permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

>  If we want to survive . . . each and every family as much as possible 
> needs to be
>     able to produce it's own food for itself, and as many other people
>     as possible.

I don't need to grow my own food. I need to be part of a healthy network that 
does. While I'd love it if everyone gardened, a coordinated community food 
system is more resilient and allows more diversity than individual dachas, 
and fits better with American culture and land ownership patterns. The US has 
a very different history from Russia. And most yards are too small to produce 
"all our own food."

A single 18th-Century farmer could feed 50 people. Making the household, 
instead of the farm, the neighborhood or even the town, the core unit of a 
food system atomizes the community.  Let's not default to "go it alone." It 
reduces the many options for reaching a goal--meeting our food needs--to a 
single tactic: grow it all yourself. It means that this critical function is 
done only one way, with all the attendant hazards (what if you get hurt?) and 
reduces most people to serfs farming for a banker. It's part of the mix, but 
not the solution. 

The dachas are well worth looking at.  But severe food and economic 
disruptions tend to be brief in developed countries (see Argentina, Iceland, 
Weimar Germany, Mexico, etc.), stabilizing soon at a simplified level. So to 
redesign as though the unstable period will be permanent is unwise. 

While Russians were busy farming their 2.5 acre dachas all day, the oligarchs 
were seizing control of everything else. They still have it. Let's learn from 
that. We need to organize at a higher level than the household.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Aug 6, 2012, at 7:35 PM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:

> 
> Do we need an American permaculture dacha movement, 20th century 
> back-to-the-land homesteading & biointensive agriculture movements 
> revisited? Yes. - LL
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject:      [permaculture-99] Dacha Movement: History and Effects In 
> Russia
> Date:         Mon, 6 Aug 2012 19:18:46 -0400
> From:         Deborah Reid <deborahgailreid@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To:     permaculture-99@meetup.com
> To:   permaculture-99@meetup.com
> 
>     ----- Forwarded Message -----
>     *From:* jerry diamond <dmnds2001@yahoo.com>
>     *To:*
>     *Subject:* Dacha Movement: History and Effects In Russia
> 
>     *
>        If we want to really do Preparedness, we need to realize that we
>     need to be able to grow our own non-GMO, unadulterated, and
>     non-pesticided food.
>     If we want to survive as a people, and as a nation, we need to have
>     our own safe food sources; not on a national level, but on the
>     family level: each and every family as much as possible, needs to be
>     able to produce it's own food for itself, and as many other people
>     as possible.
> 
>        This concept can best be seen in the history and results of the
>     Russian Dacha (to be given) movement. We would be wise to take heed
>     of this concept; a small (2.5 acre) garden plot with a cottage on it.
>         This practice would affect our very survival, as well as vastly
>     bolster and increase our health care, food production, and national
>     economy.
>         We need to grow food locally, and get away from the 3000 mile
>     dinner and begin to eat what we can walk to, because we grew it
>     ourselves. Those who do this, will be wealthy in the coming days.
>     Those who do not, may possibly not even survive.
>         It has been given world-wide attention and has generated intense
>     excitement by a series of books called
>     The Ringing Cedars of Russia http://www.ringingcedars.com/**....(see
>     below)*
> 
>     jerry
>     *
>     Some Quotes:
>     *
> 
>     "The first dachas in Russia began to appear during the reign of
>     Peter the Great <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great>.
>     Initially they were small estates in the country, which were given
>     to loyal vassals by the tsar <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar>. In
>     archaic Russian, the word /dacha/ means /something given/."
> 
>