Workshop Series 2025: Creating a Biofactoría and Chromatography of biofertilizers by Jairo Restrepo

Name: Workshop Series 2025: Creating a Biofactoría and Chromatography of biofertilizers by Jairo Restrepo
Start: 2025-09-02T08:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-09-05T17:00:00-04:00
Location: 4781 N Mount Gilead Rd, Monroe, IN, United States, Indiana 47408

Schedule

Tue, 02 Sep, 2025 at 08:00 am to Fri, 05 Sep, 2025 at 05:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

4781 N Mount Gilead Rd, Monroe, IN, United States, Indiana 47408 | Bloomington, IN

This course uses both theory and practice to engage participants around two specific concepts of organic agriculture. First, a Biofactoría (Biofactory) is a place where all organic bio-inputs are processed for application to crops, whether applied directly to the plants or to the soil. As an analogy, a biofactory can be considered a kind of kitchen where, depending on the needs or hunger of each crop or soil, one or more organic dishes or bio-inputs are prepared for their satisfaction and nutritional harmony. The second is chromatography, an inexpensive method to qualitatively analyze organic materials like soil, plant tissue, or inputs to understand their health or composition and guilde decisions for improving their quality.
Discussion on the Biofactoría will cover the problems caused by the current model of industrial agriculture, the importance of organic agriculture and its advances at a global level, as well as Jairo’s own experiences in practicing organic agriculture. A functional biofactoría will then be used to walk though its operation with practical, hands-on demonstrations.
The chromatography content will begin with an introductory lecture on the process and its analysis methods. It will then be followed by performing the process on the biofertilizers created with the example biofactoría and practicing the analysis of their results.

Jairo will once again conduct an organic- regenerative focused workshop in 2025 at Sobremesa Farm in Bloomington, Indiana. Regenerative agriculture focuses on various approaches to climate resilience through conservation practices, soil regeneration, improving water retention and ultimately improving soil structure, allowing for healthier plant growth. Farmers throughout the US along with programs, supported by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), have seen the importance of employing sustainable practices on farms of various scales to mitigate the effects of climate change. Many of the practices taught at the workshop are easily applicable for various farm scales and to the home gardener.
In 2023, Sobremesa Farm was one of the featured farms for Farm Aid 2023. Being in the national spotlight gave us an opportunity to highlight the importance of the individual farmer’s role in caring for the health of the land through sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices along with permaculture principles.