ÚNICA DIRECÇÃO:TUDO PARA OS BONS SELVAGENS , NADA CONTRA OS BONS SELVAGENS.E SEM TRAIDORES NO MEIO QUE TANTO DESCOLONIZAM COMO NOS COLONIZAM COM DIREITOS DIVINOS PARA UNS E CADEIA PARA QUEM REFILAR DA TRAIÇÃO QUE ANDAM A FAZER NAS COSTAS DO PESSOAL TRABALHADOR...
E TEMOS UM CUNHAL LATIFUNDIÁRIO MAS COM "PARTNERS".AS VACAS NÃO PRODUZEM CO2...
Putting pigs in the shade: the radical farming system banking on trees
Animals farmed
Portugal
A farm in Portugal is showing how the ancient art of silvopasture – combining livestock with productive trees – may offer some real answers to the climate crisis
Animals farmed is supported by
Animals farmedAbout this content
John Vidal in Foros de Vale Figueira
Sat 13 Jul 2019 09.01 BST
Animals are free to roam under the shade of trees and shrubs at a co-operative farm in Portugal.
Animals are free to roam under the shade of trees and shrubs at a co-operative farm in Portugal. All photographs by Ricardo Lopes/The Guardian
The land to the north of the village of Foros de Vale Figueira in southern Portugal has been owned and farmed through the centuries by Romans, Moors, Christians, capitalists, far rightists, even the military. It has been part of a private fiefdom, worked by slaves as well as communists.
Now this 100-hectare (247-acre) patch of land just looks exhausted – a great empty grassland without trees, people or animals, wilting under a baking Iberian sun.
But look closely and you can just see the future: tips of thousands of tiny oak and nut trees following the contours and poking through thick mulches of grass and leaves.
“This will be the new montado,” says Alfredo Cunhal, referring to a pre-medieval Portuguese system of farming. He is an agricultural scientist whose great-grandfather cleared the cork and olive trees that were once scattered around, and whose family then overworked the land by dosing it with chemicals and growing monocultures of cereals.
Alfredo Cunhal, the owner of Herdade Freixo do Meio
Alfredo Cunhal, the owner of Herdade do Freixo do Meio
The montado system combines herds of animals with productive trees and shrubs. Cunhal’s vision is to create an oasis-style abundance on land where there is often no rain for nine months of the year and where temperatures can reach 49C (120F).
“Imagine tall trees, like 40-metre tall walnuts, putting down leaves, letting light through, drawing up water. Below them, cork oaks giving shade, and a line of citrus and olive trees; and then imagine vines climbing the trees. The fruit and nuts will provide the food for the pigs, chickens, cows and other animals who graze there,” he says.
“Animals are the key,” he says. “They are important for the whole ecosystem, as well as part of the food chain. They must be balanced with the tree system. Pigs provide digestion, and are good for the soil, they disturb the ground and fertilise the land. The natural fertility cycles work better with them. The pig is not a meat machine but a friend of nature.”
The “new montado” at Herdade do Freixo do Meio farm will take years to mature but will repay itself many times over with the variety of food produced and healthier soils, he says. “It offers resilience against fires and global heating and it soaks up the carbon,” he says.
Pigs
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The pig is not a meat machine but a friend of nature,’ says Cunhal
“We are aiming to go from zero to abundance in a few years. We can put chickens on the land soon, pigs and sheep will follow, cows come later. We invest now, and the next generation sees the real benefits,” he says.
Cunhal, who comes from a large landowning family related to Portugal’s legendary communist leader Álvaro Cunhal, says he has had to reject much of what he was taught about farming at college.
“I spent five years studying agriculture and I never heard the word ecology. We were taking more and more from the land but we were farming monocultures. We were eating the system. I was managing 7,000 hectares for my family but I never noticed the trees. I really didn’t know anything. I produced a lot but I needed so many inputs. I needed carbon, energy, chemicals. I could do nothing efficiently. The land was eroded, the soil damaged.”
Demoralised, he gave up managing the family estate in 1990, took a share of the land, and started to run 600 hectares on organic, co-operative lines with a collective of 35 people, many of whom had worked on the estate for years. Together, these “partners” are converting the whole farm into a full montado system.
The results are beginning to show. Wild boar, lynx and deer roam freely, while old varieties of pig, cattle, chickens and turkeys are rotated among the established oak and olive trees and in newly planted orchards. The farm grows almost every type of Mediterranean food among the trees, as well as 40 varieties of fruit and nut.
Farmland at Herdade Freixo do Meio
Facebook Twitter Pinterest In the montado system a wide variety of animals and plants live in symbiosis with each other
Advertisement
“We can grow water,” says Cunhal. “By planting trees whose roots go deep we are drawing moisture up and building soils, creating the possibility to grow even more.”
The complexity of the system baffles conventional farmers who mostly specialise in a handful of crops or products. But Cunhal dismisses monocultures as “the end of life” and insists there is resilience and safety in diversity.
The variety of food produced is astonishing. The farm grows dozens of fruit and vegetable crops and makes and sells 600 different products, ranging from eight kinds of oak flours and breads, to meats, wine and olive oils.
“It’s far more than any normal farm would ever consider. This used to be a cork oak farm. Now cork is just 5% of the turnover. Four years ago we were 100% dependent on the open market and wholesalers. Now nearly 50% of what we grow is sold directly to consumers. We have a butchery, bakery, olive oil press, smoker,” he says.
A montado system also demands a new social approach. “It’s not right that a system of farming as complex as this should be run by one person. Far better that a whole community should propose how it works. Eventually we want consumers to be part of the farm, too,” says Cunhal, who says he intends to eventually hand the land over to the co-operative.
The whole community at Herdade do Freixo do Meio have a say in how it is run
“It works because the risks and the benefits are shared. Together we are resilient to shocks. We employ more people. We produce variety. It’s a different approach.”
“It is very exciting. This is the meeting place of trees, crops and animals,” says Ricardo Silva, a trained biologist who switched to forestry before coming to Herdade do Freixo do Meio. “The results are measured not just in profits, but in the social and ecological benefits created. We cannot say exactly, but our hypothesis is that we can double, even treble production without taking away from the land.”
Twenty years ago, an approach like this might have been dismissed as marginal, perhaps as an ecological experiment to be conducted by wealthy landowners. But that idea is changing fast as the needs of the environment are recognised, says Patrick Caron, chair of the UN’s high-level panel of experts on food security and nutrition and a former head of Cirad, the French food research agency.
Workers hang hand-made chorizos in the farm’s traditional smoke room
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers hang hand-made chorizos in the farm’s traditional smoke room
“We need a transformation of our food systems. It does not involve a return to the way our grandparents farmed – that would be a catastrophe. But we must take stock of the principles of what they were doing, and their knowledge.
“Change is happening. The big companies know it, too. The meat industry used to laugh, but now they are preparing for change. It is possible to move from mass production to quality.”.
“Farmers became fascinated by the baubles of technology in the 1930s. They tried to simplify everything,” says Patrick Worms, senior science policy advisor at the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre.
“What Cunhal is doing is the opposite – using more animals, growing more crops, making everything more complex. He is supported by the science, which shows that you get much greater production when you mix things up, and when animals and plants interact.”
Studies from Africa, Brazil, Europe, Sri Lanka and elsewhere all show conclusively that interspersing trees, animals and crops can boost food production, but also build soil, increase biodiversity and sequester CO2 from the atmosphere, he says.
“Agro-forestry isn’t a ‘no man’s land’ between forestry and agriculture,” says Maria Helena Semedo, deputy director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “We know it can help diversify and sustain food production and provide vital social, economic and environmental benefits for land.”
Cows at Herdade do Freixo do Meio
But even as scientists and policy-makers wake up to the potential of silvopastoralism as both a better way to grow food and as a way to respond to the climate crisis, the speed and the scale of change challenges the farm.
“We are more resistant to climate than our neighbours who farm conventionally, but a 3C rise in temperature here, which is where we are heading, means everything is lost. Higher and more extreme temperatures are a death threat to the animals. The land will go to desert. I am really worried. I have no doubt the climate crisis is happening. I feel it every day … Now we get more irregular summers and temperature increases every year,” says Cunhal.
He is one of eight Europeans trying to sue the EU over its climate change policies, which they argue are inadequate. “We had 49C last year. We are used to 43C. In 2017-18 we had an eight-month drought. Then in mid-December we had 100mm of rain in two hours. I have lived here for 30 years. It’s more unpredictable now; we risk stopping almost all the biological process.”
Barring disaster, Cunhal says he will continue to plant trees and rear animals. “We don’t want a square metre without shade. We must treat the farm as a common good. The satisfaction is in creating something beautiful. I want to leave a landscape where everyone – humans and animals – feel good.”
QUE SAUDADES DA REFORMA AGRÁRIA...
PS
Ó CUNHAL PLANTA BATATA DOCE VÊ SE CÁ SE DÁ A MANDIOCA E O AMENDOIM.CANA DE AÇÚCAR TAMBÉM PARA FAZER UM GROGUE TÍPICO ALENTEJANO EM TEMPOS BEBIDA DOS ESCRAVOS.OLHA QUE O FUTURO DO ALENTEJO É ÁFRICA PORQUE SÓ 60% DE GENES AFRICANOS É MUITO POUQUINHO...
Animals farmed
Portugal
A farm in Portugal is showing how the ancient art of silvopasture – combining livestock with productive trees – may offer some real answers to the climate crisis
Animals farmed is supported by
Animals farmedAbout this content
John Vidal in Foros de Vale Figueira
Sat 13 Jul 2019 09.01 BST
Animals are free to roam under the shade of trees and shrubs at a co-operative farm in Portugal.
Animals are free to roam under the shade of trees and shrubs at a co-operative farm in Portugal. All photographs by Ricardo Lopes/The Guardian
The land to the north of the village of Foros de Vale Figueira in southern Portugal has been owned and farmed through the centuries by Romans, Moors, Christians, capitalists, far rightists, even the military. It has been part of a private fiefdom, worked by slaves as well as communists.
Now this 100-hectare (247-acre) patch of land just looks exhausted – a great empty grassland without trees, people or animals, wilting under a baking Iberian sun.
But look closely and you can just see the future: tips of thousands of tiny oak and nut trees following the contours and poking through thick mulches of grass and leaves.
“This will be the new montado,” says Alfredo Cunhal, referring to a pre-medieval Portuguese system of farming. He is an agricultural scientist whose great-grandfather cleared the cork and olive trees that were once scattered around, and whose family then overworked the land by dosing it with chemicals and growing monocultures of cereals.
Alfredo Cunhal, the owner of Herdade Freixo do Meio
Alfredo Cunhal, the owner of Herdade do Freixo do Meio
The montado system combines herds of animals with productive trees and shrubs. Cunhal’s vision is to create an oasis-style abundance on land where there is often no rain for nine months of the year and where temperatures can reach 49C (120F).
“Imagine tall trees, like 40-metre tall walnuts, putting down leaves, letting light through, drawing up water. Below them, cork oaks giving shade, and a line of citrus and olive trees; and then imagine vines climbing the trees. The fruit and nuts will provide the food for the pigs, chickens, cows and other animals who graze there,” he says.
“Animals are the key,” he says. “They are important for the whole ecosystem, as well as part of the food chain. They must be balanced with the tree system. Pigs provide digestion, and are good for the soil, they disturb the ground and fertilise the land. The natural fertility cycles work better with them. The pig is not a meat machine but a friend of nature.”
The “new montado” at Herdade do Freixo do Meio farm will take years to mature but will repay itself many times over with the variety of food produced and healthier soils, he says. “It offers resilience against fires and global heating and it soaks up the carbon,” he says.
Pigs
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The pig is not a meat machine but a friend of nature,’ says Cunhal
“We are aiming to go from zero to abundance in a few years. We can put chickens on the land soon, pigs and sheep will follow, cows come later. We invest now, and the next generation sees the real benefits,” he says.
Cunhal, who comes from a large landowning family related to Portugal’s legendary communist leader Álvaro Cunhal, says he has had to reject much of what he was taught about farming at college.
“I spent five years studying agriculture and I never heard the word ecology. We were taking more and more from the land but we were farming monocultures. We were eating the system. I was managing 7,000 hectares for my family but I never noticed the trees. I really didn’t know anything. I produced a lot but I needed so many inputs. I needed carbon, energy, chemicals. I could do nothing efficiently. The land was eroded, the soil damaged.”
Demoralised, he gave up managing the family estate in 1990, took a share of the land, and started to run 600 hectares on organic, co-operative lines with a collective of 35 people, many of whom had worked on the estate for years. Together, these “partners” are converting the whole farm into a full montado system.
The results are beginning to show. Wild boar, lynx and deer roam freely, while old varieties of pig, cattle, chickens and turkeys are rotated among the established oak and olive trees and in newly planted orchards. The farm grows almost every type of Mediterranean food among the trees, as well as 40 varieties of fruit and nut.
Farmland at Herdade Freixo do Meio
Facebook Twitter Pinterest In the montado system a wide variety of animals and plants live in symbiosis with each other
Advertisement
“We can grow water,” says Cunhal. “By planting trees whose roots go deep we are drawing moisture up and building soils, creating the possibility to grow even more.”
The complexity of the system baffles conventional farmers who mostly specialise in a handful of crops or products. But Cunhal dismisses monocultures as “the end of life” and insists there is resilience and safety in diversity.
The variety of food produced is astonishing. The farm grows dozens of fruit and vegetable crops and makes and sells 600 different products, ranging from eight kinds of oak flours and breads, to meats, wine and olive oils.
“It’s far more than any normal farm would ever consider. This used to be a cork oak farm. Now cork is just 5% of the turnover. Four years ago we were 100% dependent on the open market and wholesalers. Now nearly 50% of what we grow is sold directly to consumers. We have a butchery, bakery, olive oil press, smoker,” he says.
A montado system also demands a new social approach. “It’s not right that a system of farming as complex as this should be run by one person. Far better that a whole community should propose how it works. Eventually we want consumers to be part of the farm, too,” says Cunhal, who says he intends to eventually hand the land over to the co-operative.
The whole community at Herdade do Freixo do Meio have a say in how it is run
“It works because the risks and the benefits are shared. Together we are resilient to shocks. We employ more people. We produce variety. It’s a different approach.”
“It is very exciting. This is the meeting place of trees, crops and animals,” says Ricardo Silva, a trained biologist who switched to forestry before coming to Herdade do Freixo do Meio. “The results are measured not just in profits, but in the social and ecological benefits created. We cannot say exactly, but our hypothesis is that we can double, even treble production without taking away from the land.”
Twenty years ago, an approach like this might have been dismissed as marginal, perhaps as an ecological experiment to be conducted by wealthy landowners. But that idea is changing fast as the needs of the environment are recognised, says Patrick Caron, chair of the UN’s high-level panel of experts on food security and nutrition and a former head of Cirad, the French food research agency.
Workers hang hand-made chorizos in the farm’s traditional smoke room
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers hang hand-made chorizos in the farm’s traditional smoke room
“We need a transformation of our food systems. It does not involve a return to the way our grandparents farmed – that would be a catastrophe. But we must take stock of the principles of what they were doing, and their knowledge.
“Change is happening. The big companies know it, too. The meat industry used to laugh, but now they are preparing for change. It is possible to move from mass production to quality.”.
“Farmers became fascinated by the baubles of technology in the 1930s. They tried to simplify everything,” says Patrick Worms, senior science policy advisor at the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre.
“What Cunhal is doing is the opposite – using more animals, growing more crops, making everything more complex. He is supported by the science, which shows that you get much greater production when you mix things up, and when animals and plants interact.”
Studies from Africa, Brazil, Europe, Sri Lanka and elsewhere all show conclusively that interspersing trees, animals and crops can boost food production, but also build soil, increase biodiversity and sequester CO2 from the atmosphere, he says.
“Agro-forestry isn’t a ‘no man’s land’ between forestry and agriculture,” says Maria Helena Semedo, deputy director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “We know it can help diversify and sustain food production and provide vital social, economic and environmental benefits for land.”
Cows at Herdade do Freixo do Meio
But even as scientists and policy-makers wake up to the potential of silvopastoralism as both a better way to grow food and as a way to respond to the climate crisis, the speed and the scale of change challenges the farm.
“We are more resistant to climate than our neighbours who farm conventionally, but a 3C rise in temperature here, which is where we are heading, means everything is lost. Higher and more extreme temperatures are a death threat to the animals. The land will go to desert. I am really worried. I have no doubt the climate crisis is happening. I feel it every day … Now we get more irregular summers and temperature increases every year,” says Cunhal.
He is one of eight Europeans trying to sue the EU over its climate change policies, which they argue are inadequate. “We had 49C last year. We are used to 43C. In 2017-18 we had an eight-month drought. Then in mid-December we had 100mm of rain in two hours. I have lived here for 30 years. It’s more unpredictable now; we risk stopping almost all the biological process.”
Barring disaster, Cunhal says he will continue to plant trees and rear animals. “We don’t want a square metre without shade. We must treat the farm as a common good. The satisfaction is in creating something beautiful. I want to leave a landscape where everyone – humans and animals – feel good.”
QUE SAUDADES DA REFORMA AGRÁRIA...
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Ó CUNHAL PLANTA BATATA DOCE VÊ SE CÁ SE DÁ A MANDIOCA E O AMENDOIM.CANA DE AÇÚCAR TAMBÉM PARA FAZER UM GROGUE TÍPICO ALENTEJANO EM TEMPOS BEBIDA DOS ESCRAVOS.OLHA QUE O FUTURO DO ALENTEJO É ÁFRICA PORQUE SÓ 60% DE GENES AFRICANOS É MUITO POUQUINHO...
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