Iceland review - 2012, Page 50

48 ICELAND REVIEW
The wind whips the grassy
fields in front of the stately
red-and-white farmhouses
at Þorvaldseyri below the
Eyjafjöll mountains in South
Iceland. Nestled in a depression between
the mountains Steinafjall and Lambafell in
the backdrop of the earlier pristine white,
now black-speckled glacier Eyjafjallajökull,
Þorvaldseyri looks the model Icelandic
farm. The barley fields are bare, only yel-
lowish stubs remain, as the grain was hastily
harvested before the first autumn low of the
season hit the country the weekend prior.
“With such a forecast, we just had to go
for it,” explains farmer Ólafur Eggertsson.
“It was a good harvest, even better than
last year. We got 180 tons of barley from
40 hectares.” Devastating as it was at the
time, the ash emitted during the 2010
Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption has now
enriched the soil, making it more fruitful
than even before.
THree GeneraTionS oF
PioneerS
Owned by the same family since 1906,
the residents of Þorvaldseyri have earned a
reputation for being pioneers in agriculture.
When dung and coal were used for cooking
and heating on most farms in Iceland and
electric cables wouldn’t reach the remotest
regions of the country for decades to come,
Ólafur’s grandfather, Ólafur Pálsson, built
a small hydro plant to power the farm in
1928. His son, Eggert Ólafsson, was con-
sidered rather eccentric when he started
growing cereals at Þorvaldseyri in the 1950s;
the Icelandic climate was believed to be
too hostile for such ventures. However,
while predominantly a dairy and cattle
farm, barley has been grown continuously
at Þorvaldseyri since 1960 and, although
still in its infancy, grain farming has start-
ed to spread around the country. Today,
Þorvaldseyri is mostly self-sufficient: a natu-
ral hot spring of 66°C (151°F) is used to
heat the farmhouses and experiments are
being made to run its vehicles on home-
produced biodiesel from rapeseed oil. “We
harvested 15 tons of rapeseed this autumn,
which resulted in 5,000 liters of cooking oil.
Two and a half years after the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull,
life goes on at Þorvaldseyri. The farm became famous when
a haunting picture of the ash cloud hovering above
it appeared on the covers of the world’s major
newspapers. Was it a blessing in disguise?
By Eygló Svala arnarSdóttir
Photos By gEir ólafSSon and courtesy of ólafur EggErtSSon
Ólafur Eggertsson and his wife Guðný A. Valberg in their
visitor center Eyjafjallajökull Erupts.