pcplantdb

[Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>]

Thanks to Johns, I completely agree with him here.

I'm wary of pursuing some two-part application - for both practical 
purposes (much extra work) and consciousness purposes.  What do I mean by 
the latter (sorry, a bit tired)?  Well, what will it do to our 
understanding of sustainable system design to carve this division?  As 
Johns asked:

"What's the diff between a "farmer" in 1) above and a "market farmer" in 
2) above?"

And, as he responded, "Either Permaculture is a meta-design system useful 
to *all* the above folks (and more), or it is not."

If it's a matter of scale, let scale be one of the criteria we can sort 
by.  If that makes sense.

I'd like to forward this discussion onto the PIW list.

Thanks,
*Stephanie

------ Original Message ------
Received: 01:04 AM PST, 02/26/2005
From: "John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>
To: "Permaculture Plant Database" <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] miscellaneous items of interest

Aloha,

> The system would have two components available to the public:
>
> 1) for permaculture people + environmentalists, wildlife 
conservationists,
> naturalists, farmers, homesteaders, homeowners, etc.
>
> 2) for market farmers, market gardeners, home gardeners, farmstead
> gardeners, homestead gardeners, kitchen gardeners,
>     commercial growers

What's the diff between a "farmer" in 1) above and a "market farmer" in 
2)
above?
What has a "home gardener" got in common with a "commercial grower" that
they are in the same group but not together with "homeowners" and
"permaculture people" (whatever that means).
Groups 1) and 2) are IMO arbitrary, inconsistent and overlapping.

Either Permaculture is a meta-design system useful to *all* the above
folks (and more), or it is not.

If it is, then the core of what we're doing is useful to *all* the above
folks.
In that case, details of client/UI systems that will access the core
db/data engine in different ways for more specific applications belong in
phase 2 and later of the project (that is, when we actually have a DB and
engine to fantasize new applications for).

If it is not, and the needs of "market farmers" etc. cannot be met by PC
and in fact are not and *should not* be congruent with PC practices, then
we have two separate projects.

In other words, if PC is not useful to market farmers, then a database
that is useful to them is not a PC-centric database, and therefore it is 
a
separate project.

If PC *is* useful to market farmers, then part of what we are doing by
providing this DB is inviting them to notice that PC is applicable for
them.

John S.


John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net


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+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


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