Þetta reddast II

Now that I've talked about the dark side of Þetta reddast, let's illustrate the bright side of it.

In my opinion, right now, hardly anyone embodies the spirit of “Þetta reddast” better than Ólafur Eggertsson, the farmer at Þorvaldseyri.

(Picture courtesy of Baendabladid) 

For several reasons I will go into later, he was already well-known in Iceland. But since the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, he's probably turned into the most famous (living) farmer in the whole world. Not that I know anything about it, mind you, but considering the number of people/TV and radio channels that have been interviewing him over the last two years, one could only assume so.

Considering I live only 10 km away from the farm, and drive past it several times a week, and having heard of Ólafur's reputation as a pioneer, I have always been quite curious to visit the farm. And considering I'm learning about agriculture in Iceland for the guide school, and generally have an interest in stuff like that anyway, I ended up calling Guðný, Ólafur's wife, to ask if it would be possible to come and visit their installations.

I was received by Ólafur, who despite being rather overbooked at the moment (just this week an article about the farm was published in the Icelandic farmer's paper Bændablaðið (see page 12) and another in the Reykjavik Grapevine) he took over 2 hours of his time to chat with me about the farm and show me where they produce the oil and pack the flour.

I was extremely touched by this warm welcome !

The farm Þorvaldseyri stands right at the foot of the Eyjafjöll mountains, and has been in the family for the last 3 generations. Ólafur's grandfather Þorvaldur bought it off the local sheriff cum famous poet Einar Benediktsson.

Ólafur's father Eggert was the first farmer to grow corn in Iceland in the 1960's, and whilst most of the other farmers abandoned that cereal after a few years, judging the result was not worth the trouble, Eggert decided to keep on growing it, and Þorvaldseyri is now the largest corn producing farm in Iceland.

The management of the farm is a family business. From what I understood, Ólafur and his wife look after the cereal (culture and transformation) whereas their son and daughter-in-law take care of the 60 milking cows of the estate.

In 2008, Ólafur introduced rapeseed on the farm, with the intention of producing rapeseed oil.

The results were conclusive : it is possible to produce good rapeseed oil here in Iceland.

You need 15 tons of rapeseed to produce 5 tons of oil.

The oil is cold-pressed.

Some of the oil goes towards the production of cooking oil, and the rest is used as motor oil on the farming machines.

The leftovers of the pressed seeds are turned into fodder for the animals.

It is all very (and impressively so!) green !

In 2010, Eyjafjallajökull erupted, hitting the farm hard. Tons of ashes covered the arable land, turning the growing cultures to waste.

(picture courtesy of google- hope I'm not breaking any coypright by borrowing it)

But far from being deterred, Ólafur and his family, who seem to always understand the possibilities in the world around them, decided to turn this heavy blow from fate into something good.

Only a year after the eruption, they opened an information centre about the volcano right next to the farm. The  clou  is a 20 minute film about the eruption, the effect it had on their farm and how the family stuck together and went about getting over it. The pictures are beautiful and it is very moving.

At the information centre, you can also find the farm's products : rapeseed oil, wheat flour, barley, and soap made from the rapeseed oil from the farm.

And the other thing Þorvaldseyri produces, which I find prrrrrrrrretty cool, is cereals from barley.

It's actually called Byggi (bygg = barley in Icelandic). 

Personally I find non-flavoured biggy completely tastes like cardboard (I mean : if I ate cardboard I'd probably find a similarity between the two) but it's really healthy, no additives, and if you eat it with yoghurt and/or fresh fruit, it's great. It comes in several types : cardboard flavour (wink wink), cinnamon and sweetened.
I also love the simplicity of the packaging, and above all the fact that I can get cereals produced 10 km from home:-)

Think global, buy local !!!!!

Ólafur and his family (as far as I can tell) have always been pioneers, extremely resourceful in using what was in their surroundings to make the best out of things.

When everything looked dark, instead of sitting on a piece of cold lava with his heads in his hands, Ólafur decided to get up and do something about it. The result speaks for itself.

 And that, my friends, is the true icelandic spirit of Þetta reddast.