permaculture

[Olive Tree <olivetrii@yahoo.com>]

Dear permaculture people,



I have written an in-depth report about my attendance September 9-11,
2009 at the inaugural national "Slow Money Alliance" Gathering in Santa
Fe, NM.



You can read it here: http://nmyoungfarmers.wikidot.com/slowmoneygathering



If you happen to be a YOUNG permaculture practitioner or anyone who cares 
about
cultivating the next generation of sustainable agriculture, particularly in 
New
Mexico, you can also skip ahead to my YOUTH-FOCUSED report: 
http://nmyoungfarmers.wikidot.com/youth-the-future-of-sustainable-a...



For those of you who don't already know, the Slow Money Alliance is an
autonomous "nurture capitalist" spin-off from the international "Slow
Food" movement. Slow Money was founded by philanthropist & author
Woody Tasch, who lives in rural New Mexico. The express goal of Slow
Money is to gain over a million members and raise tens of millions of
dollars to invest directly in local sustainable food systems across the
USA.



To whet your appetite ... Here are a few highlights from my report.



At the Gathering, attended by hundreds, I saw that there is a very real
excitement for the Slow Money mission, and a powerful will to achieve
it. For example, in the late afternoon hours of the Gathering's 2nd
day, when I was feeling tired and bored, and it seemed like many
people's energy was waning, suddenly something amazing happened: Within
minutes, the group spontaneously raised $75,000 for Slow Money Alliance
to hire a Development Director. Dozens of individuals stood up to
donate $1,000 … $500 … $250 … $100 … and finally the announcement came
from one wealthy person that he would donate the balance. Everyone was
astonished! The whole energy of the Gathering shifted, and all of a
sudden we all felt like we were part of something historic &
monumental. This surge carried over into the next morning, which
concluded the Gathering with productive break-out working groups that
brainstormed & fleshed out details for the Alliance's practical
evolution with respect to organizational development, membership,
partnerships, fundraising, communications, and investment mechanisms.



***



During the first panel discussion, I had the opportunity to ask the
Gathering's first question. "My question is for everyone here," I said.
"I recently spent 2 years working with community farms in Albuquerque
and I'm here because I feel it's vital to represent a strong voice on
behalf of young people and food justice at this Gathering. Let's be
honest: there is a divide within the sustainable food movement, and
it's a divide between rich and poor. If you're rich, then you can
afford to join a CSA, start a CSA, buy land, shop at Whole Foods, and
basically eat whatever kinds of food you like. But if you're poor, then
your options to access healthy and sustainable food are a lot more
constrained. If you're a farm worker or working poor; if you're
homeless, unemployed or uninsured; if you're a child eating school
lunches; if your land has been colonized or your community has been
gentrified — then it's likely that you're being totally left out of the
sustainable food revolution. Food Justice is the idea that access to
healthy and sustainable food is a basic human right. Food justice
groups are realizing this idea in a variety of ways, sometimes by
planting community gardens in neighborhoods that lack access to fresh
food, other times by bringing farmers markets or grocery stores to
them. Yet these groups are generally operating with little or no funds.
If Slow Money is going to be meaningful, I think we must work to use
our investments to bridge this divide. So my question to everyone here,
and in particular to the panelists, is: How do you envision Slow Money
using the tool of financial investments to bridge the divide between
rich and poor in the sustainable food movement?"



>From lflj@bellsouth.net  Fri Sep 18 15:12:59 2009
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] [SANET-MG] role of Permaculturalists during
 special period in Cuba
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] role of Permaculturalists during special period in 
Cuba
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:55:02 -0400
From: Karl North <northsheep@JUNO.COM>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

After several visits to Cuba to study the agricultural revolution in the
Special Period, it is still not clear to me how big a role the
Australian/Cuban permaculture project played beyond a strong influence in
the development of urban agriculture in Havana. My visits were usually
hosted by the group of scientists who led the agricultural revolution. They
and the Cuban govt tended to emphasize their own role more than that of
foreigners, correctly I think. However, Cubans in person and in their
writing sometimes have mentioned outside influences on the design of the
intensive urban gardens they call organoponicos. They took ideas from
Chinese intensive bed systems as well as from permaculture. I saw a
piggery/biogas system financed by a European individual who simply admired
the Cuban effort and wanted to contribute. I attended an excellent
sustainable livestock conference sponsored by a a Dutch NGO, which drew many
international participants, especially from Latin America.

Some of the films that have documented the Cuban agricultural revolution
exagerate its success. Over the years I have seen and read evidence that
part of the Cuban agricultural establishment, still enamored with our
industrial models, was/is not on board. Before the Special Period the
leadership of the agricultural revolution had been promoting its ideas for
years with little support from the government. They were happy to get more
recognition after 1989, but it was not enough to spread their low input
sustainability models systematically throughout the island. As a result,
much food, livestock feed and agricultural inputs are still imported, as the
Cuban government has acknowledged.

I say this as a longtime admirer and student of the Cuban revolution and of
the models of sustainable agriculture I saw in Cuba.

Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
      www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
"They only call it class warfare when we fight back" - Anon.