Rancho Mastatal Blog

Sep 21, 2016 09:34:11

In a small town about 2 1/2 hours from San Jose in Costa Rica, a team of locals and people from all over the world work together to grow, learn, and build.

Rancho Mastatal is home to incredible workshops designed to teach its students to work with what the land has to offer, growing food sustainably with permaculture, building natural structures, and bring food and community back together at the table.

A visit to their site will show an organization that has provided locals with jobs, and people from every walk of life the inspiration and skills they need to start living a different kind of life.

If you can't quite swing a visit to Costa Rica, I'd follow their blog at the very least - they put out about two posts a month, and the writing is inspired and always an enjoyable and informative read. I'll keep this thread updated with their latest goings-on, and please feel free to drop them a word of thanks and encouragement for the work these wonderful people are doing.

You can check out Rancho Mastatal's blog here.

You can read more about their workshops, PDCs, and apprenticeships here

Mar 09, 2016 14:16:18

Rancho Mastatal Sustainability Education Center post a new blog every two weeks. I'd like to begin sharing those here.

Blog Post #1
http://ranchomastatal.com/blognewsletter/2016/1/23/design-consulting-micro-enterprises-business-guilds

Business Guilds and Micro-Enterprise Niches

No one who works at the Ranch expects this to be a lucrative career--that's not why we get up in the morning. But we do recognize the need to earn a living that provides basic resources. . As a small business that routinely puts people and planet above profits, providing for all our team members financially has been a challenge. So we've looked toward permaculture design to inspire us, turn problems into opportunities, , and use nature as our model to find creative financial solutions.

GUILDS AND NICHES

The permaculture concepts of guilds and niches inspired us to create a set of business guilds and niche micro-enterprises. Last year we implemented organizational (invisible) structures that allow and support each Core Team member to pursue their own micro-enterprise. Each of these enterprises is a small business which is independent of the Ranch but still greatly interconnected. This is what Toby Hemenway, in his new book The Permaculture City, refers to as a Business Guild. He defines these “as a set of independent enterprises that are tied together by connections among some of their needs and yields.”

This is a strategy mimicking the plant polyculture guilds we employ in the garden. An intentional grouping of plants can support one another to create better growing conditions or cycling surplus/waste products amongst each other. These enterprises complement and support each other and the existing umbrella organization of the Ranch in this same pattern.

The overall hope is that each micro-enterprise can bring in additional income for Core Team members, while still supporting activities at the Ranch . For instance, if I attract a client (a pollinator) for our design consulting work and they are happy with the outcome (yield), it is highly likely they will visit the Ranch as a guest (positive feedback loop), and perhaps send an employee to get trained in our Permaculture Design Course (yield). All the while I gain more experience as a permaculture designer, and can be a better instructor for our students and apprentices (multiple functions). Everyone wins (supported by multiple elements).

Each of these enterprises fills a niche or opportunity that the larger Ranch organization is unable to take advantage of. In this way, each business shapes the economic micro-climate of the others by attracting more potential clients or customers. In addition, they all share resources, such as our brand and website, store space, farming and workshop tools, and vehicles. These businesses do not compete with each other, but complement and enhance the entire guild by filling different niches.

Current micro-enterprises include:

Forest Fusion Herbal Products

Rancho Mastatal Design/Build Collective

Wood Art, Jewelry, and Cutting Boards

Perennial Tree Crops Nursery

DESIGN CONSULTING

The Rancho Mastatal Design/Build Collective (RMDBC) is a landscape design and natural building consultation service founded by Rachel Jackson, Nic Donati, and myself in 2014. Since then we've slowly been accepting clients and projects around Costa Rica and the globe.

As our website states: We specialize in helping clients find the balance between meeting the needs of the land and accomplishing their own goals. From a quick consultation about edible plants for your home garden, to full scale site analysis and master planning for your property, RMDBC can help you create a productive and beautiful landscape.

Last year we worked in Costa Rica, Panama, and Fiji, providing advice and plans on reforestation efforts, timber plantations, cacao agroforestry, crops for production, and homestead design. We are beginning to accept a limited number of clients for 2016 and are excited about the conversations that are happening already.

We genuinely believe that our work can move projects months if not years ahead by filtering out unnecessary steps and focusing on the strongest leverage points. We treat our services as a farm input that demands a return on investment, and expect that our advice will save our clients money in the medium and long run. In particular we love talking through landscapes and possibilities with clients, and using our experience as a sieve to arrive at that perfect plan between our subjective goals and the objective lay of the land.

RMDBC consultation work helps further the overall mission of the Ranch as an educational facility by broadening our experience and reach. It also supports and is supported by the other Ranch micro-businesses: at the Ranch clients can see and purchase clear examples of high quality products like medicinal salves, spices, teas, coffee, and hand crafted wood products that are all made from plants grown locally or from out own agroforestry systems. This demonstrates the full circle of our work, from design and implementation to final product.

RIGHT LIVELIHOOD

Our hope in creating these invisible structures and enterprises, is that all our Core Team members are able to complement and enhance their earnings from the main Rancho Mastatal business. This diversity of economic opportunities is a safety net for our livelihoods. While hardly unique to permaculture, all of the concepts we are exploring fit eloquently with the principals of permaculture: “diversity is dynamic stability;” “support important functions with many elements;” and “creative problem solving” can all be applied to both tangible and intangible challenges. Taking these principals out of the physical realm and into the social and economic domains will be one of the great opportunities for our team as we seek to strengthen our financial livelihoods in the years ahead.

We continue to put permaculture into practice at Rancho Mastatal and if you'd like to learn more about how we do so, consider joining us for our upcoming Permaculture Design Certification course this April 17th, 2016!

Scott Gallant

Sep 22, 2016 00:03:48

Some beautiful writing from Laura Killingbeck in the latest blog post from Rancho Mastatal:

Food, Familiar Stranger

A look at how far modern society has come from the origins of its food, and what it takes to reconnect with the everyday parts of our lives.

Sep 26, 2016 11:54:26

My family first visited Rancho Mastatal ten years ago and we're so happy to see them growing and growing and... you get the idea. The buildings are all beautiful natural building projects that radiate love. The team is dedicated, and has involved and benefitted the tiny mountain community where they are located immensely and always after asking first what the community wants. A great place to work, relax, learn; take outdoor showers, use three-sided composting toilets with the best views anywhere, and visit La Cangreja national park.

Oct 02, 2016 22:38:09

Another beautiful post from the Rancho Mastatal blog:

The Peace in Knowing Yeast: How to Brew Your Own Ginger Beer

Oct 19, 2016 06:13:47

Making Microbes: Fungal vs Bacterial Soil Life

Nov 06, 2016 07:44:17

The latest blog post from Rancho Mastatal:
Non-Traditional Education: Reconnecting to our Roots

Nov 22, 2016 14:15:16

The latest post from the Rancho Mastatal blog:

Farm to Table Tales

Dec 11, 2016 06:02:41

The latest post from the Rancho Mastatal blog:

No Pickup, No Problem: Social Capital Trumps a Shitty Situation

Dec 20, 2016 06:27:47

The latest post from the Rancho Mastatal blog:

Help Improve Workshop Access for Central Americans

Jan 08, 2017 05:41:08

The latest blog post from Rancho Mastatal:

Top Ten Tips for the New Apprentices

You guys haven't done this much, have ya? I suggest you study this tiny ad:

The new purple deck of permaculture playing cards

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/garden-cards

Sepp Holzer Desert or Paradise Documentary