Couple spurn city life for Eden
Nuclear physicist Leonardos Hadziandreou used to spend his whole day at Democritus, the National Center for Scientific Research, trying to discover how to use radio isotopes to solve technical problems. His wife, a doctor, also had a distinguished career in Athens. But in 1986 they decided, for personal reasons, to move to his home island of Naxos, where they found some 8,000 square meters of family land that had been left untended for years. In a few years, the plot of land had turned them into the first and only organic farmers on the island, and strawberries had replaced radio isotopes as the focus of their attention. «We began working on the property as a labor of love; we didn’t see it as a source of income,» Hadziandreou told Kathimerini. In any case, his main occupation was teaching at his own private school in Naxos town, while his wife continued to work as a doctor. «But because I, as a physicist, and my wife, as a doctor, knew what pesticides meant, we didn’t want to use chemicals on our crops. And we also saw the amount of spraying on Naxos and were alarmed. We saw the Naxos potato, which is a famous variety, being absolutely drenched in chemicals. And we said, ‘If even 10 people follow our example, something will have been achieved.’ «Our philosophy, based on respect for nature and conservation of the wild plants that are usually called useless weeds, is to create a plot of land that people can visit to see plants that are endemic to the Cyclades (lavender, rosemary, penny royal), traditional and subtropical fruit trees, traditional varieties of grape, as well as strawberries and vegetables grown together – a case of natural plant protection. «The bad thing about the farmers here is that they are not aware of the hazards posed by the chemicals they spray on their crops. The agriculturalist tells them to use five grams of a certain pesticide and they will use five kilos, just to make sure, as they say. It’s as if a doctor tells you to take one pill and you take five.» The products The family property, in the northeastern part of the island, was officially certified by the monitoring and certification body for organic products, Physiologiki, three years ago. At first, it produced only citrus fruits and apricots, as did most of the farms in the area. «Later, my wife had the idea of cultivating strawberries. One of island’s farmers told us at the time, ‘If you don’t spray them with methyl bromide (one of the most powerful pesticides in circulation, banned in most countries of the world, and to be banned in Greece by 2005), you won’t even see a strawberry in your sleep.’ My wife and I just didn’t pay any heed. Of course, we didn’t spray.» They might not have seen strawberries in their sleep, but in their waking hours, they saw two tons of them. People’s reactions were positive. «Naxos is a small community; we all know each other. Most people told me, ‘We don’t understand about certifications and such things, but we trust you.’ And they began to get more interested. Afterward, a show was held in the summer on the property with organic farming as its theme, and people became more aware and began slowly to learn. Since then, agriculturists have phoned me and asked me where they can find the insect traps they saw on the farm. Moreover, people have started to be frightened of pesticides. You can hear them say, ‘He gave me good potatoes, which he grows for his own use,’ because everybody knows that there is a great difference in what producers keep for themselves and what they sell. All these things make us believe that more and more people will probably want to follow our example. That has been our aim from the start.» People’s reactions were positive. «Naxos is a small community; we all know each other. Most people told me, ‘We don’t understand about certifications and such things, but we trust you.’ And they began to get more interested. Afterward, a show was held in the summer on the property with organic farming as its theme, and people became more aware and began slowly to learn. Since then, agriculturists have phoned me and asked me where they can find the insect traps they saw on the farm. Moreover, people have started to be frightened of pesticides. You can hear them say, ‘He gave me good potatoes, which he grows for his own use,’ because everybody knows that there is a great difference in what producers keep for themselves and what they sell. All these things make us believe that more and more people will probably want to follow our example. That has been our aim from the start.»
