432 João Valente - 26 years no-till, outcompeting monocultures, and now teaching his neighbours

João Valente, owner of Monte Silveira, took over his family farm in central-eastern Portugal that was running on tobacco, broccoli, and melons with sixty-five people employed year-round, the rotation designed entirely around subsidies. When the tobacco subsidy disappeared at the end of the 1990s, he found himself with a question: what does this land actually want to be? That question led him to organic agriculture conferences in Portugal, to a magazine showing no-till, to a German seed compan...