Tomaszyn is a small village located in Warmia and Mazury. It consists of ten households and a cooperative. The region is classified as the Green Lungs of Poland and has the lowest population density in the country. There are eight landscape parks in the voivodeship, which shelter natural phenomena on a European scale. It is said to be the Land of a Thousand Lakes.

Tomaszyn has been a farming and prosperous village for many centuries, first written information dating to 1410. However, most of the village buildings were destroyed during World War 2.

The population shrunk to four farms and several vacationers reaching the lowest point in 2017. A year later, the Cooperative Ostoja Natury was formed and settled in Tomaszyn. Ostoja Natury is the ‘agricultural ecosystem of tomorrow’, constituting the reference farm model of the smart village. This organic farm is a closed circuit in which waste is fuel, it produces energy, enables year-round food production, and works more efficiently, ensuring higher yields.

While creating Ostoja Natury, we were inspired by nature’s already existing solutions. Just as in a prehistoric forest – the circuit is everything, waste is non-existent. Our goal is to create an ecosystem designed to provide economic efficiency with minimal influence on the environment. Methods tested over the ages, such as crop rotation, raised seedbeds, home recipes, and many more, are refreshed and implemented, using technological innovations of modern times.

Our cooperative had developed and started the implementation of several strategies in Tomaszyn:

• Ostoja Natury Village 3.0;
• Bio Hub;
• Waste-free, self-sufficient habitat for rural households;
• Passive, rain based, Ost-Oya irrigation system;
• Passive greenhouse.