When Pierre Landolt emigrated to Brazil, he was determined that his farm would benefit the local community. Today, one can conclude that he has achieved this goal. “There are more than 44 families are living in brick houses all around the farm. It is a heritage of the old system of „partners“ (meeiros) for the culture of cotton. These families are permanent workers of the farm. We are also contracting around 100 people (small farmers, and woman from our neighbourhood for the mango harvest, which coincides with the 3 most driest and difficult months of the year. Apart from the work and housing, Fazenda also offers a Kindergarten ! “We created a kindergarten on the farm to prepare the children of our employees for the „real“ school in the small city Santa Terezinha. The municipality picks up the older children from the farm every day and busses them to school.
Further, Pierre is also actively promoting sustainable bio dynamic agriculture in this semi- arid region. “For the local and neighbouring communities we frequently organise “Dias de campo” (countryside days). During these special happenings we try and make clear that sustainabile bio-dynamic agriculture is not a dream, but a reality, easy to do and understand, and that there is real market exist for these products. Last time almost 100 people visited us including many farmers from outside the region. Some of them have serious problems with crop diseases stemming from a bad use of pesticides. It’s good to see that the new generation is looking to another kind of agriculture!