João Rodrigues, founder Projecto Matéria
"The greatest wealth of any people or culture is people
The land is treated “as a living being” by João Valente, the face of Monte Silveira Bio, a family company in Beira Baixa centred on irrigated crops, based on precision agriculture, and the production of cattle, sheep and pigs. The scenario is the agricultural farm located in Malpica do Tejo that has been in biological mode since 1999.
Jorge Cancela doesn't farm; he cultivates the landscape. In Bairro Ribatejano, he integrates a vegetable garden, bush, olive grove, orchard, and open field.
Our focus are the producers that are passionately committed with what they do. They are the keepers of the land, well fare and knowledge. They are the ones who will make all of this endure through time.
During her childhood, Joana Macedo felt that Quinta do Poial was a kind of "favorite brother" of her mother, Maria José Macedo. She had, therefore, "a somewhat conflicted relationship" with the farm. Maria José had left a business career in Paris in the 80's to become a farmer in Azeitão, at a time when biological was just an expression of Nature Science books.
In 2011, the desire to have a project of their own - “something of ours” as they say - caused Tiago Relhas and his wife Susana Rocha to launch themselves into a world that was virtually unknown to them at the time: aromatic and medicinal plants.