Jamyang Dolma and Dr. Craig Elevitch, co-founders of Mama Food Forest will be leading a 4-day workshop on Regenerative Agroforestry starting March 5th. The event is being hosted by Dharma Realm Buddhist University. (Contributed)
Dharma Realm Buddhist University is presenting a rare 4-day immersive workshop to learn regenerative agroforestry planning and transform how you grow food, medicine, and thriving environments at any scale. A Regenerative Agroforestry Workshop is being held from March 5-8. The workshop will be a combination of classroom and hands-on techniques, with the goal of participants taking the knowledge to their home or business and recreating what they learned.
Returning to Ukiah are Dr. Craig Elevitch and Jamyang Dolma, co-creators and educators at the Mama Food Forest- an agroforestry project located on Hawaii’s Big Island. Elevitch and Dolma gave a talk in Ukiah last August, discussing the concepts underpinning agroforestry and the work they have done together and separately to revitalize the generational understanding of regenerative agriculture. The Mama Food Forest thrives on a formerly bulldozed, 115-acre site that is now a living laboratory, where students- many of them mothers learn to create their own “food forests” at home.
Craig Elevitch is an internationally recognized agroforestry educator and author of 14 books, including Agroforestry Landscapes for Pacific Islands and Agroforestry Design for Regenerative Production. Since 1993, he has led more than 300 workshops with over 15,000 participants worldwide. In 2023, he was awarded the Gusi International Peace Prize for his contributions to ecological regeneration and community resilience. Dr. Elevitch holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering Systems from Cornell University for research focusing on agroforestry growth modeling. His work centers on creating abundant, resilient food systems rooted in regenerative practices.
Jamyang Dolma is President of the Academy of Himalayan Art and Child Development and co-founder of Mama Food Forest. With a background spanning international business consulting and cultural preservation, she has launched initiatives in Bhutan, China, and the U.S. that unite education, sustainable fashion, and regenerative food systems. Dolma’s work has bridged traditional wisdom with contemporary practices, empowering women, families, and communities.
Some of the goals of the workshop include providing a clear and intuitive understanding of natural regeneration principles and how to apply nature’s regenerative principles to your site. Elevitch will lead a step-by-step planning process for a new regenerative planting with options to include existing plants, and approaches for replanting and sustaining a thriving ecosystem. He will provide options for including existing plants into a new planting, and best practices for plant selection, spacing, and long-term maintenance. The workshop will discuss optimizing plant health and productivity using only on-site resources, how health and well-being is inextricably linked to regenerative agriculture, and how regenerative agriculture increases awareness of living in harmony with the natural world.
According to Elevitch, conventional food systems are increasingly vulnerable to environmental and economic risks, with food providing less nutrition and an increasing content of synthetic chemicals. Along with the regeneration of the soil, plants and food system, regenerative agriculture is a mindful, transformative process that participants say helps mind as well as body.
What is a food forest? “It is a diverse and dense planting of trees and shrubs which mimics a natural, ancient forest from that location. It has the structure, density and diversity of a forest, but contains the plants that we’d like to grow- food, medicine, fiber, herbs. Food Forests contain what you want to eat in 3 months and what you want to harvest in 30 years.”
“By the end of the workshop, people will understand the basic principles of regeneration in nature- which is what nature operates on. It’s not complicated. Anyone can do this. We have what it takes to operate regeneratively. We don’t need laboratories and special equipment. We simply observe nature and react in a regenerative way. In our modern world, people often forget how abundant nature is.”
The workshop is appropriate for anyone from novice home gardeners to experienced commercial growers at any scale, and will address regenerating a lawn, grassland or retrofitting existing planting locations. “Anything we can do at a home scale we can do at a larger scale. This system is appropriate for commercial agroforest farmers or home gardeners.” Indoor classroom sessions will be combined with outdoor, hands-on planting sessions.
Elevitch has been conducting workshops like this since the early 90’s. “Looking over those early workshops, the topics haven’t really changed,” he notes. “We’ll study the foundations of natural regeneration principles- how humans have worked holistically with nature for thousands of years. Based on those principles, we guide people through the planning process, step by step, whether working with degraded conditions or planting a new, vigorous garden site. We’ll be designing how the plants are placed in a pattern, related to each other, which is big part of the design process, as well as selecting the plants for the best outcome. We’ll discuss maintenance, scheduling and implementation.” Elevitch notes that though he lives in Hawaii, a team with deep experience in Northern California is helping with the planning process, so that the workshop makes sense for the local environment.
On Saturday and Sunday of the workshop, four food forest plots will be planted by the participants at the City of 10,000 Buddhas. “This is an integral part of the workshop. It’s good to learn the concepts, but learning by doing is essential. We’ll go back and forth between the hands-on activities and learning the conceptual framework.”
Some people confuse the concepts of permaculture and regenerative agriculture. “Permaculture embraces a general foundation of holistic design for sustainable living and land management. Regenerative agriculture focuses on aligning all of our actions with nature’s own regenerative functions to continually increase soil fertility, water holding capacity, biodiversity, resilience to disturbances, and organic matter. Regenerative agroforestry- the focus of this workshop- optimizes nature’s own ability to create abundance using on-site resources, following nature as a model. Permaculture and regenerative agriculture are parallel schools of thought that can support each other and often overlap in practice,” says Elevitch.
Much of the information Elevitch has gleaned over decades comes directly from his work with indigenous people living in the tropics, where regenerative food forests have been thriving undisturbed for literally thousands of years. Helping people to tap into that ancient wisdom is part of Jamyang Dolma’s contribution to the workshop.
“Many of the moms we’ve been training in Hawaii are now becoming coaches, which has taken over five years. Hawaiian moms grew up with a lot of trauma. Some of them began feeling not confident. They felt they didn’t deserve this- that they are not competent to teach. Now, 5 of the moms are standing on their own feet, confidently talking and sharing the wisdom they used to know,” says Dolma.
Along with the practical, hands-on element of agroforestry, a spiritual and mental alignment takes place in individuals that begin working seriously with these concepts.
“The course is well-designed for mindfulness, reflection and contemplation- to learn deep observation of nature. We’ve seen that when people approach this journey with an open mind, heart and will, wonderful surprises occur,” Dolma smiles. “There’s a shift in perspective that takes place. On the surface, we’re learning how to grow a food forest. But what we’re also doing is establishing a vision and a pattern of regeneration. Dr. Craig manages to take the learning garnered from elders with thousands of years of experience and share this with us. We’re not learning something new. We’re tapping into memories deep in our DNA that we’ve temporarily forgotten- reconnecting people with old practices, reconnecting with the ancient future- doing it for future generations by tapping into our past.”
Numerous “before and after” photos of food forests prior to and following Elevitch’s workshops were shared with the public when he visited Ukiah last year. The results are almost difficult to believe. Denuded patches of soil become verdant, almost luxurious, literal forests- with a tiered structure of tall, medium and shorter trees, shrubs and plants. Whether in the tropics or in a similar latitude to Mendocino County, like Portugal- where Elevitch helped to regenerate Mediterranean monocropping sites, the land responded to this unique type of attention.
“For people who have only lived using or understanding traditional agriculture methods, it’s hard to describe what a regenerative forest looks like and how it functions,” says Elevitch. “Many people think that a lawn represents a healthy ecosystem. If you grow up in a non-food forest environment, you can’t imagine it. There are still places, even in Hawaii that have maintained an unbroken chain from their ancestors to the children, where an abundance of food can be grown using no added amendments.”
“A 2021 UNESCO report notes that learning how to work with nature is a survival skill for the coming 20 years,” says Dolma. “When educators go through this program, we discuss the concepts of equanimity and compassion, even learning to respect each plant to be a plant. Allowing the grass to grow. Allowing the weeds to grow. The indigenous folks that Dr. Craig works with understand that the land is their family. If we could just learn to do that one thing, we would do better with our human fellows,” she continues.
“Once the students start the process of harvesting, the first thing they want to do is share. Here, at the City of 10,000 Buddhas, maybe we can plant 10,000 species in the coming years,” Dolma smiles.
The workshop will run daily from 8:00-5:00. Bring a change of clothes- one for outdoor work and one for classroom work. The garden installation will take place, rain or shine. A daily vegetarian lunch is served, along with a welcome dinner the first day of the workshop. To learn more about the upcoming workshop, visit https://www.drbu.edu/event/regenerative-agroforestry-intensive-workshop/. A limited number of scholarships are available, with an application link on the website, and a fully immersive residential option is available. For more information about Mama Food Forest visit https://mamafoodforest.net.