Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>]

I thought this was a great year-end overview of our common concerns and wanted to share it.

 

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Keith Johnson

To: BPG ; Permaculture ibiblio ; openpermaculture

Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 9:59 PM

Subject: [Permaculture International] Time to Garden the Planet (pleaseforward)

Time to Garden the Planet

©2006 Peter Bane
This is a season for talking truth about the world. Americans do
elections and feasting in the same month and for good reason: All
politics hinges on the question, "Who eats?"

When we shifted our economy from the wild harvesting of nature's
surpluses to the cultivation of cereal crops at the end of the last ice
age, we started on a course of collective self-discovery: Will the
clever monkeys solve the puzzle in time? Can they figure out how to grow
enough food to keep up with their sex drive?

So far, the answer is no. The Agricultural Revolution, sparked in the
semi-arid regions of the Near East about 10,000 years ago, has been a
failure. The production of surplus grains has always led to increases in
population that outstrip the productive capacity of their regions,
leading to war, empire, destruction of forests, and migrations. On a
shrinking planet, there's nowhere else to go.

To get to the root of politics we have to talk and act on food. Freedom
isn't just "nothin' left to lose," rather it's an abundant supply of
locally grown food for every household. Our current food system, and
with it the entire economy of the now hyperlinked world is balanced
precariously on a dwindling supply of fossil oil and gas, controlled by
a tiny elite of mostly foreign powers.This is not a temporary problem to
be solved by technology or better management. It is a structural problem
of geological limits and burgeoning population that will never go away
until we break our addiction to oil.

Thirty years ago, two Australians, David Holmgren and Bill Mollison
discovered in their conversation about energy and equity that they had
something to say about this problem. They described their response to
global limits and the failure of central authority with the made-up
word, "Permaculture," or "permanent agriculture."

In the generation since "Permaculture I" was published, a hundred
thousand others have joined this conversation around the world and
Permaculture has come to mean "permanent culture," because, of course,
no system of farming can exist without a just and stable society to
support it.

Besides being a paradox ("permanent" means long-lasting while "culture"
is about continuous change and adaptation"), Permaculture is a way of
seeing the world that emphasizes context and processes. It requires a
shift of focus from objects and actors—which is the cultural bias of
western civilization and of our English language in particular—to
relationships. Whether seen as feminine or right-brained or Eastern
because these qualities have been suppressed in our culture, the
capacity for holistic thinking is really about balance —drawing on both
sides of the brain and emphasizing the connections between them.

Permaculture is also a design system, based on ecology and taught by
grassroots networks, for creating human habitats—homes, neighborhoods,
towns, and the countryside—that capture energy, grow food, and recycle
wastes, as they grow ever more diverse and abundant. The principles are
simple but not trivial:
• Humans must be engaged interactively with the natural world around us;
• Our chief task is to capture and cycle solar energy, using it to meet
our needs;
• We have to feed ourselves and regulate our behaviors to fit in with
nature;
• Biological systems work best;
• Waste equals food;
• The patterns of natural systems show us how to create cultivated ones;
• Combine top-down thinking with bottom-up action;
• Always integrate elements and systems for mutual support;
• Choose small and slow means;
• Cultivate diversity and look to the margins for action;
• Be prepared for change.
These have endless ramifications.

And out of these networks of "each one, teach one," has grown a social
movement for people-centered development and grassroots scientific
research that has successfully demonstrated pathways for a low-energy
future in 100 countries. The abundance of cheap fossil fuel and the
material excesses of USA culture have retarded Americans' awareness of
Permaculture, but the rise of energy prices and the continued
contraction of the global economy are helping awaken more people to the
need for which Permaculture was created.

Permaculture has a great analysis of the world—Energy comes from the
sun, therefore it's time to reorganize our economy and technology to
recognize that (Think biology.); The Earth has limits, of which energy,
water, tree cover, and soil minerals are especially critical to life;
People, once educated, are best able solve their own problems and meet
their own needs locally, so teach them to teach others. The household,
not the factory, is the source of prosperity, so create edible
landscapes everywhere people live. But the Permaculture story would be
empty theory if it didn't lead to positive action for change.

If you want to turn the world on its head, it takes a really good idea
and a lot of practice. And that's where the design system comes in. You
apply these principles to your own life, your own household, your own
economy to make permaculture happen where you live. And every one is
different. Starting at the back door, permaculture designers and
activists have created city farms, food forests, solar homes, living
roofs, edible parks and schoolgrounds, backyard fish ponds, community
health centers, water gardens, local currencies and credit unions,
farmers markets, ecovillages, and a worldwide university.

What will be your part of this story?

The true test of permanent agriculture is whether it builds and
maintains carbon (organic matter) levels in soil. This takes trees,
animals, careful observation, persistence, and a new worldview. No
mechanized agriculture can do it, only people who understand their
kinship with all of life can. The land needs people. At the same time,
there can never be enough "stuff" in the marketplace to satisfy our
profound need for love and meaning. These can only come from
relationship—people need the land and each other. In a world of
diminishing resources, the only inexhaustible resource is our creativity
and our undying connection with the Earth. These come together in the
garden, and while Permaculture is much more than can be imagined by one
person or captured in an essay, it is most often and truly associated
with the garden, our deepest image of connectedness with the original
source and of a world filled with pleasure and delight.

Politics has captured the attention of Americans again after a
generation of lethargy because the world's problems are growing more
complex with each passing day. We face endless war over oil, rampant
consumerism, a hollow economy and a crumbling dollar, an epidemic of
obesity, toxicity and illness, and a medical system out of control.
Hunger and plague stalk the global South. At the risk of being thought
romantic or utopian, I assert that the solutions to these and most of
the world's dramatic crises rests in a rather simple shift of our
awareness and our behavior. We must care for the Earth and for people,
and share that which is surplus to our needs so that others may meet
their own. We must also consciously limit our consumption and
population. These ethics are central to permaculture: they belong to no
nation or creed but to all of humanity. It's time to garden the planet.

/Peter Bane publishes /Permaculture Activist,/ the world's
longest-running journal of permaculture design. He lives in Bloomington,
Indiana.
/
*/_Permaculture Resources_/*/
Permaculture Activist, quarterly journal, PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN
47407. www.permacultureactivist.net. Magazines, books, videos, global
directory of permaculture organizations, seed and nursery sources.
Permaculture Magazine (U.K.), quarterly. www.permaculture.co.uk.

Permaculture training is offered is most regions of the US and Canada
throughout the year. In some areas there are community college courses,
but most workshops are weekend series, week-long, or two-week intensives
in private venues. A calendar of events is published Feb., May, Aug.,
and Nov. by Permaculture Activist.

For central Virginia and surrounding regions, contact
ChristineGyovai@gmail.com, 434-982-6464. (weekends March and April 2007)
For Ohio, Pennsylvania, W. Va. and eastern Ky, contact Josh Beniston,
ramblinjosh@yahoo.com. 740-818-8422 ... (July, 2007. Hocking College
affiliation.)
For Indiana, Illinois, western Ky. and southern. Wisc., contact Andy
Mahler, andy@blueriver.net. (June 2007, Ind. Univ. credit option.)
For Colorado and the mountain west, contact Central Rocky Mountain
Permaculture Institute, www.crmpi.org, 970-927-4158.
For Florida contact Joanna Angel. gaiagrovefl@yahoo.com. (mid-March
intensive)
For southern New England, contact Dynamics Ecosystems Design,
davej@edibleforestgardens.com.
For northern New England contact Yestermorrow Design/Build school.
802-496-5545.
For New York, contact Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute,
flpcipermaculture@yahoo.com ... (weekends ongoing)
For Ontario, contact Ecology Retreat Centre,
bookings@ecologyretreatcentre.ca. (July/September) /

--
Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47408
(812) 335-0383
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
also Association for Regenerative Culture
also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's a small world after oil.
http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington
also Bloomington Permaculture Guild


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