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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] SARE?]
  • Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:44:17 -0700

John Schinnerer wrote:

Infiltrating USDA activities with Permaculture is a great idea. No

It has already been infiltrated, they alread know about permaculture and use
it.
What they need is what we can offer, PIW.

objection there.
I don't know if or how much it has been worked on - Scott, Lawrence, any info on that?

Cooperative Extension is like a large unweildy ship with built in pecking
order
among the administrative heirarchy. It needs to turn in the direction of
sustainable agriculture, permaculture, organics, renewables, local food
production
but that is a slow process. In NC it used to be locked up by the supporting
land grant college
system and promoted nothing other than chemical, conventional ag. It even
used to be illegal
to sell bagged organic fertilizer in NC. The ship has finally made a change
of direction
for the most part. Organic farming-oriented agents are in much greater number
now and are
scattered over the state with a greater concentration in the Central Piedmont
and in the Mountains.
There is a sustainable farming curriculum with a permaculture course at one
of the community colleges.
So, yes, Extension is interested in permaculture, teaching it and promoting
it. Steve Diver, who is on this list
and used to be an Extension agent, can tell you a lot more about this. As for
USDA, they are already involved
with permaculture in various ways, especially as far as library resources are
concerned. The National Agricultural
LIbrary has a collection called The Alternative Farming Systems Information
Center; this is the group that would
likely be the most interested in PIW and might promote it widely. A SARE
grant proposal might include establishing
a relationship between PIW and AFSIC. USDA already hosts a number of
databases, some created by Dr. James Duke, herbalist.

Anyway, it is highly likely that Extension would be interested in
incorporating permaculture resources in their
ongoing outreach programs. Extension has their own array of online info
resources and individual Extension agents
mount their own websites on Extension servers, often tailored with more
refined and cutting edge resources.
As part of this outreach they might promote all sorts of local and national
permaculture activities, convocations and online resources
Permaculture offers tools they can use in their role of providing information
and consultation to their client base, i.e. county taxpayers.
Online resources are part of this program; PIW is a tool and is online so it
will fit perfectly in toeir outreach program. They are
especially active in areas where small and market farming is popular; they
proving a lot of organizational help and ongoing support for
farmer's markets.

AND as far as HG goes, what you're proposing is IMO a far larger game that needs far larger (or at least more!) players. Coordinating PC people and USDA to make connections to get a SARE grant for trainings is IMO *way way WAY* outside the scope of our HG project.

Hardly. It is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing, early on. SARE
will help put us on the map.
If we serve a small homesteader on Jersey we can just as easily serve the
entire USDA ccommunity of
professionals and their clients.

Let's look for simpler grant solutions for our particular project funds.

Not at all. PFAF is already a major resource, probably used by USDA people,
maybe Extension too.
Think big, John.

This could be a particularly heinous example of "feature creep"... ;-)

An idea alongside the above:

If some PC folks have relations with USDA types somewhere already, let's

We need to help create those types of relationships all over the country;
our relationship with USDA, mostly through Extension and AFSIC, will go a
long way toward making this happen.

go to them about being the people who fit this grant model and see if they're interested. Then you just have to fill in the blanks instead of create the whole connection from scratch.

That's not the way to go about it. We start with SARE and/or other SARE-like
government agencies offering funding possibilities for
worthwile projects that in turn further their own goals. We are offering
something that _they_ as well as their clients (US taxpayers)
can use.

In other words, IMO this is a whole 'nother project, definitely not part of HG - though HG could obviously be useful to that whole 'nother project were some group(s) to take it on.

This possible relationship with SARE is part and parcel of our mission as
well as vision and something we need to pursue now, not later.
Strike while the iron is hot.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech





  • Re: [pcplantdb] SARE?], Lawrence F. London, Jr., 10/18/2004

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