A Biointensive Model for Patagonia
In the 1970s, John Jeavons developed the first gardens with the biointensive method in California, and traveled the world teaching his theory. In his classic book “How to Grow More Vegetables,” he presented his Grow Biointensive sustainable mini-farming method as a way to increase food production for personal or family consumption. It also creates more fertile soil which requires less water per kilo of food produced compared to conventional practices. Another American farmer to adopt the biointensive agriculture method in the 1970s was Elliot Coleman. He established the Four Seasons Farm in Maine with a method that allows people to market their produce and generate income from their gardens, which he calls market gardening.
Rather than trying to invent new ways of farming, what farmers like Jeavons and Coleman did was to recover agricultural practices that predominated before large-scale intensive production began spraying crops with agrochemicals and plundering the land down to the last nutrient. Today, in a world faced with drought, habitat loss due to monoculture agricultural practices, and human disease resulting from the consumption of genetically modified foods, the need is greater than ever to find new ways of sustainable farming that poses less of a threat to our health and environment.
Following in the footsteps of such luminaries, in May 2018, two Chilean agronomists, Francisco Vio and Javier Soler, founded the Huerto Cuatro Estaciones farm in Patagonia, a four-hectare (10 acres) biointensive farm at Bahia Catalina on the shores of Lake General Carrera in the Aysen region. Their mission is clearly stated on their website: “There's no other option. We feel the urgency of changing the way we produce food and how we relate to nature. We choose to take responsibility.”
Vio and Soler, originally from Vina del Mar, have put into practice everything they have learned. Both of them worked for four years at the organic farming project that Tompkins Conservation set up in Patagonia Park, which uses the biointensive method to produce 30 different types of vegetables year-round. They have gone on extensive visits to farms in Europe, South America and North America. Most significantly, the pair learned directly from Elliot Coleman himself at his garden in Maine. With Coleman's permission, the agronomists even adopted the Four Seasons Farm brand name, which translates into Spanish as Huerto Cuatro Estaciones, and thereby symbolizing their desire to create a similar project that combines sustainability with profitability.
Following the basic concepts of biointensive and regenerative agriculture is a major challenge in itself; one has to develop increasingly fertile land year after year, using crop rotation and compost and without the help of industrial machinery and chemicals. There are also the difficult climatic conditions in the Aysen region, which imports about 80 percent of its fruit and vegetables from Chile's north. But Francisco Vio told Patagon Journal that “the biggest challenge is to make it a profitable business.”
Vio says they quickly realized upon starting their project that their productivity model required several adjustments. However, they found that the solution for them was not selling more and more products. Rather, the agronomists studied and applied Lean methodology, a way of optimizing the people, resources, time, effort, and money of your organization toward creating greater customer value. This required greater understanding and focus on the products and services customers value and discarding things that do not generate value.
Their hard work is paying off. Huerto Cuatro Estaciones has made significant progress since launching as a business three years ago. After a period of intense work with a small team of 9 people, which included building new infrastructure, clearing the land and introducing hundreds of tons of compost to revitalize their soils, today they grow more than 35 different varieties of fresh vegetables and herbs. About three-fourths of their production is sold to families all over Aysen through a weekly veggie box system and the rest to local restaurants and hotels. They also receive student volunteers from around the world and conduct online classes and workshops.
When asked what advice he has for aspiring organic farmers, Vio says to “study hard, work hard, and persevere.” He adds that “you will probably feel like a slave, but for your own paradise. The work will transform into a pleasure.”
Vio emphasizes the true test of whether their farm is working well is not just the quantity of organic products they produce, but to serve as a successful model for others in a capitalistic country like Chile it needs to be in the green when it comes to the business side. They are more than acing that test: last year they sold $50 million pesos (US$ 70,000) in vegetables produced from 2,500 square meters, the equivalent of $200 million pesos (US$ 277,000) per hectare. “Everyone who sees the farm likes it and its products,” says Vio. “But for it to be a real opportunity, it also has to be a viable business that can see a return on investment within five years.”
“Everyone who sees the farm likes it. But for it to be a real opportunity, it also has to be a viable business that can see a return on investment.”