Resources
What we read, and where what we teach comes from. Nearly all of it is online and free. We host none of it: every link goes to whoever published it.
Where to start
If you have never come across syntropic agriculture, these two are enough to understand what it is.
- Agenda GotschErnst Götsch
The official site of Ernst Götsch, the Swiss farmer who systematised these principles working in Bahia, Brazil. Videos, articles and the film Life in Syntropy. This is the source.
- CEPEASJosé Fernando Rebello & Daniela Sakamoto
The Brazilian syntropic research centre. Its founders wrote Syntropic Agriculture According to Ernst Götsch, the most complete book on the subject. Their YouTube channel carries English subtitles.
To learn how it is done
Practical guides, written for people who are going to plant.
- Syntropy resources
A collection of free English-language guides, among them Abundance Agroforestry and An Illustrated Guide to Agroforestry. The best English starting point we know of.
- Porvenir Design
The team we run our courses with. Land planning and design in Costa Rica, with their own blog and materials. Instructor biographies are on their team page.
- Colectivo Waybil
A Mexican collective with introduction and design guides for syntropic agroforestry systems, including species tables by climate. We could not find a public download, so ask them directly.
The evidence
Syntropic agriculture is mostly taught by mouth and in the field. These are reviewed papers that touch what we do here.
- Effect of different pruning operations on the following spring tea shootsLu et al., Beverage Plant Research, 2022
It matters to us because we grow tea, and because it measures what syntropic practice describes in its own language: after a hard pruning, growth hormones — auxin, gibberellins — rise in the following shoots, and the bud weighs more. Pruning sends a growth signal, and here it is measured.
From the farm
Ours, for anyone who wants to see all of this applied in one specific place.
- Plant catalog
Over a hundred species with their stratum, life cycle and function inside a system — the same information a plot is designed with.
- The courses
Three days on the farm, installing a system and working in the ones that already have years on them.
- Eco-Lógica
The farm's organic certifier, and Costa Rica's first.