Profitable Permaculture Farms

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by permacultureapprentice, Feb 12, 2015.

  1. permacultureapprentice

    permacultureapprentice Junior Member

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    Hey Guys,

    I just started a blog and I made an effort to write about what I think are some burning issues in permaculture.

    The theme I see often is a lack of models that people could follow when it comes to successfully running a profitable permaculture farm.

    Here is the link: https://permacultureapprentice.com/successful-permaculture-farms/

    Let me know what you think.
     
  2. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    Excellent work PA! Your evaluations of the various farms are spot-on and highlight a number of common features as well as unique qualities of each. A great reference work for Permaculturists!
    Looking forward to more ...
     
  3. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    apprentice, do you farm? Are you selling food you grow? Is your growing system set up as a Permaculture system? And if so, how long has your Permaculture setup been in place?

    Maybe the main thing about a "successful" farm is that it can sell what it produces and that there is a continuing demand year after yar. And if the market is already glutted with what it produces, or no one wants to buy what it produces, whether it's been produced by Permaculture methods, or organic methods or conventional methods, is really how farmers of all sorts can actually make a living off of farming :)
     
  4. permacultureapprentice

    permacultureapprentice Junior Member

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    Hey sweetpea,

    I do not farm, but I will be in 6 months or so. I have the land to start with my farming operation, so that is the reason for my interest in making a living from a permaculture farm and writing about it.

    I'm spreading the wisdom of great people, all the info comes from people 20 years ahead of where I want to be.
     
  5. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    If you sell stuff from your farm how do you replace the exported minerals and nutrients
    Do your customers use the onsite composting toilets or do they return composted material or barter nutrients back to your farm?
     
  6. goshenw

    goshenw Junior Member

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    Hi William,

    I'm going down a similar path myself - one of experimenting with different revenue streams, methods of income, keeping input costs down etc.

    Your site was a great informative read, and you've got some good detail and points from successful permaculture farms so far.
    It'll be even more 'authoritative' when you've gone down the path yourself, but then, you mightn't have time to research and write about it detail!

    I've linked to your post from one of my pages, where i was trying to explain a similar thing (but didn't have nearly as much actual info).

    Judging by all the comments, you've gained a sizable audience already (and opened a can of worms by the looks of it)... :)
     
  7. pablo

    pablo Junior Member

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    hi;

    Iam from ecuador; and I run a profitable permaculture farm in the Ecuadorian Andes and Amazon basin.I started as an organic grower, step by step , after some years of practicing, I cmae to realize the limitation of organic agriculture
    and the conceptual gaps in its theory,I started to dig into something else and I bump into permaculture 1 year ago,it has taken me one year and probably 2 more to convert, my organic farm into a permafarm
    basicaly doing banks full reforestation as the book says, sweals, every whre is needed,countoring, conecting dots. and after 1 year I am so full of bio mass than I am pushed to get animals to graze the surlplus biomass.

    about hte comercial cultivars it has hard in acepting to ( give in ) some comercial land for forest,and sweals,, but the out come couldnot be better, I gained resilence of the sistem , stability, biomas, the soil now uses less water resourses.
    organic mater is flowing, and comercial production is steady . still is a porcess going on , so it is hard to metion any drowbacks at this stage. now Iam planing in setting apermafarm, near the amazon baising improving every aspect of the model.
    regards
    pablo
    Quito Ecuador
     

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