EDUCATIONAL FARM

Sundays on the farm
     |_ prices & booking form

Groups on the Farm

Schools on the farm
      |_ prices & booking form

Laboratory studies

Themed days

Visiting Guidelines

8° Biodiversity Contest
         2012/2013

Our Summer Centre

Nature Camp

Arca Enel Programme

After School Programme

Educational Farm

The Farm where the animals are free to roam!

"The creativity, ideals, and courage of the worlds youth must be mobilized towards the creation of a global collaboration whose objectives are; sustainable development and the securing of a better future for us all."

[Declarations of Rio in regards to environment and development, United Nations Conference Rio de Janeiro, June 1992]

To ensure this better future for us all, members of the European Community(including the Italian state), environmental associations, and the United Nations Organization have all made proclamations-as well as initiated innumerable act, resolutions, and action programs-with the stated aim of protecting our environments biodiversity with an additional emphasis on sustainable development.

Making the above objectives our own, the farms of Altaura and Monte Ceva have (within their properties) initiated the re-naturalization of the plains forest and the Eugenean Hills landscape. Our intentions are to reach a balance between the demands of man and those of nature. We propose to achieve this upon our farms by first returning to more traditional farming practices and then finding the equilibrium of those traditions with alternative innovative methods.

The landscape that originally produced nutrients for immediate demands has evolved. That indicates that the operators and cultivators of the forest must grow an educational and instructional awareness that harbours a value, knowledge, and fun-appreciation of the countryside as a rural landscape. This indication put into implementation would provide example of sustainable development integrated with agriculture. In this sense, ‘agriculture’ then becomes a ‘growth culture’- encompassing elements of environment and landscape with physical and mental well-being - which can then be integrated into our cultural markets of goods and services.

It was in this spirit that in 1998 the whole of both farms were converted over to organic cultivation methods. Recent studies reveal, what we have also verified on our farms, which is that these methods induce biodiversity-including a greater number of wild plants and animals into all levels of the food chain.

On both farms, the restoration of buildings has followed the techniques of bio-ecological architecture. A biomass furnace has been installed to provide heat. Pruning of the surrounding hedges and forest provides the by-products needed to feed this furnace.

Maria Dalla Francesca

Owner of the Farms
Padova, August 2005

"Fattorie Aperte" Regional Event – October 10th, 2010