FruitRed is the generational relief of the organic agriculture project that my father and mother started in the eighties, when there was almost no market or information on how to produce, trying to rescue the knowledge that the green revolution had discredited; and adapting them to the model then present.
In 1991, several farmers spread across Catalonia, including my father, created Hortec, the first cooperative of organic producers in Catalonia. This was an important push, while laying the foundations for more organized production and marketing. Even today, Hortec is a central pillar in the Catalan and national organic market. The creation of the ADV Ecològica de Ponent allowed us to face challenges better, network and be stronger.
Currently, we have a part of the lands with extensive crops, where we rotate fodder and cereals; and another part where we make sweet fruit: we start in May with apricots and finish in October with quinces, passing through peaches, nectarines, Paraguayan, apples and pears. We also do some gardening. We are peasant agriculture, by profession, by vocation; we work with desire and passion to have high quality food. We observe with concern the loss of jobs, knowledge and autonomy in all sectors; and, in the case of agriculture, the drift towards industrialization, accompanied by the loss of the link between people and the countryside.
We like the benches to have names; the sponge trees that break up the monoculture, acting as a refuge for auxiliary fauna and shade for us to eat our sandwich; learn about adventitious herbs and their uses…, in short, peasant culture, the fact of taking care of the land, closing the circle as much as possible, creating a network, and preserving the uniqueness of each territory.
