Posada Mirolindo

Quito, Ecuador

An Overview Of Our Solution

We own a property located in a rural area called Yaruquí; all the surrounding areas used to be occupied by indigenous people with good knowledge about environmentally friendly farming practices, nevertheless, with the increasing agrochemicals use, all this knowledge has been lost and young people are emigrating to the city to “get better opportunities” leading to a decreasing empowerment, at the same time people in the city is disconnected form nature, creating a disruption between city and countryside. We started a Permaculture Project 1,5 years ago at my parents property where we have a small B&B managed by my sister since 4 years ago, we are joining the two projects in one. We are looking forward to create awareness about sustainable tourism and living within an agroecologically productive ecosystem that would re-empower local farmers.

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

individual

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Grasslands

Population impacted

30 people

Size of agricultural area

2,5 ha

Production quantity

10 kilos

People employed

8 people

Describe your solution

Many years ago a friend of mine was developing a project with a community in the Amazon focused to move from agrochemicals to organic, I volunteered in this project going to the community and sharing with them and, as my friend says, “learning by doing”, this is how I started to learn about organic agriculture. Then I got crazy about recycling and composting, I did it at home in the city; also, I got the opportunity to do the Permaculture Design Course at the Permaculture Research Institute in Australia and I have visited some other organic farms that have taken me into the organic world. From all this experiences I started my own project believing that organic is the only ways food has to be produced, working with the nature instead of against it. When I started my project the first thing I did was compost to recover the soil, and I also have taught some neighbors how to do that, now I have learnt how to deal with insects and fungus in a way that doesn’t affect nature and humans, and I am in my way to learn much more such as making workshops open to the community so they can do the same and then hopefully the area can be in better conditions. Since I started the project I have seen how the birds and insects are coming back to the property, it is amazing, and I still have much more to go. Finally, there is a creek next to the property that is in not so good conditions, so in the future I am looking forward to make a creek recover program with the community

Describe your implementation

My project is a small permaculture farm that shows that sustainable living is a real option, working with nature instead of against it to produce healthy food at a harmonious place being self-sufficient and empowered farmers (especially women). Also it shows elements that can be done in cities like the gardens built under different kind of principles to make them efficient expecting to be replicable in urban areas. We are in the need to build a workshop center to open the door to education in the farm, so we can do workshops about sustainable living, where people from the city and from the community can come to share and learn all together as a process to reconnect them. We have our animals (cow, donkey, lama, chickens, sheep and dogs) in the system, we have created crops and planted 250 trees in the food forest that have allowed to many birds and insects to come back to the property, also we prepare our own natural fertilizers and organic pesticides, it is amazing how it has been changing even though it is not a big area, but it shows the importance of not using agrochemicals. As people from the area started to use a lot of pesticides since 10 years ago, it is very necessary to show them why it is not the best option by a real project were they can see and feel the difference. The biggest obstacle that we are facing is the economic one, because in the beginning it is necessary to have a good capital to invest, we are facing it with the B&B but is not enough to develop the farm, so we are trying to get founds and also we are selling products from the farm.

External connections

We are in the process to find key partners, for now they are the markets where we can sell our products, but as we are starting our production, we have a fluctuating relationship with them, we are looking forward stablish long relationship with them in the future. Also we are connected with a citizen initiative named Ecoescuela María Auxiliadora (Eco-school) focused in responsible consumption and organic food production in the city. Our stakeholders are in first place our workers, who are local people which mean local families that are related with the development of the project. Also we have the neighbors who are witnessing the improvement of the land conditions and are interested in how it is possible to reach, they learn from us and we learn from them because they have a good knowledge about agriculture. There are also the people from the city who visit the project constantly to see how it works and to learn what they can do at their places; we have planted 100 trees with them. Finally, we also have the consumers who buy our products and some of them come to see how the food is produced.

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

I would love to quote the WWF “Unsustainable agricultural and aquaculture practices present the greatest immediate threat to species and ecosystems around the world” to show what challenge we are targeting. Even though this is a small project, we want to be a learning center where people can share knowledge about sustainable agriculture contributing to change the harmful agricultural practices at other places. We are planting diverse plants including endemics, to bring back the insects and birds and the life in the soil (microorganisms variety) while producing healthy food under the Permaculture ethics, care of land, care of people and return of surplus. We also want to re-empower the farmers to reduce the emigration to the cities by experiencing in this project what they can replicate at their farms, hopefully they would stay in the countryside doing what they have been doing for edges, producing food, and maybe some knowledge from our ancestors can come back to the farming practices

Describe the context in which you are operating

The project is located in Yaruquí, the rural area of Quito. This area shows a double percent of the population and housing growth comparing with Quito in the last 10 years but the social context has being changing ; it used to be agroindustrially developed, specifically flowers production and poultry farms, both with a high use of agrochemicals; local people say that it was not like that 20 years ago, when people use to have a variety of animals and crops. Going further, since the new airport the area is being more industrialized and farmers are changing to other jobs or going to Quito, leading to abandoned farms that are mainly rented to the big producers (agroindustry). There are 20 educative institutions (school and high school) but no Universities; the students’ number has been decreasing in the last 5 years and most of them only finish the high school. There is one hospital with 40 beds capacity. The poverty level has been reduced in the last 20 years. There is a need for a planned development in this area with a sustainable perspective creating resilience for the community. There is a group of people in the area (including us) that is expecting to collaborate all together to reach a sustainable development and re-empowerment of the community.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

We haven’t done a scientific research about species abundance but I consider that the most evident impact is the birds, they are coming back to the property and as we plant more trees and built the fish ponds, there are more birds around. The species that we have seen more (simple observation method) in the property are: Pseudoleistes guirahuro, Pyrocephalus rubinus, Falco sparverius, Spinus spinescens, Colibri coruscans, Eriocnemis nigrivestis (endemic), Hirundo rustica, Ardea alba.Aditionally and also in relation with the fish ponds we could notice by the night sounds that the frogs are also coming back, since the beginning of the project this is the first normal winter (rainy season) that we have because the past year was very dry but at night there was almost no frog sounds, now you can hear that easily in the property, we haven’t identify them but maybe they are Gastrothecariobambae. There are also many insects back due to the flowers planted in the gardens, those are mainly beneficial insects such as ladybugs, bees and Green lacewings. The soil biodiversity has been improved as we are using compost, bocashi and efficient microorganisms to produce. Finally we have been planting many native shrubs and trees from the families: cactaceae, fabaceae, lamiaceae, mrtaceae, rosaceae and asteraceae.

Language(s)

Spanish

Water

We use rain water to infiltrate into the soil, using it instead of creating erosion while running through the soil. We also keep rain water from roofs which we use for irrigation and organic fertilizers preparation. As we do not use urea or inorganic nitrogenous based fertilizers, they do not run off to water bodies contributing with the reduction of eutrophication.

Food Security/Nutrition

We show people how to produce their own food as much as they can and we want to show an agricultural system that can be sustained in the long term, unlike the current agro-industrialized processes, and show an option to feed humanity in a long term while improving the environmental conditions. Food security is not just about the amount of food, it is also about food access and its nutritional content, so we work with organic fertilizers to provide local markets healthy, varied and nutritive food

Economic/Sustainable Development

This project is focused to be cost efficient due to the use of local sources, like for example with the manure from the animals in the farm plus the organic wastes and some green material we produce our fertilizer avoiding to buy artificial ones at the commercial houses. We promote soil fertility and biodiversity (including native species), which is the clue for the ecologically development of the area and the conservation awareness. One of our principles is to consume as much local as we can to

Climate

We do not use industrialized agrochemicals which are mostly fossil fuels based and use a lot of energy in their production and the 90% (excluding used toilet paper) of our organic wastes are composted and recycled instead of going to the landfill, reducing GHG emissions. We recycle plastic, cans and glass that are industrially re-processed reducing the raw material production and its related energy consumption. We are planting trees that will absorb the CO2.

Sustainability

The permaculture project relies for now on the B&B economic surplus and it is looking forward to relies on the sale of the surplus of organic products and the workshop activities. It also relies on my parents and I personal investment when needed.

Return on investment

Until now we have invested around $8.000,00 USD and still need to invest in building some infrastructure and implementing some systems, nevertheless the farm started to work. We are still in the investment period, so the results reached to the date are not covering the investment they are more focused to daily expenses. The time to recover the investment would be at least 5 years when the food forest stars to produce.

Entrant Image

How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

I have been writing my experience in developing the project, which can be a good tool in case of replicating it somewhere else, it would help to avoid some mistakes. There are many big and small permaculture farms all over The World that can be visited, but it is always important to analyze the local natural patterns, social and economic context, and the owner(s) perspective. The funding required would depend on the scale of the project; to create from nothing a small permaculture project as mine it would cost at least 30.000,00 plus the cost of the land, and a two year period to start with the working system after many necessary mistakes and learning from someone’s else mistakes, so it is important to keep contact with other projects. The key stakeholders and partner be in the first place the local community. It would be interested to have in advance some knowledge about permaculture and organic farming but then the knowledge will come while developing the project.

Overview