Juan Manuel was employed by Mexico's Department of Social Security (IMSS) and was able to add the Biointensive method to programs already delivering services to people in rural areas. In the 1990s Juan started providing training in other Latin American countries and after retiring from IMSS in 2001, he has devoted all his time to ECOPOL. Since then he has traveled throughout Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Europe to make GB presentations, give workshops, and identify trainers who have the potential to become certified.

Through all these efforts, ECOPOL has catalyzed strong GB projects in Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru and beyond. Millions of farmers have been trained (directly and through their large (1000+) farmer-to-farmer training network in Mexico and Latin America) through these efforts. In 2015, Juan started receiving invitations to give workshops in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Slovenia, which he added to his already intensive work schedule. The result: a burgeoning GB community in Europe!

Because of the number of GB trainers now available in Mexico and Latin America, Juan leaves most of the basic training activities to them, and also passed the GB Certification program in Latin America into the hands of Certified Master-Level GB Teachers Marisol Tenorio and Agustín Medina. He has two current goals for himself. The first is to increase the number of certified teachers to help assure that the quality of the Biointensive method will be not only maintained but greatly expanded and headed towards the professional level. As of 2022, he had already exceeded his goal of 100 Certified GB Teachers in the region, and continues to expand this number every year.

Juan's second goal is to seek out and make connections with NGOs, universities and other organizations that have the capacity to use, research, teach and spread the Biointensive method. One of his most recent allies is Friends of the Earth-Spain, which is not only sponsoring GB trainings in Europe, but in Central America too. Juan also maintains an overview of ECOPOL personnel and activities and works to give support where needed and help solve challenges that arise. We are grateful and honored to be working with ECOPOL/El Mezquite, its director, Juan Manuel Martinez Valdez, and its associates Marisol Tenorio and Agustín Medina!

ECOPOL's Spanish Language Comunidad Biointensiva page is here! Haga clic aquí para ver la página!

In 2014 John Jeavons awarded Agustin and Marisol each an Advanced-Level Certification, as well as their Master-Level Certification after they spent the summer at The Jeavons Center, taking part in all the teaching and other activities there. The Master Level certification involves not just a great understanding of GROW BIOINTENSIVE but, equally important, an understanding for Soil, Food and People perspectives locally and globally. As Master Teachers they are now able to certify GB teachers at all levels. What this means is that the certification of GB teachers in Latin America is now in the hands of the Latin American people—a long-time goal of Ecology Action and ECOPOL!

Along with all their other work, plus teaching activities and running El Mezquite, Agustin and Marisol both achieved Master's Degrees in 2015—he in GB Compost and Soils and she in GB Seed Propagation. Each has written a peer-reviewed article on their research speciality for publication in an English-language scientific journal, due to be issued when the edits to the Spanish to English translations have been completed.

Find El Mezquite on Facebook at https://es-la.facebook.com/elmezquitebiointensivo

Tania de Alba had already been using Biointensive techniques at Las Canadas, and in 1998 she attended a 3-Day Workshop at Ecology Action (EA) in Willits, CA. In 2001 her husband Ricardo Romero was a participant at our 5-Day Teacher Workshop. The two began giving regular Biointensive and Permaculture workshops at Las Canadas. Karla Arroyo, the Las Canadas garden manager, was a six-month intern at EA in 2003. She is also an expert in seed production and added that subject to the community's workshops.

To create the community at Las Canadas, Ricardo combined his knowledge of Permaculture to work with the sloping contour of the land and to implement systems and designs that are environmentally harmonious as well as functional. There are unique, aesthetically pleasing cob structures for housing and hygienically recycling human waste and waste water onsite. Over 50,000 trees have been planted to help restore the cloud forest that makes up Las Canadas' ecosystem. Energy efficiency is also a part of the plan being implemented, and they have been introducing fuel-conserving rocket stoves—by far the most resource-efficient means for heating and cooking.

Take a look at their beautiful GB mini farm in this short film:

Ecology Action, ECOPOL and ADYS, Las Cañadas were all a part of the Latin American Conference 2010: Biointensive Agriculture Facing Climate Change.

At the beginning of 2018 John Jeavons, Director of Ecology Action, and Matt Drewno, Garden Manager at Victory Gardens for Peace, attended a 5-Day GROW BIOINTENSIVE conference in Nicaragua. The event was co-sponsored by ECOPOL, and it is evident that ECOPOL Director Juan Manuel Martinez Valdez' work there has created impressive results. Thousands of people have been or are being trained to use GB, and there are GB gardens all over the country maintained by women, men, and children. John observed that people there take responsibility for themselves and what they are doing, and that culturally, they understand GB and are practicing it "from their hearts".

Nicaragua's National Agrarian University (Universidad Nacional Agraria, UNA) is in the process of setting up a 3-year GB university course designed to train Biointensive Technical Specialists! Javier Silva, the program's Director, is a professor at the university. GB testing and research are being carried out at the university as well, as within a trainer's demonstration garden. Here's a video about the work being done at the University.

John observed that if GB could be seen globally through the lens of what is being done in Nicaragua, it might save 10 years in the ongoing process to change the world from a depleting agriculture to a living, environmentally sound and productive biologically intensive agriculture

The ALI mini-farm has been growing for two seasons now, demonstrating that GB works well in sandy tropical soils, growing grains, Irish and sweet potatoes, carrots, lettuce, garlic, onions, roselle, amaranth, tomatoes, basil, celosia, zinnias, safflower, flour corn, pigeon peas, and cucumbers.

ALI hosts workshops on topics including garden planning, sustainable mini-farming, and medicinal plants, as well as a popular Children's Gardening Club (an after-school program for 3-to-10-year-olds), and a sustainable farming series for a middle-school mentoring program. In partnership with the Bermuda Education Network, ALI hosted 224 third graders in a program introducing food security, growing healthy plants, and identifying food crops. They are expanding this program for fifth graders. ALI has been approached by the Westgate Correctional Facility to run a gardening program at the prison, starting with 5-8 inmates growing a small garden, then scaling up to grow healthy whole food for their kitchen.

AgraLiving Institute offers a Garden Support Consultation Service , including 1-hour site visit, a 6-month Biointensive garden plan, providing customers advice on any garden-related questions during the visit, and offering soil testing services from collecting the samples to sourcing the amendments recommended by Grow Your Soil (growyoursoil.org).

Director Chris Feria is working to complete the necessary requirements for Intermediate GB Teachers Certification; in pursuit of this goal, Director Feria and an ALI intern participated in EA's online 2022 8-Month Internship program.

Samuel and Peris met when they were both students at Manor House Agricultural Centre in Kenya and married in 1994. Ever since, while raising their biological son and daughter and their adopted son, they have been partners in GROW BIOINTENSIVE outreach projects. Samuel met John Jeavons at the GB conference that was held at Manor House in 2007, and stated he wanted to be "the John Jeavons of Africa". All he and Peris have accomplished since that day proves Samuel wasn't just voicing and idle thought. Their work has been prolific.

Three basic forms of training are offered by G-BIACK: training of farmers in their own communities and at the Centre, the training of individual interns to teach others to be trainers, and a variety of programs at its Women's Centre to supplement GROW BIOINTENSIVE agricultural training—such as nutrition, family health, and income generation, which are all important factors to empower women and families in the region. Interns have come to G-BIACK from across Kenya as well as Nigeria, Afghanistan, Mexico, the U.S., Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania.

In each community where trainings are given, two Community Resource Persons (CRPs) are selected by the community to continue the project when G-BIACK transitions out. The CRPs are given extra training by G-BIACK in GB skills and leadership, and in this way the original training is reinforced and internalized. After five years of training local young women in six-month GB, nutrition and job skills programs, G-BIACK constructed a residential unit so that girls from all over Kenya (aged 15-25) could learn those skills in a one-year program. In 2017 seventy young women took part in the program.

G-BIACK's satellite farm pilot program, developed in 2016, is a success. In 2021 we were pleased to report that there were 37 Satellite Centers in operation, and in 2022, despite all the challenges facing Kenya including an historic ongoing drought and the pandemic which continues to propagate in waves across the country, excellent progress was made, with the result of 43 Satellite GB Centers now operating across Kenya! The new additions are in multiple regions, with a high concentration in Machakos and Kiambu Counties. The Satellite Center farmers have started to teach their neighbors to use GB. The main purpose of the satellite farms is to help G-BIACK to scale up their outreach program so that the method reaches as many farmers as possible.

G-BIACK has received impressive recognition for its work, such as the "Best NGO of the Year" in the district awarded by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO) in 2010, the "Food Sovereignty Prize" Honorable Mention awarded by The Community Food Security Coalition CFSC of USA in 2011, and nomination by the Katerva Awards for "Best Organization of the Year" in 2012. Several NGOs have invited and sponsored Samuel and Peris for workshops in Germany, Uganda, Tanzania, the U.S. and Scotland. Samuel has been elected by his peers to be the first president of the Kenya chapter of the newly formed GEN-Africa organization, which has emerged with the support of GEN-Europe and promotes social resilience environmental protection, and restoration of nature through development of "ecovillages" and networks.

For a closer look at the work being done here, watch this short (12-minute) film Grow, about G-BIACK and the biointensive farming movement!

For more information go to http://www.g-biack.org/