Meet Michael

Growing up between northern England and the Appalachian mountains of Maryland, Michael’s roots have been branched with diverse landscapes and fertile culture. Mix in a decade of running a grass roots non-profit in rural Latin America, heading up an arid lands research project in the desert of SE Spain, and extensive study at the New York Botanic Garden you end up with an eclectic designer that melds form, function, and productivity seamlessly.

Michael’s beginning with whole system design began with an opportunity to live with the last of the Lacondon Mayans in southern Mexico along the Guatemalan border. Here he experienced the ancient design practices of the Mayans that ingeniously mimic natures patterns to create functional landscapes. About the same time he discovered a parallel design system coming out of Australia, “permaculture,” that applies similar landscape use of the Mayans but adapted to the modern world. Combining designs in 2001 he created Project Bona Fide on Ometepe Island, SW Nicaragua.

Project Bona Fide started on the volcanic slopes of Ometepe Island in Nicaragua’s southwest corner just above Costa Rica. The project focus has been to create food security through food forest design that maximizes land use for a diversity of harvests. Today in 2023, twenty-two years into the project’s inception, 26 acres have grown into a haven of production and examples of linked design systems that mimic natures functions while meeting the needs of local economies and ecologies.

As the project stabilized Michael began to split his time in a parallel universe on the island of Manhattan where he studied the latest in modern design at the New York Botanic Garden. Coupling whole system design learned in Latin America with the form and art of contemporary design Judd created Ecologia, Edible & Ecological Designs and won his first commission from Top Chef contender Bryan Voltaggio to design an edible courtyard at his flagship restaurant “Volt,” in Frederick, Maryland.

New York Botanical Garden

Michael is also the Co- founder of SilvoCulture, a non-profit focused on perennial food security, Morris Orchard Natural Burial Park, and the Fruit Patch app.

Today Michael remains in the Frederick area where he and his wife Ashley, son Wyatt, and daughter Jaia live at Long Creek Permaculture Haven in a spectacular circular strawbale home in the center of extensive landscapes that push the realities of design to new levels…

Media Bio

Michael Judd has worked with agro-ecological and whole-system designs throughout the Americas for over two decades, focusing on applying permaculture and ecological design. His projects increase local food security and community health in both tropical and temperate growing regions. He is the founder of Ecologia Edible & Ecological Landscape Design, Project Bona Fide, an international nonprofit supporting agro-ecology research, and co-founder of SilvoCulture, a Maryland based nonprofit which is helping plant 1 million nut trees in the Mid-Atlantic region. He is also the author of ‘Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist’, and ‘For the Love of PawPaws’.

Michael’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and BBC. Presenter for notable institutions such as the US Botanical Garden, Smithsonian, and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

Michael lives and his family live along the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Frederick, Maryland.