permaculture

[Alan Post <alanpost@sunflowerriver.org>]

I'm on an essentially rural farm, though very close to a major urban
center.  (there is a bus stop outside my door that will have you
downtown in 40 minutes.)

I get a lot of volunteer help from friends with urban property, and
I've had success working with some of my most engaged friends
building a Rhizome Network[1].

We've tried two things:

 1) Growing Squash
 2) Raising Chickens

Growing Squash
--------------

The compelling thing about growing squash in several physically
separate locations is that you can avoid cross-polination between
varieties.  In theory you call all grow something different, trade
between yourselves, and all enjoy more varieties of squash.

We tried this one year and I'd say it was a "fun experiment."
Coordination was difficult, and the quantity and quality of squash
too varied to naturally exchange.  I'd try it again, but I haven't
figured it out yet.


Raising Chickens
----------------

This has been enormously successful for us.  Our basic offer:

We'll come to your house and build a coop, deliver chickens, and
provide feed.  If one gets sick or dies we'll replace it with a
chicken from our flock, and sequester/monitor any problem birds
back at our farm (where there is more space.)

In return, you can deliver cash, eggs, or chickens ready for
slaugther in any combination you'd like to pay off the initial
investment.  The initial investment is: coop materials, pullets,
and feed.  (which we purchase in bulk for a discount and then
provide at our cost.)

Our farm then helps with the set-up, is available to help diagnose
and fix problems, will raise and provide new pullets, provides space
and equipment for slaugther, and a market for products.  (Things
we're doing already.)

We get, in return: help on slaughter days, wider access to social
networks & markets (our urban network sells eggs to their friends
whom we don't know.), and generally closer relationships and more
involvement in the work we're doing here at the farm.

We have five families we're doing this with, only one (two?) with
prior experience raising chickens.  We're in our second year of this
experiment.  One family is deeply engaged, (I can call them when we
have an emergency here and they'll show up ASAP ready to kick ass.)
two we only talk to when there's a problem.  (They're both semi-rural,
generally more self-sufficient, and do significant gardening too.)
Three of the five help on slaugther days.

I'm not sure how to apply this pattern to your situation, I do hope
you find it useful!

I'd love to hear other stories cooperation between disparate
properties and rural/urban boundaries.

-Alan

1: coined by Jeff Vail, the metaphor describes cooperation between
   physically disconnected properties and people.

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 06:46:50AM -0400, Ron McCorkle wrote:
> I'm looking for design principles from currently operated urban farms. I
> would love to hear designs that worked and didn't work. I'm interested in
> how the finances worked out and how the community was involved.
> 
>  
> 
> Does anyone have information for me? My feeling is that a participatory
> design is essential and I want to hear if that has actually been found to be
> true! I really need examples, rather than using my wisdom from other aspects
> of permaculture.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
>  
> 
> Ron McCorkle
> 
> The Urbiculture Foundation
> 
> ron@urbiculture.org
> 
>  
> 
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-- 
.i ma'a lo bradi cu penmi gi'e du