After harvest, cereal and lentils need to be cleaned and selected from straw, soil and stones before being processed.

However, since these products grow in soil, they run the risk of being contaminated by mould, mushrooms and spore as these are easily favoured by good pedoclimatic conditions.

In addition to this, during  the flowering of plants, insects, spawn over the flowers and keep the eggs until ripening even after flowers become either pod or fruits.

For this reason, lentils and cereal need to be sanitised before being stored as the entire harvest may be lost if it is attacked either by insects, mould or by some types of mushrooms.

Usually the sanitising process in storage centres is made with phosphine fumigation. Phosphine is a  toxic gas that can kill insects and eggs upon contact with them. As it is lethal gas for human beings, its use should be allowed only in controlled and hermetically closed places in order to avoid dangerous gas leak.

By contrast, on daily life, fumigation is made by placing gas capsules in cereal and lentils heaps covered with plastic clothing that should restrain gas leak in the environment. This method is dangerous as it can cause air pollution and workers’ poisoning.

Moreover, it is scientifically proved that phosphine can leave traces on seeds and, since these remains are dangerous substances, they can increase the risk of cancer.

When we heard about a new technology launched by Emitech with the endorsement of the Ministry of  Policies and “Bonomo” Research Center, and developed with the aim of replacing the perilous fumigation technique with a safer treatment that protect our health and the environment, we immediately decided to adopt it.

For many years we have been sanitising our harvest with such a clean technology that is characterized by the use of heath instead of chemical substances guaranteeing therefore security and healthiness of our agricultural products.

How are organic products sanitised?

Organic products cannot be sanitised with phosphine as they would not be considered as “organic” anymore; however, since the lack of education about such a topic is widespread and controlling entities do not analyze such aspects, we admit, without being contradicted, that most of the products that are certified as organic, are sanitised by phosphine fumigation as conventional items.

This prevaricates consumers that harm their health, deceived by the fact of buying organic and healthy products.

This is the story of “I MURGINI” (the inhabitants of Murgia) and of their land, a suggestive place where the Emperor Frederick II of Swabia built the enchanting house Castel del Monte. And just here, in this unlimited space standing out round the manor house, in this harsh landscape full of distressing hardness, all began.

But this is not a common story: there is something unusual, a mystery that is still unsolved.

Indeed, this land is so charming that you can find yourself bound to it in an indissoluble way.

It is not so easy to explain this bond; its intensity changes from person to person and it depends on everyone’s sensitivity.

The more sensitive you are the stronger the enchantment is; you are then assaulted by an astonishing, prodigious and exceptional energy.

The chroniclers of that epoch tell that the Emperor, who had an extraordinary sensitivity, experienced a sudden change while crossing this land.

The biographer, who reported the Emperor’s secrets and moods, wrote that Frederick felt the total, absolute and deep emotion of Eternity.

The thrill of immortality.

The anxiety and daze he felt following this change kindled an impetuous passion.

In order to dominate this energy, but also to investigate its origin, he reaped oracles and prophecies coming from the most well-known fortune-tellers, priests and shamans.

He wanted to know from where this titanic energy emanated, so that he could use it when, sometimes far away from this land, he would have needed it.

The wizards personally realized the miracle of the overflowing inner strength, the irrepressible fibre, the inexhaustible emotional passion, the overflowing hardworking willpower, the never-declining industriousness.

And they concluded that charm emanates from the land, from the stones.

This land, indeed, is an endless and inexhaustible deposit of karstic stones that the community of “I MURGINI”, as the heroes of the Myth, has been digging into since far-off times in order to redeem the land and farm it.

The stones are ingeniously lined up so that it is possible to build up particular constructions such as the so-called “trulli” – small round stone houses with a conical roof -, to trace boundaries and to build new towns.

The more stones are pulled out the more stones appear in surface; the greater the venture is to pull them out the more imposing the building work will be.

These stones are like souls going back into their womb. They represent the petrified spirit, the personal experiences of men and the breath of nature.

And they are the symbol of the Mother Earth which keeps the precious seeds and generates tasty and fragrant food, thusgiving us unique and intense feelings.

Here, in the land of “Alta Murgia”, among the countless fields that interlace with the wide lands of almond trees and olive trees, specifically at “Modesti” farm, a rural hard-working community of “I MURGINI” organically farms the old wide range of seeds that, after the harvest, undergo a natural sanitization process without using polluting phosphines.

Our pulses and our seeds are healthy and good. They evoke the charm of our land and tell the story of men who give in to the charm of nature.

Every land is our land.

Every part of the world is our world.