permaculture

[christopher nesbitt <christopher.nesbitt@mmrfbz.org>]

Hi Eric,

That sounds like a good Peace Corps posting! I worked for Green and Blacks, a 
small organic FT choclate comepany from 1997 to 2004, when they sold 
themselves to Cadburys. They are now owned by Kraft. Cacao and coffee, both 
being shade requiring plants, are excellent subcanopy species. The largest 
cooperative of organic cacao farmers is in the DR, http://conacado.com.do/. 
G&B used to source a lot of cacao from them, but when Cadburys bought the 
company, G&B ended up using supply chains from West Africa. 

I used to train Peace Corps volunteers during their preservice training and 
also during their time in country, both on site and at the PDCs we hold. When 
are you entering? We have a PDC in February and March, followed by an 
Advanced PDC that will focus on agroforestry. You can read about it on our 
web page www.mmrfbz.org. The dates on the page are wrong, though, by a few 
days. That should be repaired by Monday evening. During the PDC we will be 
looking closely at the cacao we have here, and visiting farmers like Saul 
Garcia, who has the highest degree of biodiversity I have ever seen in cacao. 
I have visited over 600 farms in Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa 
Rica and Venezuela, and nothing even comes close in terms of biological 
diversity in cacao, not even CATIES farms in the Brir Bri Indigenous 
community or in Boca del Toro, in panama. 

We have a large collection of cacao here, as you know from your visit, and 
have planted out a lot of coffee in the last 4 years. We have used different 
spacing, from 12 x 12 feet to 10 x 10, and cacao that is interplanted with 
many other species of food, and some that is more focused on timber species. 
We have cacao here ranging in age from close to 20 years old, down to planted 
in September, which would give you examples if a wide range of ages, from 
mature to brand new.  We have a lot of strategies to maximize production 
through the use of productive pioneer species, like pigoen pea, banana, 
plantain, moringa, cocoyam, cassava and chaya, all of which produce within a 
year, and long term harvest cycles with timber species, with natives like 
Cedar (Cedrella odorata), Samwood (cordia alliadore), Guanacaste (enterolbium 
cyclocarpum), and leguminous trees, including some of the bauhinas and 
erythrinas, Guanacaste and others, and fod species, like avocado, mango, 
breadnut (Artocarpus camansi). In recent years we have started to complex the 
cacao dominant agroforestry system with vanilla (endemic) and cardamom, 
introduced, as well as using microclimates for ginger and tumeric.

In terms of books, Tony Lass (who visited here) wrote a great book called, 
simply "Cocoa", a great resource, and another is "Tropical Agroforestry" by 
Somebody Huxley. I think both of those ar published by Blackwell Science, so 
expect them to be over USD100, but Tony gave me my copy.

Once you are in the DR, you can get on CTAs publishing list, and get a pile 
of free books. They ship free from Waganingen Netherlands, to agronomists, 
extension officers and farmers in ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) 
countries. Look for a copy of Spore when you get there. Application forms are 
inside. Let me know if you need help getting to them, and I can try ti 
remember how I signed up in the first place. I believe that "Cocoa" is one of 
the books you can get for free through CTA.

Good luck with that! It sounds like a great posting!

Best wishes,

Christopher






On Jan 6, 2012, at 11:46 PM, Eric Broberg wrote:

> Hi all,
> In a couple months, I am starting an agriculture assignment with the Peace 
> Corps in the Dominican Republic involving organic cacao and coffee 
> production. I wanted to ask if anyone has contacts to individuals and 
> organizations in the DR that are involved in Permaculture, cacao or coffee. 
> Really any information, stories, or articles you have on those subjects 
> would be appreciated. And, finally, if you just want to put in your two 
> cents and keep in touch, please do. E-mail me at eric_broberg@hotmail.com, 
> because I am not able to check this list-serv very often.
> 
> Also, I would like to bring as many copies as possible of the 
> bookIntroduccion a la Permacultura (the Spanish-language version of 
> Introduction to Permaculture) by Bill Mollison, to give to interested 
> people and groups within the DR. The country has not had much exposure to 
> Permaculture, the first PDC taking place there only in 2011. Unfortunately, 
> I personally can't afford to buy more than one copy of the book, which is 
> priced at $39.98 on abebooks.com 
> (http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=introduccion+permacultura&x=0&y=0)
>  and $49.95 on amazon 
> (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0908228090/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1325914428&sr=8-1&condition=new).
> 
> If you have a copy of the book and would like to donate it, please e-mail 
> me at eric_broberg@hotmail.com. If you would like to donate enough money to 
> buy a book via paypal or some other means, please e-mail as well (or use 
> the above e-mail as my paypal e-mail.) I will let you know who ends up with 
> the book, and why they deserve to have it!
> 
> Thanks so much,
> Eric Broberg
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_____________________________
Christopher Nesbitt

Maya Mountain Research Farm
San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
BELIZE, 
Central America

www.mmrfbz.org