Today many people overhere plant new olive trees, and of course these trees already used to be here for a very long time.
The oil produced from these trees mainly serves personal needs, like many other fruits and vegetables,
and of course grapes to make a bucket (or container) of wine to keep the glasses filled.
The old Romans knew it, one good reason to build Salona and Spalatum.
Much of the agricultural activity today still is done to stuff the private stocks for much of the year.
And those good old Romans took their share in those days.
But....this area used to be famous not only for its olive oil, but also its cherries, with hundreds of trees allover the land.
Harvesting those cherries not only served private needs, but provided the jam- and juice-industry with high quality cherries.
Truckloads of them were driven to large factories to be used in quality food products.
Times changed, trees disappeared or died of plagues, wildfires and lack of attention, but mainly because people were moving to the coastal area where industrial jobs were loudly shouting for workers.
Cement, metals, gasses, chemicals, oil and steel, the common "dirty" stuff modern times need and produce.
Today however, most of this industrial activity has died out, resulting in high unemployment rates, if not active in the seasonal tourist industry and all it's spin off.
Times today are changing again however, as yesterday night I was scrolling the internet and discovered an initiative that truly made me feel happy.
As in the area of Sestanovac, a small town not far to ours and connected to the main highway crossing all Croatia from north to (almost) south at Dubrovnik, some intelligent people started a huge project to rebuild history.
How....????
By planting an enormous amount of those famous Maraska cherries that used to grow here !
With modern techniques and knowledge a very large plantation has already been realised, reproducing the best of history.
It all started with the vision of one person, who motivated a group of specialists on as well economic, agricultural and biological aspects.
In the near future the harvesting will start, resulting in a FULLY ORGANIC high quality product.
That's what makes me happy, rebuilding the future......with cherries !
See for all juicy details on this website , if you happen to be looking for a truly green investment with only positive aspects, or just because you want to see how they produce 100% organic cherries.
Organic being the magic word today, is what we call DOMACI, as people here still produce their own food, and that means GOOD FOOD !!!
You can taste it, you can smell it, from a fresh egg to a sun kissed tomato, and yes, from those cherries too !
As this is not "stock market" driven, nor "first the profit-than the quality", this is how it was and should be.
Think for a moment about why you eat what you eat.
Indeed !!!!!!!!
