Living Ground ~ Suelo Vivo is a legally registered Company in Ecuador. However, we are more of a movement that connects soil and human health in meaningful conversation. Our business plan and ideal are that all profits are shared with employees (30%), local land owners (30%) and the improvement our POD operations (30%).

All PODS revolve around the microbe (microbe compost) offering products that have been grown in microbe-rich soils or offering services to locals and Ecuador that promote and educate about the microbes and their utter importance for everyone’s health (plants, soil, and humans).

The Living Ground team want to share our service far and wide here in our local & agriculturally based community. We have an opportunity to make a greater impact by acquiring a centrally located property for our headquarters of operations. The site we have scouted already has substantial infrastructure and potential, AND we are facing the threat of buyers wanting to make a gas station out of it. We are launching this fundraising campaign to buy this property for our project, and not see yet another gas station go up here locally that would set an entirely different precedent for our rapidly developing community. Owning this site would set the foundation for the Living Ground PODS to grow immediately and have the space to do this very important work. The PODS are collaborating operations under the umbrella of Living Ground that focus on the microbes, raising the good guys, and spreading the mission:

Microbe Rich Compost Mass Production POD (the heart)
Microscope Laboratory (microscope is the tool to see the microbes) offering soil tests for everyone.
Consultancy POD - To transform neighborhoods locally and in Ecuador into regenerative agriculture.
Education & Workshop (marketing) POD (spread the knowledge) Empower both locals and all food growers.
Microbe Tourism POD Welcome families and individuals to fully experience the growing, eating, and loving microbes.
Apprenticeship programs POD -hands-on experience in growing microbes.
Healing Spa POD focussed on the microbes (think human microbiome).
Regenerative Real Estate & Land Protection POD - regenerating properties and working to protect watersheds & sacred lands. Microbes remove toxins and create life on degraded lands.
Market Garden POD- Transform local lands and grow truly nutrient-rich food and medicine for everyone.
Give Back POD - a reproducible model of sustainability to share our knowledge & service far and wide free of charge to those who cannot pay.
Connect growers all across Ecuador to collaborate at the grassroots level creating a Certified Regenerated Land Club for all farmers and gardeners whose land is home to the "little good guys".

These PODS create abundance for everyone in a collaborative effort. Our business model is built on Sacred Commerce where Nature is the primary beneficiary and generosity is practiced. The profits are given back to employees and the community. The business plan mimics the flow of the soil food web to ensure everyone involved has an opportunity to thrive, succeed and feel empowered. We are raising microbes, human leaders & health!

We are also looking for POD leaders who will essentially be mini self-run businesses under the umbrella of Living Ground. POD Leaders can invest in this project and themselves! This project is empowering team members both in our internal operations and we are also empowering off-site growers whose lands produce microbe-rich produce, products, and services that Living Ground offers a market for.

Our project is not just about compost….it is even more than that: the journey to rejuvenation is needed in all aspects of life...health, human relationships, healthy plants, and healthy people. The living soil can be a powerful convener and teacher for every context, offering lessons in organisation, resilience, diversity, and healing.

We have created a plan that operates as a dynamic, self-organising living system to set off on a pathway to greater wisdom, compassion, and thriving for everyone involved. All living systems require a specific set of “fertile conditions” if they are to thrive.

Therefore we must – and can – cultivate fertile conditions for plants and humans.

Cultivating those fertile conditions is a primary and ongoing practice of stewarding life. This is Living Ground's most important – and rewarding – mission and vision. The overarching purpose of all our activities, toward what some are calling thrivability – the intention and practice of enabling life to thrive as fully as possible, at every level are raising the "Little guys", the microbes.

What is the Soil Food Web?

Fungi, Bacteria, Protozoa, and Nematodes are names given to some of the microbiology that we are most interested in when it comes to soil health, as it's these creatures that help make up the 'soil food web'. Plants photosynthesis and utilise the carbon from the atmosphere to supply the microbes in the soil with food (sugars) creating a continuous symbiotic relationship. In return, the microbes (bacteria and fungi) create enzymes to excavate nutrients from the sand, silts, and clays and bring them to the roots of the plant. Before the plant can access these nutrients from inside the bacteria and fungus, they need to be transformed into a plant-available form. Predator microbes are attracted to the root zone and they eat the bacteria and fungus, subsequently pooping out the nutrient-rich content in a 'plant-available' form.

Soil is very biologically driven and it’s the biology that’s going to help you manage your fertility. There is so much to learn from nature and how it elegantly navigates complexity with creativity and resilience. Yet we typically think of organisations and communities in mechanistic terms, seeing them as separate from ourselves and seeking to manage, control, and “re-engineer”. Our current ways of being are falling short in critical, even catastrophic ways.

It’s not us as caretakers of the land. We’re actually farming those microbes – those microbes know how to farm a crop way better than we do. So, let's make sure they thrive! Living Ground Suelo Vivo is currently in mass production of microbe-rich soils and is currently offering microscope soil tests, consultations, and regenerating local lands.

THE IMPORTANCE:

Beneficial organisms convert and create life, nutrients, energy, health, and bountiful ecosystems. They are the foundation of health.

Beneficial organisms create abundance for everyone!

The Living Ground Soil Squad has been actively working on this solution for over a year and we are now in mass Microbe Rich Compost operations. Our purpose is to give life and rebirth to the microbes of the soil so everyone wins.

When you understand the science of the "little guys" (the microbes), everything changes and solutions become clear. it is time to go beyond the “organic” and step into really understanding why microbe-rich soils are a “soilution” to many problems we face together. This is a paradigm shift in thinking and doing soil work.

Restoring and harnessing the Micro-biome is the only soilution. Microorganisms hold huge potential because they are integral in the makeup of all plants, animals, and humans. And they are the key drivers of biological and environmental processes. They determine human health.

SOIL IS THE SOURCE OF AND SUSTAINS ALL LIFE.

Soil PROVIDES THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE FOOD WE EAT, BUT FEW OF US FULLY APPRECIATE THE SIGNIFICANT ROLE IT CAN PLAY IN REBUILDING A NEW WORLD. Did you know that without a healthy soil food web, plants can not uptake nutrition? Why do you think chronic disease is so prevalent? Organic and chemical practices are lording over the lands and soils and harm the health of the soil microbes. This has to change! We have a plan! We invite you to be a part of this soilution!

Good Guys

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