In ancient times, bread was a gift from God. People believed that bread connected the things revealed on Earth with the things hidden in the heavens. Those who studied this connection were once called alchemists. Say the word slowly: Al-chemists. Chemists who make medicines are called pharmacists. And pharmacy and healing are exactly what the Virtusia biocentre in Košariská is about.
Košariská is a small village lying on invisible borders. Here the Myjava Hills meet the Little Carpathians. The source of the Bystrina stream (above Dolné Košariská) is just a short way from the watershed between the Morava and the Váh. Its valley still holds long, well-preserved lines of trees and shrubs running down from the higher forest on Zadný vŕšok (476 m above sea level). On the deforested southern slopes of the valley, trees and shrubs protect the land from further deepening and widening of erosion gullies. They also divide the open land into fields and meadows of a few hectares each. This is an enclosed landscape with a near horizon, yet the scale of this little corner of the world is in harmony with people.
In this valley, on the way to the M.R. Štefánik burial mound, lies the Virtusia biocentre - a remarkable site where farming meets pharmacy. The car park is edged with a perennial border, and a little further on a flowering meadow mix has been sown. Behind the building is a large bed of medicinal plants. Above it you can see a swale (a ditch with a raised bank that catches surface rainwater). Below the swale, water is invisibly channelled into storage tanks for irrigation during droughts. Nearby there is a pond, meadows and fields of hemp and grain.
In the fields they grow the ancient grains of emmer, the old predecessor of today's wheat and spelt. This area is hardly a farmer's paradise. Where there is limestone and stony rendzina soil, the forests have remained. The valleys did develop cambisols, but here they are heavy and stony. Even so, they are the most fertile soils in the area. Poor soils, together with a moderately warm and moderately humid climate, mean low yields, so the area is classed as agriculturally disadvantaged. To farm in conditions like these you need a reason other than high yields or quick profit. You also need different crops. Emmer is just such a crop - a cereal with the ability to support the human immune system.
Growing emmer is an adventure, and adventurous farming suits organic status, where quality matters more than quantity (yields). With emmer you have to remember that she is, after all, an older lady - finds of it are up to 7.000 years old - and she has her whims. In a good year it yields only 1 tonne/ha here (it could be 2 tonnes once its cultivation is fully tuned to this particular landscape). This year the harvest was only 0,7 tonnes/ha. The owners and the agronomist are still learning how to grow emmer: how to set up crop rotations, how to alternate crops and whether or not to till the soil, when to sow the spring form and when and where to sow the winter form of this cereal. And above all, how to protect it from wild game. On fields that are still in the conversion period to organic farming they grow a different wheat – spelt. They also grow herbs here (marigold and hemp) for their pharmacy in Bratislava.
So that the healing properties of emmer are truly preserved and the crop does not go straight from the field to Germany, the Virtusia biocentre handles the entire processing of the crop. There is a granary where the grain is not only stored but also dried, thoroughly cleaned, separated from other seeds and hulled. It is a place where moths are not sprayed but driven out by a draught created by a dryer placed in the sack, or by predatory wasps. There is a mill that grinds only as much flour as is sold or used in the pasta workshop at the time. When they sell the ancient grain as seed, they freeze it to minimise the spread of diseases and pests.
The site has a pleasant vegetarian bistro. The cooking is based mainly on local produce, so that networking good people across the land benefits everything and everyone. There is also a shop where you can buy a range of flour products, cell salts, herbal preparations, cosmetics and much more.
„With its focus on producing a special nutritional cereal and processing it, this is a unique organic farm. Its additional focus on healthy eating and the farm shop selling its own produce, as well as products from other makers, underlines the owner's noble aim of creating opportunities, cooperation between local producers and public awareness„, noted evaluation committee member and soil conservation technology adviser Ľubomír Marhavý
Things like this can be done by people for whom money comes second. Entrepreneurs who do not need to buy up every possible piece of land, but are content to consolidate the land they already have. Parents who accepted the gift of being enriched by a child with Down syndrome. Teachers who, through their own lives, teach us how to look after our health, and that for our health we need loving, happy and calm people around us. Because they believe that a bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song (Maya Angelou).
The Krajina živá programme was financially supported by VÚB banka.
