By Lance Glass, Weaver Street Market in Hillsborough Grocery Department
Our partnership with La Riojana Co-op in Argentina enables us to get unique, co-op made products at a great price while benefitting the communities who grow the ingredients. Direct co-op trade has saved our shoppers thousands on quality Riojana wine and olive oil! In May, 2017, several members of our staff traveled to La Rioja province to visit the co-op and maintain the strong ties we’ve forged. We toured the vineyards and winery and learned about the community projects that have resulted from the fair trade prices and premiums paid to farmers. This is one in a series of posts about the trip.
While in Argentina visiting the La Riojana Winery, our group was able not only to speak with residents and farmers and see firsthand the benefits and works produced through fair trade practices, but also to see the commitment in the region to eco-friendly agricultural practices, among everyone from students in school and farmers on the land, to the winery and its growing and harvesting practices. In fact, La Riojana Winery is currently transitioning to biodynamic farming practices.
Both the winery and the village of Tilimuqui seek long-lasting changes and improvements to the region’s agricultural output and economic security and growth through responsible, low impact, eco-friendly practices. To their credit, they recognized that the best way to ensure that the best eco-friendly practices not only were in place and cultivated (okay, bad pun), but also were sustained and improved upon was through their youth. This philosophy was prominently displayed during our visit to the school in Tilimuqui.
Perhaps what I found most impressive and inspiring about the school’s lessons was the synthesis of what students were learning in the classroom and its application in the field. The first classroom we visited was learning the most humane and efficient way to raise swine, combining pastured and indoor housing and feeding. After our visit in the classroom, we headed out to their agricultural field classes on the school’s farm, located across the street (this description does not do the visual its proper due).
As we entered the plowed fields, we observed students at work and interacted in an impromptu Q&A. Three of the topics we discussed were the use of specific cover crops to best enrich the weak soil with nitrogen and organic material, the importance of hand planting and harvesting (which gives the most efficient and highest yields), and proper irrigation practices—in this case, using a snaking irrigation ditch to slow down the water runoff, to ensure that the water soaks into the soil. Everyone understood that each class was making the soil richer, one year at a time, and that the goal was to have this happen across the region at their farms, to ensure each generation has better soil than the last.
The winery, as well, has dedicated itself and its farmers to the most responsible agricultural practices, to create the desired yield while having a minimal impact and, when possible, synergistic effects on the environment. Currently La Riojana is working on turning leftover grapes and skins from the pressing process into compost to use in its vineyards and olive groves, to reuse what has traditionally been waste. To conserve water and prevent unwanted evaporation, drip irrigation is used; and to control insects and weeds, sheep are used rather than insecticides and pesticides (they also provide fertilizer!). Even more impressive is La Riojana’s development of growing stocks of worms to be introduced into the soil in conjunction with the grape-based compost, to provide nitrogen to the vines and olive trees naturally.
These natural and organic practices will result in all Riojana wines having the label “made with organic grapes” as early as the 2018 vintages. But what many may find even more exciting is the winery’s move to biodynamic farming and harvesting practices. La Riojana is in the early stages of this endeavor, but they are serious about it. It falls perfectly into line with the overall ethos and philosophy we encountered again and again: that the old ways can coexist with the new, and that everything, when done with care and awareness, works together in a beautiful symbiosis in which everything benefits.