permaculture

[venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

On 11/29/2012 12:35 AM, Steve Hart wrote:
> I'd like to move this debate into another plane in suggesting that of the
> potential 9 billion 8.8 billion don't deserve to exist on this planet. This
> mass have no concept of any argument that they being members of species man
> and their manner of living is perpetuating the deficant that will suffocate
> their very existence. This majority exists at every level of society.
> Although most of the argument of saving the planet has shifted finally to
> saving the species  this large majority has no knowledge or understanding
> of the peril of their existence. This also applies to all levels of
> society. So the reality in my mind is prepare for extinction by running
> workshops on how to bend over and kiss your arse good bye. I prefer to be a
> realist and an optimist as I always have been rather than a pessimist as I
> may now appear. But if we look hard at all the facts in front of us the
> outlook is all too obvious. The society this species has evolved is one
> totally dictated by the economic policy we exist in. It has been designed.
> And now needs to be redesigned if we desire to evolve towards any degree of
> sustainability and survival as a species....more sooon. Steve Hart

Tell you what, Steve. I think you may be describing a problem that 
exists with Westernized culture, Western civilization. Go here and take 
a long look at these people. 
http://pinterest.com/gr2food/asia-food-agriculture/

These people know how to survive and stay healthy. They have been doing 
these same thing probably for thousands of years.

The people described in this article, the way they farm and nourish 
themselves, put us Westernized souls to shame. Ant yet some of the worst 
elements of Western civilization threaten their land and their ability 
to survive on it; but they seek ways to preserve what they have for 
perpetuity. It is amazing to think of how quickly thousands of years of 
work and naturally evolved ecosystems can be lost or destroyed in a few 
months or years:

aquaculture in Phillpine rice terraces PBase

NATURAL FARMING IN THE PHILIPPINES:
TRADITIONAL FARMING SYSTEMS AND LOCAL EFFORTS TO SAVE THEM
http://www.terraquaculture.net/articles/Workman_Natural%20Farming%20in%20the%20Philippines_2011.pdf

Like traditional forest dwellers the world over the Kalanguya's way of 
life is exposed to many threats
and the introduction of coffee to their forests was a strategic response 
to a major environmental threat.
The planting of coffee in these forests began in earnest in the 1970′s 
when the introduction of cattle
grazing threatened to destroy the forests and the entire terraqueous 
system. Insightful farmers realized
that in order to save the forests they needed to develop more cash crops 
that required forest cover and
began to plant coffee widely. Initially the plan was a success with the 
grazing of cattle quickly
abandoned but a crash in coffee prices in the 1980′s and subsequent 
fluctuations have exposed the
forest to new threats. When prices are good the coffee, a plant that 
naturally grows in the shade of
forests, provides a good income and encourages the maintenance of forest 
cover in the mountains.
When prices fall the less scrupulous farmers become susceptible to the 
suggestions and practices of
outsiders more focused on exploitation than sustainability.
Most recently Filipino government agricultural advisors have been 
encouraging the forest farmers to
cut down patches of forest in order to grow coffee plants in the open – 
a practice utilized for increased
production of coffee through the faster maturation of the plant and 
short cycles of plantation
regeneration, i.e., an industrial monocultural approach to coffee 
production that requires the destruction
of the forest and the subsequent depletion of fertility in order to 
increase productivity marginally for a
short time. But, as Sandor Ellix Katz points out, “it does not make any 
kind of sense for the people (or
the land) of any place to grow massive quantities of stimulants for 
export rather than nutritious food for
local consumption. It only happens by the exercise of force and the 
alienation of people from the
land.”2
The origins of slavery and colonization are to be found in the 
production of stimulants – chocolate,
coffee and sugar – for the Western world and it is in the production of 
these same commodities that
slavery persists to this day. And while we may believe that colonizing 
armies are a thing of the past, in
Figure 3: Community rice harvest, Bulpog
truth, the methods of military persuasion have merely been exchanged for 
the economic persuasion of
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade 
Organization, transnational
corporations and Third World debt.
The true beneficiaries of deforestation and open coffee plantations will 
not be the Kalanguya, not even
in the short run, but Nestlē, the main buyer of coffee in the region. 
Coffee production in the Philippines
is one of globalized free market capitalisms all too familiar tragic 
tales. From the villages just thirty
minutes walk from the forests where the Kalanguya grow their high 
quality, organic, shade grown
coffee to throughout the whole of the Philippines people are consuming, 
in great quantities, Nescafē
3'n'1 – low grade instant coffee premixed with milk powder, sugar and 
artificial sweeteners and
ubiquitously accompanied by slick advertisements featuring film, 
television and pop stars.
Again the Bulpog clan of the Kalanguya are formulating a response to 
these latest threats in order to
protect their way of life and the forests of which they are a part.
In 2007 the Julia Campbell Agro-forestry Memorial Park (JCAMP) was 
founded on the land of the
Puguon family.3 The idea for the park grew out of the group Indigenous 
Farmers for Sustainable
Agriculture, founded by Gerald Puguon Jr., with the mandate of 
protecting the traditional farming
systems of the area and the environments of which they are an integral part.
The vision of JCAMP is the formation of an expanding area of land where 
traditional natural farming
techniques are practiced and the environment on which they depend is 
conserved. The park currently
covers 100 hectares and numbers 100 households. In joining the park the 
members agree to a few basic
rules; no slash and burn agriculture or clear cutting, no chemicals and 
no hunting. Although the rule
against hunting may seem a little incongruous for people of the forest 
it is required to protect the civet
cat (a cat like mammal native to the tropics of Africa and Asia although 
introduced to the Philippines)
which processes coffee beans by eating the flesh of the fruit and 
leaving the bean behind in droppings.
Civet coffee demands a very high price and is viewed by the JCAMP 
families as a valuable resource to
be protected. The no hunting rule also serves to protect the birds of 
the forest and it is aimed, not so
much at the families living within the park but at hunters that stray on 
to their land. As Gerald Puguon
Jr. explains, the people of Bulpog, with their largely vegetarian diet, 
domestic chickens and pigs, are
not dependent on hunting and it is usually done as sport and often by 
poachers.
Families that join the park and operate within its few basic rules are 
able to sell their civet coffee
directly to a Texas based coffee roaster and distributor, Bantai Civet 
Coffee.4 While the price JCAMP
members receive from Bantai for their civet coffee is relatively high 
civet coffee, as it is wild harvested
from the droppings of a wild animal, is very time intensive and can only 
be supplied in relatively low
quantities. JCAMP members are able to supply organic, shade grown 
arabica and robusta coffee in
much larger quantities but are finding it very difficult to break in to 
the fiercely competitive world of
fair trade, organic coffee. Without the resources to gain certification 
or even to send samples overseas
the Bulpog Kalanguya need to find partners to provide the minimal 
financing required to give them
access to international markets. With the nearest internet access 2 
hours journey from their village the
Bulpog Kalanguya face severe disadvantages in operating on the 
international stage on to which they
have been pushed.
Given the size of the domestic coffee market in the Philippines an even 
better alternative might be for
the coffee to be sold locally by community owned companies. 
Unfortunately, the omnipresence of
Nescafē and their manufactured preference for sweet, milky instant 
coffee make this an even harder
market to crack.