Area: Center

We are a Dutch family of 5 persons. Since december 2011 we're living in France. We have a dairy farm with about 100 milking cows and even so much youngsters. The farm is growing, so we're building a new stable at a few km away. The meaning is to go to live there when the stable is finished. Because of the children we have a little preferance for frenche speaking people. But everyone can contact us! Our livestyle and farm is regular, not ecologic. But it doesn't mean that we are not open to good suggestions!

Area: Canoa, manabi

Hello and welcome to a little corner of paradise in Ecuador. Our stunning, lush, green, bird and tree filled home in the Canoa district, around 8km inland from the sea in a peaceful valley near to the community of La Union. We are setting out to establish an organic farm and horse riding business on our 15 hectares. Currently we have horses, one who is expecting a foal, chickens and dogs. Also there are the giant iguanas who roam around! We are hoping to breed horses, raise all sorts of farm animals including goats, pigs and donkeys, lead horse trekking trips and have people stay with us in our own little community. We will be building cabanas, yurts, tipis, planting food crops and generally establishing our business to begin with. The exact plans are not known yet, we are hoping to build on ideas as we go along and see where and how we end up; however the main plan is to live self-sufficiently with as little negative impact as possible on our lovely planet. Looking for responsible, happy go lucky people, who respect animals and each other. Someone to help us to improve our Spanish would be great. People with horse skills and carpentry, construction etc. are especially welcome. At the moment we are asking for two hours work per day in return for your accommodation. We are not in a position to provide food, but there is a fully operational kitchen, fridge, freezer, 6 ring gas burner, electric stove and microwave for you to use. You will have the run of the ranch and also all the mangos, bananas, plantain, papaya, peppers, lemons, oranges, passion fruit etc. etc. that you can eat. Once the vegetable garden is established which is one of our main tasks at the moment, there will be plenty more vegetables to eat. There is a fantastic market and other shops in San Vicente which is our nearest town. There is a regular bus which takes 25 minutes from the main road, 400 metres from the ranch. There is also internet and you can catch other buses to Canoa (30 minutes) or to Bahia de Caráquez where there are buses for places further afield. Depending on the number of people we have at any one time, the accommodation will be in a dormitory or in the little flat. We provide beds and bedding. The rooms are mossie proof. Soon there will be tipis too. If helpers prefer, they are welcome to prepare their own food from what we have available. In general it would be better to have helpers stay for a minimum of a couple of weeks, but we can be flexible on this depending on other helpers and what work we have available. If you are interested, please email me with some information about yourself, what you think you can bring to the ranch, when you would like to come and for how long for, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Area: Poitou Charentes

Myself (Karen) and my husband (Des) moved to France in 2010 bringing with us our two dogs, three cats and four horses. The property we purchased was fairly extensive (three houses and two barns) and requiring lots of work. We have almost finished developing one of the houses as a holiday cottage and have now started on the main house. The land has also been neglected and needs a lot of love and attention. We managed to renovate the original vegetable plot and werefairly self sufficient last summer but there is a lot of ongoing work in the garden and in the fields to keep on top of the weeds! For anyone who joins us a love of animals is a must and the ideal would be someone who rides. There are miles of local tracks for hacking out and I have a large outdoor school for training. I would be happy for someone to ride out with me but my horses are not for beginners and if you wish to ride I would ask you to have your own insurance.

Area: Uttarakhand ( District Nainital) India

Hello to volunteers planning or interested in coming to the Farm, We have been overflown with volunteers. Unfortunately, at the moment, our space capacity has breached it's limit. We have paucity of sleeping space and project space too. Building mud houses is currently in progress. As on date we can hold a maximum of 12 volunteers in our communal house, besides a few extra staying in their tents. With exponential growth of the farm and onset of spring , we realize that volunteers, who planed to stay only for two weeks end up staying for a month or more. While this is awesome, it is creating difficulty in managing the flow of volunteers. In view of the above, we now new volunteers to kindly make a commitment of at least 32days, 30 days of Farm work and a day each for arrival & departure. It is equally important that each person, who has already contacted and has been confirmed space from us, fills out the calendar. We love to see new smiling faces at the Farm and everyone is more than welcome from mid June onwards. We thank you for your cooperation in helping us make the Farm the lovely place that it is to be. With love & hugs from all of us at the Himalayan Farm family MUD HOUSE BUILDING WORKSHOP. With the turn of better weather, month long Mud House Workshop started at 8 AM on 02 March 2013. By the end of the workshop, we hope to have a room ready for living. On completion of this we now plan to extend the area of existing kitchen to make a covered space of 20 X 20 feet and a new kitchen. The existing kitchen will be grocery store room. We plan to complete all the work well before the Permaculture Design Course, we are to host, during May 2013. All are welcome to participate. Requirement of Plumbers and Carpenters. We are in need of plumbers to install 6 X 1000 liter tanks, and connect GI pipelines, at such !! heights so that we can obtain enough pressure of 20 PSI ?? to make drip irrigation very effective. We also need carpenters to help in construction of new volunteer accommodation. Mini Solar Power House We are still off grid, but we have electricity. We now have a mini solar power house at the Farm from Jan 24, 2013. Computer and internet is now available at the Farm along with plenty of lights and battery charging facility. PDC Course May 2013 A Permaculture Design Course ( PDC ) is being held at the Farm during May 2013. Please read about this in our blog, if it interests you. We organised a workshop (6th-8th oct) on organic sustainable architecture by Manu Gopalan, a eco architect expert from Auroville to help us develop the infrastructure. The lesson learnt are being used to construct 2 X three hole compost toilets, a green house and extension of kitchen and additional volunteer accommodation. The construction is in progress. Information about The Farm We are a vegetarian organic farm in the lower Himalayan mountains of India. Our vision is to create a sustainable organic farm and to introduce a growing number of people to sustainable and low impact living. Our farm is a 50 minute hike away from the main road and we are surrounded by a forest. We believe to live with The Mother Earth and not off The Mother Earth, to nourish her more than what we take from Her and leave a better place and foot prints for the future generations. I am Hari, a retired veteran of Indian Army. On retirement after 33 years of service, I changed my profession from Arms to Farms. Since retirement, I have been involved with the community providing holistic healing services including Homeopathy, Ayurveda and Thermal Acupressure in Himalayas. In 2010, I received a scholarship to attend six month long apprentice course in Agroecology in University of California, Santa Cruz. Since return in December2010, has been working to open a community farm center in the mountains. There after I did two months of voluntary work with The Garden Project in San Francisco. We commenced cleaning of an abandoned farm fro September 09, 2011. We are trying to use indigenous methods of farming coupled with permaculture and agroecology. We practice an eco friendly way of life. We are looking at solar and wind to produce power and looking into cob and adobe housing besides farming organically. We have close links with the villages next to us and we help the local government school with scholarships and volunteer teachers. We are geared to take only up to 8 volunteers and have very basic infrastructure at present. A composting toilet has been completed by volunteers and a kitchen is under construction. Duration of stay at the farm must be for a minimum of 32 days (2 days for arrival and departure, 30 days of farm life) Due to the overwhelming interest in the farm and to help us plan we can only take volunteers who are willing to commit to this time frame. However in some cases we still have volunteers for sixteen days; with 14 days of farm work. Long Term Volunteers Welcome We also welcome special souls who are willing to come and stay for a long duration between 2 - 6 months. Particularly persons who have knowledge and skills in carpentry, masonry, plumbing, farming etc.