Biofactoría and Chromatography of Biofertilizers by Jairo Restrepo

This course uses both theory and practice to engageparticipants around two specific concepts of organic agriculture. First, a Biofactoría (Biofactory) is aplace where all organic bio-inputs are processed for application to crops, whether applied directlyto 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-inputsare prepared for their satisfaction and nutritional harmony. The second is chromatography, aninexpensive method to qualitatively analyze organic materials like soil, plant tissue, or inputs tounderstand 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 ownexperiences in practicing organic agriculture. A functional biofactoría will then be used to walkthrough its operation with practical, hands-on demonstrations. The chromatography content willbegin with an introductory lecture on the process and its analysis methods. It will then be followedby performing the process on the biofertilizers created with the example biofactoría and practicingthe analysis of their results.