Future of Hope Page #3

and still people are saying

'Why don't you use chemical fertiliser?'

But, for me to do

Organic it's no way back

when you see the soil, when

you see what you are growing

when you taste it, when you

taste how much sweeter and

better it is, there's no way back.

This is the natural way to do it.

of course, I sometimes think

why am I doing all of this job?

I'm not getting any money, I'm just

getting tired of all of this work.

It's something about the soil

it's something about Mother Earth

that keeps me going

After starting organic, it was

potatoes in the beginning

and then came white cabbage

and turnips and slowly more and more

like lettuce and leek, parsley

and some how I got this idea to

start growing barley and

that's where it started

to give people a taste of 'Gabriel's

Breakfast' Barleyotto, Barley Bread..

and what I've heard is that the

Barley that I grow organic in Iceland

tastes better than

Barley in other countries.

I can lead the market, yes.

Are you nervous with me

looking over your shoulders?

No, not at all.

You're doing great

You're working so fast that

the machine can't keep up

Since 2001 I've had volunteers, they

come through WWOOF, it means

Willing Workers on Organic Farms.

It's just young people from

all around the World that want

to help to build up organic farming.

I used to say it's like organic

growing of connections,

connections between different countries,

so they are making friends here

and connecting the World in a

positive way and helping me a lot

Part of my reason for coming here

at this time is what is going on

with the crisis, to understand

what's really happening

and to design systems from there

that are actually going to create resiliency

within our systems and

within our people.

So, when something really

major happens we are ready;

we are ready to feed

ourselves as best we can,

we are ready to meet at

the gate whatever giant is there.

I am certain that we have enough

geothermal heat to power our greenhouses

We are importing 70% of our

vegetables and 99% of our fruit

and in greenhouses

we can grow both

At the moment, the new power

plant at Hellisheidi spews 90%

of the energy into the

atmosphere, which is mad

we could have set up

greenhouses up there

to use the energy

to produce food.

We just need to

put our mind to it.

And I think Icelandic people

they like new trends

so once it catches on they

will take it and run with it.

We are very into that we should

eat locally but think globally.

When we started here

a friend of mine

he asked me if I was going to

waste my life growing tomatoes

but this is what I've been

doing for the past 19 years

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