Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

Re prices for permaculture classes. Some community colleges offer 
permaculture classes that, if you're also low income, are almost free 
(plus the cost of getting there). Merritt College in Oakland, for 
instance, has been offering permaculture for about 6 years. The 
regular fee is around $100 a semester, and 2 semesters gets you a 
"certificate," which is as valuable as the paper it's printed on 
(which is to say that, as for most things, what you get out is 
proportional to what you put in). Low-income is about $2.

I think the fees are high for the sleepaway courses for lots of 
reasons (or choose one, this is all arm waving). They're given by 
upper and middle class folks who're trying to make a certain hourly 
rate, or who don't think a thousand is a lot of money. Maybe they've 
switched careers and don't understand the whole different way of 
looking at money outside of the 9to5world, where people pay their own 
seminar and workshop fees. Maybe they're unskilled at budgeting and 
negotiating, and can't manage to organize the food, lodging, 
logistics, etc., for a more reasonable rate. Maybe they're trying to 
be robin hoods, charging richer folk and then offering free/cheaper 
courses or projects to poorer folk. Or maybe everyone else is doing 
it, so they do, too. Whatever.

Anyone who wants to learn something can find a book, a person, an 
internship, an e-list, or some way other than a pricey weekend 
workshop.