Case history: Amadeco Farm, Puglia. Respecting the future through Syntropy

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Dayana Andrade e Felipe Pasini have been engaged in the s tudy and practice of Syntropic Agriculture since 2007. Both hold bachelor’s degrees in Journalism, along with master’s degrees and doctorates in Environmental Sciences and Conservation. In 2023 they published the book Vida em Sintropia: Agricultura sintrópica de Ernst Götsch explicada (Labrador ed., 2022). Andrade and Pasini are living in Puglia, Southern Italy, since fall 2021, where they apply the 15 Principles of the Götsch Agenda at Amadeco Farm.

 

The history

The first time we struck the soil with a hoe in Portugal, the sound of metal clanging against rock echoed sharply. The land wasn’t just compacted, like many we’d encountered in Brazil, but also shallow and riddled with stones. Each location, as expected, has a unique soil composition. But we soon realized this wasn’t just geology at play. This soil was s teeped in history. A history of agricultural use far exceeding anything we’d experienced in Brazil. Just as esteemed European museums showcase the legacy of Western tradition, the soils of that part of the Iberian Peninsula bore marks of the many civilizations that had cultivated these lands since the dawn of agriculture.

This scene unfolded in 2018, when we moved to Baixo Alentejo, southern Portugal. Afterward, we lived in southern Spain before settling in Italy, where we’ve been since autumn 2021. Working with Syntropic Agriculture in each location has been a privilege, allowing us to apply everything we learned from Ernst Götsch in Mediterranean contexts. Although the soil, rainfall patterns and plant species were different from those we used to work with in the tropics, we had in our favor the fact that Syntropic Agriculture has never been based on a one-size-fits-all recipe. Rather, it’s a conceptual and practical framework that empowers practitioners worldwide to create agroecosystems that are similar in form, function, and dynamics to the natural and original ecosystems of each given place.

In regions with a deeply rooted agricultural and pastoral tradition, the first challenge is discerning what this natural and original ecosystem might look like. Paleobotanical records indicate that, at the beginning of the current interglacial period, southern Europe and northern Africa were covered by diverse forests. These included deciduous oaks and large elms in the upper canopy, with ash, terebinth, and rowan trees below. This suggests the natural and original ecosystem of the entire Mediterranean basin is a multi layered, semi-deciduous forest with biodiversity characteristic of advanced ecological succession. Our goal, therefore, should be to reach a similar flourishing state, integrating agriculturally valuable species into these systems.

The present

The initial conditions at Amadeco – a 9-hectare farm on Puglia’s Adriatic Coast, Italy – were nothing but challenging. The soil lacked organic matter (below 0.5%, according to lab analysis), salty underground water was unfit for irrigation, biodiversity was low, and sparse summer vegetation left the soil exposed during the most critical period of the year. This hardly resembled the land that once supported a rich plant community. Additionally, we are in the Xylella fastidiosa infection zone, a bacterium linked to a disease that is devastating traditional olive groves, a cornerstone of local identity. We acknowledge that this region bears the scars of a recent phytosanitary crisis that dramatically altered the landscape, impacting economies and communities. This context suggests we’re in a turning point in which solutions that respond to local challenges are as necessary as they are urgent.

The Syntropic approach

Syntropic Agriculture is a specific type of agroforestry system that relies on a meticulously organized, multi-layered biodiversity. It incorporates a sequence of plant groups that prevail at various stages of system development. Think of it as a 4D puzzle: plants are distributed across the three spatial dimensions (planting density and stratification) and the fourth dimension of time (succession). Precise coordination of these parameters ensures the right match of eco-physiological needs of each species, considering their unique and complementary life cycles, light demands, shade tolerance, and the stage of their environment, which is framed by edaphoclimatic constraints. For farmers, proficiency in these tools translates to autonomy in decision-making, enabling them to adapt to their local reality, independent of prescribed technological packages or predefined designs.

Although numerous practical examples demonstrate the application of these principles in various contexts, the suitability of this approach for the Mediterranean might initially seem unusual or even suspicious. But history, once again, offers clues about how this ecosystem, home to so many civilizations, was once familiarly described by keen observers.

«In the shade of the proud palm sprouts the olive tree, and under the olive tree the fig tree, under the fig tree the pomegranate tree, and under it the vineyard, under the vineyard the wheat, then the legumes, finally the leaves: all in the same year and all of these plants are fed in the shade of each other»

This quote, found in Pliny the Elder’s work Naturalis Historia (77-78 A.D.), describes the dynamics of agricultural systems practiced in the Mediterranean basin before the popularization of the iron, and, consequently, the plow. Such systems respected the behavior and dynamics of semi-deciduous forests, allowing vegetable and grain cultivation beneath the trees during winter. With colder temperatures, some vegetation enters dormancy and sheds its leaves. Evergreen trees like olives and many oak varieties were pruned after harvest, permitting more sunlight to reach the understory and depositing a significant amount of biomass as leaves and twigs on the soil. Spring saw short-cycle crops flourish under the filtered light of developing canopies of vines, figs, poplars, and ash trees. After their harvest, at the peak of the dry summer, fruits came into production. This relatively stable annual cycle maintained a balance, respecting the ecosystem’s functioning.

When invited to work in southern Italy, we recognized an opportunity to implement, and test once more, the Syntropic approach’s ability to restore ecosystems to their full potential, while ensuring agricultural production and addressing local challenges. This is precisely our aim, with the four distinct Syntropic designs we established at Amadeco Farm. We are still in the early stages, but some results indicate we’re on a promising path.

 

The experimental areaa

Amadeco Farm is a masseria featuring areas demarcated by dry-stone walls, a charming testament to Salento’s cultural heritage. We used these existing divisions to separate designs with diverse purposes and scalable to different sizes.

Close to the main building lie two models adaptable to smaller projects: our Giardino Sintropico and Orto Sintropico. Both support a rich variety of plants, from seasonal vegetables and perennial shrubs to fruit and forest trees. While the first one is focused on creating a multifunctional garden, the second prioritizes horticultural production. Seen from above, the two areas have a distinct appearance. The organization of plant consortia in circular nests gives the Giardino winding paths. This design offers not only aesthetic and interactive appeal, but also resilience in water management, making it suitable for water-restricted areas, both rural and urban. Low irrigation dependence is a hallmark of all our designs, but it’s particularly noteworthy in the Orto Sintropico, as vegetables typically require significant water. The innovation here lies in maintaining perennial beds where vegetables, rotated seasonally, are intercropped with aromatic species. Additionally, living irrigation lines composed of regularly pruned succulent plants provide further support.

As with many rural properties in the region, Amadeco had two olive groves planted at the traditional spacing of 10 x 10 meters and 12 x 12 meters. In one of these areas, we opted to respect this tradition, while enhancing it with a wider variety of fruit trees. This became our Frutteto Sintropico. Each olive tree is accompanied by three fruit tree species: one emergent and two from a lower stratum, ensuring proper stratification within the tree line. The other pre-existing olive grove, we are transforming into our Uliveto Sintropico. There, the implemented design was suggested by Ernst Götsch with the intention of presenting an alternative to the controversial intensive and super-intensive olive tree plantations. The innovation of this scheme lies in its ability to balance the planting density typical of intensive monocultures (addressing the economic pressures often used to justify such practices), while preserving all the ecological functions essential to a Syntropic system. Here, the olive tree line will be managed as a hedgerow where olive trees occupy 50% of the upper stratum. Between these olive hedgerows, we’ve added a new line of other fruit trees like figs, citrus, avocados, pecans, stone fruits, and a wide variety of Mediterranean shrubs. Additionally, in the strips between the tree lines, we’re conducting trials with seed mixtures designed to create a summer-green herbaceous layer. Once established, these strips will be ready to be integrated with no-till and no herbicide grain production. Both the Frutteto and Uliveto have designs that allow for the use of low-impact machinery for maintenance and harvesting.

The direction

Simply asserting that we should emulate nature doesn’t guarantee the reproduction or respect of essential aspects of natural dynamics. While well-intentioned, wanting to imitate nature without significantly altering agricultural design can result in replicating only a vague visual resemblance of a restored landscape, missing the crucial functional characteristics essential for a balanced ecosystem. This deep ecological understanding becomes an ethical guideline in Syntropic Agriculture, as any intervention is only considered appropriate if it contributes to a positive net balance of energy converted into biomass, which, in turn, evolves into increasingly complex life forms.

After two and a half years at Amadeco, we’ve documented a four-fold increase in the soil’s organic matter content. Additionally, data collected by our soil sensors revealed that its temperature and humidity remained more constant throughout the seasons, compared to unmanaged areas. This is beneficial for soil microbiology and reduces the need for irrigation, requiring water only once a week from late June to August. To date, we’ve planted around 20,000 shrubs, fruit trees, and forest trees, including a variety closely resembling those mentioned in the paleobotanical studies we referenced earlier. Species belonging to more advanced successional stages are planted in the company of all previous consortia, which protect them in the first years and create the necessary conditions for their healthy establishment.

On a social level, we view the attention this work has garnered from many in the region as another positive indicator. Farmers, teachers, restaurant chefs or just neighbors, from near and far, make up the biodiversity of relationships that our team have organically built in the region. Puglia’s history is marked by agricultural cycles characterized by peaks followed by decline. These cycles leave scars on the land and in the lives of people. When young Salentines are drawn to our work and motivated to stay in the territory, not to participate in a new cycle of exploitation but rather to actively participate in a new narrative of land regeneration, it makes us wonder: isn’t the most honorable way to respect a rural tradition, to give it a viable future?

 

www.amadeco.it