La Loma Viva (The Living Hill) is a non-profit Foundation and 15-hectare farm on the coast of Granada, southern Spain. It lies on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. La Loma Viva is adapting the Syntropic Farming practice of Ernst Gotsch in a Mediterranean/ semi-arid climate setting.
In Brazil, Ernst successfully demonstrated that degraded land can be rehabilitated into abundant, edible forest systems, with multiple ecological benefits. This is a radical new approach to farming, using natural processes to create “agro-ecosystems”. Through the application of this method, we have notable changes to our soil, decreased water inputs and we are creating a veritable oasis for many forms of life in a severely dry and degraded landscape. La Loma are founding members of the TERRA Network, an international group of Syntropic farming practitioners dedicated to providing high-quality education, consulting and mentoring services.
Many farms and landscapes have been highly degraded by thousands of years of extractive agriculture, pushing soils and ecosystems beyond their capacity to self-regenerate. When working with such environments, we must first focus on building the system’s health, and then abundance and production will emerge as a natural overflow of that regenerated system. Syntropic farming is therefore a radical approach to farming, one that asks us to see the land as a living being, with its own intrinsic capacity for regeneration. Our human role is to facilitate intelligent interventions, using different forms and functions of vegetation, to speed up that process. Multiple layers of densely stacked trees, perennial and annual plants are implemented together, to create forest-like systems, designed to maximise photosynthesis and biomass production. Appropriate species of plants and trees are chosen and planted according to the two main principles of – occupying different strata (Space) and according to their dynamics of succession (Time). This design, along with selective pruning and management, produces a regenerative farming strategy, creating productive and beautiful agro-ecosystems – yielding multiple useful products such as food, fodder, timber, medicine and much more, along with providing essential ecosystem services, like improving soil conditions, increasing biodiversity and regulating the water cycle. In this way, we are able to transform degraded landscapes into potentially climate changing forested farms with environmental, social and economic benefits.
Homepage: http://www.lalomaviva.com/
e-mail: admin@laloma.com
