Intro
The entire Hombre production process - and that covers the land, the cattle's diet and even the milk in the processing vats - complies with a regulatory scheme known as the Bio Conservation Grade.
The Conservation Grade scheme was created in 2000 in a bid to protect flora and fauna in the farm's area. One of the main causes of the dwindling species over the last 50 years is the loss of natural habitats. After the second world war, farmers used up every square yard of their land to produce a range of crops and, very often, hedgerows and trees were pulled down to make room for farming. Over the years, the situation worsened until a recent government recognised the need to introduce reparatory measures, before the various animal, bird and plant species at risk reached extinction. Hombre's organic farming methods are based on a crop system which can bring about a dramatic reversal in the decline of the flora and fauna in the surrounding countryside. Confirming this, independent, government-funded experiments have found that the decision to adopt this scheme has led to an increase in local flora and fauna, which is now five times greater than before. Hombre has pledged to set aside over 15% of the land to the creation of a certain number of specific habitats for the flora and fauna instead of using it to grow cattle fodder. The aim of this measure is to increase the Hombre farm's biodiversity overall.
In July 2008, 54 out of a total 337 hectares of uncultivated land were allocated to the formation of Hombre's bio conservation grade network. For 2009, approximately 3 hectares of hedges and woodland is due to be planted.
Animals and plants generally tend to settle and from stable populations in habitats that most suit their needs; they then spread throughout the surrounding area in search of new areas to settle and new food sources, as well as suitable sites for reproduction or to flee adverse conditions.
In the same way that human societies that inhabit cities and towns adopt preferential channels for their movements, such as roads and railways, plants and animals occupy their habitats moving and spreading along linking elements consisting - in Europe's plain areas - of hedges, plant rows, woodland belts and watercourses. During these movements, they are obstructed by the discontinuity of these links due to the presence of intensely farmed areas, various kinds of infrastructures, and built-up areas.
The different plant and animal populations must be thought of as a vaster ecosystem whose survival requires certain natural conditions to be met on an extensive level.
Unfortunately, in more densely populated areas, natural terrain has been almost wiped out, with just a few isolated spots of left here and there, and biodiversity is dropping rapidly. The result of all this is the occurrence of small fragments of natural and semi-natural habitats awash in a sea of artificial environments that represent insurmountable barriers for animals and plants.
That is why we at Hombre decided to start a reclamation project in 2000, in an attempt to restore the natural areas and protect the elements of the agro-system and the existing agricultural landscape. The protection of the existing ecosystem was essential and was enhanced by the reforestation of the farm's boundary zones with the aim of creating a network of natural elements that can coexist with the environments used by man but at the same time, create passageways, links and habitats for plants and animals.
The bio network established on the Hombre farmland is built of two complex frameworks formed of different elements which can be divided up as follows:
