how you people find a company?

I would be happy to start a project here in Czech republic at my small farm and fields but am only me. (Why I am on the international forum? because it gives me more free spirit somehow) and the question is: how people with a project in head find company to realise it (if no family around)?

Welcome to The Forum. I'm sure if you stick around here for a while you will find that there are other people in Europe and other people in your own country with similar interests. Write out an introduction for yourself in the introductions section and explain where you live and some things about your projects.

But this place can be a very good resource for everyone no matter where in the world we are. I have met many people from different parts of the world while on this forum. And it doesn't matter that we are far apart.

Dashi,

It's good to hear you have some land and want to do good things with it!


Two things:

1. I assume, since you have a farm, you know what you're doing. But if you're new to permaculture, then you need to start by educating yourself. If you want to get people to join you, then you will need to know what you're talking. If you cannot get to or pay for a Permaculture Design Course, you can learn LOTS on the internet; watch videos on youtube of people doing permaculture farms, watch videos and download resources by Permaculture practitioners like Paul Wheaton, Geoff Lawton, or perhaps more for your climate, Sepp Holzer. If you would like one book then the classic is "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual" by Bill Mollison. Actually, start with that.

2. Start a community garden. It's a great way to find people in your area who are interested living off the land. If there is a school nearby, offer to facilitate a school garden for the kids to learn and grow stuff. Pretty soon you'll meet people who would like to go further and get involved on your farm.

thank you both, Dale, Nathanael,
I read your reaction with all my attention.
Discovered that way of land cultivating a month ago on a conference in Kyiv, "permaculture for academia" and the content drew my interest. I am conventional farmer and don't have any education in agriculture unfortunatly. however I am deeply rooted because of my ancestors.
Through that conference i get in contact with a teacher of permaculture techniques at a university in Brno and will join if only there is enough students and will open class.
I have around me farmers with minimum 1000ha and agriculture in CZ is still misshapen because of collectivization. Here, I never saw fields cultivated in permaculture way. we do have some permaculture centres mostly educational. practical on smaller area.
my most present concern is dryness. how to keep soil moist longer - mostly in spring.

why I am saying this here? sorry, I refine my thoughts, to find out what I want exactly...

Welcome Dashi Dahl.

This is a wonderful place to learn by reading, asking questions and answering questions.

Your focus on the soil in my opinion is spot on. It is the foundation and where we have to start.
Plants mostly want minerals that is dissolved in the water in the soil that they can 'filter out' and use, not so much a need for the actual water itself.

To improve the soil aka mineral uptake(bioavailability) and water level I recommend adding/doing the following:
1) Earthworks: swales/ditches on contour that slows down the rainfall water ... so that it soaks in.
2) Forest Litter: add alot of woodchip/leaf litter/straw/biochar ... these ask like sponge loosely holding water for the roots
3) Soil Life: most fungi will trade minerals to plants in exchange for sugar. And good bacteria will kill soil pest (bad bacteria)
4) Natural Fertilizers: Rockdust/Sea90/Compost/Lime/etc
5) Cover Crop: 80% Legumes and 10% Mint/Thyme Family & Garlic/Onion Family & Carrot/Dill Family, 10% Daikon Radish & other weeds.

Now can you confirm that your farm is over 1,000 hectares (2,000acres), is this correct?
Are you trying to covert all of that into a mix species farm. with multiple harvest time?

thanks for having me:)
Bengi, it is all in hectars. i cultivate 100ha but companies around me 1000+ha. so i am rather small in my region but throughout republic it is avarege (120ha). Agriculture in CZ is deformed and not pleasant. i am conventional asi I said, big machines, industrial fertilizers, all kind of pesticide. i cannot jump into perma 100%, but slowly, step by step, start with more organic material maybe. do you know any perma farm on similar area?

Sounds to me like you want to start with what they call "bio-dynamic farming." If involves no-till, cover crops, and increased crop rotation. You could go onto Czech language google and search for "biodynamic farming in the Czech republic" to see what other people are doing in your country.

Here is a small article on biodynamic sheep and vegetable farming in your country. If you search their names and farms you will likely find websites and forums in your language that will also be helpful.

this sunday I go meet some perma souls.
My problem: not thousand people around, simpliest way of farming, no animals
i dont think I will be able to get rid of pesticide
that decision would mean to buy new machines, everything start here with tilling in automne, right now.
my experience: a lot of academic talking but when I say I need help, sorry, no time. (well not true, wanna help somehow but i am inconsistent, indecisive, suspicious etc.)
will see

Can you list what you are currently have 'growing' on your 100ha(200acre) farm.
You mentioned that other permies near to you aren't 'growing' animals so please include the type and amount of animals that you have.

Next can you state how you would like you farm to look in 3yrs

And finally if you had enough time, money, equipment and people, describe how your dream farm would look.
You can draw something on paper and add it to your post too.

Have you looked into silvopasture. I like to describe it as 10ft(3m) wide hedgerow followed by 40ft(14m) pasture.
You can also replace some or all of the 'pasture' with vegetable garden for sale. Each one of these 40ft garden can even be 'mono-culture'.
It is also possible for you to add ponds.

obviously i haven't understood yet completely how holistic is permaculture. I thought: something similar to the way how our ancestors have lived hand in hand with nature but it is not correct. It is much progressive way. Not so simple to connect all those natural aspects to the profit of the human being.
There is realy educated  people on how to do a circle from sun through soil to human? I would like to meet those.

ad S Bengi) from impressionism to realism, how to do that step?, you are right I have to think more to future, I live just present time.
no matters years ahead I want something international. have fun, meeting, support, educational point,  simple permacultural business, involve elderly

farm now) reconstruction not finished. I am not living there. (I should...all would be easier)
no animals at my farm or even around, it was a strange EU policy toward CZ (maybe only us) based on decreasing financial subventions support to breeding animals and here we stoped breeding and demolish old cawshed and similar (missing words for pigs, chickens etc.) Slowly starting again a few years ago but not around me. EIA and all other bureaucracy...
i grow rapeseed, wheat, Dinkel (auf deutsch), soya, barley, poppyseed. 2 hectars pasture I sow it  even on a very good soil becasue the erosion started to be a nightmare

well. meeting a good company will be a good start for the deal with nature, I am working on it... (because just myself i am not enough consistent and focused, I admire people who have self discipline, I don't)

I think you may just need a little confidence. My farm is bigger than yours and yet I manage it all by myself. My wife helps out when she can, but she works a full-time job now, so that is very limited. It really is only me.

Sometimes projects look so big, but after I get started, the steps just fall into place, and they are soon done. In fact, at times like this...at the end of the year, I look back upon all that has been accomplished and just marvel. When I look back 11 years ago when I started this farm on my own, so much has changed. It is so much better. Bigger fields, more fencing. Livestock. Roads...all that has been added.

How? By just taking on one big project a year. Yes some smaller ones too, but by not taking on too much, I do not get overwhelmed.

The greatest point of being overwhelmed? Before starting. My advice, just start, by yourself, and use your own morals as a guide. 19 out of 20 people will say your idea will never work anyway, so why seek them out? After that forward momentum just keeps you going. Again, at the mid-way point you will be discouraged, everyone is, even the most ambitious, highly energetic men of history, because when you see what had to take place to get to the midway point, and yet there is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more to do, it is overwhelming. But knowing that, press on, save a little ambition for the end, and the project is done.


That builds character
That builds integrity
That builds confidence to tackle an even bigger job

thank you Travis, as I said some people have gift to be able concentrate and focus and finish. (seems like you are) I have ability to start a lot of things but never finish.
project for winter: manage a place on farm to live/meet/accomodate myself and others.
so I could invite advisors and here we go.

dashi dahl wrote:thank you Travis, as I said some people have gift to be able concentrate and focus and finish. (seems like you are) I have ability to start a lot of things but never finish.
project for winter: manage a place on farm to live/meet/accomodate myself and others.
so I could invite advisors and here we go.

Oh my dear friend, I am a lot like that in many regards too. It really gets hard in the middle of a project not to be discouraged, in fact we all get that way. It is part of the journey really, seeing how far we have come, and yet how far we have to go still.

I do have a bit of experience with international agriculture, and do wonder if you have reached out to others? I know in my case it was faith-based help in agriculture, and while it was in Moldova, that mission has people on the ground in that country, 365 days a year, as well as influxes of people throughout the year to advise, help and fund sustainable farming. A lot of the funding came about because of the way loans were structured in Moldova that were just not workable by farmers.

Another great resource is General Mills and their international agricultural programs.

S Bengi wrote:
To improve the soil aka mineral uptake(bioavailability) and water level I recommend adding/doing the following:
1) Earthworks: swales/ditches on contour that slows down the rainfall water ... so that it soaks in.
2) Forest Litter: add alot of woodchip/leaf litter/straw/biochar ... these act like sponge loosely holding water+mineral for the roots
3) Soil Life: most fungi will trade minerals to plants in exchange for sugar. And good bacteria will kill soil pest (bad bacteria)
4) Natural Fertilizers: Rockdust/Sea90/Compost/Lime/etc
5) Cover Crop: 80% Legumes and 10% Mint/Thyme Family & Garlic/Onion Family & Carrot/Dill Family, 10% Daikon Radish & other weeds.

I have two recommendation.
A) Don't start transforming all 100acres, only transform/permaculture the 1 hectare(2.2acres) around the living quarters/house.
   Use the steps quoted above to improve/transform the 1hectare soil.
   Then plant your kitchen vegetable garden, then your herb garden, the mixed orchard (nuts tree right next to berries shrubs, herbs, dwarf fruit trees, etc)

B) For the entire 100acre:
   I would get pencil, paper and create a design for what you would like the 'new permaculture farm' to look like.
   Take a picture of the design and share it with us, and ask for some comments/feedback
   The 2nd thing would be to mark out all the swales on the farm, and then have a paid bulldozer come and dig all those swales.
   3rd, add your lime/fertilizer/rockdust and such to the farm
   4th add carbon to the farm, e.g. straw, woodchip, biochar, etc
   5th Create hedgerows/silvopasture with fruit and nut trees
   6th For the actual crops that you will sell, do rotational planting and winter cover crop

You also mentioned that currently you have soil erosion problem, and by extension soil fertility problem.
Adding swales to slow down, stop and spread the erosion water will help.
The swales will even catch the rich fertile erosion soil that is trying to leave your farm.
Covering up the soil and not leaving it bare and naked will help.
So add cover crops help alot, or even just a layer of straw/woodchip.
I love the fact that you are already growing stuff to help with the soil erosion.

2 very precious help-lines that i have to progress, you presented and thank you, S Bengi and Travis. Soil care and developing social circle and this is exactly what I want and connect in one.

ad Travis) is your familly farm doing also some educational or community programmes? are people interested? your farm more than 100ha is permaculture only? wow
i have been thinking to join existing agro-perma-net as a franchise.
No. I have never been as a helper in agriculture somewhere out of CZ. as I said I am living present time and before taking charge of the farm I was not thinking about it.

At the conference in UA two month ago I met people there and we are in contact (hope it will bring some fruits), very kind, net and willing to work hard. (not what you will see in my country anymore) I am worried now that their neighbors love their fertile land too much and will change the historical borders, nothing new. yes i mean their neighbor  russia. (sorry it is politic but asa citizen of post kommunist country I am still vry sensible to eastern manners)

ad S Bengi) as i said I read your advise full of care, it all makes sense and will go your steps.
organic material is my savior. I just heard recently about that radish it is new using as cover crop, right?
I never heard about rockdust, it makes ph more alcalic?
thanks for all, very appreciated