Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Thursday, January 24, 2008
White Albino Cacao Research, Regeneration and Preservation Project
Cacao Bi-coloris was once one of the many different species of cacao traded throughout Mesoamerica. Today it is rare, undervalued, and slowly going extinct. In fact, the indigenous village we have worked with for the past three years was cutting down the trees and using them for firewood before we intervened.
The white cacao tree is a nitrogen fixing tree that provides shade for other crops, and that is native to the region. By turning increasing the number of non-timber forest products, like white cacao, the village of San Felipe de Leon in Oaxaca, is better able to proceed with the conservation of its watershed, its soils, and its culture.
In fact, the community is so well organized it developed and legally documented a multi-faceted conservation program initiated and executed at the municipal (ejidal) level.
Today we are working with these wonderful people to establish a locally run rural production society.
In April we will work with the community through chocolate workshops on ways that they can better utilize and understand the wonderful product that they have. It is in such workshops that we also learn from the communities surprising and often times ancient traditions associated with the food and its varied uses since prehispanic times.
Tomorrow, we hope to work with San Felipe on eco-solidarity tours, where interested researchers, intercultural investigators, or agro-ecologists can participate in this community based research.
The white cacao tree is a nitrogen fixing tree that provides shade for other crops, and that is native to the region. By turning increasing the number of non-timber forest products, like white cacao, the village of San Felipe de Leon in Oaxaca, is better able to proceed with the conservation of its watershed, its soils, and its culture.
In fact, the community is so well organized it developed and legally documented a multi-faceted conservation program initiated and executed at the municipal (ejidal) level.
Today we are working with these wonderful people to establish a locally run rural production society.
In April we will work with the community through chocolate workshops on ways that they can better utilize and understand the wonderful product that they have. It is in such workshops that we also learn from the communities surprising and often times ancient traditions associated with the food and its varied uses since prehispanic times.
Tomorrow, we hope to work with San Felipe on eco-solidarity tours, where interested researchers, intercultural investigators, or agro-ecologists can participate in this community based research.
Vanilla and Community Based Research
Currently the vanilla pods we are working with are organically certified fairtrade vanilla from Papantla Veracruz. Our real goal, however, is to move to a more bio-dynamic form of vanilla cultivation that we first encountered in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, and are currently helping to introduce and support in Chiapas, Mexico as well.
Vanilla pods are indigenous to Mexico, and it is in the dense tropical forests and jungles of South Eastern Mexico that wild forms of vanilla strive thrive alongside cultivated varieties. Vanilla pods are the fruit of an orchid. The orchids are vine-like climbing plants that thrive in humid shaded areas, and that require small midges for pollination. In fact, Mexico is one of the few places on the planet where the correct types of pollinators exist in order to pollinate vanilla.
Currently ChocoSol is working with farmers in Southern Mexico to look at ways of recovering the art of cultivating jungle gardens with a variety of crops growing in a bio-intensive polyculture. What we are discovering, through experimentation and research, is that the cacao orchards of the Lacandon jungle are a perfectly suitable environment for vanilla, and that by cultivating vanilla and processing the pods that the farmers will be able to make delicious local chocolates and to double the value of their crops annually.
Our work with cacao, vanilla, mamey, achiote, and other trees has shown us that the type of agro-ecology we are supporting is akin to the ancient Mayan garden plots that grew in wild harmony within the jungles in harmonious and symbiotic ways.
By recovering this technique and art form, we hope to help protect the bio-diverse buffer zones around sensitive ecological areas like the Lacandon jungle.
Join us, in our adventure by buying our products and directly supporting research by people, and not research for people.
Vanilla pods are indigenous to Mexico, and it is in the dense tropical forests and jungles of South Eastern Mexico that wild forms of vanilla strive thrive alongside cultivated varieties. Vanilla pods are the fruit of an orchid. The orchids are vine-like climbing plants that thrive in humid shaded areas, and that require small midges for pollination. In fact, Mexico is one of the few places on the planet where the correct types of pollinators exist in order to pollinate vanilla.
Currently ChocoSol is working with farmers in Southern Mexico to look at ways of recovering the art of cultivating jungle gardens with a variety of crops growing in a bio-intensive polyculture. What we are discovering, through experimentation and research, is that the cacao orchards of the Lacandon jungle are a perfectly suitable environment for vanilla, and that by cultivating vanilla and processing the pods that the farmers will be able to make delicious local chocolates and to double the value of their crops annually.
Our work with cacao, vanilla, mamey, achiote, and other trees has shown us that the type of agro-ecology we are supporting is akin to the ancient Mayan garden plots that grew in wild harmony within the jungles in harmonious and symbiotic ways.
By recovering this technique and art form, we hope to help protect the bio-diverse buffer zones around sensitive ecological areas like the Lacandon jungle.
Join us, in our adventure by buying our products and directly supporting research by people, and not research for people.
Friday, January 18, 2008
What is the Convivial Cacao Loft?
The Cacao Loft convivial kitchen incubator located at #6 St.Joseph is striving to embody the principles of ecology, conviviality and productivity. Our goal is to be a zero waste kitchen with a green roof, a rain capturing system, and an intensive drip fed urban agriculture project for medicinal herbs and flowers. In the construction and renovation of this kitchen which continues to this day, we have striven to apply the principles of thriftiness and ecology, not to mention the art of up-cycling instead of simply re-cycling. More than 50% of the materials used were found, restored, and put to good use.
Although we (ChocoSol) are amongst the first to benefit from this incubator and are the animateurs for making it a reality, by working with the Seeds of Hope Foundation, and St.Joseph House we are looking to turn it into an incubator for small business with an ethical, ecological, and nutritious focus even after we leave. Thus our work in developing our small community based ecologically minded slow food business will leave both infrastructure and organizational structure in place to educate the next generation of start ups.
More than anything, the Cacao Loft is the external incarnation of our living as learning philosophy, and for this reason many people come to our kitchen to conduct workshops, to share stories, or to discover the mystery of chocolate making.
Currently we are working to develop an apprenticeship learning program that will link the Cacao Loft Space to the Green Oasis on Broadview a local urban agriculture project, in order to give youth interested in learning about ecology, social enterprise, urban agriculture, soil technologies, and slow food, and opportunity to learn by doing.
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