The layout

The main building is located in the centre of the farm. It is raised and has the kitchen and dining room. The view is so gratifying when preparing your morning eggs, with the view of the healthy chickens in near sight. Underneath the building is storage, used mostly for bicycles, and building materials. Attached to the living area is a gorgeous verandah, with handmade hammocks, perfect for a 360 view of the green trees and fauna , that the local nature gifts you with. Connected to the roof of the verandah is a huge 5000L water butt facilitating all of the rain water.  There is an identical system, on the opposing side of the main building to collect the water from the main structure. Our bedroom is a screened in cabana, which creates a green tinted morning light when the sun rises around 5am. We have got used to working through the sunlight hours, waking up early and going to bed shortly after the sun sets, as there is no electricity in our cabin other than our nifty head torches and phones. To bathe, there is a creek, located towards the east perimeter of the farm. As confirmed the creek is flowing all year round, however, we are visiting bang in the middle of wet season, creating a gorgeous fast flowing creek where you can completely immerse your body into the fresh bursting creek.

The arrangement

The arrangement here is to babysit Allie's child, Ziggy 6 days a week from 17:00-20:00. There are also the staff's children who love to come and play during the day. In return we have access to the food in the kitchen to make breakfast, lunch and dinner and have free accommodation. I have the opportunities here to work alongside some of the staff to get stuck into:

• Language practice
  
• Help with Eco Projects 
  
• Gardening
  
• DIY and building projects
  
• Farm projects
  
• Opportunity to live simply and sustainably off the grid
  
• Learn about living in Belize
  

The farm has been under construction for 8 years and Allie had informed us there is only a couple more months of work to go. Every weekday morning at 7am, there is a meeting with the farmers and construction workers to go over the plan for the day.

How is the farm sustainable?

Farm work: 

The farm has trees and plants growing in every direction. The vegetable patch allows for a constant influx of herbs, fruits and vegetables to harvest and then create fresh, natural flavours when cooking. The localisation of food saves plastic packaging and also the cost of the produce. It also completely eliminates food miles. Food miles are the distance food is transported from the time of its making until it reaches the consumer. The less miles on the food, the less damage there is to the environment. All around minimising food miles is a win. Finding food produced close to your home is a brilliant start, however harvesting the food at your home is one of the greatest moments of pure satisfaction from creating a sustainable farm. The farm is still expanding, but here are the current harvests:

Vegetables grown at the farm: cucumbers, tomatoes, butternut squash, peppers

Fruits grown at the farm: banana, cherry, lemons, oranges

Herbs grown at the farm: coriander

Other harvests: eggs

Meat free diet: 

There are 12 happy chickens on the farm, however they are purely here for the production of eggs. They have plenty of room to freely roam around the farm, and a sheltered coop to protect them from the heavy rain. Allie, has lived as a vegetarian for over 20 years and asks that you reciprocate the same life style when living here. There is excellent evidence plant-based foods require less energy (and produce less emissions) than animal products - eating a meat diet creates 2.5x more carbon emissions than eating a veggie diet.

Here are some more positive impacts and facts from eating a meat free diet:

• By eating vegetarian food for a year you could save the same amount of emissions as a family taking a small car off the road for 6 months (Vegsoc, 2022)
  
• It reduces ground water contamination - animals generate more than 1 million tons of manure per day. This waste contains harmful phosphorus, nitrogen, pesticides and antibiotics and often pollutes streams, lakes and the ocean (farmsanctury, 2022).
  
• Livestock farming is responsible for at least 15% of the greenhouse gases becasue of the methane animals produce (Wavetribe, 2021)
  
• Rasing animals for food actually generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combines (United Nations, 2022).
  
• It has been estimated that, globally, seven football fields of land are bulldozed every minute to make way for livestock. These forests that are being bulldozed absorb carbon dioxide and help slow climate change. (The Smithsonian Institute, 2020).
  

These facts do however miss out the production and miles on some particular foods and could be bias. However, the global trends follow the hypothesis that eating a meat free diet is significantly better for the environment.

UV water processes: 

The water butt attached to the kitchen (and the one used for drinking and cooking) uses a UV (ultraviolet index) water purification system. This is a highly effective means of preventing microorganisms in your water to prevent illness. UV systems emit UV light from a light bulb that sits inside the water butt's tube to the kitchen in a glass sleeve. The UV rays then pass through this sleeve and penetrate the water, attacking the microorganisms' genetic code, scrambling the DNA and preventing them from reproducing and therefore functioning. The UV purification process is about 99.99% effective at deactivating harmful microorganisms in drinking water (Campbell, 2022).

Habits in the kitchen: 

There were lots of rules when we first arrived to make sure the kitchen was zero waste. Firstly, everything in the fridge and on the shelves were put into tupperware, there was no plastic insight (small portion bags, clingfilm, ect). When needed, an extra large version of the product was bought and then decanted into the regular size and to be used daily - for example washing up liquid is purchased as a 3 litre bottle to prevent buying 30 smaller 100ml bottles. At lunch time a big meal was prepared, if this was not finished, the left overs were to be used for dinner that night. The old food was ALWAYS to be eaten first. There was a food bin that was emptied daily - the majority of waste was food waste - and was emptied into the compost bin to be re-used for the farm. All fresh products are bought in the local market in Belmopan and the products that can be produced near by are also purchased here to reduce road miles, for example the honey is made in Belmopan. The sink in the kitchen had a pumping system to pump water in from one of the water butts, which was the only accessible water in the kitchen.

Solar Panels: 

Solar panels use sunlight as a source of energy to generate direct current (DC) electricity. This means that the solar panel itself cannot store this direct energy. However, Allie has designed her farm especially to create a home solar panel system, by adding lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries which reverses the chemical reactions, allowing storage of the energy. From storing this solar energy, a few simple benefits are created for life on the farm, for example, balancing electric loads. If the electricity isn't stored, it has to be used the moment it is generated, meaning there would be no accessible energy the moment the sun sets. Energy storage allows surplus generation to be banked for peak-use. Even though minimal electricity is used in the cabins, the sun sets around 6pm during the Belizian wet season and so this surplus of stored energy allows for an evening meal to be cooked and working lights from 6pm-8pm.

Laundry:

 As a volunteer, we are allowed to do one load of washing per week. The washing machine fills up with water from the water butt and the spin cycle is 15 minutes long. This electricity is covered by the solar panels and it asked that we do our load whilst the sun is high. The washing line is of considerable length, so all washed clothes will fit, and then become dry from the heat of the day.