VDAO Ep.7 From Software to Soil: Health, Food & Building Real Resilience with Danilo Da Rosa

Transcript

I I was feeling I was going very early to work. It was dark when I was going out from my home and then I was returning to my to my home again. It was dark because it was already like night. But also there's like a connection with nature thing where in the city I would feel like I would feel like I was missing something. I I would need something and I wouldn't know what what it was. >> What does resilience mean to you? the bigger the challenges that we get kind of the the stronger we get.

>> If we can look back to when you were a software developer, you were having this um kind of crisis and looking at your relationship with food and your relationship with everyday life and wanted to change your lifestyle. What were the steps you took when it comes to like identifying a piece of land? Hey Danil, welcome to the the podcast. It's great to see you, man. Agree. Thank you for the invite.

>> So, in uh in each of these conversations we've been having with people that are are building local resilience, we start off with a bit of a a question around like their why. Like what is it that's motivating them? And yeah, what's the what's the why behind your work? Wonder if we could start there this time too. >> Sure. >> Okay. So, I can tell you the the story. About 12 years ago, I was I'm a software engineer. I was working in Monttero, the capital city of Uruguay.

And I was working into um in like food factories basically. So industrial automation, I was developing the software that runs the the food factories and I had like this crazy lifestyle where I was running all the time, having multiple jobs doing that and doing a lot of things and studying and all those things and I didn't have time to like to cook for myself or or do things for my health basically. Okay.

So, I had a sort of a crisis and uh health issues because of that. Uh so, I started to realize the path to to feeling better was not um was more related to lifestyle and and looking like for for for healthy food, for vegetables. Like I started going to a far organic farmers market. Before that, I just would go to like I would buy food that's ready to eat. So I started going to the to the farmers market and I started talking with them with the farmers and I start to get like amazed by the diversity of food that was

growing like here in Uruguay by them and like started to learn that some there are some kinds of food that are not a available the whole year and about seasons and how all that work. And I like my health improved a lot because of that because of starting to to eat that food. So I got interested into producing a bit of that myself like growing getting seeds, growing trees.

So I yeah I that was kind of difficult in Montio because it's very expensive to buy like a house and have a garden big enough. So I decided to move into the a smaller town, the town where I was born here in Uruguay Salto and to move to a little farm and start trying that myself. I also was kind of in the city. I was feeling I I was feeling I was going very early to work.

It was dark when I was going out from my home and then I was returning to my to my home again. It was dark because it was already like night. So I wanted to kind of enjoy like the day and and nature and sunlight. So that's what why I decided to to move to this place where I am here where I where I am now. And I started to to like grow things uh to to build small gardens, plant trees. And I realized that like it was hard. I was making so many mistakes like I I was planting a tree. Then I was

deciding to to build a house in the the same spot I planted the tree. I have to move the tree. All those kind of things. So that's when I start to learn about permaculture. And that was like I was again amazed about about that and about like that there was like a field of of that of how to think about how you live how you live how you build your house and how do you design the place you live. So I start learning about that uh on the internet and then I take a course um here in Uruai. It was pretty good.

keep feeling that I need to learn more because there there's so much there's so much there how you design your life like from scratch. Um and that's when I find a video in YouTube from Roavies and and yeah uh he was mixing engineering and permaculture and I thought that was amazing. So yeah, I get in contact with them and and start learn learning with them and that's like that's the start of story.

Then story continues but I think that that's like yeah basically the the path that got me into this. So it sounds like your why was like about your own health and your relationship with food. that was like the the the motivator for you to start uh looking more at your resilience. It was it was like health and and food first. >> Exactly. Yeah. Food was probably the main thing, but also the there's like a connection with nature thing where in the city I would feel like I would feel like I was missing something. I would need something and I wouldn't know what what it was and I would like need to go

to a park to take a walk. I would really miss that if I was not able to do it like one day. So I part of that was also thinking hey what if I can live in a sort of park or or surrounded by nature and and experience that every day. Do you think that being a software engineer and being in front of a screen like for work had a a was a factor there in your search to be closer to nature? >> Yeah, totally. I I think we are a very technological we have a very technological culture like most people in the world and we like most people spend at least eight

hours a day in front of screen working or the phone or whatever. And I feel the more we do that, the more we need like the the real connection with with nature and like touching the grass and seeing trees and seeing birds. And what I'm hearing is like that was part of a kind of search for increasing your well-being and just like having a better quality of life. >> Exactly. Yeah. One of the themes in the podcast is is around like this the main themes like antifragility and resilience and I'm wondering like from your point of view what does what does resilience mean to you? Yeah, that's a big

question. I think like that has can have different levels but at the personal level like there is a very human level of that which is how we deal with change and and and with challenges and I think I feel we we as humans are are very like resilient and even anticip what I feel in my my life is that the bigger the challenges that we get kind of the the stronger we get to kind of improve those situations.

So maybe if you get a very easy life and everything works and you don't you not you don't need to do much and like your life goes happily I guess but if you if you are thrown challenges um like I had some health challenges like you really need to to put the work to to improve that and and so in that case like having a health issue can become um like a great thing because it empowers you to to look for the things you you need and to learn and to study and to experiment with so many things. So I I feel yeah that we are more resilient and

antifragile than than what we think. And that's what I I try to do like the bigger the the challenges I I get in my life health related or environment related or whatever I try to to be even better with that and and improve the situation. Um yeah, I I think also having this this this kind of life um it's something you you really have always in your mind like what happens if things change like what happens if the climate changes? What happen if um you have a year with too many too much heat

or too much rain or whatever and you kind of you try to work uh and and design your life and your place to be to be prepared to to handle with all of that or or at least to take advantage. Maybe you have disadvantages of those things, but you also kind of take the opportunities that come with that. Um, so yeah, I guess that's my that's my answer. >> In terms of your your journey, like it it sounds like you went from living more in a city to then moving to a small farm. Were you thinking about like resilience in terms of like being able to produce your own food in part as part

of that or was it mainly about like the health like being able to grow your own food that's healthy and nutritious? or here where I live the the healthy and nutrient dense food offer is like small. So so by growing your own your own food you like get access to things that are not even available in the market. Basically the best way to to get healthy and nutrientdense food is to produce it yourself.

So that's one thing and then it also feels really good to be like to have that capacity and and be prepared to different like challenges like I remember when when co happened like it was it feel really great to have a garden uh because you have like your your food there at your place you don't need to go anywhere um you can survive with what you have. So, yeah, I I think it's kind of both.

>> Let's go a bit deeper into the actual process that you went through there. Like, um, one of the the other things we've been trying to capture in this series is like the concrete process of building your own local resilience. And I wonder I mean we can get into the food side and and maybe the water and also energy like how you addressed these uh kind of base needs in terms of the uh property that you developed but I wonder even just like uh taking a step back from that like you're if we can look back when you were a software developer

you were having this u kind of crisis and looking at your relationship with food and your relationship ship with everyday life and wanted to change your lifestyle. What were the steps you took when it comes to like identifying a piece of land? So, it sounds like you were living in a more urban area. Perhaps you're looking at a more kind of rural or suburban area to um find a plot for building your your homestead/ small farm. Like, how did you you set about that process? And like also if you could perhaps think about it in terms of like advice you would give to someone else who was um kind of about to maybe like where you were I don't know like 10

years ago or whatever. >> For sure the steps I took were not the best maybe. I mean it worked out but I when I started with this I didn't know a lot of things that I know now. So my main criteria was um I decided to move to to the close to the city where I um grew up. So some somewhere I was familiar uh with and then I decided at that time I would only use bike a bike a bicycle as a transport means. So I decided to go to to a place that was close enough to the city so I

could bike to the city. So it's like 5 kilometers from the from downtown here. Now uh if I would start again I don't know if I would choose this place. There was there were also some challenges that I didn't know about at that point. And there's something I I learned after uh that it's a general recommendation in permaculture like if you if you're planning to move to another place, it's a really good idea to like I think two things. One is to maybe instead of buying

like live in nearby for some time like rent a place or something and and be there. So you really really need really get to know the the area and like the advantages of that place, the disadvantages. So that's a I could say a a nice like a great thing if you can do it. And then the other thing is to stay in the in the once you decide what's the place stay there for one year at least just observing and and learning about the place. So then you know how all the seasons behave and what happens during

the whole year and then you decide okay I will build a house in in this part and and the garden in this other area and and decide like where to put everything in my case at the beginning was kind of common sense and I made many mistakes like um like for example the house uh I didn't know the land use by law of the area. So there is a small error. So it should be like a few meters shifted but that's not possible now it's built. So so really do the work uh of learning the land use by law the and

experiencing the place for for ideally one year before starting to implement stuff. Um so so those would be my recommendations. those three I would say try to live in the area for some time if you if you can uh see what what happens over the whole year and um and really study study the the laws in the area and and and like study the soil study the what's the biiversity in the place and all those kind of things.

>> Super interesting man. One of the things we haven't touched upon yet is like the you uh you you also develop skills in software development when it comes to like mapping and uh QGIS which is one of the main mapping tools. So, I'm wondering if we could touch upon like um even just the process of finding a piece of land before you go there and you observe it and you move there and you you experience it. Like are there digital tools that can help us when it comes to identifying a a suitable piece of land and how do we use them? like what's the what should we be looking out for if we're say an urban based software developer that wants to move and um find

a spot that can provide uh food, water and like I guess energy as well like solar energy and and so forth. >> Sure. So yeah, there are many tools digital tools that you can use to to look for the land to help with that work. FIF World has a a piece of software uh that I uh I work on that which is called contour map generator.com. There you can get um the topography of any piece of land in any part of the world. So the topography is basically the shape of the land. You get to see the head, the slopes, uh the aspect, how the water flows,

uh which areas has more energy like solar energy to for having gardens or solar panels. So, and also you can get there a biodiversity report to see what's in the area. So all those things really help when you are assessing different plots. And actually I have uh some news about that which is that we are moving um all contour map generator to be free for for anyone to use it. So all those things I mentioned uh will be able to

will be available for free for anyone looking for land or or designing their existing land. So yeah, I think that uh saves you a lot of times and you can you can use that like what what you are looking into or or how you use that really depends on on what you are like your goals. Uh but I have seen people use it uh for example to to find a place that has a great really really great uh water catchment opportunity and that's something that experienced people may be able to see like with the naked eye. But

with those kind of maps, you get the like a bird eye from the air and you really really get to understand the the potential of okay, how how much water you can capture in the in the in the in that property, which is one of the main things. um when finding property, water is kind of uh a key element to to grow food. So that's one piece. And then you can also use topography to to decide which which areas are better for for roads or for

for building uh house even for like gardens. For example, if it's if the slope is too high, you shouldn't be building you shouldn't you shouldn't be like growing annual vegetables because you need you may have too much erosion, but you can have a forest, a food forest, for example. So, it's kind of complex and really depends on the on your goals. But with those digital tools, you can really have a lot of uh save a lot of time learning about the characteristics of of the different places you are evaluating when when

purchasing. Um so yeah, you can yeah, I encourage people to go there to the site contraction generator.com and and and try those tools. >> So you mentioned like water catchment there. Do you mean like how much water can be collected in uh or like maybe is is in streams or even underground that can be tapped into wells? Like is this looking at this concept of water like resilience as it relates to water? like how much water are you going to be able to collect or extract from that land and use it for like irrigation for your plants or even just like for your own needs like washing drinking water and portable water in your house?

>> Yeah, this is mostly so what you get in the maps is like surface water, not underground water. like that's really that's harder a harder problem um because we don't with satellites and and planes and those kinds of stuff we don't get information about underground but with these tools I mentioned you can have the the shape of the land and with that you can see like you can see little arrows in the map that you get showing if a drop of water falls in that place where it's going. So with that um you can see like for example a a small

stream you can understand what's the area uh or the area of the of the of the land where the water is going to that stream which is helps uh two different things. One is to understand how much how big is that area. So you can have a really small piece of land but that piece of land may be getting uh much much bigger catchment meaning that the water from the your neighbors will be going into your property maybe or maybe not. But you can see that with the maps and with that you can learn how much water you

can get but also like the quality of the water because if you can find out like what your neighbors are doing if it's a commercial industrial farm or if it's an organic farm or if it's like I don't know if they have horses. If you learn about all that, you can you can guess like if the water will be good for you to use or if it may be contaminated by other chemicals, for example. Um, so yeah, basically every drop of water is going somewhere and and you get to see where it's going. You can see like where the streams are and which ones will capture more water.

But you can also use it to even if you don't have streams, you can you can use it to to plan how you manage like or how how you can think about earth works and you can use it to implement like swelles which is from a culture technique let's say where you do some earth earth works to to slow water uh slow erosion and accumulate water and and nutrients. to grow trees. Um, so you can with that big big big picture of the of your property, you can start planning all those things.

And I'm curious how you've applied these techniques to your own piece of land. Like as it relates maybe we could just start off with water like uh firstly like what did you do to assess your land for water catchment and stuff and then what have you done to kind of think about that and improve that over the the time where you've been living there? >> Yeah. Um that's a good question. So I have done a few things not as much as I would want.

I have some plans uh that use this kind of data because what I have been doing is mostly in my zones one and two. So the closer to the to the house and there I have like all these systems to catch rain water with the roofs and stuff and capture and store uh what rain water. But on the larger scale, I I haven't done too much except for a a pond. But I'm planning this year to to build a couple of swells as I mentioned and also to

yeah to to build to improve how how I can um work with existing features. There is a a stream at the end of property. So, I'm planning to to work with that to build like a a bigger pond and have the more storage of water there that I can use in in the whole property. But yeah, that's on the on the plans not implemented yet because it really takes something that I have learned that it takes years to to to implement these things. It's like yeah it it takes

a lot of time to kind of design the systems and then implement them gradually. You have to be very patient and also have the resources. Um, so I'm using this for from everybody, but haven't implemented much of that yet. I fully agree and I think it's a great insight like the need to be patient when you're on this journey of improving resilience. Like it's not something that you can just like click your fingers and suddenly you have like an abundance of water on your your land, you know? Like >> Exactly.

>> It's a a gradual process. Yeah, actually that's even like encourage encouraged in prom to like building like slow solutions and and doing something small then looking how it works learning then doing something bigger but improve it and I think it's the best strategy like yeah planning for the long term and taking the time to do things as as the better you Yeah. And in that process, you really get to know your land deeply and you get to understand like how the ecosystems work on it and what the the needs are

and the the yields of the the land that you're living in. And I wonder just to go back to this this kind of process, this journey you've been on. It sounds like just to recap on what you were saying earlier that you were so you're working as a software developer in a more urban area. You wanted to move into an area where you could grow your own food and you selected this area which you knew well and you could cycle by bike to the um like to downtown basically that was one of your key requirements. Plus like you had people you knew in the area like family. It was a it was familiar to you. Um but it also had this kind of opportunity for you to grow food. And I it sounds like also like you did some building on on there as well. I wonder if you could like talk

us through that process like what was it like to build? We've talked about the water. Let's maybe talk move on to talk about like shelter like what did you build there and what was that like? And maybe also if you could touch on like what's the kind of scale that you're working to here like what like um this like the size of the land and uh how you found it like building on it. >> Okay. Um sure. So yeah, the the the land is one hector. It's uh pretty small to rural standards, but it's pretty big when you Yeah. for for if you are someone from the city uh

coming to grow food, that's like plenty enough. Um, initially there was a a little house let's say was not finished but there I I I was able to leave the first years while building the a bigger house the the it's basically a golf house so a natural building and um So the whole process of building the the the house took three years which is a lot.

Uh but it was really good to learn at least that's I really like to to approach things like any project as a as a learning project because like yeah you're building a house but you're also trying to learn how to do it and I think the outcome is both like now I have a house but I also So kind kind of know how to build a house and I can help friends that are in the same process now or like process of building this house actually took 3 years.

That's quite quite a good segue. Like so you've moved inside to show us the house. move inside to to show us the the natural walls that in your can see it's just clay sand and a bit of wheat to improve the yeah to so it doesn't fall like the sand. Um, so yeah, it it took a long time, but it was a a great process um to learn how to do this these kind of buildings and and to learn about them.

When I started, I haven't been at a natural building before. Even I before building a composting toilet, I I've never used those. So, it's not it's not that common here in Uruguay. And so it was a challenge to to learn and to also to find people who could help to build it. Uh but it was totally worth it. Um and actually I think I I think it's the maybe doesn't sound great that I say this but I think it's the best house I have lived in my whole life. Uh because it's really >> like well insulated.

The walls kind of breathe so you don't get too much humidity inside. And I really like how it looks. >> And you built this with your your own hands, right? Like you you made the cup, you put it on the walls here. And >> yeah. >> Did you have friends help you? >> Was it? >> There's a lot of people. There was a lot of people involved in in in in like friends. there were workshops um an architect that specialized in in in this kind of building that was also good and actually that's something I can uh mention which is when we we talk a lot about building resilience and about the property and

the piece of land and how you choose it and and how you grow food inside and all those things but the the social component I think It's maybe even more important than all the rest to resilience and and the fragility. At some point when I was focused really focused on building the house and and and doing things inside the property, there was a point that I really felt really lonely um because I didn't care about about that about the social aspect and and that's how I learned that how important it was and like even if you live in the best place of

the world if you don't have friends like how do you enjoy life? So yeah, I think uh the the the later so the the recent years I I been much more conscious about that and about making the time to to to to have friends and to do social activities and to invite people here and also to share like we have something we call mingas. It's similar to the permablitz thing where you go to someone's house and and you work on the on their garden and in another opportunity you go to other property and you work on building these kind of

houses and then you go to a community garden and you help with that and you are helping them but you are also learning a lot in the process and and and having good times and enjoying like great great food that you share. So I really think the the social component is one of the top priorities and actually the past few months I I've been working on that a bit. Uh I've been I started sharing a few things on Instagram like on social networks um about this kind of lifestyle about gardening.

Uh and that's mostly to um to get to know more people that like these things. But also like it's it's a really strong thing because you you you get to know people but they they they like they share plants with you and and you get to know new things that you didn't know before and that that grow really well here because they have them for like years at their gardens and so it's really a big a big part. There were many people involved and it was a really nice process like with workshops as I said and now I have other

friends building their their houses and I I'm able to like to to discuss ideas with them to help a bit and also to learn from them because they are trying new things different things and and we all we all learn together and that's what I am trying to do at at the different levels like at at the building levels but also the gardens like try to to get to know more people and to to like level up you can say uh all of us together. So one one of the other things I I have been doing recently is like uh organizing workshops. I've been teaching a few

workshops, but I also I'm also like uh trying to get people from other cities to to come here and teach things that we are not that strong at so we can all um learn about that and improve >> and and yeah and enjoy that. >> So cool, man. I'm thinking in terms of resilience as well, like the materials you're using here are probably all from the local area, right? And and it's quite a Is it fair to say it's quite a low tech method of it's like cob it's an ancient method right it's like natural house building that you're using so it's it's super resilient it uses local materials you can learn you can help uh someone

build their house then they can come and help you build your house and it's like this kind of circle that forms in the local community where everyone can support each other to to build together >> it's mostly local materials Um, you can do it like I know people that just go to the to the forest, they they they pick fallen branches and they they use that to build a house. Um, you can go from that to and then you can have very this high-end houses like super wonderful houses. Um so you you can decide what's what you want uh regarding that regarding the materials

and and the kind of like terminations um that you want for the house and yeah the nice the nice thing is that the materials are available and are cheap and anyone can do it. It's it's easier to build this weight than to build with a conventional like concrete and all those kind of things. The thing is that the the concrete approach or I don't know steel framing or all these building techniques are more standardized maybe and you go to the uh workshop no uh hardware store and you get like all the materials. So

in that sense that's easier but actually this is really this I think this is easier. You just need to get in contact with the with the area and like try to understand the soil you have to see how you use it. So like you you need to understand a bit about the where you live but when you do that once you do you have that it's like easy. Um it takes more time but it it also like takes less money uh because you can use all these not things and then you can like for example if something I need to do something on the walls and I need to break the walls then

I just like put water again and I use the same thing I I I I broke to to like rebuild the wall. So, it's really nice, a really nice material to work with. And another thing that's nice is that like because building is a mostly a man a man thing, you know? I mean, at least here it's mostly men that build things. But in these kinds of buildings, like women, kids, the like other people, everyone enjoys a lot like touching the the the mud and and playing with their hands and and putting it on

the wall like it's really enjoyable and uh anyone can do it. >> There's like a whole community approach to building a house. It sounds like despite this kind of turn to to nature that you made at this point in your life where you moved there and you started experimenting with like natural building materials and rainwater harvesting and stuff. In spite of all that, you're still like you're still a developer, right? So, you still have your your tech your high-tech life like you know a lot about satellites. you're you're like a very technical engineering minded person and yet you're also developing these skills in natural building and developing your local resilience at the

same time. And it sounds like your lifestyles it suggests that it's not it doesn't have to be an eitheror between like tech and living like the way that you live. >> Exactly. >> Exactly. Yeah. At some point uh >> when I I was still working at the factories uh on automation, I thought okay so maybe I I leave like the technology world and I go to the field and leave off the land. That was what but then then I was thinking like okay I I want to leave off the land. I I don't know anything. I need to learn. So I I need tools like and I will need to

communicate with people. I will use a phone, I will use a computer for mapping or for whatever. So I was thinking even if I go like if I leave try to leave the technology world, I will still be using technology. So if I am a a software engineer, maybe I need to put my like use my work and and leverage on all those years studying engineering to build stuff that I would use and that would benefit other people trying to do the same things. So that's seems to be seemed to be a better approach and that

what that was what I did. I I I left that other job and I started thinking okay uh what are the things that I can do as as an engineer to kind of um yeah to to to help myself and other people trying to do what I'm trying to do and that was really uh I think a a great insight because it many things came from that and actually now I I work building uh software for for those kind of projects for people designing the land and with FIF world as you know I've been

involved in amazing work uh on that area like even in research we we did in the in the recent years we did so so much like research to understand um how we can use technology to help people trying to regenerate the land and and and incentivize them and all those kind of things. So yeah, I think what I think like if if I want to summarize that is that to ch to make the change that I I think we need in the world to a more regenerative world, resilient world, antifragile world and and more and for

us to be more connected to nature and more healthy, we need people in every field to to to work on that. like it's not a something that only farmers will will solve um or only engineers like we need u doctors medical doctors to to to to change the way they work with health we need everyone basically teachers anyone working with technology u I don't know we we need I think we need all the fields of human uh knowledge to shift how we think about things and and help make that transition to a more regenerative world.

>> I want to touch on this before we wrap up cuz I'm really curious about it. We don't have to dwell on it too much, but like we've talked about um your process of building your house, uh your uh process of finding your land, your journey from being a developer to living closer with the land and growing your own food. I wonder if we could just talk briefly about like how do you deal with the food like providing your own food and developing your own food autonomy and resilience in your local area and finally also energy. If you could just briefly touch on that like do you have solar like what's or any plans to get solar like how do you deal with energy in your local area?

>> Okay let's start with food. So footage it's really important. Um I I as I said before like I have approached things as my goal is not only to produce food is like to learn to produce food and ideally I would have like more more than what I what I have right now. But something that I I've I've learned is that like annuals are great. Like we all enjoy tomatoes and those kind of things. Even if like

annuals are really something we really like and it's like most of our our food for most people is based on animals. I think really the power of perennials is incredible because you something I I got to really think about is the energy I put uh to grow food like and if I grow annuals and annual gardens I need to work a lot to to produce the food like I need to prepare the land every year. Uh, I need to bring compost and with perennials like they have stronger root systems

and I need to do some management but like they will produce you plant once and you produce food for for years. So I've been really seeing the pattern that uh perennial fruits are or foods are much more abundant and uh better use of our human energy or machine energy. Perennials so it's basically uh plants that you plant once and you harvest food for many many years. So trees, fruit trees is a good example of that. like nut trees, cider trees, like banana plants for example is that one that they

have. Papayas, all those things uh are really really abundant. Maybe the the the start is slower, but then you have abundant food that you can harvest and and like you go on vacation and you come back and you have all this food growing for years. Now, as compared to an annual which is like a tomato plant, something that you have to plant like every year. >> Usually, you need to this annual plants use a lot of nutrients. So, you need to bring new nutrients from in some way like chemical fertilizer or compost. And usually perennials can use Yeah, in my

experience, you don't need to add that many nutrients because you just prune them and you just add mulch and and they like thrive. >> And it's not just fruit, right? There's tons of perennial vegetables as well. >> An amazing diversity of food. Maybe some some food we are used to eat some some of those but others are not that convention like that well known. So I am um studying a lot about that and trying to find like perennial plants that grow well here because that's I'm really careful about the energy I put in the garden. I really like it but I I don't have couple of

hours every day even sometimes to to be there working. So I try to be yeah to to find the plants that are more efficient on that and that has been also that's also a a longterm project but it's really yeah it's really nice when you have a plant that produces and produces food and you can share with friends and stuff. So that's about food. What I have is a mix of both actually. I have a mix of perennials and a big and and some annuals because I like like tomatoes. And in the workshops I've been I've been teaching last year, I've been

focusing on people that want to start that haven't done anything. And in that case, I encourage them to do like this one one square meter gardens. So they start uh only with one square meter but with a great diversity in that square meter like you can have more than 10 plants there uh of different like you can have uh plants that will be ready in a few weeks and others that will last months and you can also use perennas there. So you can use a one square meat uh garden to grow food that you can harvest in a couple of weeks, but also

to grow a fruit tree that you will uh have there for decades. So yeah, that's really kind of I think the the best way to to start with something really small that you can manage. And then regarding energy that you you also asked um I use grid energy here at some point I I would like to use to have like solar planets. I think that's uh a great thing to have here in Uruguay like the the grid is mostly renewable uh based so it's like 90 something something% is based on renewables

because we don't have oil so so has produced the the capacity of like producing energy uh from hydro and and and wind and solar Um, so yeah, I'm connected to that grid, but I also think if you can build your local um capacity to to generate energy, that's also like a good investment, I think. >> I just say, yeah. Do you have before we put things that close, Daniel, do you have any final thoughts that you want to share with the audience? maybe someone that's a software developer like you or

just starting out on this journey like anything that you would say to them what advice would you give them at this point? Um I would say that yeah for for anyone like software developers or anyone um I think like if you're looking to do this transition and if you would like to see a a more regenerative world I think you just need to uh try to move forward with that and and like forget like about standards and and like um yeah maybe even like stop hearing suggestions from

other people because other people experience like other people would make suggestions about based on their experience. But if you want something different, I would say I would say I would encourage people just to go for it and try to try to create a a new reality that the the reality that they want. Um that's what I have been trying to do and I'm I'm happy with that path. Uh I love it man. you seem super happy. And you know what's really come across in this conversation to me is that like although you're having this conversation in your uh like natural build house and like surrounded by your small farm that

you you've built out like very rustic, very like of the land. your the way you talk it's almost like a kind of startup mindset like it's like curiosity driving you you're learning you're growing you're developing you're trying to like you're making mistakes and and building iterating all the time there's a real similarity there with what you've uh how you've approached this from my perspective anyway like to building a startup building a tech startup or something like that you've just you're just applying it to a different medium that is building with the land rather than building with software.

>> Yeah, I guess I guess you're right. Uh I fully agree with that. >> Any final thoughts? >> I think that's it. Um yeah and also like the one more thing could be like just try to connect with other people looking for the same as that that's really strong because you can find like people you would learn from them or or even like collaborate in different projects. So that's the other thing I can say like try to do it try to not do it alone and to to share with others and make friends during the process.

>> Thanks a lot for joining us today. This was great. >> Thank you Chris.