Cow Horns, Weeds and Worms (Lesotho)
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Miles Durand June 20, 2013
Miles Durand (right), in Lesotho
Introduction
Lesotho is a small, mountainous country in Southern Africa. There has been an alarming two third reduction in its food production since colonial times. The signs and causes are self-evident and can be seen on the landscape and within the population. There is an urgent need to move the existing agriculture, in decline, to one of ascendancy in food production, and return the soil to good health and fertility. Many of the ingredients needed for this transformation are located within the country and its neighbour of South Africa. And within the world wide sustainable / conservation agriculture community, accessible on the internet is all the knowledge, information and technology needed to make it happen.
Comments (0)Mark Shepard’s Proven Technique – “Sheer, Total, and Utter Neglect” (video)
Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Trees — by Melissa Rasmussen June 7, 2013
Broadacre permaculturist Mark Shepard takes us on a tour of his 106-acre farm, where he grows dozens of crops with almost no care at all.
Mark tells you how, twenty years ago, he and friends put thousands of varieties of perennials in the ground, and left them there. Now, parts of his farm that are completely unattended are growing 14 different kinds of food.
Comments (9)Living Soil Saves Lives!
Aid Projects, Biodiversity, Community Projects, Food Shortages, Health & Disease, Rehabilitation, Salination, Soil Biology, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Tejal Heblekar June 6, 2013
A non-profit teaches a soil education program to combat the farmer suicide epidemic in rural India.
By Tejal Heblekar, and edited by Eileen Mello
A few kilometers from the Bay of Bengal in the Indian state of Orissa, rural farmers have gathered around a microscope to see what lies hidden in the ground. The Hummingbird Project, an American based non-profit organization, has equipped a soil laboratory with a microscope and resources for visiting farmers to test the quality of their farm’s soil and learn specific organic methods for improving its health. Farmers are eager to use the lab resources to test their samples and excitedly look from the microscope to the computer, watching the enhanced images of microbes moving throughout the soil. Proud chemical farmers are shocked to discover their samples — white and chalky with synthetic fertilizer salts and residues and reeking like chemicals — have no biodiversity like that found in samples from farms employing organic techniques.
Comments (3)Humus – the Essential Ingredient (TEDx video)
Compost, Fungi, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure — by Samuel Bonello June 4, 2013
Learn all about Humus, the layer of soil essential for healthy food production which is being gradually depleted by unsustainable farming practices.
Comments (4)Allan Savory – Reversing Global Warming while Meeting Human Needs (videos)
Global Warming/Climate Change, Livestock, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation — by Rhamis Kent May 17, 2013
Reversing Global Warming while Meeting Human Needs
— an Urgently Needed Land-Based Option
Allan Savory never ceases to amaze and encourage me. It was really great seeing him present his recent TED Talk — and we now have another opportunity to see him speak. Tufts University hosted an event where he was given the floor to discuss Holistic Management and the many challenges and successes experienced in its development.
Comments (0)Soils and Forestry Presentation (video)
Compost, Fungi, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure, Trees — by Paul Wheaton
by Paul Wheaton
Mark Vander Meer gives a presentation on soil science as it relates to forestry. I was presenting in another room at the same time, so Mark gave permission to Jocelyn Campbell to record this for me. Once I saw it, I thought it was so good, that I asked Mark if it was okay to put it up on YouTube.
Mark is a soil scientist who works as a wild restoration ecologist in Montana. His presentation focuses on soil restoration and is very much question driven.
He starts off by talking about the watershed death spiral, where the soil loses its ability to hold water. Mark identifies three main reasons for that to occur: Compaction, roads, and loss of soil organic matter. He explains that the problem results in streams and springs disappearing.
Comments (4)Managing the Working Chicken (video)
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Fencing, Rehabilitation, Working Animals — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor May 12, 2013
Almost everyone who is exposed to permaculture concepts has seen the above graphic (from Bill Mollison’s Introduction to Permaculture). It’s a great way to get people thinking about how to create whole, functional systems that use different elements (like a chicken) in combination with other elements (like those found in your garden), to save labour and increase productivity. It is for many an eye-opening concept, but one that is quickly grasped, and one that encourages observation on the products and behaviours of many other elements — be they ‘animal, vegetable or mineral’.
It’s a great lead-in to permaculture thinking.
The gentleman in the video below well exemplifies this thinking. He clearly knows how to ‘manage’ his little chicken workforce. He knows what they love to do, and he knows they’ll charge him little to nothing for it. He recognises that to get the most out of the chicken, can also mean giving most to the chicken. This is a typical permaculture win-win.
Comments (3)Reversing Climate Change in Just Ten Years, With Plants!
Global Warming/Climate Change, Rehabilitation — by Lukas Oehmigen May 8, 2013
We are all pretty concerned these days about the ongoing battle for biodiversity and life on this planet. With new seed regulation in the EU, The Monsanto Rider in the US, the failure to prevent colony collapse of the global bee population, financial crisis, war crisis, humanitarian crisis, and probably countless other worrisome processes not on our radar yet, politics and economics prove to be disabled and defunct in setting off appropriate solutions. We find our society caught in a loop of ongoing cynical and senseless debates about a financial crisis and war on terrorism, witnessing billions if not trillions of euros and dollars being swapped around the globe, but knowing that these wasted energies won’t be able serve us any solution.
Amidst all these mind consuming and wasteful atrocities being played out against all species on this planet, we are distracted from the one big threat which is still severely ambuscading upon us in sub-visibility.
Comments (9)Cows and Plows: Transformation Solutions
Commercial Farm Projects, Courses/Workshops, Land, Livestock, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Water Harvesting — by Owen Hablutzel May 3, 2013
Though too often vilified, both ‘cows’ and ‘plows’ have proven to be among our most effective and available tools for restoring healthy ecological and eco-agricultural systems in our landscapes. Bucking the trend in conservation that has denounced these tools from early on was Aldo Leopold – perhaps best known for his influential Land Ethic from 1948. In his earlier, groundbreaking book about working with ecosystems and wildlife, Game Management (1933), his preface made the visionary but provocative claim that “Game can be restored by the creative use of the same tools which have heretofore destroyed it — ax, plow, cow, fire, and gun.”
Comments (2)John Todd Living Machines Lecture
Biological Cleaning, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Sheri Menelli April 29, 2013
I’m so blown away by the work of John Todd. He works on a huge scale cleaning horrendous toxins out of water. I suspect he knows a bit about permaculture. I saw Bill Mollison’s book listed on one of his websites.
Above is a video that I think gives amazing insight on using plants (and even snails) to clean toxins from water.
Comments (2)Forests Keep Drylands Working (John D. Liu video)
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Desertification, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor April 23, 2013
John D. Liu of the EEMP, who has partnered with us in spreading the permaculture message, has created yet another excellent documentary — this time focussing on drylands, their past function and their present dysfunction through a broadscale loss of forest cover, and its impact on soil loss and on the hydrological cycle.
In this video we travel vicariously with John as he takes us from Jordan to Africa to Asia and the Americas, showing us both degradation and restoration — and sharing the inspirational message we all need to hear: that we can undo the damage we’ve inflicted on planet earth, our home.
Comments (3)Allan Savory: How to Green the World’s Deserts and Reverse Climate Change (TED video)
Desertification, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Livestock, Presentations/Demonstrations, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination — by Bob Nekrasov March 5, 2013
I have been waiting so long for Allan to get on Ted Talks! Now, here it is. Prepared to have your minds blown, ok?
I am sure you’re going to want to know more about HM in Australia and where to learn? The best training for HM comes out of InsideOutside Management. As it happens, they have a training beginning in April 2013. Although located in NSW they are able to travel across Australia to organise training, so get in touch! You will want to after seeing this.
Comments (15)SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) Turns Problem into Solution With Composting Toilets (Haiti)
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Conservation, Rehabilitation, Urban Projects, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 3, 2013
A few months ago I shared a three minute video from John D. Liu of the EEMP about the work of SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) — an organisation that’s doing great work in Haiti to improve sanitation in a sustainable and affordable way, whilst simultaneously turning the problem (human waste) into a solution (improving agricultural production whilst reducing the incidence of diseases like cholera). John has just sent me the latest edit from his video work on the impoverished island nation, so below you’ll find an extended look at the work of SOIL, and its context. This video makes an excellent follow-up to the article we just posted a couple of days ago: Recycling Animal and Human Dung is the Key to Sustainable Farming.
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Recycling Animal and Human Dung is the Key to Sustainable Farming
Compost, Conservation, Health & Disease, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Kris De Decker March 1, 2013
© Kris De Decker, low-tech magazine (edited by Shameez Joubert)
© Illustrations in red & black: Diego Marmolejo
Flushing the water closet is handy, but it wreaks ecological havoc, deprives agricultural soils of essential nutrients and makes food production dependent on fossil fuels.
For 4,000 years, human excrements and urine were considered extremely valuable trade products in China, Korea and Japan. Human dung was transported over specially designed canal networks by boats.
Thanks to the application of human "waste" products as fertilizers to agricultural fields, the East managed to feed a large population without polluting their drinking water. Meanwhile, cities in medieval Europe turned into open sewers. The concept was modernized in late 19th century Holland, with Charles Liernur’s sophisticated vacuum sewer system.
Comments (5)Fernglade Farm – Late Summer 2013 Update (Australia)
Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation — by Chris McLeod February 23, 2013
It’s nearing the end of summer here at Fernglade farm and what a summer it has been. Two inches of rain in over five months, and extreme heat for days on end, results in a most unpleasant experience.
Still, despite it all, things are still growing and there is still food to eat. The kangaroos, wallabies and wombats are also still eating from the farm and they are here often enough now that I’m assuming that conditions are harder elsewhere.
As a response to the extreme weather conditions, in very early summer I set about heavily mulching all of the plants in the food forest and whilst overall about 10% of the plants and trees here have died, 90% have survived.
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