When Orthodox Science Meets Permaculture Principles, Techniques and Design Process
Animal Forage, Bird Life, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Insects, Livestock, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees — by Nicollas Mauro January 20, 2012
Design science is at the root of any definition of permaculture or put simply, permaculture is design science. — Bill Mollison
Permaculture is a design/holistic/integrative science, whereas the mainstream/academic science is reductionist — that is, to understand how things work, scientists break a system and study the tiny parts.
Nevertheless, permaculture can benefit from reductionist science, to find relevant knowledge and new design ideas, but above all to gain some academic arguments to demonstrate the validity and legitimacy of its principles and techniques.
This is an article which shows some of the links I’ve found between scientific articles published in national and international journals, while searching facts and numbers to help me design my property. During the process, some ideas just popped, so I included them to make the article a “live performance” of the usefulness of lurking in the scientific jungle sometimes.
Comments (10)Growing Fish and Soil on Pool Algae
Animal Forage, Aquaculture, Compost, Natural Swimming, Plant Systems, Urban Projects — by Ecofilms December 7, 2011
Here is Geoff Lawton explaining how this particular swimming pool is growing fish and soil on algae. This is a clip from the recently released Urban Permaculture DVD, which has over 90 minutes of sustainable solutions you can try at home.
Comments (0)Introduction to Holistic Management Course with Kirk Gadzia at Milkwood
Animal Forage, Courses/Workshops, Land, Livestock, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation — by Milkwood Permaculture October 26, 2011
Here’s a quick note about our upcoming Intro to Holistic Management course with Kirk Gadzia that starts on the 1st of November at Milkwood Farm in Mudgee, NSW, Australia.
Having worked side by side with Allan Savory for many years, Kirk knows a thing or two about using herbivores to heal a landscape. What’s more, he’s an amazing teacher, the likes of whom I haven’t yet encountered. So it’s a pretty special opportunity to have him back.
Comments (2)Maarten Stapper: “Biological Agriculture – a Third Way?” (IPC10 Presentation – Video)
Animal Forage, Biodiversity, Commercial Farm Projects, Compost, Conferences, Courses/Workshops, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Fungi, GMOs, Health & Disease, Plant Systems, Presentations/Demonstrations, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure, Trees, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 25, 2011
If you didn’t catch it already, be sure to check out the previous post with Dr. Maarten Stapper’s first IPC10 convergence presentation. And, after several attempts, I finally managed to get his second presentation uploaded — you can click play above to watch this as well. With decades of experience in the farming industry, Dr. Stapper has a great deal to share, and a lot of insight to go with it.
Comments (1)Tony Rinaudo: “Against the odds: Reversing desertification in arid and semi arid lands” (IPC Presentation – Video)
Aid Projects, Animal Forage, Biodiversity, Community Projects, Conferences, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Land, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Presentations/Demonstrations, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 3, 2011
Tony Rinaudo’s IPC10 conference presentation was one of the highlights of the event for three good reasons — 1) because of the scale of impact his Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) work has achieved (more than 30,000 km² of re-greened, regenerated land to date); 2) the utter simplicity — and thus doability — of this work (it requires no financial investment or out-of-reach technologies, only a little educational guidance and community collaboration), and 3) the speed at which this regeneration can occur and lives can improve.
We’ve brought people’s attention to FMNR before…
… and now I have the great pleasure of being able to share Tony’s IPC10 conference talk in high definition video (at top). Note: If you want to see the slides in higher quality, you can download Tony’s presentation (9mb Powerpoint) and click through it in a different window as Tony talks if you like.
Readers can also download:
Comments (3)The Underground Forest: Using Biodiversity to Help People
Aid Projects, Animal Forage, Community Projects, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Trees — by Harry Byrne Wykman
One of the highlights of the tenth International Permaculture Convergence was meeting Tony Rinaudo of World Vision Australia. Tony is a living example of the posture required for the development of truly regenerative systems. Tony has come to see patterns of people, plants and landscape which allow deserts to grow trees again. He does this by opening himself to the voice of the land.
While working in Niger, Tony noticed that what appeared to be small shrubs were in fact trees which had been coppiced by continuous grazing pressure, firewood harvesting and the impulse of farmers to keep crop land free of trees. Tony calls these trees ‘the underground forest.’
Comments (0)How to Revive the Honeybee
Animal Forage, Animal Housing, Insects, Plant Systems, Working Animals — by Mari Korhonen August 19, 2011
I recently saw a new film, Queen Of The Sun: What are the bees telling us?, about the global honeybee crisis and colony collapse disorder. From a holistic perspective the movie tells a story of transformation of beekeeping and the relationship of humans and bees to explore what is really going on. Once there were times when honey was so appreciated it could not be sold but only given away, yet now we have moved into an era of ruthless one sided exploitation in the search of economical profits, both in beekeeping as well as the agricultural and land use practices surrounding it. As most of us are aware, we have now come to face the consequences of this transformation. Queen of the Sun is a fascinating prelude to rediscovering the synergistic relationship between humans and bees, and is complemented on a practical level by natural beekeeping. Bee guardianship, a natural beekeeping approach taught by Corwin Bell from Boulder, Colorado, encourages and appreciates the beeness of bees and helps to nurture their currently delicate existence by integrating top bar hives into our own backyards, gardens and farms. I think permaculturists could do a lot of good by linking up with these people.
Comments (7)The Tree that Hides the Prairie
Animal Forage, Land, Livestock, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Trees — by Nicollas Mauro August 10, 2011
On permaculture, vegetarianism, grasses and tree fetishism
Cow on Zaytuna Farm
Photo © Craig Mackintosh
Meat and livestock farming are not praised by a lot of environmental activists. Meat production stands accused of stealing food from the mouths of the poor in two-thirds world countries, driving climate change, and being resource consuming. For example, the famous UK activist George Monbiot, published many times on this site, wrote in 2002 that “[veganism i]s the only ethical response to what is arguably the world’s most urgent social justice issue”(1), before retracting this in 2010, saying “I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat – but farm it properly”(2).
What happened between those two articles? Well, Monbiot read a book written by livestock farmer and UK permaculturist Simon Fairlie in 2010, whose title is “Meat – a benign extravagance”(3). It’s a very well written book that also debunks quite a few myths about vegan arguments (e.g. that much of the water consumed by animals is from rainfall on grasses used to make the hay, or that if the world suddenly become vegan, no more proteins would be available(4)).
Comments (23)Soil Decision Making
Animal Forage, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Fungi, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure, Trees — by Campbell Wilson June 15, 2011
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| Winona paddock Pasture cropped & time control grazed |
Adjoining paddock Traditional Crop and set stock grazed |
When you are trying to decide which method of soil improvement to take, sometimes it seems like there are as many different approaches as there are bacteria in a teaspoon of healthy soil.
This isn’t necessarily a huge problem when you’re talking about a suburban backyard scale. It’s easy in that situation to: do some aerating with a broad fork; balance the Calcium:Magnesium ratio and whatever trace minerals your soil test says are missing; build and add compost and worm castings; brew up some compost tea; add some seaweed extract, a handful of basalt rock dust, a bit of Charlie carp and the humified eyeballs of some rare mountain lion to top it off.
But what about the farmer who is planting 1000 Ha of Wheat and Rye so the armchair permaculturalists of this world can munch their organic sourdough toast while checking the next important forum posting written by someone else sitting at a computer at 10.30am. That farmer would quickly go broke if they did all the things a backyard gardener can do. So how to decide?
Comments (22)Chop-N-Drop – Mulching Permaculture Style
Animal Forage, Food Forests, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Swales — by Nichole Ross June 14, 2011
Chop-N-Drop is a Permaculture term used to describe a simple, yet highly-efficient system of creating mulch. Plants that make good mulch are pruned frequently and the cuttings are dropped directly on the ground below. This creates a beneficial layer of organic material that helps conserve water, reduce weeds and create food for nearby plants through decomposition.
Comments (1)Gravity Chicken Run Design
Animal Forage, Animal Housing, Building, Compost, Fencing, Livestock, Plant Systems, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Milkwood Permaculture May 30, 2011
Gravity and chickens are two of our favorite natural forces at Milkwood Farm. Chickens scratch, poo, give eggs and good company, plus a trillion other benefits. Gravity draws things down. Great if you want stuff to end up down the bottom. Which, in the case of our gravity fed chicken house, we do!
Comments (15)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
Click for larger view
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)Pig Tractors
Animal Forage, Fencing, Land, Livestock, Rehabilitation, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Marty Miller-Crispe January 28, 2011
Pigs in Vietnam
Photos © Craig Mackintosh unless otherwise indicated
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. — Sir Winston Churchill, British politician (1874 – 1965)
Like Winston Churchill, I also like pigs. They are intelligent, highly social, are fun to watch, and make awesome tractors!
The use of animals to clear and manure land in preparation for planting is a well known permaculture approach to agriculture that can reduce the need for machinery, eliminate the need for artificial fertiliser, and provide pest control. The classic example is the chicken tractor for preparing veggie beds or the use of ducks for pest control once the veggie garden has been established.
The use of pigs enclosed in a movable pen or ‘pig tractor’ is a great way to clear large areas of land, or help break up hard packed, or clay ground.
Comments (9)Why Pasture Cropping is Such a Big Deal
Animal Forage, Food Plants - Annual, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure — by Milkwood Permaculture January 26, 2011
Pasture cropped oats growing in symbiosis with
native perennial pastures at Col Seis’s farm
Grain cropping is something that, for the vast majority of us, is someone else’s problem. We just eat the results; certainly every day, and nearly with every meal. Bread, rice, corn, soy, beans and so on. Produced somewhere out there, by someone else.
So a portion of our every single meal is coming from a grain crop, somewhere way out west. We wish it were grown organically, and in a way that doesn’t destroy too much of our topsoil. But we’ll eat it regardless of the farming practices, really. It’s in our diet. It’s what we do.
Comments (7)Ecofilms 2011 – What Are We Working On?
Animal Forage, Animal Housing, Animal Processing, Aquaculture, Bird Life, Breeds, Courses/Workshops, DVDs/Books, Developments, Fish, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Livestock, Plant Systems, Presentations/Demonstrations, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Ecofilms January 2, 2011
We’re planning a number of exciting new titles to be released in 2011.
Urban Permaculture DVD
One of the complaints we often get from people living in the city is that we focus a little heavily on Permaculture titles that require a large scale farm to get the most benefit from practicing Permaculture.
So we are happy to announce that in 2011 we will be working on the Urban Permaculture DVD with Geoff Lawton.
Actually, we really started shooting a lot of footage already that we were going to include in the Permaculture Soils DVD that we completed, but for various logistic reasons we found the segments would work best in a video that focuses in detail on adopting Permaculture techniques in small scale domestic environments instead.
From courtyards to backyards to places where you thought you could never do anything with, we want to make this DVD a Permaculture techniques DVD where people can be inspired by what is really possible.
Here’s an example of the kind of thing we mean. It’s a sneak preview of Geoff Lawton visiting a beautiful Mandala garden in an urban permaculture garden. It shows permaculture can be aesthetically pleasing to the eye with a richness of patterns as well as a productive food source:
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