The Party Family (Esmeralda, Michele, Nicolas and Stephanie) are Chilean graziers near the town of Litueche in central Chile some 2 hours south of the capital and largest city Santiago. They have about 3000 ha of undulating grazing land under their care and are running 3000 dual purpose Merinos, 100 red and black angus beef cattle and about 20 horses. Their bores are running dry and soils are getting harder and starting to shift in their capacity to accept moisture in this dry meditteranean climate of between 200-500mm. Worst of all their lambing percentages are dropping to below 0.8% due to 3rd trimester abortions resulting from the lack of sufficient nutrition during this period. So they are going backwards. They consulted with US Ag consultant Joel Linsburg who subsequently recommended that I come to their farm and help them with their problems. 

Michele and Nicolas contacted me and we thought it would be best if they talked to the local ag research station (Hidalgo) to see if they could provide some support. The Federal Department of Agriculture's Emergency division came into the picture as they could see that there was a great potential for Keyline Farming to help solve the water emergency that Chile is facing. The Party's and the government wanted to install a small Keyline system at the Hidalgo research station before the autumn/winter rainy season and so after some relatively hasty planning we got practical course together.

Everything went pretty well and there is an annotated PhotoLog listed here. It was great to catch up with some of the Permaculture Chile crew including old mates Grifen Hope & Javiera Carrion and to meet their young son....

All the best, 

Darren