Many believe that there are encoded knowledge and secrets in the masterpieces of genius musicians but they are revealed only through open senses. People say that music can heal but can it help in growing strawberries?

For five years a Bulgarian has been experimenting with playing music to his strawberries. He says the music of Mozart makes strawberries magical.

"We do not use fertilizers, the soil is very clean and the strawberries are very tasty. Music contains the sounds of our planet and it charges the plants.”

According to farmer Ivo Dzhedzherov music helps in achieving harmony with nature. At the beginning, however, he was not looking for the secrets of life in Mozart’s music. He used to be an economist with a promising career in London but one day he realised there were no challenges for him anymore. He followed his intuition and settled in north-western Bulgaria – the poorest region in the EU.

“At that time I did not know anything about agriculture,” Ivo Dzhedzherov says. “A man whom I studied together with in the University of National and World Economy in Sofia told me that there were western companies willing to sign long-term agreements with producers of fruit and vegetables from Eastern Europe. I learned that companies were even ready to finance creation of strawberry plantations.”

Ivo Dzhedzherov chose a field at the foot of the Belogradchik Rocks. His project won European financing and today he has 100 decares of strawberries. He exports his produce to Italy, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, and provides seasonal employment to some 80 local people.

“We have hardly sold any strawberries on the Bulgarian market, as there is no real demand for clean organic production. Traders do not care about the taste of strawberries but only about their price and looks. I decided that there was no point in competing with Greek strawberries as Greek farmers receive subsidies. From the very beginning we decided that we were going to produce organic fruit and nothing else. In the future we plan to sell some of our produce on the Bulgarian market. Currently, we are producing industrial varieties of strawberries which are frozen the day they are picked and then are used for the production of jams abroad."

Living in the country is much different in comparison to the dynamic life in London. Ivo Dzhedzherov spends a lot of time in Sofia but loves returning to his strawberries.

“Here everything is different - there is no hurry or stress. People are more relaxed and genuine; they are not hypocritical or focused on mercantile ideas. Unfortunately, we lose the link with nature in the concrete cities we live in. That is why we feel charged when we spend some time in a village,” he says.

As a kid Ivo Dzhedzherov dreamed of making the world a better place. Well, he has definitely succeeded in making it tastier.

English: Alexander Markov