Provision exists to show that life-serving pathways do exist, not only in theory, but also on the ground.  We are welcoming teachers, artists and actors who strive to recognise and feed the beauty that both individual humans and humanity as a whole are capable of creating. Provision Transylvania is creating living and learning opportunities which contribute to health and wellbeing for planet and people.  Based in a small village at the foothills of the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania, Romania, we offer space for courses, workshops and other events, where the goals include reconnection with self, others, community, food, and nature.  We aim for the upliftment of all.

This year’s retrospective shows that we went above and beyond our own wishes and expectations…. This year, the events we hosted were bigger and more impactful than ever.  The learning was enormous – also in terms of the limits of our own capacity.  

The last two winters here have been warmer than usual.  As we orient toward the weather to establish the rhythm not only of our days, but also the rhythm of the year, we have been missing the deeper rest that a cold, frozen outside world can offer.  After this (extremely dry, yet still surprisingly abundant) summer, we feel hopeful with the cold snaps and snows that have already presented themselves here.  

Sophie Neve and Wouter Reijers

Sophie took office as agriculture counselor at the Dutch Embassy in Bucharest in September 2023. Her deep motivation to support and develop regenerative agriculture in Romania brought her to visit Provision, accompanied by the Honorary Consul of the Dutch consulate in Cluj-Napoca, Wouter Reijers. Time flew on that cold and snowy Friday afternoon in January, while we talked for 3 hours about the Romanian situation and the possibilities and opportunities we all see for bringing regenerative agriculture to the forefront.

As a result of this engaging afternoon, Provision became part of a project that Sophie developed with ALPA and the Dutch Enterprise Agency (RVO), in which the creation of a pilot agroforestry farm in Alunisu is being developed. Lars also joined Sophie in a panel at the ‘Future for Agro-Food Production International Conference in Iasi (April). We are very grateful to Sophie to have taken the efforts to come to Provision, in January and also on a 3 day project mission in November!

Alex Jensen

On his way toward Ladakh, where he works with the Local Futures Movement, Alex came to Provision to participate in and contribute to the Green Silk Road summer school, and to take care of our farm while we were busy with the IIT. It was incredibly helpful and wonderful for us that he could be here and care for the farm while the Provision team was busy with the IIT.  With basically zero experience, he managed to take over the cheese-making operation from scything grass for the goats to milking, to processing!  He also hand-weeded the entire potato field (and sustained his body with the wild amaranth that was growing there!) and came to the IIT to present his work as part of the “Giraffes Around the World” event. Thanking you eternally Alex, for the gift of your service, but also, even more, the gift of your being and friendship.  

With a preparation time of several years, Provision functioned this past July as local coordinator to the organising team, alongside both the national NVC association (ACNV) and the international NVC association (CNVC) for the biggest event we have ever helped to organise: an International Intensive Training (IIT) in NonViolent Communication!, while  Robyn was one of the five international certified NVC trainers, bridging local to global.

This special event took place in our neighboring village of Sancraiu.  All together, there were 85 people from 21 different countries who were directly part of the event: including 73 participants, 3 support trainers, 3 organisers, 5 trainers and 1 assessor.  AND, the whole village was implicated through 11 family-run guesthouses in which the participants were housed.  Provision, alongside DaVincze Tours were the local logistics organisers, and the guests ate food cooked by Dan Todea and his team at the Püspök Panzio.  We chose to help organise this IIT as a strategy that would meet Provision’s need to contribute toward seeding Nonviolence and Agroecology both locally and globally.  We did this by bringing together this group of people who were all interested in sharing and learning together how we wish to continue building more diverse, inclusive and equitable societies that include the needs and care for our more-than-human world as well.  It was not easy to do, and it asked a lot of all.  Among the things we are glad to have accomplished includes sharing material resources through payments to 11 families in Sancraiu.  There was also interaction between the international guests and local villagers with a local dance troupe who  both gave a performance and led us all in dancing together!!

We are also glad to report that, with a lot of extra effort, Lars was able to find agroecological food producers who could provide local and organic products for this event.  It was not at all easy, but in the end, a ton of learning and experience was gained and relationships were surely strengthened on the local level, and also on the global level as well….

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Provision works very closely together with ALPA – Land for Life. ALPA is an organization, based also in Alunisu, which secures agricultural lands for ecological farming and biodiversity protection and is active in our bioregion. Lars is co-founder and executive director of ALPA and spends currently most of his time working on different projects within ALPA. 

Lars: “I believe in the possibility to transform our food systems from global, corporate controlled, poisonous and destructive towards local, community led, regenerative and planet friendly. I believe that we can put a new generation farmers central in the food chain, produce healthy, local food and simultaneously care for the precious life in and above the Earth’s soils. I am excited to be part of an organization like ALPA, which main goal is to be a part of this transition.”

A few of the articles here above and below show Provisions close collaboration with ALPA. Lars also participated and contributed to the International Conference of Agro-Food Production in Iasi and the European Seminar on Agriculture and Biodiversity near Montpellier.

This is the teaser of the ‘Land for Life’ documentary, made by Jeppe van Pruissen and Joris van Egmond from ‘Change the Story’.

Please reach out to us. if you would like to do a community screening of the whole documentary (23′).

From 9 – 12 September, Provision hosted the European Network for Access to Land,  during a working visit to ALPA.

Members from Terre des Liens (France), Agronouten (Germany), ARI (Italy), the Ukrainian Small Farmers Union (AFZU) and the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) were part of the delegation and joined us for three days in exploring the agricultural land situation in our region. We looked at the problems that existing and young small scale farmers are facing with industrial large scale farming taking ever more land and resources. During rich exchanges, ALPA could learn from the experience of the network members, while the visiting members could learn and be inspired by the way ALPA is approaching the question of how to bring more young ecological farmers back to the land and how to integrate this with the  threatened biodiversity rich natural surroundings.

You can read more about the visit here.

The health of land and water are deeply interlinked and the way we use the land directly influences the quality of water systems. Therefore we are very glad to find a partnership in Drinkable Rivers and together look at whole ecosystem dynamics.

This fall, Drinkable Rivers was walking 3 weeks along the Danube river in 3 different regions of Romania. The walk was part of DANUBE4all, a European project involving 48 partner organisations from 14 different countries with the aim to restore freshwater ecosystems in the Danube River Basin. The project seeks to address the lack of knowledge, awareness, and participation of local people and business actors in the implementation of freshwater ecosystem restoration.

Carsten and Lars joined our good friends Li An Phoa and Maarten van der Schaaf from Drinkable Rivers, for a week, following the Danube River as it makes her way through the Delta area into the Black See.

In this small video you can learn how large scale industrial agriculture defines the Delta area landscape, what this means to the local ecosystems and also about a beautiful nature restoration project, bringing back wetlands to the benefit of thousands of species.