🌲Ecological Interactions
A short course centered on the identification of local biological markers that are unique to a specific bioregion.
Microbial Heritage as a New Local Economy
The Problem
Across the Terres de l’Ebre region, small agricultural towns like Benifallet often face a recurring challenge: surplus harvests and undervalued produce. Farmers work in harmony with the land through several different approaches to agriculture, yet local markets cannot always sell this abundance. Citrus, tomatoes, olives, and almonds often exceed what can be sold profitably. What remains is either sold at a loss, left to rot, or transported away — separating the community from the full cycle of its food system.
At the same time, every household generates organic waste: food scraps, plant material, even traces of human biology like hair or nails. These materials are full of nutrients and microorganisms, but they are treated as waste instead of resources.
This dual imbalance — too much life in one place, too little care for what’s discarded — mirrors broader ecological tensions in rural economies today.
Biological Markers
Every ecosystem has a microbial identity, a fingerprint shaped by the land, its inhabitants, and their habits. In Benifallet, the bacteria and yeasts found in the soil, air, crops, and even on people’s hands form an invisible community that connects everything.
These microbial markers can be measured, mapped, and celebrated just like terroir or a Protected Designation of Origin (DOP). But instead of belonging to a human-defined territory, the true DOP belongs to the microbial community itself.
It is this unseen, symbiotic network that defines what grows, how it tastes, and how it decomposes. Recognizing it as the legitimate “community of origin” invites a new kind of ecological belonging — one that decentralizes human authorship and honors microbial agency.
Proposed Model
Benifallet Ferments is a proposed micro-industry that transforms both agricultural surpluses and organic waste into new forms of value through the shared language of fermentation and decomposition.
Collection & Mapping
Local farms and homes contribute surplus crops and organic matter.
Microbial samples from different households and landscapes are collected and analyzed to understand the diversity of the local microbiome.
Fermentation Hub
Surplus crops (tomatoes, citrus, olives) are transformed into fermented foods such as vinegars, pickles, and sauces.
Each batch is inoculated with local microbial starters — preserving the microbial identity of Benifallet as flavor, scent, and texture.
As a communal experiment, a wild sourdough could be cultivated using microbes collected from a shared public surface — a wall, bench, or market table that everyone touches.
This dough becomes a collective fermentation of the town’s identity, embodying the microbial cohabitation that sustains Benifallet.
Microlot Biofertilizer Production
Remaining organic waste and fermentation byproducts are composted and converted into biofertilizers.
These are returned to local fields, enriching the soil with the same microbial community that defines the region’s food.
Symbolic & Participatory Element
These combined "products" of the local bioeconomy can later be consumed collectively in the form of a festival — a ritual of edible interconnection.
The system creates a closed metabolic loop between soil, people, and microbes — one where waste becomes resource, surplus becomes culture, and microbes become citizens.
By repositioning microbes as central actors in the local economy, Benifallet Fermental proposes a shift in how we understand value, community, and origin. It’s not just about reducing waste or adding profitability — it’s about relearning how to live in reciprocal relation with the unseen life that sustains us.
The project transforms Benifallet (or any overproducing town) into a living laboratory of circular ecology, where fermentation acts as both a biological and cultural interface.
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