Different parts of the farm serve different needs

Kelly compares his farm to an organism. He explains that the entire farm is like the body, and the different areas are its organs. Each organ has its function, and through positive interactions they provide for the needs of other organs. The manure from animals is fed to the coffee plantations. Grasses from the barriers are used to produce forage. Fallen fruits are fed to pigs. Meats and vegetables provide energy to workers, who maintain the farm.

Kelly realizes that the process of convincing friends and neighbors of his ideas is a long one. Most farmers still practice the slash and burn agriculture that he learned from his father. Yet he understands that farmers, more so than most, are visual people. For them, seeing is believing.

Once complete, Piso Verde will serve as a visual testament to his conclusions on slash and burn agriculture:

"In only a few years a farmer must exploit dozens of hectares so that he can have the resources he needs to maintain his family. That a family would need so much land to support itself is illogical. The farmers here practice a type of migratory agriculture. They work the soil, cultivate it, harvest from it, and then the next year that soil is poorer than it was before. Then they move on to another piece of land and do the same thing year after year."

"I decided to demonstrate that in smaller parcels, the soil, instead of becoming poorer year after year, it should become richer. I can cultivate every year in the same place, and each year the production will increase."

Kelly’s story highlights the important and long term role that education has in transforming a community. It also underscores the idea that change can be encouraged from the outside, but it must occur from within.