ol Dunyó (Vilassar de Dalt, 1989) is someone who searches for the depth of what surrounds him. With a keen interest in the written word and music, he was first drawn to farming when he was 20 years old, and he was captivated. Nowadays, he’s both a farmer and writer. After starting up a project in Cabrera de Mar, he met Xavier Roqué, who had a plot of land to lease in Òrrius. Pol decided to embark on a new adventure.

Cultivating and obtaining what they call “real food”, using organic farming practices and farming with animal traction are the main goals of El Mosaic, an initiative resulting from the combination of Xavi and Pol’s individual projects: L'Horta d'Òrrius (The Òrrius Vegetable Garden) and El Turó d'en Rompons (Rompons Hill), respectively. The home of El Mosaic is the Can Femades estate, in Òrrius. We paid them a visit to meet the three fantastic mares that help them cultivate the land and to discover the two organic farming projects that coexist there: an organic farm called El Niu d'Ous (The Egg Nest) and Bolets d'Òrrius (Òrrius Wild Mushrooms).

Pol and Xavi have found a good balance between collaboration and independence. The two partners farm at their own pace and have separate operating accounts, but at the same time they combine services such as horse care or marketing, depending on what suits them.

At El Mosaic they grow certified organic vegetables in an area covering approximately two hectares. They plant fodder for the horses on another patch of land. The project leaves no environmental footprint and produces food free of synthetic chemicals and other alterations. The farming approach they’ve adopted involves avoiding both deep ploughing and the use of tools and machinery that might compact the earth and harm the biology of the soil. Recovering abandoned agricultural areas is one of the additional goals they’ve set themselves. This year they’ve embarked on a pilot scheme consisting of putting cows from the Albera Massif out to graze in the forest area closest to them. They currently manage 18 hectares in the Parc de la Serralada Litoral (Catalan Coastal Range Park) with the aim of preventing fires and obtaining firewood. If the scheme works, they plan to extend the managed area.

The agricultural initiatives with which they collaborate do not end there; far from it: Pol is secretary of the School of Modern Animal Traction, a training centre that has launched its inaugural sessions this year, some of which take place at Can Femades. Pol tells us 50 people applied for the 12 available places, which is an indication of the growing interest in farming with horses within organic farming projects.
Pol Dunyó is a bookworm who also writes about subjects that fascinate and concern him. His first book, Estripar la terra: Contra les mentides del món rural (Tearing Up the Land: Against the Lies of the Rural World, is an essay that sets out a manifesto against hurrying and obsessively chasing profits, while also trying to unravel the lies told about the rural world.

A lovely soundtrack

After making the climb up to Òrrius, nestled among hills, we’re rewarded with the discovery of a beautiful village that fortunately remains unspoiled by tourism. On the farm where El Mosaic is located, we’re welcomed by Pol, who invites us to accompany him as he tends to one of the farm’s three mares. Of all the interviews we’ve done so far, this will prove to be the one with the most beautiful soundtrack. The tinkling of bells around the necks of the nearby horses adds additional charm to the leisurely conversation we have with Pol, a restless soul who in farming has found a way never to get bored again.

“The mares are wonderful,” says Pol as he squeezes an antibiotic eyedrop into the eye of one of them, who hurt herself while grazing in the forest. Their names are Cati, Cuca and Xula, and they’re originally from Molló. The first to arrive at Can Femades was Cati, about ten years ago. Xavi wanted to start farming using animal traction and over time he could see that they’d made a good choice with Cati, because she was already trained. In fact, you could say that the El Mosaic team is made up of five rather than two workers: the mares must be counted.

«The mares are wonderful» Pol Dunyó

The power of modern animal traction

The mares were with us throughout our conversation with Pol, which meant that the question about the differences between humans and horses was ever present in the interview. “Horses aren’t like dogs or cats; they’re herbivores and prey animals, which means they get scared and flee from danger. That’s why you have to train them with that fear in mind, trying to get them to trust you, to understand that they have to do what you ask of them but that they won’t get hurt”, he explains. Pol acknowledges that it’s not easy to describe what a horse is like, since emotional attachment to the animal is key to understanding it. He discusses this in his book Tearing up the Earth: “Working with animals is like meditating: being capable of concentrating without interruption and staying calm, relaxed, but always attentive to adversity and setbacks [...]. Our role is not to force them or submit them to our will, but rather to generate a relationship in which we become part of their family, their group, their herd, perhaps in a higher hierarchical position.”

A delicate aspect of keeping horses is feeding. They’re extremely powerful animals (some can weigh up to 600 kg), but they can get colic depending on what they eat. This means that, apart from having them well trained, you have to know their needs and, above all, be patient. This unhurried relationship is at odds with our rushed 21st-century lives.

When they’re put to work in the vegetable garden, the mares are used to maintain the crops. Pol likes to do all the ploughing with them. He only uses the tractor for tasks to which they’re not suited. Now that the farming project in the forest is underway, the physical prowess of these mammals has become manifest: “The mares make their way through the forest like champions and get into places that would amaze you!” says Pol, admiringly.

“Animal traction is not only profitable and practical, in the strictest sense of these two words, but also it provides a series of essential factors on a rural estate, such as the interrelation between animals with crops, multifunctionality, the generation of manure, self-sufficiency or the improvement of the ecological quality of produce, the decompaction of soils and the reduction of the ecological footprint.” This is another passage from Tearing Up the Earth, a gem of a book in which Pol reflects on his profession and describes his day-to-day experiences.

Before delving into the work of this innovative farmer, we want to get to know him a bit better as a person, so we ask him to tell us his life story. Although Pol didn’t grow up in the countryside but rather in the village of Vilassar de Dalt, he has roots in Òrrius, since one of his great-grandfathers was born in a nearby farmhouse and worked the land “like almost everyone at the time”. However, his parents aren’t farmers: his mother’s a nurse and his father is dedicated to ornamental plants, a very common trade in the Maresme region. “The ornamental plant sector is part of a highly artificialized system that doesn’t consider the environment. It’s like making underpants in an industrial factory,” he complains. However, Pol also has some surprises in store. For example, his Italian grandmother was one of the people who brought carnation growing to Catalonia, although all the plaudits for this achievement went to her business partner, a man.

Pol, a self-taught man who’s passionate about reading, had tried to forge a career in music before opting for farming. He played percussion and had started producing electronic music, although “with no clear direction,” he says. But one day, at the age of 20-something, he began to take an interest in farming and, all of a sudden, this new world fascinated him. First of all, he tried to start up a project in Cabrera de Mar together with two other partners, but it didn’t work out. Then he moved around bit, eventually ending up in Òrrius when, at 28 years old, he met Xavi, who had a plot of land to lease.

The fascination with organic farming

Pol says he likes the fact that his contribution to nature plays a productive role in culture: “I like the fact that my job isn’t superfluous.” This farmer and writer believes there are many approaches to farming. However, he feels that working in the setting of natural park, adopting organic and animal traction farming practices, makes for an interesting relationship with the environment. As he explains, this relationship has great depth and can be both positive and negative, but it allows him to discover the great complexity of things: “And that turns off some people and fascinates others.” Pol falls firmly into the second category, which is a big plus for someone like him who easily gets bored. It’s impossible to get bored in farming, because, as he says: “There are always new plants, systems, goals, horizons and ways of getting to the same place.”

Awareness of his role and its impact on the environment is something that attracts him. This much becomes clear when Pol shows us a part of the estate where an abandoned farmhouse once stood that has now been converted into terracing for cultivation. Together with Xavi, he’s worked hard to clear the area and turn a more or less useless sector of the estate into a productive, food-growing one. “It’s fantastic!” exclaims Pol.

For someone who’s always been keen to get involved in environmental and political collectives in the Maresme area, he’s attracted by the possibility of his work being seen as a kind of activism. Pol approaches farming not only as a profession but also as a political activity.

Pol and Xavi have been sharing the same path for five years and have a very clearly defined working relationship: each of them works at their own pace and generates their own income, but they share a series of elements. The farm operates as a single unit, but the vegetable garden sales and marketing are done independently. The first activities they started carrying out on a joint basis were crop planning, the home delivery of almost 45 baskets per week, the care and feeding of the mares and the management of the cold rooms. Once the pooling of these elements got underway, they decided to create El Mosaic as a joint brand.

“We like the idea of working independently. I know that one day I can start work at seven in the morning and another day at ten. And I can use whatever system I want,” explains Pol, convinced that thanks to this method they have no arguments. Pol Dunyó is a free soul, and the idea of working for someone else makes his hair stand on end. “Forcing yourself to cooperate is very difficult,” he says. As he sees it, the cooperative approach is like a personal relationship: you can’t force yourself to be with someone. But if there’s a good vibe, you need to maintain it as long as possible. And with Xavi, at El Mosaic, the project runs smoothly. In addition to the baskets, they distribute to homes in the local area, they sell their products at two farmers’ markets: the Saturday market at Vilassar de Dalt and the market in Barcelona’s Guinardó neighbourhood. They also deliver produce to two consumer cooperativess: Cydonia in Barcelona and Teixit de la Terra in Sabadell.

«We like the idea of working independently. I know that one day I can start work at seven in the morning and another day at ten. And I can use whatever system I want» Pol Dunyó

Bring people closer to farming

Pol dislikes routines, both in his farming work and his writing. “I write in bursts,” he says. In his book Tearing Up the Earth, he sets down on the page his reflections on the day-to-day work he carries out in the vegetable garden and with the horses. It’s a kind of manifesto through which he aims to convey the beauty and importance of farming and rural areas, while at the same time denouncing “the confusion and detachment that exists regarding these environments.” The fact that he doesn’t come from farming stock has helped him to be more aware of this detachment. “Even though I’m not from the city, I haven’t naturalised the farming experience as my own, and my perspective on a lot of things is different from that of country folk. That’s why the rural world fascinates me that much more: because I discovered it of my own volition,” he adds.

In his book, Pol highlights an issue that really bugs him: the fact that too much weight is given to the opinions of those in urban areas. Some decisions that fully affect the countryside and rural life are made by people who, in his opinion, “don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.” “If your culture is based on a strong detachment from what sustains you, what maintains the landscape, food and life, you can’t blame a single actor; there are multiple culprits: the media, commercial systems, politicians, the public authorities…”, he complains.

In the book, the young farmer discusses various topics, including germination, roots, mediocrity, haste, violence and lies, offering both criticism and proposals. In the spirit of inquiry, Pol points out that if the primary sector disappears, the death of everyone is assured. The day it ceases to be profitable to “exploit Third World countries”, we’ll have to find food at home. “No one can start feeding a country in two or even ten years. If you abandon the land, it can take many years to recover it!”, he warns.

«Even though I’m not from the city, I haven’t naturalised the farming experience as my own, and my perspective on a lot of things is different from that of country folk» Pol Dunyó

The author also laments the trivialisation of wonderful disciplines, such as mindfulness or yoga, which can help us regain our connection with life and death. “If you have to pay 300 euros for a spiritual mindfulness retreat, we’ve gone wrong somewhere,” he states. As he sees it, there are many other ways to be present in the here and now that don’t require a large financial outlay.

Turning to another issue, as someone who tends to and works with horses at El Mosaic, he disagrees with some of the positions of the most radical animal rights activists. “Theirs is a profound distortion of the ideology. They actually defend what we’re doing, they’d like to be like us, but they don’t even know we exist! Or, if they do, they’ve said all sorts to us,” he laments. However, he believes that everyone has the right to an opinion on the use of animal traction, as long as they’ve cared for a horse at some point.

“For those of us who keep or have kept farm animals, it hurts to see grass growing and not been grazed. It makes us wonder about how to make the most of what grows there and isn’t being used by anyone; in other words, the environment that no one interacts with. We can feel the grass growing. Letting natural spaces evolve on their own and without intervention sounds very romantic, but it’s not realistic. Let’s not allow misanthropy to get the better of us. First of all, we need to understand that people are part of the natural space in which there’s no intervention, however much we try to believe otherwise.” This is another passage from Tearing up the Land, in which Pol rails against the practice of rewilding, before adding another reflection: “I can’t imagine a more elitist mindset, a greater heir to savage capitalism, than the total idolatry of natural spaces free of human intervention. It amounts to an overprotective paternalism made possible by not having to relate to our environment, because everything we need is already brought to us from outside.”

Pol helps us reconcile two aspects that, due to vested interests, are sometimes separated from each other: nature and culture. Through his farming activity at El Mosaic, he produces food, thus promoting gastronomic culture. “Landscape is culture. Everything you see that’s conditioned by human beings is culture,” he says. Similarly, when he starts writing, he’s capturing nature on the page: “Why not? Birds sing and that’s nature, isn’t it? Well, we write, it’s the same thing. We’re the same, aren't we?”

«Landscape is culture. Everything you see that’s conditioned by human beings is culture» Pol Dunyó

The prospects of generational renewal in farming

When we ask him about the lack of generational renewal, Pol mentions two major problems. The first is the scarcity of land, either because it’s hoarded or because there isn’t any, particularly in the Maresme area, where he says prices are skyrocketing. The other issue is the low economic viability of projects. “Who wants to work on something that’s not profitable?” he asks. “As I see it, farming is a passion and has an element of political activism. Moreover, I’ve managed to make the project work financially. But we’re fighting unfair competition and other obstacles all day long. We need the market to respect us and for there to be land to cultivate,” he says. In other words, in order for more young people to be able to work in the primary sector, Pol believes it’s necessary to facilitate access to land and ensure that markets respect real food prices.

«We need the market to respect us and for there to be land to cultivate» Pol Dunyó
 

Throughout our conversation, Pol comes across as someone who values freedom very much. He might even be considered something of an anarchist. This is why it comes as a surprise to us when he says he “solely and exclusively trusts politicians and the public authorities” to solve the issues of lack of land and low food prices. In this respect, he asks for the Law on Agricultural Spaces, passed in 2019, to be dusted off. “If a landowner owns land that they've been cultivating for six years, they have to be told they have one or two years to go back to production,” he explains. He also considers it necessary to regulate the prices of agricultural produce to ensure that local food is priced the same as imported food.

Pol Dunyó certainly makes a strong impression, both for his theories and his coherent, sustainable and innovative practices. Here at El Mosaic, so close to a big city like Barcelona, it’s a real gift to hear the wisdom of his words and the charming tinkling of the bells of the mares that accompany him.

Money is not Pol’s priority, although he acknowledges that it’s necessary. When we ask him if he thinks he lives a good life, he shows no hesitation: “Yes. The key to a good life is to have a job that you enjoy, that’s useful, productive and that makes a positive contribution. And if all this occurs in a space of happiness, where you have a good quality of life, health, friendships and family, so much the better.”

— BCN Smart Rural Editorial —