permaculture

[Jennifer Nazak <jnazak@yahoo.com>]

Offhand, I would say that if you (and by "you", I mean not just you but 
anyone else, me included) are experiencing a conflict between "making a 
living off the land" and "permaculture", I suspect that there are some 
opportunities you're overlooking to integrate permaculture design principles 
into your growing practices, farm layout, etc. 

A frequent design error is trying to farm on too large a scale. All too 
often, this excessively large scale (of the farm or other operation) is 
dictated by way-too-high overhead. 

Most permaculture folk are pretty good at reducing their household and 
business overhead, but there are three stubborn areas where even permies have 
trouble reducing household overhead. Those are 1) mortgage; 2) children's 
college tuition; 3) medical bills. Do whatever it takes to eliminate these 
albatrosses (or drastically reduce them), and you will be able to downsize 
your farm or other land-based enterprise to a more manageable, more human 
scale and have a better chance at making a living off the land without 
wearing yourself out.

In addition to cutting overhead: Don't forget to explore value-added 
offerings as a means of increasing your land-based income. Don't just sell 
tomatoes - make salsa. Don't just sell milk - offer ice cream in really 
creative flavors using ingredients specific to your bioregion. Create a 
product that your community will clamor for. Either find a demand or (by 
coming up with an irresistibly delicious recipe) make one.

Also: team up with other households in your neighborhood. Share equipment; 
sell off duplicate tractors etc. Sharing is a time-honored permaculture 
strategy, often overlooked even by permies because our American consumerist 
indoctrination encourages us to forget it. Sometimes the simplest and most 
low-tech measures end up paying the largest dividends. Plain, good 
ol'-fashioned sharing is a prime example.

If you're experiencing a conflict between your permaculture practice and any 
other area of your site (or your life), it could be a sign that you're 
overlooking opportunities to apply permaculture design principles to those 
"other areas."
 
* * * * * * * 
Jenny Nazak 
Austin Permaculture Guild  
www.austinperm.com 
 Use permaculture design to optimize your life and "Work SMART, not hard." 
>From armedwithamind@hotmail.com  Sun Feb  5 01:06:14 2012
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I'd suggest putting on some ambient background music to help the pace. Let me 
know what you think...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnB64OeIKAM&list=UUe_9OGI5lO4CSQ7727QY8qA&index=1&feature=plcp

> Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 03:09:24 +0000
> From: wenshidi@yahoo.co.uk
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Amazonian Mushroom Eats Indestructible Plastics
> 
> --- On Sun, 2/5/12, Alan Enzo <ecoenzo@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Found this minutes after I was
> > ranting with one of our PDC students about
> > Polyurethane foam off-gassing and toxic plastic stuff from
> > China!
> 
> What is it with folks here blaming the entire population of China for the 
> planet's ecological woes?
> In the west, factories all kinds have been belching out toxic fumes and 
> polluting the water for more than a century, and yet somehow, China is 
> going to get all the blame?
> Where do you think that they got all of this dirty technology from in the 
> first place?  And why would the Chinese factories be producing all this 
> nasty stuff if there was not such an enormous market in the USA and Europe?
> 
> Putting the blame on one race or nation is not helpful and certainly does 
> not fit in with permaculture principles.
> There are scores of protests and demonstrations taking place every single 
> day all over the People's Republic and we should be supporting these 
> forward thinking individuals, not demonising the entire country carte 
> blanche.
> I suppose it is much easier to rant at a boogey man that is thousands of 
> miles away than one that lives next door.
> 
> Permaculturalists and environmentalists in China have a difficult enough 
> job as it is.  If even their own peers and counterparts in the West are 
> quite happy to make them the fall guys, then what is the point in them even 
> continuing?
> 
> Chris
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