pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Stephanie Gerson wrote:

> 4.  Finally, so far we’ve been engaging the Permaculture community, but 
> I’d like to broaden our efforts to include market farmers practicing/
> making the transition to sustainable agriculture – both for purposes of 
> grant eligibility (i.e. SARE) and for making PIW truly valuable in 
> promoting sustainable agriculture.  As a part of this effort, I spoke 
> with Steve Diver today and we had an interesting conversation.  He told 
> me that he doesn’t see PIW satisfying the needs of market farmers 
> practicing/attempting to transition to sustainable agriculture, at least 
> not those in this country – considering that they are crunched for time, 
> must make end meet, and have little leeway for experimenting with guilds.  
> However, many are aware of Natural Systems Agriculture being practiced at 
> the Land Institute.  So, I have some questions for us: 
>
> ‡ Is PIW (with its current vision) valuable to market farmers practicing 
> sustainable agriculture (similar questions to those I asked regarding the 
> Whole Systems Foundation)?  
>
> ‡ If not, how can we make it useful (this might simply require a shift in 
> terminology – from “guild” to “intercropping”)?  Or, is this
> something 
> that doesn’t worry us, as we are not (necessarily) catering to market 
> farmers?

I have a lot to say about this as I think that constructing PIW to become a 
useful
tool for market farmers would be a good thing and could bring in lots of 
grant money,
funding that might be needed to get the basic work completed.

I hope others here will be interesting in discussing this, JohnS & JohnH with 
their practical
approach and Stephanie and Chad with their vision.

I see PIW as doing two different things that might be integrated somehow:

1) PC relationships database
2) market farmer database, analysis and planning tool

> ‡ And if so, how do we include them in the design process?  Steve 
> suggested the possibility of user testing specifically for farmers, and I 
> think this is a great idea.  Perhaps we could create a testing prototype, 
> put a call out to market farmers, and solicit feedback specifically from 
> them.  Or Johns, would you rather keep testing general?  I do think it 
> would be helpful for PIW and grant apps to have testing specifically for 
> farmers.

If my suggestion above is followed wouldn't that necessitate two different
testing platforms - is this possible or practical?

> Also, this might be a good topic to introduce to the PIW list.

Absolutely and in the marketfarming list also.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
Market Farming Forum
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