Our Permaculture design that will be implement for the 400 hectares of land is based on the following principles:
- Care for the earth
- Care for the people
- Return of surplus -Take full responsibility for our lives and cooperate.
Our proposal is to be self-sufficient and in this sense the majority of the products we will offer will correspond to the farm surplus production and a line of products of excellence. We aspire to become a regional reference in terms of permaculture project by applying all the principles and by producing surplus. Moreover, by its nature, for being a project of social transformation, it is important for us to think about the economic activity generated from criteria that are based on the form of support, transmission and distribution of our experience and production. An interesting model that will be adapted to Granada and Andalusia reality is the non-profit organisation “Equiterre” in the province of Quebec, Canada, with over 20 years of experience:
“Equiterre’s mission is to help building a social movement by encouraging individuals, organisations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity. We see the everyday choices we all make – food, transportation, housing, gardening, shopping – as an opportunity to change the world, one step at a time. Our consulting, awareness-raising and research projects offer concrete solutions to promote human and environmental health, social justice and community development at home and abroad. We also advocate publicly on environmental and social issues, encouraging decision makers to adopt laws and practices that will contribute to a society that is sustainable and fair[1]“.
Examples of their projects are:
– Food: Family farmers network. A food supply network for organizations and public schools, and local healthy food program in families.
– Transport: Promoting sustainable transportation
– Housing: Home energy efficiency, Sustainable building
– Gardening: Ecological horticulture at the household level
– Shopping: Responsible consumption, Fair trade
These activities will enable us to reach a wider audience with our integral education program, to distribute our agricultural surplus production, as well as to regroup Granada organic farmers to have a greater impact on consumers and on the regional market.
[1] http://www.equiterre.org/en
The geographical area to be covered with the production of vegetables, herbs, fruits, nuts, forest foods, dairy, meat, eggs, honey is the city of Granada with 239.017 habitants and its metropolitan area of 33 municipalities (without Granada city) with a population of 290.661 habitants in 2013[1].
The segments of the population we aimed at supplying are primary and secondary schools and university, as well as residential care homes. In the city there are 104 preschools and primary schools, divided between private and public schools and 69 secondary schools. People under age 20 accounted for 19% of the total population in 2010, or approximately 45 413 people[2]. In the city of Granada there were 9 residential care homes registered in 2014 and 14 in the metropolitan area[3].
[1] http://www.anuarioeco.lacaixa.comunicacions.com/java/X
[2] http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granada#Demograf.C3.ADa
[3] http://goo.gl/TiDlRZ
We will produce and sell native and non-native organic seeds adapted to climate change and small shrubs and trees. Considering our 400 hectares of estate, it is an easy production to perform and represents an interesting income.
The potential market for sustainable building materials will be offered at national level, in a first phase. The demand for these products being still little known regionally it requires extending our initial customers scope. Our aim is to sensitise the population to the importance of choosing natural building materials for the health of their household. The reform and rehabilitation trend associated with buildings energy efficiency creates increasing demand for natural building materials.
We intend to produce the following supplies:
– Structural Materials
Earth: adobe, compressed stabilised earth blocks, etc.
Wood: solid or panels.
– Insulation Materials
Vegetable fibres: hemp, wood, flax, cotton, straw, etc.
Animal fibres: sheep wool.
We will produce ergonomic agricultural tools adapted to women, as well as tools that are adapted to work with animals. This production will be small and mainly serve the needs of the farm. At the same time we know that most of the small agricultural tools are manufactured nowadays and their quality is inferior to a custom tool. There is a small niche of farmer’s costumers looking to buy quality tools that are not available on the market.
We will produce Organic cosmetics according to the criteria with which the company Weleda works since 1921.
– Herbal active ingredients mostly from organic farming, biodynamic or controlled wild collection
– Without any synthetic preservatives such as parabens
– Free of synthetic fragrances
– No synthetic dyes
– Free mineral oils such as paraffin
– Emulsifiers from natural raw materials
– Not tested on animals
In terms of natural cosmetics Weleda is a world quality reference of sustainability. We investigate the possibility of being a franchise of Weleda. We want to meet the need of the local market with the opening to export our cosmetics as part of our product line of excellence.