permaculture

[UrbanHarve@aol.com]

One policy issue that interests me is the construction of locally appropriate
manuals and information collections for sustainable food production. Here in
Metro Houston, we have a growing library of gardening books and information,
a seed bank, a quarterly 16 page newsletter, a number of pamphlets and three
books/booklets we have written (my general book Year Round Vegetables, Fruits
and Flowers for Metro-Houston, a Natural Organic Approach using Ecology; How
to Grow Tomatoes in Metro Houston; and Mark Cotham's The Urban Harvest Guide
to School and Youth Gardening.  

These differ from what would otherwise be available in that they focus
particularly on what works in Houston adapted to local ecological conditions.
Due to publishing economics, most commercial materials focus on megamarkets
such as the Southern United States, and create materials that rapidly go out
of date unless they stay away from quickly outdated material (such as the
location of supplies). We publish in much smaller numbers, and update very
frequently.

What I wonder is, how do others deal with this problem-- locally appropriate
information distribution-- and what is the theory/are the principles
underlying this activity?

Bob Randall for Urban Harvest