Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Mike <mike.lists@mlxvi.org>]

Hi Paul

I have heard that complaint many times from your neck of the woods. Here on the other side of the world it is a similar price but usually you get two weeks of course, accommodation and food. Really quite good value.

But the crux of the matter is that you really don't need the course. There are plenty of free (and low cost) ways of getting the same (and better) information.

1. The syllabus of the Permaculture Design Course is supposed to be Permaculture - A Designers' Manual. As books go, it is costly, but it is huge and it'll keep you going for years.
2. Many permaculture courses do not follow the manual but instead concentrate on permaculture tactics. Pity, really. A waste, in fact. The permaculture tactics (or directives I have heard Mollison day) are pretty well documented and can be found on hundreds of web sites.
3. Permaculture, of course, is just a design science. It was not the first place that these ideas arose (although some of them definitely did start there). It merely proposed the idea that we should be doing those things that worked to achieve the permaculture goals. (It is interesting to see the evolution of the ideas and scope through the early permaculture books. ) Thus, there are thousands of other books that describe how to get higher yields through natural systems.

>> tho as a design system it's truly remarkable.

And it is such a pity that the high price tag there has had that effect.

>>What the high dollar seminars don't teach is how to grow food

Yet that is one of the things at the heart of permaculture. Crazy.

>>and marketing sustainably grown production and doing it profitably. That is one of the most urgent priorities in today's economy.

And yet I would partially disagree with that. Surely the priority is simply to get people fed with healthy food. In your country, but especially in countries where the population just doesn't get fed. A lot of the design strategies are for small areas. Home production of food. For every person interested in growing food for a business, surely there are a thousand that would like to start a home (or village) garden. Permaculture, while it doesn't speak loudly to those wanting to start a food production business, it certainly does to those who are in business but looking to increase total yields while looking after their land better than they are able to do with a monoculture.

And the idea that permaculture should contribute to the 'today's economy' might be a contradiction. "Today's economy" is all about big business gaining as much control as possible, being as big as possible, and therefore as a result being as inefficient as possible (in a natural sense). It is about machines, debt and control. It is about the short term. It is not about the care of the earth and of the people. It is not about the permanence of culture, of agriculture. It is not about sustainability.

Maybe the day will come when judgment of permaculture on its merits, rather than the price of the seminars, will be more common. Personally, I just wouldn't go to the seminars if they didn't provide value - rather than write off the whole thing.


Mike


Tradingpost wrote:

200805202041530145.20EFA613@mail.lobo.net" type="cite">

I have disagreements about the way permaculture is hyped for high dollar seminars, tho as a design system it's truly remarkable. What the high dollar seminars don't teach is how to grow food - the nuts and bolts of feeding your self and marketing sustainably grown production and doing it profitably. That is one of the most urgent priorities in today's economy. We touch on aspects of growing sustainably here but we're all learning. And we don't have $900 seminars that leave you wondering where to begin.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/21/2008 at 12:26 PM Mike wrote:

  

I am surprised at the source of this article. From my understanding of 
permaculture it is INCLUSIVE of those things that the author of this 
article states are necessary. Permaculture is not only those natural 
systems that we call green (In fact to call 'green' things permaculture 
is not strictly correct - permaculture is a design system that goes 
beyond green and may, in fact, incorporate decidedly (some greenies 
would say) ungreen things. Take some large and not so large earthmoving 
projects, for example. ) Bill Mollison emphatically includes sustainable 
legal, financial, political and other invisible systems in his 
definition of permaculture.

After all, what use is a sustainable agriculture system without a 
sustainable culture to work it and benefit from it.

Permaculture is not only a contraction of the term 'permanent 
agriculture', but also 'permanent culture'.

Mike



Tradingpost wrote:
    

Why Bother With Permaculture?
http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D16WhyBotherWPermcul.html?
                        (From the International Permaculture Journal.)

      

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