One way to eat like an environmentalist is to support sustainable food producers. Through our two-week #MedFoodHeroes campaign, we aim to show how biodiversity in our ecosites is strongly linked to the sustainable food producers we work with in beautiful Lemnos, High Atlas, Dehesas, Montados, Menorca and Shouf. Here, we introduce some of our #MedFoodHeroes. Read on!

Athina Kavaleri and her husband run a village grocery store on the Greek Island of Lemnos. Athina cultivates her family’s land to supply her customers with a fresh supply of organic asparagus, beans, starch, sesame, chickpeas, flaxseed and legumes, and grows alfalfa cereals (barley, wheat, oats) to keep the farm’s animals well fed.

Brahim Wajay lives in a small village near Aït M’hamed in the Moroccan High Atlas, where he has been cultivating barley for years. During the harvest season, he joins other farmers in an old Amazigh tradition called ‘Tiwizi‘, during which labour-intensive activities such as manual harvesting are carried out in a group. Together, they keep the ancestral know-how of barley cultivation alive, while playing a vital role in conserving local barley varieties.

Montado Freixo do Meio are a community and small business from Portugal’s Herdado do Freixo do Meio, located in the Alentejo region. For the last 30 years, Alfredo Cunhal Sendim who owns the estate, has been producing food in a way more adapted to the natural local conditions that are not only more efficient in terms of environmental costs but also always attentive to the current social reality – combining organic and biodynamic farming, as well as permaculture techniques. Alfredo says “At Montado do Freixo do Meio we favour a mode of production and transformation that protects the environment, animal and plant well-being, and the diversity and quality of food.”

Brothers Pedro and Juan Luis Domínguez Campa are extensive livestock farmers who produce high quality lamb and Iberian pork at the Mundos Nuevos farm in Badajoz (Spain). After realising their soil had lost almost all its fertility they set about regenerating agriculture across 700 hectares in the dehesa using redileo techniques by herding together sheep and goats at night in a portable enclosed fence so their pastures can recover and soil fertilisation improves. Pigs and lambs graze in pastures, feeding on acorns and crops grown on the farm. By using their livestock to fertilize the land they avoid unnecessary ploughing and make the best use of rainfall to minimise erosion.

Eat like an environmentalist. Support our #MedFoodHeroes. 
We’ve all been missing out on sharing meals with friends and loved ones for weeks so what better way to spread the love for people and planet. Join Share A Dish Night on Friday, 26 June.

Support ways to boost small sustainable businesses, save the planet and improve your health through what you eat. To learn about other sustainable producers in the Mediterranean and more on Rooted Everyday’s #MedFoodHeroes campaign, visit our website.