Come live on my giant permaculture farm in Costa Rica!

Our death tolls are only what "they" tell us they are. Also, as of 2008, we had killed over a million CIVILIANS in the Middle East, no telling what it is now. It's wrong, whatever way you look at it.

Yes, I would like to do something similar in the southeast US also, I can't really talk about it though because then I would definitely be labelled an idealist and told it's impossible.

This is a neat idea. I'm learning how to survey and grade land now as a matter of fact. We have a new farm manager on the Clemson Student Organic Farm where I work part-time and he's totally flipping that place, putting in ponds, a bunch of perennials, greenhouses, and grading much of it. It's only 3 acres but we're doing work out there!

All good ideas and I think many fit right in with what I want to do.

If you remember any more about this or if anyone else knows about it please share!

What do you mean? I was under the impression that the capitalistic lifestyle was doomed to failure, as is evident all around us right now. Everywhere it touches it destroys. It destroys individuals, families, communities, and nations physically, morally, ethically, emotionally, and spiritually but more importantly, it destroys life on earth (or has thus far). I can see how adopting capitalistic behavior would be advantageous in the short run (but only to me and mine because under this system there is always someone suffering) but ultimately, in my opinion, it isn't the way we ought to operate.

Thanks for the positive words! This looks like something that will bring great ideas to mind, I'll read over it, thanks for sharing.

These systems are complex for sure. I think putting labels on them might be detrimental though. I'm sure socialism and capitalism have strict or legal definitions. I'm not against money, I'm against an unregulated central banking system running the most powerful nation and military in the world (and now the world with the World Bank) by passing out and leveraging debt.

I'm not afraid to die, if that's what you mean. If these people require money and I am able to give it to them in exchange for my life or my family and friends' lives then I will. I would much rather put them on a CSA-type program and provide them with healthy food year-round. I would also invite them to help out and give input. They're humans with corrupted egos (are all egos corrupt?) and what they need is love. As Geoff Lawton says, "all the world's problems can be solved in a garden." I guess I would say I'm mentally prepared for danger.

I understand completely. What I have written on this forum is very crude and does very little justice to what's in my mind. If anyone is interested, I would like to discuss it further with them, whether they're a 60 year old millionaire willing to finance the whole thing or a 20 year old boy who is broke but is willing to work with me, whether for a month, a year, or a lifetime. Once again, I do have experience... Also, I'm a fast learner, physically strong, and passionate.

Cool, I'm looking them up!

What you speak of as capitalism is not capitalism. You have likely never seen true capitalism, since it only exists in small pockets of the world. But that's beside the point. You have every right to try to do things your way, and I wish you the best. But I don't know many people who have money who will risk it on such a venture. That will be your biggest problem. You won't have any trouble finding people who love your ideas and want to join you, but finding such people who have any money to invest will be tough. Good luck, though. I like the idea of the permaculture farm, I just think you are lacking somewhat in your understanding of how the world works.

Well, I'm a Health Science major so I'm not "qualified" to be a farmer other than the biology classes I've taken. I have taken a Creative Inquiry course on Sustainable Solis and Crop Systems and worked closely with a Department Chair to outline a permaculture plot on campus. I've taken a 1 day permaculture class with a certified instructor. I've worked/volunteered on Clemson University's organic farm for about 2 1/2 years and I'm learning much from our new permaculture-minded farm manager (I posted some of his videos earlier in this thread). I worked with a family member who has his own landscaping business the summer after sophomore year.
Having said that, most of my knowledge on this (and many other subjects) comes from the internet and conversing with people via the internet. I know it is the biggest spreader of misinformation but if you can sort through it, everything you need to know about a gazillion subjects is on here. You can be an electrical engineer, a neurosurgeon, a weapons developer, etc, all you need is the resources. Hence, my situation. I've become fascinated with many aspects of farming, gardening, and permaculture (this is evident if you look at my 1/10th acre yard that I'm not supposed to landscape in my apartment complex; there are fruit bushes, seedlings, transplanted perennials, sprouting annuals, wildflowers, etc all over the place). Everything I can find on the internet on this subject I try to soak it up. I've downloaded many gigabites of files, from Gaia's Garden to Bill Mollison's permaculture manuals and lecture notes to other books and instructional videos on the subject. I'm also a pretty avid guerrilla gardener, for whatever that's worth.
This probably scratches the surface a little but just for the record, I'm nowhere near as studied on the subject as I'd like to be. One of my best qualities is my insatiable appetite for knowledge concerning topics I'm passionate about, which happen to be more topics than I can list. This is another reason I'm attracted to permaculture; it encompasses so many aspects of life and requires proficient knowledge in many subject areas.

Sorry, maybe you should join a Mesolithic hunter gatherer forum and ask for help.

Well I'm not jumping in with both feet quite yet, just judging interest on this particular forum. I have many other ideas equally and less grand, a few journals full actually. I'm a serial entrepreneur and inventor who hasn't started an official business or patented an invention yet. There are many small goat and cow dairy farms, free range beef and bison meat farms, and fruit and veggie farms within close driving distance of me. I've visited a few of them and have contacted a few more about visiting and about some of my business plans. I'm also taking 17 hours as a senior, working on our farm, and volunteering in the community so I'll probably make some headway with some of my ideas over spring break. Also, for the record, I agree I need real-world experience very badly.

I think it would be far more doable in the Southern United states than it would be in Costa Rica.

You have the idealism, some knowledge, but you really should spend a few years getting some experience. You are not aware of what knowledge you lack even. Working on a few places that operate close to how you want to live would give you some of that experience and knowledge and make it far easier to start your own in a few years.

This is coming from an entrepreneur who has been moderately successful at it for decades.

One of the reasons I pointed you at SabineHomestead. He's a little ahead of you in that he has land, and is looking for people just like you to come help build a successful sustainable farm. He's also in a southern climate in a forest, I believe surrounded by National forest on a lake. A great place to experiment with your permaculture and forest permaculture as there is about a 300 day growing season there.

I might have interest in such a project, but not with a young person with not much more than idealism, an opinion, too little knowledge and almost no experience running it no matter how dedicated you are. Most of the folks here seem to be either are working towards or have already started their own little sustainable farms. Like me, I have land, I have a plan, I have the money to make it happen.

1. I do have start-up capital, though only a fraction of what it would take. My parents are willing to help me as well. If I could do this all on my own I would, I'm not the type to ask for help generally though you would think otherwise based on what you know about me from the small amount of time I've been on this forum.
2. I do have contacts in the country.
3. Mi espanol no es perfect pero conozco los basicos y tengo un diccionario y un libro que explica los conjugaciones de los verbos. Cuando yo visite el pais el verano pasado, mi espanol mejoro mucho...en tres dias! Necesito mas tiempo con habladores de la lingua. Tambien, yo puedo comprenderla mejor que puedo hablarla o escribirla.
4. I would not have to repay my parents.
5. I'm familiar with Jim Jones' movement. I don't think I would ever be interested in taking his path. Though he may have said the same thing when he was 21, who knows.

there is alot of conflicting ideas in here. why would you take money from the capitalist pigs and the military industrial complex in form of grants etc? not being afraid to die what kinda garbage is that you take money from indivduals and feel no obligation to them.i also saw you refered to a twenty year old as a boy but arent you twenty one?how is someone twenty a boy and you have all this experince and school not. i dont see this operation sarting up for much less than a million between excavtion roads power wells iragation engineers workers etc...
35 acres by hand? the days of teams of oxen and horses are long gone even back then it took people a lifetime to clear land waiting on stumps to rot burning them out. not that ive ever worked in rain forest but i know the effects of humity water and heat on equipment. if you are serious you should try doing some clearing in a wetland in rainy time of year where you have simalar conditions to rainforest. fertile soil is great but can be very hard to workin till you have what you want established. also if you have to wait for ten years on return on your profit how are you going to pay school loans and etc. back. it just dosnt seem right that investors and govt should pay. also investors want a return on their money. dosnt seem like less than thirty five acres of chocalte would give very much return. starting to look more like nigerain plan to me

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five by five
I claim the last post that offended u

I don't understand your first sentence. America is capitalist because almost every segment of society operates solely for monetary (capital) gain. As far as the way the world works, tell me how this resonates. Corporations move onto land they deem valuable (oil, minerals, etc) and "buy" the land. The indigenous of the land must then either move (they can only move so far before they hit an ocean, lake, desert, mountain, or another civilization) or they must assimilate. When corporations "buy" this land they often bring other industries with them and ultimately an entire societal system based on central banking (which will be discussed shortly) is set up. The indigenous who can assimilate are able to afford food, healthcare, transportation, and put their children into public education to be further assimilated. Those who can't are forced to the outskirts of the new city (forming the ghettos). The reason health disparities exist is not because black people have different genes than whites or any other peoples but because people of color were usually the ones forming the ghettos and couldn't "afford" nutritious food, had to work slavishly, and were never free of stress. Those who assimilate are so heavily influenced by the media and advertisements that they think the -------- being mass-produced is valuable so they continue to work (slave) to be able to purchase these things.
Most of this behavior is financed by a central bank (like the Fed). This system is quite simple though portrayed as complex. In reality, the bank prints money, loans it out on interest, and expects it back with the interest. So, let's take an example to more clearly see why poverty is so rampant. The central bank opens it's doors, Day 1. It prints $100. Joe, Bob, Tom and Mike are assimilators and want what the little black box tells them is valuable so they begin to engage in commerce to buy a house or car, etc. They visit the bank to take out a loan, Joe to start an apple orchard, Bob to start a shoe-making business, Tom to start a real estate business, and Mike to open a car lot.
They each take out a $25 loan on 10% interest. Joe plants apples, grows the trees, and harvests them BUT he has this debt to pay back. Sooo, he sells Bob a barrell of apples for $10. Joe now can begin to make his repayments. Bob on the other hand better start making some ---- good shoes or else the bank will take everything he has. So he makes some shoes and sells them to Tom. Ok good, Bob can now start to repay the bank. Tom's in the hole now though so he must sell real estate. He sells some to Mike; Tom can start repaying the bank. Well poor old Mike is in the hole, who can he sell to?
What should be clear is that as long as this is the system, it's only a revolving circle of debt, being passed from one person to another, someone is always going to lose, whether it's your neighbor or whether the debt's been transferred to China or Malaysia. What should also be clear is that there will NEVER be enough to cover all the debt. Even if all four men could pay back their debt (totalling $110) where would this other $10 come from? The answer is that the bank prints ten more dollars and loans it out...on interest. That is why everyone who participates in the system is a slave to it.
Ok, so this is grossly oversimplified. Ok, so this system has its merits. Ok, I'm a 21 year old who has been living comfortably in the system his whole life and who doesn't know my butt from a crack in the tree. I'm learning though, putting the pieces together one by one.
As far as the way the world USED to work, I think Daniel Quinn and Dr. Weston Price have influenced my beliefs on the subject. As far as how it should work, these people as well as Ekhart Tolle, Jacque Fresco, Peter Joseph, the Dalai Lama, yoga, and saints in my own life have influenced me.

I'm only taking money because I have to. Squatters get thrown out in Costa Rica and most of the industrialized world. Is a twenty year old a boy? Am I a boy? Are some 18 year olds mature enough to drink alcohol while some 40 year olds get legally trashed every night and beat their kids? I don't subscribe to many labels, I'm a big kid in a man's body I guess. The reason so many agricultural endeavors of the past 100 years have taken teams of oxen or tractors is because they clear hundreds of acres only to plant millions of seeds of one crop. Granted, the first few years on a permaculture farm are very tough and labor intensive but working with nature as per the principles of permaculture will yield far more food with far less effort in the long run (5-10 years).