Hi Permies,
We're located in La Mesa, Cundinamarca, Colombia and we're in the process of setting up a fully functional
permaculture farm as an educational center. We're now about one and a half year into the process and things are starting to shape up.
Initially our aim was to become a PRI master plan site, but their approach does not seem to match with ours, which is much more step by step wise in implementing things, further observation and feedback loops to achieve a result together with nature than their main focus of gathering lots of info at once and then stamping out a complete design.
Our first year here was mostly trial and error, getting to know the farm, cutting through the dense regrowth, surviving the dry months with an absolute lack of
water, digging the first dams and swales, etc. In this second year the focus is on bringing in animals to help with the rehabilitation of the soils. We recently brought in our second group of pigs, who are helping us tear up a part of
land that will be seeded as pasture for a subsequent groups of pigs. It will become a rotational system, where they will move to a new field every few weeks. After our pigs setup is finished we plan to start
rabbits in another area.
The farm's main tree product at the moment is mangoes, but their value on the
local market is too low to bring in sufficient income. We're actually better off feeding them to the pigs instead of packing them in crates and bringing them to town. We have started to add cacao to have a more secure income stream from that in the future. Apart from the cacao we'll also keep adding any productive tree we can get seeds of, in smaller numbers, to provide for our own needs.
We're at a point now that it becomes interesting to show people around the property, to show the systems that are in place and the things we're working on. Also to have interns who want to
experience what setting up a
permaculture farm from scratch looks like. Anyone from anywhere who is interested can contact me. I would also be more than happy to post more on things we did and are currently busy with. We would very much like to meet up with anyone else in the area around Bogota who have their own
permaculture place.
I hope that was a sufficient introduction. I'm looking forward to more contacts with people involved in their own
permaculture projects.
Rene