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

13 POD Under The Umbrella of Living Ground ~ Suelo Vivo Microbe Compost Operations.

The leaders of these PODs are called the Soil Squad 

1. Compost Operations (Mother ship)
2. Consultancy POD
3. Laboratory (soil testing)
4. Garden Cooperative (weekly baskets program)
5. Market Garden - interior and exterior growers
6. Restaurant (Cafe Gratitude Style)
7. Eco Tourism
8. Apprenticeship Program & Education POD
9. Health and Clinical Offerings - Spa and health products
10. Essential Oil
11. Off site growers
12. Real Estate
13. Children’s School Program
14.  Video (documentation, education, art, marketing)

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, healthy people.    The living soil can be a powerful convener and teacher for every context, offering lessons in organisation, resilience, diversity and healing.    

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.   

So, we have created a plan that operates as a dynamic, self-organising living systems 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 is raising the "Little guys", the microbes.

The biosphere is supported in its ability to be healthy and regenerative over time.

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 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.   

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.