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From Monoculture to Permaculture

When Warren Brush bought a run down orchard near Ventura, California, he knew he was in for the ride of his life transforming it into a Permaculture farm. From an original monoculture persimmon, apple and avocado orchard, it’s a risky challenge to turn all this around and announce you are now also running a creamery and a heritage pig system and a farm stall and then there are the walnuts and the orchards. There are a lot of things happening here at Casitas Valley Farm.

Warren’s farm is all about diversity and multiple functions that lead to security. Imagine many connecting wheels within wheels that drive the system. The end result is a farm that gets better soil fertility with age and remains economically viable even if one harvest is bad and one wheel happens to fall off that year. This train keeps rolling along.

If you have 17 minutes, these Permaculture techniques are useful and Warren shows how he applies them on his property.

https://vimeo.com/168769059

The Permaculture Research Insitute

PRI Zaytuna Farm functions as a model farm (in development) and permaculture training facility. Geoff and Nadia Lawton, world-renowned permaculture educators and consultants, lead the project. Much of Geoff and Nadia’s time over the last few years has been spent away from the Institute, consulting and helping set up projects in diverse locales around the world. Seeing the worldwide demand for knowledgeable permaculture consultants and teachers increase exponentially, as fuel and fertiliser prices skyrocket and the effects of climate change, soil depletion and water shortages begin to hit hard, priority and focus is now shifting back to the Institute, where growing the training program will increase the output of quality teachers to help fill the growing need for them.

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