From Monday 23. October to Friday 27. October 2023 we organize together with the Association Selva-Foresta Commestibile Tecetto, Agroecology Works! and the Permaculture Association Switzerland a Syntropic Agriculture Workshop with Ernst Götsch at two sites in the Canton of Tessin, Switzerland.

Ernst Götsch is a Swiss Farmer who migrated around forty years ago to Brasil. First, he was laughed at as „Crazy Gringo“ when he introduced Syntropic Agriculture. Yet, on an area of about 150 hectares with his system based on successional polycultures instead of pure monocultures he started an agricultural revolution. 

Now we invite him to Switzerland to answer the question on how we can translate this approach into smallholder agriculture and food forest systems in our temperate climate.

Part 1 - Azienda Ca di Ciser

The workshop combines theory and practice and is divided in two parts whereas the first part will take place from Monday 23. October until Wednesday 25. October at the Azienda Ca di Ciser, Mergoscia, where Ernst Götsch’s son Tankred, a farmer and landscaper, produces wine and grape juice. Having witnessed and participated in the development of the Syntropic Farming system in Brazil during his youth, Tankred is translating the approach into the Southern Swiss Mountain viticultural farm. He further incorporates ancient agricultural cycles at his site as well as norms of the middle east, birthplace of our agriculture.

Topics on site

Revisiting two viticulture sites established in 2019 during Ernst Götsch’s last workshop in Switzerland and discussing the lessons learnt.
Cultivating stone fruit trees on land deemed unfit for it and grain crops as green manure to enrich sandy soils.

Part 2 - Selva-Foresta Commestibile Tecetto

The second part of the workshop will follow on Thursday 26. October until Friday 27. October at the new Food Forest project of the Association Selva-Foresta Commestibile Tecetto in Gerra Gambarogno. Where once every square meter on the terraced steep slopes was used, have nowadays most farmers left the place. But Daniel Lis, a food forester and permaculturalist wants to revive these terraces again and is in the process of establishing a smallholder food forest system.

Topics on site

Food Forests and Syntropic Agriculture.
Starting from scratch and establishing an agricultural business on small scale.
Syntropic Agriculture in a chestnut forest.
How to incorporate and work with existing vegetation, including invasive neophytes.