Permaculture Design for Horses, People & Habitat
Animal Forage, Commercial Farm Projects, Economics, Energy Systems, Financial Management, Gabions, Land, Livestock, Plant Systems, Swales, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Nick Huggins February 16, 2011
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Introduction
I want to share with you a few things about a permaculture design project I finished in late October 2010. Details of the design, some details of working with clients on design projects, basic costing and what to be aware of when doing so. I also outline how I put the project together and what it included.
Comments (14)Sacred is Our Inherent Right to Live Free and Gloriously – Interview with Craig Mackintosh
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Willi Paul February 8, 2011
Interview with Craig Mackintosh by Willi Paul about the new Worldwide Permaculture Network
Willi Paul: Is there a global permaculture revolution rising now?
Craig Mackintosh: Well, there had better be. The other kinds of revolution aren’t pretty. Revolution, I believe, is going to become an increasingly popular word. But often revolutions merely pull things down, without offering meaningful replacements.
Over the last few years the level of interest in permaculture has skyrocketed. People are increasingly realizing the world is running out of options, but many are also realizing that this is exactly what permaculture gives to the world – options.
WP: What are the pros and cons of a world-wide database?
Comments (49)The Live Launch of the Worldwide Permaculture Network (WPN) is Now Underway!!
Aid Projects, Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Networking Sites, News, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 3, 2011
Dear People
After months and months of work, we’re now launching a new system — the Worldwide Permaculture Network (WPN) — which will enable permaculturists everywhere to:
- Put themselves on a clickable map, where people (permaculturists and non-permaculturists) can see at a glance the scope of the spread of permaculture worldwide
- Showcase their work as individuals, and the work of any projects they are administrating
- Be searchable according to many variables (climate zone, project type, and more)
- Network with other permaculturists everywhere
- Advertise their consultancy services
- Advertise their courses (for educational projects)
- Share knowledge, experiences, challenges, successes, and inspiration
- Help inspire non-permaculturists with the potential for positive, systemic change that permaculture design systems can bring
- And more…
Worldwide Permaculture Network – Project Type Descriptions
Aid Projects, Bio-regional Organisations, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Development & Property Trusts, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Ethical Investment, Financial Management, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 4, 2011
Welcome to the new year everyone.
The first live, public launch of the Worldwide Permaculture Network is imminent. There are just a few things to tidy up, and then you can all ‘have at it’.
I could use your feedback on the below. Here you’ll find draft descriptions of the project ‘types’ that can be selected when you upload your various permaculture projects. (Each of these project types has a badge associated with it which will show on respective project profile sidebars.) Please feel free to let me know via comments if you have constructive observations for tweaks/improvements that could be made to the descriptions below. Thank you all in advance:
Comments (15)From Danger to Diversity – Mr Phuoc’s Farm
Commercial Farm Projects, Compost, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Structure, Trees — by Jonathan Chan December 22, 2010
Jonathon (Joni) is writing from his volunteer Permaculture position with the Social Policy Ecology Research Institute (SPERI), based at their Farmer Field School, Human Ecology Practice Area (HEPA), located in the Huong Son District, Ha Tinh Province, Vietnam.
Mr Chau and Mr Phuoc
Leaving the lush rain forest setting of HEPA and heading south for two hours, we arrive at Quang Binh Province, the site of another SPERI Farmer Field School (FFS), the Centre of Community Capacity Development (CCCD). Dave and I were on our first field trip as new members of the SPERI community, guided by the fantastic Mr Chau, and fellow Australian permaculturalist Robert Gray. CCCD was to be our base for the next few days as we visited a couple of ‘key farmers’ in the area – farmers who demonstrate what is referred to as ‘eco-farming’ in Vietnam. The first was Mr Phuoc, located in Quan Binh Province. We were told that all permaculturalists who visit Mr Phuoc’s farm get very excited when they see the work he is doing. But I can say that even with this in mind, the experience far outweighed my expectations.
Comments (4)Mark Shepherd’s 106 Acre Permaculture Farm in Viola, Wisconsin
Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Economics, Education Centres, Financial Management, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Chuck Burr December 18, 2010
by Chuck Burr
I recently had the pleasure of visiting Mark Shepard’s family permaculture farm in Viola, Wisconsin. Mark has planted an estimated 250,000 trees over the last 15 years on his 106 acre farm. Forest Agriculture Enterprises is known for its hazelnut, chestnut, butternut, nut pine and apple produce, scion-wood and value added products. Mark has a lot of wisdom on not only farm operation but also community and staff and intern economics.
Compost Power Hot Shower Report, Ethiopia
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Energy Systems, Rehabilitation, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Alex McCausland
We recently submitted a short report on our hot-fast-composting system, which gave some detail on the theory and practice of producing compost in as short a time as 21 days. But Permaculture principals tell us that we should always be looking to yield as many useful products and functions from any process or element as possible and it is obvious that one bi-product of hot-composting is heat. If you get it really right, a heap should reach 80°C, which is literally too hot to touch. Feeling is believing. Once we were getting to that stage with our compost competency I began pondering how we could effectively catch and store some of that heat so that it can be used for a hot shower.
I finally realised that lots of mucking about with coils and heat exchange loops, lagging and insulation etc. could be avoided if we simply have the hot water tank inside the compost heap. Jean Pain, the old French Roi de Compost did something like this in his place, but took it a lot further, even to the point of having a biogas digester inside a cooling jacket inside a giant compost heap. He was able to heat his house and get compost and biogas all out of the one system. Ours is simpler, but the good thing about that is that you don’t have to be a practical genius to do it.
Comments (0)The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer
Commercial Farm Projects, Conferences, Courses/Workshops — by Kym Kruse December 1, 2010
RegenAG, its providers and community partners are proud to be hosting a series of 2-day workshops and public talks with “the world’s best farmer”, Joel Salatin. The remaining 2-day workshops are now booked out, as are some of the public talks, however there is still a chance to meet the self described “lunatic farmer” at one of the remaining public events. Details below.
Comments (2)Worldwide Permaculture Network Database Update – Beta Testing!
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 18, 2010
I just want to express immense gratitude for the donations towards our upcoming Worldwide Permaculture Network database-slash-social-networking-site. At time of writing, the ChipIn widget on our sidebar is showing 36 contributors giving a combined total of $2,125. There have been a couple of others who’ve donated by other means as well. Our development costs are obviously significantly higher than this, but every bit helps….
Comments (9)Through the Eyes of Permaculture
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Urban Projects — by Ecofilms November 16, 2010
Further Reading:
Comments (2)Fast Hot Composting System
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Fungi, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Alex McCausland November 8, 2010
At Strawberry Fields Eco-Lodge (SFEL) we use a fast hot composting system that can deliver well decomposed compost within 3 weeks. It was developed based on the technique we we’re taught by Dan Palmer when he co-facilitated two PDCs with us in 2008 along with Rosemary Morrow.
Hot composting is an aerobic process of fast oxidation which breaks raw organic materials into humus at temperatures of up to 80°C within three weeks. It is performed by a particular type of bacteria, that you can recognise as a white crust which starts to appear on the materials within the steaming interior heap once you really have the process working. I am not really up on the exact biological details of the bacteria, whether it is just one species or there are a range of species which can do the job, but once you have it working you have to maintain it, a bit like a culture of yoghurt, to get the best results. Like any living organism the bacteria has an ecological niche, that is to say a specific range of conditions in which it can live and within which it can thrive, so we have to maintain those as best we can if we want the organism to do this job of producing compost for us as best it can.
Comments (5)Surviving in the Cash Economy Once Your Food Forest is Established
Commercial Farm Projects, Economics, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Markets & Outlets, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Village Development — by Judith Goldsmith November 3, 2010
Richard Alan Miller likes to tell the classic story of one of the first farmers who came to him for help.
He had 400 acres in Iowa in corn, which was infested with burdock. He had tried everything — spraying, everything — and he couldn’t get rid of the stuff. The bank was threatening him with foreclosure.
He came to a workshop I’d given at Charlie Walter’s Acres U.S.A. conference in Kansas City, and got in touch with me. When the bank heard I’d been hired to consult, the banker gave him a one-year stay of execution. I advised him to: sell half his land; sell half of his capital equipment; and then I had him get rid of his noxious weed — which was the corn! — and grow what nature wanted him to grow, which was the burdock!
I helped him sell all his burdock crop to Asian markets in Chicago, at two dollars a pound fresh (I advised him that he’d only get 60 cents a pound dried), where they couldn’t get enough of it for kim chee and fresh vegetables. After the first year, he was out of foreclosure. After three years, he owned his own land outright . . . and he started buying back his old land, and putting it into timber for his grandchildren!
Miller’s consulting does not always result in such dramatic conversion, but it has brought financial stability to many other small- to mid-size farmers and would-be farmers throughout the U.S.
Comments (24)Ranch Uses Permaculture to Decrease Domestic Violence
Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by Serina Harvey October 20, 2010
By integrating therapy with farm work, Flip Flop Ranch works to lower the rates of domestic violence
Flip Flop Ranch is a 40 acre working ranch and a nonprofit in Lucerne Valley California that provides therapy to victims and even perpetrators of domestic violence (at different times of course). It is also a permaculture-based ranch, which means that the aim is to have all parts of the ranch integrated, intertwined and helping each other in a kind of symbiotic relationship.
When Serina Harvey, the ranch’s co-owner, decided to move from “modern” pesticide and high input methods of farming to permaculture methods, she realized she couldn’t just focus on the interrelationships between plants and animals. Like many permaculture-based farming operations, her chickens eat plants from the garden. Her Muscovy ducks eat flies. Along with what she calls a “chum bucket” (a hanging bucket full of meat that attracts flies and the fly babies drop out through holes in the bottom to feed the chickens), her fly population decreased to almost nothing this year without the use of chemicals. Endangered Nigerian Dwarf Goats wander her property pulling weeds, and rare Cotton Patch geese now mow her backyard instead of using a gas powered weed whacker and lawn mower or an herbicide. The ranch vegetable garden is also built in sunken garden beds to conserve water as the ranch gets an average of 3 inches of rain a year. “It’s not perfect,” says Serina, “but we’re trying to incorporate more and more permaculture principles. The next project is to put a worm bin underneath the chicken roosts to turn the droppings into beautiful dirt, which of course heads to the garden next.”
Comments (2)Your Input Wanted – Guidelines for Worldwide Permaculture Network Users
Aid Projects, Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 13, 2010
I know some of you are itching to use the new Worldwide Permaculture Network system. Well, I hope to launch in just a few weeks!
One aspect that I want your input on is in regards to user guidelines. We want to make a clear list of guidelines for what kind of projects are and are not in harmony with permaculture principles, and what kind of behaviour is regarded as acceptable as far as profile information, profile updates, comments, etc. goes. This guideline list will be the basis upon which users can be reported for offences and potentially removed from the system if they persist. The guideline should create a protective fence around the system that encourages nurturing rather than criticism.
The most important thing is to ensure the system is used for its intended purpose – that of fast-tracking permaculture take-up in mainstream society, and helping people transition to a post-carbon world as peacefully and painlessly as possible. This incorporates helping people become permaculture consultants and aid workers, and helping share resources and knowledge and inspiration to get permaculture projects, large and small, started all around us. With this in mind, user guidelines will help us keep this system on track, and help give us the policing powers to stop misuse and/or intentional antagonism by people who do not understand or appreciate the basis and need of permaculture.
Please place listed suggestions in the comments below, and please write specific text as you’d expect it to be in the guidelines, rather than broad philosophical vagaries. I will take the best parts, aggregate them, and later create a final draft we can all revisit to finalise.
Thanks in advance for your support and participation in this important aspect of the new system.
Comments (15)You Can Help Develop the Worldwide Permaculture Network
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 29, 2010
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As you know, we’re excited about the permaculture fast-tracking potential of the new Worldwide Permaculture Network database. I’ve just created a ChipIn, as you can see, to make it easy for others to contribute to this humanity-saving network that will help us all collaborate far better than we have to date.
Please consider adding the widget to your own website if you have one. Just click on the ‘copy’ tab on the widget to get the html code for pasting into your site, or click here to customise the widget and get platform-specific code.
After initial beta launch, we’ll be taking the best suggestions for development (there’s a feedback form within the new site) and working them into the system as we can afford. You can help us make it all it should be by contributing yourself and asking others in the permaculture community to do likewise.
The PRI has spent many thousands of dollars on this so far, as a gift to the permaculture community. We’ve seen a great deal of enthusiasm for this ‘facebook for permaculture’ – now’s your chance to express that enthusiasm in a very practical way! All assistance much appreciated.
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