Tag Archive for: poultry

Monthly Newsletter – Vía Orgánica

For organic regenerative agriculture, fair trade,
social justice, sustainable living and sustainable production 

Ranch news

REGENERATIVE FARM

Poultry

Poultry start their day along with the first rays of the sun at the Regenerative Farm, a diversified model where they live in open-air paddock spaces with extensive land to explore. Their diet is complemented with a mixture of local grains, maguey fodder, wheat sprouts, and insects: mainly grasshoppers, larvae, and June beetle larvae that they find in their pastures. The olive trees, blackberries, mesquites with some agaves and nopales that have recently been included offer shade and a bit of protection from some predators. On one hand, the grasslands that have already been established as a vegetal cover green up in the rains and provide food, fodder, protection, reduce erosion, store water; in the dry season they function as dry cover and also as dry hay that is used as a base layer in the hens’ bedrooms to absorb moisture from their manure. In the end, this material is recycled through compost or bocashi and is reincorporated into the fertilization of trees and other plant species. 

During the winter, the chickens take shelter at night in two sheds and in our two spacious paddocks where they fly around, and when their doors open in the morning they rush out wanting to reach the sun’s rays. This system generates various products such as eggs, meat, fruits, stalks for fodder, biomass, seeds and a microbiological diversity that interacts and remains alive under the cover. 
In this season you can observe the brown colors of the vegetation after the rains have receded but during this season, corn, sunflower and even squash are planted, which are part of the grazing areas and the chickens are in charge of weeding and reducing the grasshoppers’ populations that also arrive with the humidity of the season.

The hens’ management is preventive, the spaces where they sleep are sanitized with vinegar, lime and microorganisms. In their drinking water, a bark of palo dulce is placed, a native tree that keeps its digestive tract clean and prevents infections; homeopathy is also used, and their food made up of local grains, maguey fodder, wheat sprouts and their daily grazing from sunrise to sunset keeps them healthy.
Can you imagine being a poultry and living on this farm? 
These are happy chickens!

Lourdes Guerrero is in charge of this farm and a neighbor of the community. She and her support team are in charge of keeping the farm in action; now they have added a space for the production of rabbits, which we will talk about in another newsletter. Animals can be part of soil regeneration and allies in landscape recovery. 
Visit the regenerative farm and eat free-range meat and eggs!

Packages

This year visit for the first time or return to the Agroecology Park project in the Jalpa Valley in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. Make your own package: you can include delicious food with nixtamalized corn tortillas and fresh, live salads straight from the garden. Experience a guided tour visiting all the areas of the ranch and learn how the farm works. You can choose to stay in one of our adobe cabins and end the day with a campfire at the lookout.

Every weekend we’ve got activities for children where they can plant, feed the animals and even harvest their greens for salad.

This month try a unique experience, explore the regenerative farm and get your free grazing eggs; get to know the new rabbit area and take a photo of our beautiful mural at the end of the regenerative farm.
Remember that your visit supports environmental education and care for the planet. 

Billion Agave Project

How to make layers of mesquite trees


Seasonal Crop

Meet Our Producers

Simón Moreno
Producer of vegetables all year round, Simón also owns a cow barn and has been one of the most constant producers in the rescue of heirloom seeds, obtaining a diversity of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, sweet potatoes and other vegetables. He is one of the first producers to join the organic flea market, a local, rural market, and now supplies to several local stores that already know him; he has kept his commitment to farming in an organic way and improving his soil health. We appreciate his work and invite you to purchase his products at the store located at Vía Orgánica’s entrance.
Thanks to Don Simón we have healthy food and he is an inspiration for the new generations. 

Inspirations

February 2: World Wetlands Day 
Wetlands are transition zones where water connects to land, areas that remain temporarily or permanently flooded. Wetlands are vital for human survival and are among the most diverse and productive ecosystems: they are the cradle of biological diversity, sources of water and primary productivity on which countless plant and animal species depend for their lives. We share this chapter 6 of the series “VIVO MÉXICO”. Tour of the most important Mexican wetlands explaining their ecology; structure and function. Made by Roberto Ruiz Vidal. 

February Activities

March Activities

Every Friday we’ve got transportation to Vía Orgánica 

*Includes transportation, food, mini tour of the orchard, and demonstration of making tamales. 

RESERVE ON THE FOLLOWING PHONES: 

Office: 44 2757 0441
Whatsapp: 41 5151 4978 

DON’T FORGET TO VISIT US!

Remember that we are open from 8 am to 6 pm
Carretera México/ Querétaro, turnoff  to Jalpa, km 9
Agroecological Park Vía Orgánica.
For information on our products, seeds and harvest,
call our store at 442 757 0490.
Every Saturday and Sunday nixtamalized tortilla with Creole and local corn!
Enjoy our sweet and sour kale chips for children and not so children!

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A Guatemalan Immigrant Takes on Big Ag, Seeks to Set Farmers Free by Starting Their Own Chicken Processing Plant in Iowa

NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin crouched over a green tuft one evening in June.

He ran his fingers through a spiky strand and patted the hard dirt. Rain hadn’t fallen in weeks, and he expected to lose about 300 of his new hazelnut trees.

Still, he was upbeat.

“This,” he said, “is my first real chance.”

Haslett-Marroquin sketched his ideal farm 35 years ago, when he studied at an agricultural school in Guatemala. He wanted to build a place where animals and plants fed each other, enriched the soil and pulled carbon from the air.

He wanted to open his own school and spread his vision throughout Guatemala. He wanted small farmers to be able to rely on themselves, to be able to resist contracts with big companies. He believed laborers could earn better wages, and he believed his system would prevent anyone from feeling hungry, like he did.

The plan didn’t pan out as he expected. But Haslett-Marroquin, who immigrated to the United States in 1992, didn’t give up on the idea. In November, he bought 75 acres south of the Twin Cities and is preparing the site to become the farm he has long wanted.

Tree-range Chickens: How Raising Poultry in the Woods of B.C. Could Improve Food Security for Some Communities

Raising chickens in the woods is being touted as a way to help improve the food security of First Nation communities by providing an alternative to dwindling supplies of traditional foods such as moose and salmon.

The Regenerative Poultry Project has already produced 1,500 chickens on a small farm about 150 kilometres northwest of Terrace, B.C., using techniques developed in Guatemala.

The idea is that the chickens are allowed to roam the woods, roosting in trees and foraging for food, mimicking the behaviours of their wild ancestors.

“Chickens actually evolved as a jungle species,” said Kesia Nagata of the non-profit Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, which is helping run the project.

“They feel happiest when covered with a canopy that they can range under. They like to forage for their food, they like to scratch under trees and they like to roost and explore with the protection of a canopy over them.”

The birds aren’t completely on their own, though. They live on the property of Nathan Coombs, a Gitxsan farmer who runs Skeena Valley Farm and cares for the chickens.

KEEP READING ON CBC NEWS

We Can Partner With Nature To Feed Everybody

Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin is transforming the food system from the ground up by introducing poultry-powered, planet-cooling, regenerative agriculture. He talks about the need to rebalance humanity’s relationship with nature with Pip Wheaton, Ashoka’s co-lead of Planet & Climate.

Pip Wheaton: Why do you do this work?

Regionaldo Haslett-Marroquin: I came into this because of people’s suffering. I’m an agronomist; I’m passionate about nature. I believe I understand how nature operates, and how we can be partners with nature to feed everybody. The current system isn’t doing that. As a consequence, the way people live, the quality of people’s lives because of the food they eat, is impacted. Consumers are sick from conventional foods; diet related diseases, diabetes, heart disease. Minorities are more severely affected because of the way food reaches minority communities all around the world. Whether it is indigenous communities in Guatemala and Mexico, or African Americans or Hispanic or other minorities in the United States, or minorities in other countries, they’re the ones at the tail end. The people who hoard are normally able to have access to everything, but it is at the expense of the majority having real scarcity.

KEEP READING ON FORBES

A Regenerative Revolution in the Poultry Industry

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ― As a farmer, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin would tell you himself that he produces nothing. Nature does all the work.

However what Haslett-Marroquin can be credited for is leading a regional deployment of his patented regenerative poultry system, and managing systems development, infrastructure and farms operating under it.

Haslett-Marroquin and the Tree-Range system have turned southeast Minnesota into the epicenter of a budding movement in regenerative agriculture in the Midwest and beyond. The mission of the system is to deploy regenerative poultry at scale in the bordering region southwestern Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa and southeast Minnesota. Haslett-Marroquin said so far what’s been done is the organization of foundational support for the system and its infrastructure.

Fundamental to that infrastructure is deployment of poultry processing. Haslett-Marroquin said after a few years of work, the first poultry processing facility in Stacyville, Iowa, was purchased and is now in the process of becoming operational, with plans to open for processing next year.

KEEP READING ON DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE

How Main Street Project Creates Healthier Farms and Stable Economics for Farmers

Excerpted from “Food Fix,” copyright 2019 by Mark Hyman M.D. Used with permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York.  All rights reserved.

In a room full of cowboy hats, Regi Haslett-Marroquin cuts a contrasting figure. As the native Guatemalan takes the stage to address the hundreds of farmers and ranchers who have gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the 2018 Regenerate conference, his humble brilliance electrifies the room. “We are not food producers,” he says, softly smiling at his paradoxical challenge. “We are energy managers.”

Regi is one of the architects of the Main Street Project (MSP), a poultry-centered regenerative agroforestry system that aims to equip farmers to solve our nation’s food crisis. It’s not enough to just blame Big Ag, he says; we need to create new ways of thinking and doing when it comes to food production.

MSP starts with a regenerative farming model that is built not on a nearsighted drive toward maximum profit, but on a triple bottom line. Agriculture must be ecologically, economically and socially viable.

KEEP READING ON GREENBIZ

Regeneration Guatemala Seeks to Transform Rural Guatemala Agriculture

In 2017, several members of Social Lab Guatemala, an incubator for social business, were inspired to build a national model for regenerative agriculture in Guatemala. Their inspiration led them to strategic partnerships with Regeneration International (RI) Main Street Project (MSP) and ultimately to the formation of Regeneration Guatemala.

Regeneration Guatemala’s mission is to rebuild the deteriorated social, ecological and economic systems in Guatemala by transforming the agricultural landscape through regenerative agriculture and land-use practices, with a focus on Poultry-Centered Regenerative system design.

The organization is off to a strong start. This year, a team of young entrepreneurs, farming cooperatives and rural community members are in the process of establishing five regenerative poultry farms. These five pilot projects form the centerpieces of five regional demonstration models for how to scale regenerative poultry production while simultaneously developing the regional infrastructure needed to grow a national regenerative agriculture industry. 

RI and MSP both played key roles in the launch of Regeneration Guatemala. Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, principal architect of the MSP poultry-centered regenerative agriculture model and an RI founding partner and steering committee member, had this to say about working with the team in Guatemala:

“As a Guatemalan immigrant living mostly in the U.S., but as someone who owes most of my training and professional capacity to the teachings of our elders and our rural community leaders in Guatemala, being able to turn around and bring all of the experience accumulated through years of learning and capacity-building back to Guatemala is really a dream come true. One must not be confused as to what I am bringing back, it is not a foreign idea, it is an idea that was born in Guatemala, in the forest and in the rural communities, which I have been able to further develop with support from people all over the world.”

Haslett-Marroquin says that Regeneration Guatemala is a story of resilience. He explains that the threat to survival caused by the agricultural systems that came out of the “green revolution” can be reversed by reclaiming and adapting traditional and ancient knowledge.

“The answer to poverty and hunger and to developing the capacity of communities to feed themselves, was right there in the communities all along. The time has come to recover what we know, use what we have learned and recall the falsehood of empty promises that corporate factory foods will nourish the world. It is time to engage nature at its best and to unplug from degenerative systems that are destroying our forests and the very ecosystems on which we depend to feed the country.”

Regeneration Guatemala is starting out with five strategically located regenerative poultry projects. But the organization envisions many more as it works to fulfill its long-term vision for achieving high-impact, large-scale change in Guatemala.

A big part of the organization’s commitment involves saving and restoring ancestral knowledge developed and curated by indigenous Mayan cultures throughout the Mesoamerican region. Their practices, production systems and native species have been handed down through generations, and conserved by their descendents, through struggle and resistance. Despite colonization and violence, history and contemporary circumstances make it critical that this ancient knowledge be preserved and put back into practice.

It isn’t just the future of Guatemala that motivates this new organization. By becoming an active contributor to the international regeneration movement, the founders and members of Regeneration Guatemala hope to do their part to help address global warming, feed the country and the world, promote public health and prosperity, and provide the foundation for creating the conditions that ensure global peace and wellbeing.

Stay tuned in for more news from Regeneration Guatemala and the growing regeneration movement around the world by signing up for the RI newsletter here

Tag Archive for: poultry

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