permaculture

[Permacltur@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/23/99 6:52:37 AM, you wrote:

<<Hi all,

I am looking for ideas on marketing strategy for a demonstration site which
is designed on permaculture principles here in Perth Western Australia. The
Environmental Techolgy Centre is about 5 years old and we have realised we
can't grow without some local marketing, as word of mouth and campus (we're
part of Murdoch University) displays only generates a low level of students
for our courses. We have a new web site
(http://wwwies.murdoch.edu.au/etc/ETChome.htm) and would also like to know
how to advertise the web site. Any tips or feedback would be welcome.

Thanks,

Clare Constantine>>

The first principle of design is the conservation principle.  One form of the 
conservation principle is to do noting that is not essential.  In this case, 
that means finding out what is needed in the community and then making your 
design to satisfy those needs (to an apprpriate extent), among its other 
properties.  This requires not marketing, but market research.  

I can't speak for Austrailian conditions, but in the US most regions have 
"ethnic communities," people with their own imported or a sub-culture that 
has grown up for some reason.  With the imported cultures, especially, there 
are usually high-value seasonings and specialty foods that are scarce or not 
available to them at all.  They wouldn't want to go back "home," but these 
psychological reminders of home are very comforting.  This is a most suitable 
aim for permaculture, and reasonably profitable.  Sometimes things are 
availble as imports, but of course you can produce the frest product of 
higher quality.  Here we are looking at the few Thai and Indian restaurants 
in our region and developing some specialty products. You know, lemon grass, 
bamboo shoots, specific cultivars of basil, Chinese water chestnuts, etc.  
Bamboo, in particular, requires trials as each species shoots at a different 
season (potentially) and one has to work out the seasonal calendar for a 
particular place, rather like working out continuous grazing.  Then we can 
offer fresh bamboo shoots continuously for much of the year. Since bamboo 
takes about 6 years from starts to reach full culm size, this is not 
something for subsistence growers to concentrate on, though it is fine if 
there is more land available than can be cultivated intensively.  At the 
moment we are building up propagation stocks and haven't started the 
marketing yet.  Much of what we are growing can be processed or put to 
alternate uses if the local market dissapoints us or when we  have bumper 
crops.  This is part of permaculture marketing--to identify redundant 
pathways that will profitably dispose of production surplus to site needs 
just as you would have redundant pathways for nitrogen fixation so if one 
fixer flagged another might be prospering.  I like restaurants of reasonably 
high quality for marketing because they will take a SET of products in useful 
quantities, but still will pay a premium for top quality.  In Massachusetts, 
USA, I have received 20-40 percent above retail (supermarket) prices for snow 
peas, for example, because I delivered quality.  (We picked at dawn and 
delivered the peas with the natural dew on them.  The owner when through the 
first batch and pulled out SHAPES of snow peas he didn't like.  They taste 
the same as other snow peas--we ate 'em ourselves and got the premium.  
That's having your crop and selling it too.)   
        Nowadays, it is possible thorugh the internet to locate just about 
any plant you want to grow.  People tend to move to an area for one of two 
reasons:  economic opportunity or because it is like the climate at home 
(which may be politically a mess.)  So there is a chance that people will 
want crops that grow in just your climate.
        Now there is a lot of knowledge about, also, about growing whatever 
you feel like and getting people to want it.  One can make money at this too, 
but it isn't permaculture.  It is part of what permaculture is designed to 
replace.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses, 
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence 
courses via email.  Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, 
Sparr FL 32192 USA  Internships. YankeePerm@aol.com  

We don't have time to rush.

A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at 
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html
Elfin Permaculture programs are listed at the Eastern Permaculture Teachers 
assn home page: http://home.ptd.net/~artrod/epta/eptahmp.html