permaculture

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

Laurence Gaffney wrote:

> On 11 Oct. 2005 Toby Hemingway wrote:-
>
>
> > > (Broken record here: rural life requires more inputs than urban; check the
> > > laws of physics.)
>
>
> Hello Toby
> Could you please elaborate on this statement. 
> i.e. Which laws of physics, your assumptions/definitions etc. 
> Do you think the statement holds true universally? 
>
> An important discussion for Permaculture
>
> Laurence Gaffney
> Australia 

I always thought that the rural life always produced more outputs per 
unit of input than urban or suburban lifstyles.
You own your own land and you pay less taxes and no rent, can grow your 
own food, are less likely to go travelling, sightseeing (no need to 
visit the counry) as you will likely be too busy producing those outputs 
and sustaining one's lifestyle, feeding oneself, building one's house or 
other farm-related structure. The more self-sufficient you are the less
trips to town will be necessary other than to bring goods to market.
Customers can always travel to the farm for produce or other goods.
Also UPS and FedEx can be used to transport homestead or farm-produced 
goods to customers. Marketing coops can extend time and fuel savings by 
having one delivery person pick up from many farms to deliver to end user.

I would think that the leaders of the permaculture movement and those
teaching and promoting permaculture to the world would be totally 
supporting of those who have gone to rural area to live and work,
steward the land and wildlife and produce unique and high quality 
life-sustaining products for those in or near their communities
and regions.

Again, the idea is to build and sustain local food/goods/services
production and marketing networks for maximum efficiency and fuel 
economy. Go and learn, teach, put-into-practice and build. Cooperative
materials, services and equipment purchases help achieve these goals.
If you go to live in the country then learn to do some kind of farming
and put permaculture to work for you, and make a living this way.
City dwellers should be totally supportive of those who do this.