What does it mean Nhumus?

the name of this museum is full of meanings which intersect themselves to represent a new way of interpreting agriculture.

N + humus

N means New and humus, of course means fertile land 

The Treccani dictionary gives two definitions of humus, in the first one it is written: <ùmus> s. m. [from lat. humus s. f. «Soil, earth, land»]. - Complex of organic substances present in the soil, of fundamental importance for the nutrition of plants, derived from the decomposition of plant and animal residues, and the synthesis of new organic molecules, by various organisms; it has a colloidal nature, and is therefore strongly absorbent, an earthy or fibrous appearance, a brownish black color.

But the word man / human has a similar etymology. The word man derives from the Latin hŏmō, linked to hŭmus terra, meaning, therefore, of "terrestrial".

Already from the hybridization of these two words, we understand how man is linked to the earth, and more particularly to the fertile land.

But why New? Because it is only in the last few decades that scientific research has been intensifying with regard to this very thin but very important vital layer: what it is composed of, who lives there, and how it is created, but above all how it is maintained. In nature, fertile and pristine areas have their own self-fertility that can be compromised only by natural disasters or climate change. In man-made environments such as agricultural land cultivated with the methods of the green revolution it has been seen that fertility gradually decreases until it reaches desertification. So now people are experimenting new techniques that imitate nature as much as possible to keep this layer that nourishes us alive and on which basically all the living beings of the planet depend.

But we can break Nhumus and make it become New human are us, that is the new humanity that finally takes care of the place where it lives, which are not future generations but we are, we must be us to act if we want to give hope to succeeding generations.

In the farm Il Bosco delle Galline Volanti, which strongly wanted and promoted the creation of this small museum, it is cultivated by experimenting with the latest findings of agronomic techniques that seek to develop the self-fertility of agricultural land, including natural agriculture, synergistic agriculture and the use of mycorrhizae. The company is also the leader of some European projects supported by important research centers such as CREA (Council for agricultural research and analysis of the agrarian economy).

The company is also part of the educational farms circuit because the social impact of these researches consists in making known the basic concepts of a new approach to the agroecosystem from an early age, to modify and change the concept of "agriculture", not only for those who one day will become farmers but for the common public opinion. The goal is to introduce the idea that the soil must be preserved, as much as possible, untouched, and not ruined as the heritage of all.

Nhumus finally has the same sound of nummus, which in Latin means money, value and so here again our society needs something new also in this area, we need new values, a new economy in which it is not just money, the nummus that has a value but also the earth, the humus, the nature, the environment in which we live.

And we come to the second meaning that Treccani gives to the word humus, the figurative one: The substratum of social, spiritual, cultural factors, etc. that promote, favor or condition the rise of situations, facts, manifestations and sim.

And so the Nhumus museum is not just a museum dedicated to the fertility of the soil, but starts from this to reveal how man from the remotest times up to today, he gains profit, sustenance and abundance developing an agricultural, gastronomic and cultural heritage that it is closely linked to the heterogeneity of places, not for nothing that every community differs from the other from what it can cultivate and how it is culturally interpreted.

So we invite you to explore with new eyes something that you have every day "under your feet" in different forms: buried under cement, ordered in a garden, combed in a football field, grown in a vegetable garden or natural in a forest, that is the soil. A new humus: Nhumus.

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