permaculture

[<neotern-1@yahoo.com>]

After reading everything concerning this
"money-problem", I have to say that what Paul says
comes closest to my ideas also.

Toby's detailed list does clarify a lot, and it is
true that people should choose their priorities: a lot
of them out there who say they can't afford PC courses
would be able to pay if they would just let go of
their TV's, (second) cars, "cool" or designer's
clothes, expensive holidays etc.
And I agree that for what is proposed, it is a fair
price.

However, there are ways of circumventing the
money-problem. Mr. Cardon for instance, who has a
magnificent permaculture garden in Mouscron, Belgium,
gives free access to his garden to anyone at any time.
His garden (1,800 square meters of edible jungle), in
the middle of a small town, doesn't even have a gate!
Anyone can enter as if it were a park. Mr. Cardon
himself, now retired from earning his living laying
floors in houses as an independant (not from selling
the substantial permaculture knowledge he acquired
during 30 years of practice), is always around and is
very willing and glad to be able to talk about
everything concerning gardens and plants. Two half
days per month, on the first two sundays of each
month, he gives a free course in his garden, partly
practice, partly theory. (One is more or less expected
to become member of his association, which costs 1.5
euros (!) per year.) He also sells seeds for next to
nothing.
Mr. Cardon doesn't gain, nor loose money this way; the
gain in knowledge sharing, and for the planet as a
whole, is however considerable.

I sincerely think, as Paul does, that information
should not be sold, and that there are sufficient ways
of passing it on, even verbally (the preferred way of
Mr. Cardon), master-to-student or "hands on", without
charging (again, any costs made must be shared of
course).
I agree that one should not loose money passing the
information (costs must be shared by everyone), but
can't see why one should gain money either in this
way.

Again, Mr. Cardon for example (hope you won't come to
dislike him for my using him as an example all the
time :-) ) sold the work of his hands during his
"active" life, and NOT information, even if he could
have.

Now, if we look at this from a perspective outside the
"rich" world (rich in money and exploitation, poor in
everything else), this becomes even more clear.
Imagine a poor rural community in Mexico, experiencing
every day the problems permaculture can help to answer
(loss of autonomy, soil depletion, chemical-related
diseases, contaminated rivers, etc.) - you don't have
to imagine them by the way, there are thousands of
them in Chiapas alone (south of Mexico). They would be
only too glad to invite, feed, and house a
permaculture instructor, first of all because that's
their culture of hospitability, and second because
they are ready to do what it takes for their
children's sake and that of the earth (anyone who has
heard of the zapatistas will know what I mean). These
are people that camp outside a prison, the whole
community, during months to free their leaders; that
defend their land literally with their lives. When I
see the PC design course prices in Mexico and think of
these people, only too willing and in need of help,
but without a penny, something just doesn't seem right
at all. The Permaculture Institute in Oaxaca, Mexico,
gave a PC design course in 2003 that cost $1200 US
dollars(*). This is about a whole year's pay for the
Mexican who needs it. Another Mexican
permaculturist(**) charges 4000 pesos (about 345 $)
for one week of cob-building, one third of a year's
pay. Something definitely is wrong here. In Mexico one
has to exploit substantially before being able to
learn about permaculture and stop exploiting.

Of course, finally there's nothing wrong with
proposing the PC design courses at the current prices.
Those who can afford it, can still pay them, it will
probably be the best way they have spent their money
in years, even in their whole lifetime; money that
will be well used afterwards. And seeing the
explanation by Toby, as mentioned before, I agree that
for what is proposed, it is a fair price. 

Only, in my opinion we really need first of all lots
more of Mr. Cardon's style, or similar ways of
"initiation", as the basic and most important way of
passing permaculture on.
(And so what if some rich people leech of a free
course, what is lost finally? Nothing, at the
contrary, maybe they see the light...)

And as Graham said, "get at it, bart", well, that's
exactly what we're doing: walking the permaculture
path, and in time, when we reach some degree of
"mastery", pass it on to others.

Cheers,
Bart

(*)
http://redcaldas.colciencias.gov.co:8888/MHonArc/biologia/msg00068.html
(**) http://www.tierramor.org/cursos/cursos.htm



 --- GlobalCirclenet <webmaster@globalcircle.net>
escribió: 
> 
> One of those free places is the big list of PC links
> at
> http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/Links.html . I
> rather imagine that people
> getting $700 a pop don't advertise all the free PC
> information out there.
> But if they can rake in that kind of money, no
> concern to me, I can't
> afford it. 
> 
> My concern is this: to spread more PC information
> and experience it needs
> to be geared to the vast majority who are working
> people, small farm
> families just scraping by, and so forth. Because
> those who can afford the
> price of these seminars, the travel expense and
> overnites, and afford the
> time off work to attend, comprise a very small
> fraction of the
> sustainability-minded population. Sometimes the goal
> gets confused with the
> objective. They think, ok, permaculture is good, I
> teach permaculture and
> get paid for it, so the more people I get to my
> seminars the better.
> Getting people to paid seminars becomes the goal
> instead of an intermediate
> objective. The original goal was to spread knowledge
> and practice of
> permaculture. I'm committed to the goal in my own
> work. I charge for
> bedding plants and produce. But I give information
> out for free. I want
> everybody to compete with me.
> 
> paul@largocreekfarms.com
> paul tradingpost@gilanet.com
> 
> That is well said, replied Candide, but we must
> cultivate our garden. 
> --Voltaire [Francois-Marie Arouet] Candide 
> 
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
> 
> On 9/9/2004 at 9:09 PM Graham Burnett wrote:
> 
> >> I think that rather than wasting time arguing
> about what the course
> >costs,
> >people might make better use of their time by
> digging said "free"
> >information off the Web (which requires that
> someone has paid for the
> >server
> >hosting the info and for the computer used to
> retrieve it, the electricity
> >to run the machines, and the infrastructure
> connecting them)
> >
> >And spent time researching it, writing it up,
> posting it up to the web...
> >
> >
> >---
> >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> >Checked by AVG anti-virus system
> (http://www.grisoft.com).
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> Date: 08/09/2004
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >permaculture mailing list
> >permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
>
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> 
> 
> 
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>
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>  

=====
"There is not much to be done against them, but everything without them."

Registered Linux User #314712 (http://counter.li.org/)

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