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  • From: Bob Howard <rmhoward@omninet.net.au>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] PC as education - a polemic
  • Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 21:22:59 +0800



Fiona Campbell wrote:

[snipped polemic and other comments]

> The good news is that farmer's markets are really taking off in Australia.
> Local economies had their run in the '90s, such as LETS, but have faded
> away to a great extent. Why? Don't know. Can someone explain it to me?
>
> In Australia, we need to start to educate people about our backyards,
> the resource that is going to save most of us when the crunch comes.
>
> Yes, where we have backyards. I don't know abut Western Australia, where
> you live, but you need a lot of money to own a backyard in Sydney, where I
> live. More and more people are choosing to live in apartments and town
> houses (that have only a small courtyard), so what I suggest Permaulture
> needs is a set of ideas about Permaculture for apartment dwellers. Anyone
> got any ideas? A place to start thinking about this? (Has to do with more
> than food).
>
> We need to create "compleat idiot" guides to backyard farming and
> survival for the suburbs.
>
> Jeff Hodges wrote it in the '80s, I think. Now out of print. I suggest
> referring to relevant literature from the 1970s on.
>
> From time to time, local governments or the Ag dept wipe out some
> fruit or nut tree from an area to control some disease or pest. PC applied
> over a council area would be a definitive answer to this simply by
> increasing the complexity of the environment you would reduce the risk of
> spread etc. (fill in the arguments).
>
> Arguments... well, I suggested the role of Permaculture folk in local
> government before. I would also add overcoming political naievity, learning
> to lobby (that would be necessary to get councils to do what you suggest)
> and having documented case studies about successful precenents.
>
> We need to start now establishing establishng alternative food webs
> within our community.
>
> By expanding food coops, farmer's markets, organic home delivery and
> retail, perhaps. As for community gardens, see:
> www.magna.com.au/~pacedge/garden
>
> We need to start working on a manifesto about how our town, or
> neighbourhood could be and we need to start a revolution of hope.
>
> Done by Dr Ted Trainer, UNSW Social Work school.
>
> Thanks for your email.
>
> ...Russ Grayson
>

I'm a bit confused about whether I'm responding to Russ Grayson or Fiona
Campbell or both (but that's a minor quibble ;-)

I sort of lost it at the end here and ended up listing things that already
are taking place when what I wanted to say was more along the lines of this:-

The collapse of the Argentinian economy led to the creation of mostly short
lived neighbourhood organising committees. These suffered from the usual
problems of such groups, grandstanding, takeover by politcal apparatchiks
etc. Now of course the process is not over and the latest I read was of
workers being evicted following factory occupations and otherwise successful
attempts at self management.

It's a reasonable prediction that in the face of growing anarchy brought
about by the abuse of miltary and economic power by the Amerikan government
that similar crises will overtake many parts of the world. The current US
government to be fair, evil minded and corrupt as it is, is not wholly
responsible for the situation that has developed over the last 100 years or
more. The blame for that can be sheeted home to the growth of global
capitalism and
the industrialization of science.

What is necessary is to develop alternative structures or plans that work.

For instance. The Green Party in W.A. succeeded in organising itself along
consensus lines and developed strong internal structures because of an early
commitment to maintenance work as part of a collective understanding of
non-violent politics and meeting procedures. Other state parties in Australia
have to a lesser or greater degree been influenced by this kind of thinking.

This has stood them in good stead when it has come to dealing with
preselection, ideological battles and personal ambitions and has resulted in
the Greens W.A. currently holding 5 seats in the State upper
house(Legislative Council) and at various times holding a Senate seat in
Canberra.

This is a good example of reproductive work paying off. And if it can be
contributed to a single person I'd attribute it to Joanna Macey's visit in
the mid 80's and her work on Despair and Empowerment which had a strong
influence on the W.A. Peace Movement at the time. (Certainly influenced me
anyhow :-)

Where coutries and cities and regions have good community networks and
loyalty they are much more likely to survive the cruelties of overlords and
armies.

I'd say at the moment that there is a 5% chance of severe crop shortages
leading to food price inflation that will ultimately require price controls
within the next couple of years.

There is a better than even chance that parts of Eastern Australia will be
turned to dustbowls and abandoned by farmers in the next 12 months. The
Federal Government tonight announced an expected 30% fall in primary
production for this year.One difference between this drought and the
1895-1902 drought (the most severe in the last 200 years) is that in 1902,
there was nothing like the same volume of land under cultivation. Fertilizer
and fuel actually
make us more vulnerable to drought and famine in the long run as we rely upon
higher and higher yields and productivity. The higher we climb the further we
have to fall.

I was struck a few years ago by a graph that showed increased productivity
due to the application of superphosphate over a period of 5 years. The one
drought year in the five the productivity dropped below that of the
comparable unfertilized field. But overall there was a higher yield - how to
use statistics to sell fertilizer.

I was also struck by the fact that the downfall of President Suharto in
Indonesia was brought about proximately by a 40% increase in the price of
rice.

We are living on the edge of a precipice, but shhh... we don't want people to
panic the Empire is triuimphant and the Emporer hs no clothes.

Bob Howard





.

We really need to be talking about this sort of stuff....





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