Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] space for food self reliance?

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Georg Parlow <g.parlow@gmx.at>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] space for food self reliance?
  • Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 20:51:50 +0100

Yep, Lawrence, good thinking! It is precisely along those lines that our
visions travel :)
Since Europe is highly populated, aging being an increasing issue, and this
is not going to be a typical rural community thing, but in a quite desely
populated area within commuting distance of Vienna, with a program that is
aiming towards making old folks homes obsolete, we are pretty sure this will
get quite some media exposure. Hopefully we can use that attention to inspire
others. You know, this is not entended as the typical dropout commune, but a
semi urban project. This is why we need one (or a few) gardeners/farmers in
charge of production, willing to work with and train a quite inexperienced
crowd of willing helpers.

Same goes for food processing and storing. A person trained in this and with
adequate social skills will be in charge, training and organizing a willing
but unskilled crowd of helpers. Overproduction goes to export, same for
cakes, etc. - while at the same time this is great for the integration and
mental fitness of the really old - practicing skills from your youth is the
best recipe agains dementia, they say. And you can do it in a wheelchair -
sit on a table with others and slice apples or hull beans whil chitchatting
away… life as it was meant to be :)

Also, just like you mentioned, we intend to install a project culture of
enterpreneurship - get the old folks and many of the others with diverse
backgrounds and skills and all with their unique networks together in
workshops to funnel the collective creativity towards the idea "Who of us can
form teams in order to offer which services or goods to the outside world?"

And yes, the barter and share vision amongst communities is also part of it.

Georg


> Am 06.11.2015 um 20:21 schrieb Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>:
>
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 8:03 AM, Georg Parlow <g.parlow@gmx.at> wrote:
>
>> the first one is intended to be not far from Vienna, Austria, EU. And I
>> say "the first one" because I like to think big (not 'big' as in 'huge' or
>> 'grandious', but 'big' as in 'mass movement' or 'revolution'), and if the
>> project takes off, we are likely going to plant more of them.
>>
>> We have been gleaning various practices from all sorts of fields, in order
>> to allow a project to emerge, that combines all the benefits one can think
>> of along the lines of 'community'
>>
>
> Once your first community is established and you have refined your food
> production systems the ones that follow can adopt a food, products,
> materials, equipment, machines production, marketing, barter, sales and
> distribution network for the entire region where communities are located.
> There would be many advantages to setting up such a share, support and
> income generation network.
>
> Support, barter and share = goods that one community needs but can not
> produce on site could exchange something they produce that they have a
> surplus of with another community that has a surplus of what they need.
> Things like grain, beans, fermented and preserved foods, fruit and nuts
> would be in this category.
>
> Skills, trades, services could be bartered, loaned or exchanged.
>
> If one community was interested in income generation then their products
> and services could be marketed to the other communities and in the public
> marketplace. Other services that could be sold or bartered might include
> technical (internet access, web development, wireless issues), veterinary,
> alternative healthcare, publishing, contract writing, vehicle repair and
> maintenance, products made in shops, wood or metal, masonry services,
> architecture, construction, equipment operator, building and HVAC
> maintenance, pond building, grading and excavating. Agriculture related
> could include orchard design, plant propagating and nursery, vegetable and
> herb seedlings in season, greenhouse produce, all technology related to
> solar, greenhouse, garden and aquaponics. A gardener team with special
> skills and equipment from one community might be hired to break ground and
> build new gardens for another. The possibilities are infinite for exchange,
> support and making money.
>
> As for site development, i.e. roads, grading and excavating and for
> gardening and farming, a given number of communities in close proximity
> might want to invest in the machines they need to do all the tasks
> associated with construction and farming. A basic array
> would include a farm tractor with implements, a trailer to haul it from
> community to community, a dump truck to pull the trailer and haul
> construction and agricultural materials and a trenching machine for
> installation of water, electrical and sewer lines. For an extended array
> add a skid loader or a backhoe-loader.
>
> Scaling back to keep things simple and inexpensive would mean doing more
> construction and farming tasks using human labor. I think this is the
> preferred option and should be considered first.
>
> LL
>
>
> --
> Lawrence F. London
> lfljvenaura@gmail.com
> https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared/
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.orgubscribe/unsubscribe|user config|list info:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page