It was only the Giuggiolis’ second year as farm owners, but they weren’t new to growing. As children, they spent weekends in the countryside following the vegetable gardener around—a “very old man”, Alessandro recalled, “who was an expert on seeds.” The young boys were hooked. “Most of our friends collected football stickers. Me and Nic, we started collecting seeds.”

Decades later, in 2019, they bought some land next to their parents’ home in Umbria, Italy. Their seed collection finally had a place to grow, and their goal above all else was diversity. The first harvest was small, but successful. Emboldened, the following year they planted 600 different plant varieties, a total of around 300,000 seeds. Then the weather turned. After months of drought, much of the field failed. “It was a real disaster,” Alessandro said.

Even so, the nearby woodland survived. “We started thinking, let’s analyze what’s happening here,” Alessandro said. Dead leaves, digested by mushrooms and bacteria, created a layer of humus that stayed moist for months. Beneath the trees, temperatures ran as much as 14 degrees cooler than in the open field. Fungi and insects, often treated as threats by farmers, thrived. Life was finding a way.

Inspired by what they saw, Alessandro and Nicola set out to replicate the forest. They planted 1,000 fast-growing trees all over the farm, across about 89 acres. The canopies now shade the crops in summer, and in autumn the leaves fall and decompose, adding nutrients to the soil. The brothers opted for species with deep roots, which reduces the need for irrigation.

They had taken nature’s example and copied it. Today, Alessandro and Nicola describe their agricultural approach as biomimetic, which refers to the imitation of nature’s systems. They draw on what they call a “toolbox” of methods found in agroecology.

“We still don’t understand a lot of how the biological world works,” said Sara El-Sayed, director of the Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University and an assistant research professor at the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems. “We humans are still learning, but also ‘relearning.’ It’s an ancient knowledge that we’re trying to bring back.”

Nature’s systems, El-Sayed explained, are about optimization, not just efficiency. “Nature is not trying to solve for one thing. It’s trying to solve for many things,” she said. She points to the example of a beehive. “It might not be the most efficient way to store honey,” she added. “But it is the best space to store honey, lay eggs, and be a home that can strengthen as the population grows. That’s different to how we build our worlds, which are always [made to be] very efficient”.

At Quintosapore, the approach is more is more. Richness and complexity, Alessandro said, are better than uniformity. On the farmer’s latest count, the farm is home to around 1,600 species of plants and fungi, and the brothers continue to opt for more seeds, more varieties—and even more microbes. 

Instead of standard fertilizer, which can run off the land and choke waterways by causing large algae blooms, the Giuggiolis use a solution known as “effective microorganisms,” various liquid blends of  bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. Some studies suggest that EM can improve yields compared with organic fertilizers and may even enhance the flavor of crops. 

Laboratory analysis of Quintosapore’s olive oil suggests that EM could also make crops more nutritious. After the first year of applying it to olive trees, the amount of immune-boosting polyphenols in the olive oil almost doubled. Other studies have questioned whether EM reliably delivers such results, and researchers say more evidence is needed. But at Quintosapore, the farmers say they have seen a difference on the ground.

Insects, too, are welcome. “In every kind of farming, you have to resolve the problem [of parasites and pathogens],” Alessandro said. “But I said to Nic, ‘What if we bring all these problems into the farm, and having all these problems maybe means not having a problem anymore?’ The brothers use no pesticides, organic or synthetic, and say that most insects now largely ignore their crops. 

Meanwhile, the Giuggioli brothers have started using biochar, a carbon-rich form of charcoal produced by heating organic waste in a low-oxygen environment, in their fields. “We didn’t invent anything new,” Alessandro was quick to add. Biochar has been used for thousands of years as a soil amendment, first by Indigenous Amazonian communities. The brothers say that recent analysis of Quintosapore’s soil found that biochar increased bacterial activity and improved water retention enough for the farm to cut irrigation by about 75%.

Alessandro describes Quintosapore’s biomimetic approach as “an umbrella” of older techniques, drawn from regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and biodynamic farming. “We’re mixing and playing with most of the rules of these other approaches,” he said.

El-Sayed describes the brothers’ “umbrella” as part of a long lineage. “Biomimicry as a concept has been with us as humans from the beginning of time,” she said. “We’ve [always] looked at nature to teach us how to do things. It’s not new, just newly defined.” 

The approach runs counter to monocropping, the dominant model of modern agriculture. Endless uniform fields of single green-brown crops now cover 80% of the world’s arable land, and their lack of diversity often brings more pesticide use, less habitat for wildlife, and soil that is increasingly depleted. 

Alessandro says biomimicry can be applied almost anywhere, so long as it adapts to local conditions. “The idea is to create something that is elastic; something that is not dogmatic,” he said. In Northern Europe, for example, tree shade may not be useful in the way it would be in Mexico or Morocco. 

El-Sayed agrees. “The key to biomimicry in agriculture is asking: What ecosystem are you living in and what can that teach you about how to best create food systems in this kind of place? Not food systems just for yourself, but how are you actually supporting the birds and the microbes and the insects?”

This kind of logic, proponents say, creates food systems that are better equipped to survive the forces already bearing down on farmers. Climate change, soil degradation, emerging diseases, trade shocks—these and other unpredictable factors are already putting agricultural workers under massive strain. Farms continue to close in the U.S., and analysts warn of broader declines globally in the coming decades.

Quintosapore—and farms like it—are offering an alternative model. “Biomimetic farming allows the farming technique to be as dynamic as nature is,” Nicola said. Adding trees and biochar, for example, has helped buffer the farm against weather extremes. “We’re creating a sort of self-contained biosphere that is more controlled in terms of climate and rain pattern compared to outside the farm.”

But growing food this way comes with an added cost. Quintosapore’s produce can be more expensive than supermarket vegetables, Nicola said, in part because of the labor required to manage a diversified system. But he argues the price reflects value—especially if the food is more nutrient-dense, as the olive oil analysis suggests. “When you’re hungry, it means your body is craving a certain amount of nutrients,” he said. “You’re not necessarily saving money buying crappy food, because you need to buy three, four times more to feel full.” 

The brothers continue to experiment. They are exploring what is sometimes called “quantum agriculture,” a small but growing area of academic study that has links to many Indigenous practices. And they are sharing their practices—and hard-won lessons—with like-minded farmers across Italy’s Slow Food network. 

As El-Sayed put it, “I think the solution is that all these little farms should become a force together against the much larger industrialized [food system].” It’s a force, she argued, that consumers and governments can help strengthen. “We need to put a lot more of our investment in it—be it money or interest,” she said. “There’s more awareness, but it needs to become organized.”

As agriculture confronts the deepening impacts of climate change, this kind of focused determination may be essential. But so, too, is humility. Humans are, relatively speaking, a young species—much younger than plants that have grown and evolved over many millions of years. “We think human beings are the most intelligent species in the world,” said Alessandro. “But of course it’s not true.”