Observations, reflections and lessons from farming and land stewardship in the Serra de Monchique.
Building a viable local food system requires more than goodwill — it requires infrastructure, coordination and a shared vision for Monchique's agricultural future.
Community initiatives show that goodwill and surplus food already exist in Monchique. But barter alone cannot sustain a commercial farm. The opportunity is to build on this spirit with shared infrastructure, processing capacity and reliable routes to market.
Read post →Is Monchique a small-scale example of what happens when we neglect the land beneath us?
Healthy soil underpins our food, stores water, supports living systems and helps communities remain resilient. When we damage it, the consequences reach far beyond the field.
Read post →Rising fuel and fertiliser costs, the absence of local markets, and inadequate processing infrastructure explain why land in Monchique is abandoned — and what it would take to bring it back.
Land is often abandoned not because it is incapable of producing food, but because the cost of managing it exceeds the income that can reasonably be earned from it — and that requires examining the entire rural economy.
Read post →The scale and frequency of Javali damage affects almost every part of what we are trying to achieve — and a new Government proposal raises questions that must be answered before any scheme begins.
Javali damage affects soil restoration, water retention, planting, erosion control, fire resilience and whether previously abandoned land can be brought back into productive management.
Read post →Why I began questioning our food — and how family, loss and tired soil led to a different way of farming.
It began much closer to home than any book or documentary: watching family health decline, and asking what the food we eat has to do with it.
Read post →ASF is not present in Portugal, yet it is a risk worth understanding — not to create alarm, but to ask what we can reasonably do to reduce it.
Portugal remains free of African Swine Fever. Understanding an identifiable risk — and asking what can reasonably be done about it — is not the same as predicting it.
Read post →Javali rooting has damaged our terraces and exposed the soil we are trying to restore. Beyond population control, there are simple things landowners can do themselves — starting with picking up the figs.
Before looking for increasingly sophisticated ways of keeping Javali out, we should ask what we are doing that makes our land attractive to them — and start with something as simple as picking up the figs.
Read post →From clearing to cycling: how ten years of farming in the Serra de Monchique changed the way we think about machinery, biomass, and the resources the land produces.
When we arrived at Quinta Picapau, we thought in terms of clearing land. Over time, we began asking a different question — how can we cycle what the land produces back through the system?
Read post →The damage is visible. The science is clear. Portugal has a plan. The question is whether recognition is being translated into results on the ground.
Walking across our terraces, the evidence was impossible to ignore — Javali had rooted up large areas of established vegetation. The problem is recognised. But is the response keeping pace with the damage?
Read post →Rewilding is often discussed in abstract terms. Here is what it means for one abandoned hillside in the Algarve.
The Serra de Monchique has been shaped by human hands for thousands of years. What we are restoring is not wilderness — it is a working landscape that has been abandoned.
Read post →What regenerative farming means for the specific conditions of Serra de Monchique — thin soils, summer drought, wildfire risk.
Regenerative agriculture covers a wide range of practices. What it means for the Algarve highlands is specific to this landscape — and built on ten years of practice at Quinta Picapau.
Read post →How one power cut changed the way we think about resilience, energy and self-sufficiency
On 28 April 2025, the lights went out across Portugal and much of the Iberian Peninsula. For us, it became a wake-up call.
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