From Teaching to Full-Time Farming 

Before planting a single seed as a farmer, Ionuț Bădică built the educational infrastructure for a regenerative Romania. “My journey into regenerative farming began long before I started working the land full-time,” he reminisces. 

He founded the Permaculture Research Institute of Romania, coordinated Grădinescu, the largest network of urban community gardens in the country, and co-developed the first accredited permaculture university course in Europe. 

“Working side by side with mentors, experimenting with designs, observing seasonal changes and adjusting according to the land's feedback shaped my practical understanding far more than books ever could”, he says. “These experiences taught me how food systems shape communities and how gardens can rebuild social connection and ecological awareness.”

At a certain point, theory was no longer enough. “I reached a point where I needed to fully live the values I had been teaching”, Ionuț reflects. “I entered regenerative farming: through study, community work, European cooperation, and finally the decision to root my life and knowledge in the land itself.”

Learning to Listen to the Land

In 2021, Ionuț and his team of four, took over a 6-hectare plot in Vlădeni, a two-hour drive from Romania's capital, Bucharest. The farm sits at the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, sheltered by forest and the Provița river, within sight of a bison reserve. The plot he said yes to was the ultimate test: compacted soil, low organic matter, almost entirely without earthworms. “The land felt drained”, he recalls, “like a body running on its last reserves.”

Before taking any action to regenerate, Ionuț spent months observing and listening to the land’s water patterns, dominant winds, indicator plants, and how it shifted in the seasons. These slow, humble observations became the team’s compass. They divided the farm into zones based on soil quality. Where the soil was severely degraded, they made a clear decision: no production until true regeneration happens. Those plots entered long-term recovery, and some of them are still regenerating today even after five years. “Healing takes time and rushing the process only sets you back,” Ionuț insists.

Sol și Suflet manages 38 planting schedules and 38 harvest windows simultaneously, a fundamentally different business model from the monocultures that dominate Romanian agriculture. 

Training Farmers Inside a Real Business

Sol și Suflet sits within the Permaculture Research Institute of Romania, the organization Ionuț founded, making it as much a research project as a business. 

From the beginning, every action at Sol și Suflet has been tracked, tested and documented so that it can be replicated. Every crop, every soil test, every documented method feeds back into a growing body of knowledge for future farmers across the region. “Regeneration requires slow, consistent effort”, Ionuț adds: “building soil, training people, strengthening partnerships, and documenting our methods are all part of enabling more farmers to follow in this path.” 

For Ionuț, joining Top 50 Farmers is an extension of the same instinct: find the people, tools and networks that can help take what works here and spread it further.

So far, over 350 volunteers and 12 long-term interns have lived and worked at Sol și Suflet, learning not in a classroom, but inside a functioning business. “Future farmers”, Ionuț believes, “need to collaborate with entrepreneurs, with farm managers, with peers, and to feel the pressure of how it is to run a farm. To grow this movement, regenerative farming needs to be visible, practical and accessible to anyone willing to learn.”

Giving Romanians a Reason to Stay

The Sol și Suflet campus is expanding: apprenticeships, internships, leadership residencies and specialized courses in soil biology and regenerative entrepreneurship.

A former intern has already launched their own farm. A cooperative network is in development. The Sol și Suflet Production Standard is being built as a regenerative organic certification for Eastern Europe, a model designed to be copied instead of protected. 

Ionuț explains “Romania is a country of exodus. Young people leave because they cannot see a future at home”. That is what he is trying to solve. “I see Sol și Suflet becoming the heart of a regenerative village model where agriculture, education, culture, and social life weave together. A village where young people see a future for themselves and don't have to leave Romania to live a meaningful life."

What sets Ionuț apart is the bridge he has built between teaching and doing. After founding networks, university curricula and community organisations across Romania, he walked onto exhausted land and brought every principle he had ever taught to life. 

His instinct has always been replicability: documenting what works, so others don't have to start from scratch, pioneering a path so the next farmer finds it easier to follow. Sol și Suflet began as a farm. It is becoming a civic project.