Permaculture Media Blog

A letter from women to world leaders

2012-03-08T11:48:00.001+01:00

As a woman who loves the Earth, please sign below an open letter from women to world leaders. If we speak with love for the Earth and gift our voices to the Earth by signing, it will inspire world leaders and inspire other women to do the same.

Add your name today to the letter from women of the world to world leaders at http://www.eradicatingecocide.com/a-letter-from-women-to-world-leaders Please share this with others on Facebook, Twitter or email.

UMass Permaculture Wins White House Campus Champions of Change Challenge!

2012-03-06T19:17:00.002+01:00

by Ryan Harb

We did it everyone! It is now official. The UMass Permaculture team will be heading to the White House on March 15! This has been an amazing and inspiring week to see the voting results unfold and be in the center of it all. I can’t thank everyone enough for the support you’ve provided us with.

I’d like to share some reflections for how this week has been for me personally.

Because this was a contest and had only a few winners, there was a competitive aspect that couldn’t be ignored. That was a little difficult for me, because I favor cooperation over competition. But I realize that there is a place for contests like these, and it can have enormous positive benefits with the right intentions.

“Even if we don’t win this or finish in the top 5, this is an amazing opportunity to bring a great deal of awareness toward permaculture and the great work that UMass Permaculture is doing.”

That was my thinking the entire week. Did I want to win? Of course. That would mean even greater awareness about our program. But just being in the top 15 finalists is a win in itself. All of the teams we competed against are winners and I hope that all of their great projects get the recognition they deserve. Fortunately there are five teams and not just one that get to go to the White House. Yet we happened to finish with the most votes of all… but just barely! The University of Arkansas was neck and neck with us until the very end.

Chart created by Craig Nicholson

What does winning this contest mean for UMass Amherst?

The UMass Permaculture Initiative (UPI), one of the first university permaculture initiatives in the nation, has helped put UMass Amherst on the sustainability map in less than 18 months. We can’t fully predict what this will mean for the university, but I imagine that it will help attract new (top-notch!) students, potential alumni donors, and a great deal of positive media attention. I think this could be the jump-start we need to really make a massive impact in the local community and become a model for others to look upon for ideas, inspiration and guidance.

What does this mean for permaculture?
I want to first acknowledge that I am a new and young person in the worldwide permaculture movement. Yet I’ve been handed an opportunity of a lifetime to help bring permaculture to countless individuals who might not have heard about it otherwise. This is such an honor, and I know that this opportunity is due to everyone who has been practicing and educating about permaculture since the 1970s. I believe that we’ve collectively hit a critical mass and now the tides are turning to bring permaculture to the mainstream. This is not at all because of me – I am only a small part of something much greater.

That being said, I see permaculture exploding in popularity (even more than now!) in the coming years. Permaculture Design Certificate courses, which already have no trouble filling in most areas, will be in even greater demand. Institutional permaculture is going to emerge at more colleges and universities which are striving for sustainable campuses. This is already happening at institutions across the Northeastern U.S. Additionally, we might begin to see a lot more funding directed toward permaculture, agroforestry and agroecology projects. I see hospitals, prisons and any place that has a campus beginning to manage their land in a more holistic and intentional way. A brighter world is coming.

Personal Reflections

The excitement that this contest has generated is by far my favorite part of it all. There were literally hundreds if not thousands of individuals around the world who kept checking the voting page each day and encouraging others to vote for UMass Permaculture. The hope that we all felt together – by permaculture going to the White House – fills me with joy and is what makes all of this worth it.

I think what we are accomplishing, together, is absolutely amazing. The thousands of individuals who helped create the Franklin Permaculture Garden, the tens of thousands who voted for permaculture and UMass Permaculture to get to the White House… it is so clearly a massive multi-community effort. I try my best to facilitate it all, and keep the excitement high, with an amazing team beside me who are called the UMass Permaculture Committee.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead

There are so many groups and individuals to thank. I am going to do my best to name them all:

The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, Permaculture Media Blog, Living Routes, Regenerative Design Group, Gardens for Change, Sowing Solutions, Living Mandala, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County, Real Food Challenge, Seismologik, Treehugger, the local newspapers, UMass Amherst Alumni Association, Chancellors Office, News and Media Relations, and Auxiliary Enterprises. Plus all my family and friends who spent countless hours posting links and sending e-mails to everyone they have ever met (and probably people they’ve never met as well!) For all of you, I am forever grateful and I truly believe that the future generations are as well.

Thanks for inspiring me to continue doing this important work, everyone. Your positive comments mean the world to me!

— “yeeeehawwww…way to go UMass Amherst Permaculture!!!!! mulch that white house lawn!!!!! looks UMass won the contest…I’d LOVE…to see this happen!!! times are changing…sooo much hope!!!! thanks UMass..and all who voted…please keep it coming!”

— So great to hear that you won. It’s a great thing for permaculture and obvious that there is a wonderful following of the principles. This will do wonders for permaculture.
Debbie

— “This is wonderful!! Your permaculture project is the kind of thing we can really be proud of at UMass. I think it’s the best thing to happen at UMass in years!”

— “I am over the moon excited that they won – brilliant!”

— A sad part of being an on-line student is not being able to contribute to amazing on-campus efforts like yours. (However, due to family and community commitments, if it weren’t for the online option, I guess I wouldn’t be a student at UMass at all!) Anyway, I hope someday I do end up on campus for a visit–and visiting the permaculture garden would probably be first thing on my list.

— When I first saw that UMass was nominated for the award, I immediately sent the voting link to everyone I could think of. I totally support all that you are doing here, and elsewhere. Thank you for all you do, and GO UMass Permaculture!

— My husband and I have both given your group our three votes apiece. Congratulations on an amazing initiative – and have a wonderful trip to the White House!

— I first heard about this through a student, Jean Arnaud. Very nice work you all! You make us all proud.

— Just an FYI – I sent all 3 of my votes your way!!! You all are awesome!!!

International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day 1 May 2012

2012-03-05T20:51:00.003+01:00

info + DIY tips, videos and Free eBooks:

International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day 1 May 2012

Ryan Harb: Permaculture at U.S. Universities – UMass Amherst Case Study

2012-03-03T16:38:00.003+01:00

Permaculture at U.S. Universities – UMass Amherst Case Study

Ryan Harb gave this 1-hour talk at the Tenth International Permaculture Convergence (IPC10) in the Wadi Rum desert in southern Jordan in September 2011. Here’s a little background to get you interested:

UMass Amherst transformed a 1/4 grass lawn on campus into a thriving, abundant, permaculture garden during the 2010-2011 academic year. Learn how this student-led project can be easily replicated and spread to other campuses, institutions.. any piece of land for that matter. UMass Amherst is one of the first university’s undertaking a project like this, directly on campus, and supplying the food to its dining commons.

Find out more here:
http://permaculture.org.au/2011/12/14/ryan-harb-permaculture-at-u-s-universities-umass-amherst-case-study-ipc-presentation-video/

Bring Permaculture to the White House!

2012-02-24T11:12:00.001+01:00

Help bring ecological awareness to those powers in the White House! UMass Amherst Permaculture needs your vote to get to the White House and be featured on MTV~ they have made it to the top 15 finalists for a CAMPUS CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE AWARD!

UMass Amherst Permaculture is a student group that educates the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus and the local community about ecological permaculture solutions by demonstrating edible perennial landscapes that are highly productive, low maintenance, environmentally sustainable, and socially responsible!

"Finishing in the top 5 means permaculture and UMass Amherst will get national attention from the media, President Obama and his staff, plus millions and millions of people worldwide! This one has the potential to be a game-changer, everyone! It may very well be the most important Facebook post I will ever share. " -Ryan Harb

Here is what you can do to help:
1) Simply click the link and vote (all 3 of your votes!) for "UMASS Amherst Permaculture Initiative"!
2) Share this message on your Facebook wall so others in your network will also vote!
3) Post this message on appropriate Facebook groups you belong to! 4) E-mail this link to your friends, family, listservs, etc! Ask them to vote and share it with others as well.
5) Keep checking back, sharing this on Facebook during the next week, and keep the momentum high! Thank you so so much, everyone. We could be at the White House on March 15 with your help!

Vote here:
https://campuschallenge.uservoice.com/forums/148562-campus-champions-of-change-challenge

Facebook Event:
http://www.facebook.com/events/309134875814270/

How to run a PERMABLITZ!

2012-02-22T12:38:00.003+01:00

Adam Grubb from Permablitz Melbourne shows Sydney how its done!

See also:

DIY Permablitz Kit

What is a permablitz?
A permablitz is a permaculture-inspired backyard, frontyard or community makeover where people come together to build a food garden, share knowledge and skills about organic food production in urban gardens while building community and having fun. Anyone can come, and for many it’s their first experience with permaculture design or food gardening. Basically we get a lot of people together with tools, plants and knowledge and we go to someones house and build a permaculture vegie garden. This is a not for profit, volunteer based idea with reciprocation in mind. If you want a permaculture vegie garden at your place then you are encouraged to help out at other permablitz's first. People who have had a blitz at their house are encouraged to repay the favor by helping out at other blitz's.

We incorporate the principles of permaculture and sustainable living.

Each permablitz: includes planning via a pre-blitz design visit or visits, prior organisation of labour, materials, tools, plants and knowledge needed for the blitz, and follow up visits after the blitz to see how people are going with their new gardens.

Permaculture is a broad-based and holistic approach to life systems design and has a set of ‘core values’ or ethics Earthcare - Peoplecare - Fairshare

Modern thought about permaculture began with the issue of sustainable food production. It started with the belief that for people to feed themselves sustainably, they need to move away from reliance on industrialised agriculture. Where industrial farms use technology powered by fossil fuels (such as gasoline, diesel and natural gas), and each farm specialises in producing high yields of a single crop, permaculture stresses the value of low inputs and diverse crops. The model for this was an abundance of small-scale market and home gardens for food production, and a main issue was food miles.

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The Living Landscape: How to Read and Understand It

2012-02-22T12:38:00.001+01:00

Patrick Whitefield shares a lifetime's knowledge of the myriad interactions that go to make up the fascinating and varied landscapes we see all around us. He will inspire you to reconnect with the land as a living entity, not a collection of different scenery, and develop an active relationship with nature and the countryside.

The Living Landscape opens with a chapter on how to go about reading the landscape. The following chapters then go on to look in detail into landscape formation, from rocks, through soil, to vegetation, and the intricate web of interactions among plants, animals, climate, and people that makes the landscape around us. Each chapter is interspersed with diagrams, sketches, and notes that Patrick has taken over two decades of living and working in the countryside.

This book invites you to engage actively with nature and experience it firsthand. Understanding how landscapes evolve is a useful skill for landscape designers, gardeners, and farmers large and small, but it is also a life-enhancing skill all of us can enjoy. Whitefield offers us the enduring pleasure that costs nothing and yet offers everything.

Patrick Whitefield is one of Europe's foremost authors, teachers, and practitioners of temperate-climate permaculture. Patrick's previous books include: Permaculture in a Nutshell, The Earth Care Manual, How To Make a Forest Garden, and Tipi Living.

See also eBook previews:

The Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook For Britain & Other Temperate Climates - The long-awaited exploration of permaculture specifically for cooler Northern Hemisphere climates is finally here! Already regarded as the definitive book on the subject, The Earth Care Manual is accessible to the curious novice as much as it is essential for the knowledgeable practitioner. Patrick Whitefield is a permaculture teacher, writer, designer, and consulting editor for Permaculture Magazine. He is the author of the mini-classic Permaculture in a Nutshell, which has been translated into four languages.

How to Make a Forest Garden - A forest garden is a food-producing garden, based on the model of a natural woodland or forest. It is made up of fruit and nut trees, fruit bushes, perennial vegetables and herbs. It can be tailored to fit any space, from a tiny urban back yard to a large rural garden. This highly practical, yet inspiring book gives you everything you need to know in order to create a beautiful and productive forest garden. It is also a low-maintenance way of gardening. Once established there is none of the digging, sowing, planting out and hoeing of the conventional kitchen garden. The main task is picking up the produce!

Permaculture in a Nutshell - is a concise and accessible introduction to the principles and practice of permaculture in temperate climates. It covers how permaculture works in the city, the country and on the farm and explores ways in which people can work together to recreate real communities. This inspiring book clearly describes how we can live fruitfully and sustainably and is essential reading for anyone wishing to reduce their environmental impact. Patrick Whitefield is a permaculture teacher, writer, designer, and consulting editor for Permaculture Magazine.

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Ecological Design by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan

2012-02-22T12:22:00.002+01:00

Ecological Design is a landmark volume that helped usher in an exciting new era in green design and sustainability planning. Since its initial publication in 1996, the book has been critically important in sparking dialogue and triggering collaboration across spatial scales and design professions in pursuit of buildings, products, and landscapes with radically decreased environmental impacts. This 10th anniversary edition makes the work available to a new generation of practitioners and thinkers concerned with moving our society onto a more sustainable path.

Using examples from architecture, industrial ecology, sustainable agriculture, ecological wastewater treatment, and many other fields, Ecological Design provides a framework for integrating human design with living systems. Drawing on complex systems, ecology, and early examples of green building and design, the book challenges us to go further, creating buildings, infrastructures, and landscapes that are truly restorative rather than merely diminishing the rate at which things are getting worse.

Sim Van der Ryn is professor emeritus in the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley and founder and principal of Sim Van der Ryn + Associates, an architectural firm specializing in ecological design.

http://www.vanderryn.com/

Stuart Cowan is a general partner with Autopoiesis LLC in Portland, Oregon, which offers design, development, and finance services internationally for large-scale sustainability projects. He recently served as research director at Ecotrust.

http://www.ecotrust.org/

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Urban Permaculture Food Forest Garden with Edible Exploding Impatiens

2012-02-22T12:19:00.000+01:00

John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ goes on a field trip outside Portland, Oregon to visit one amazing Urban Permaculture Food Forest Garden. In this episode, John will share just some of the techniques and unique edible plants that are being grown in this permaculture garden. You will learn about the edible Impatiens balfourii... aka Poor Man's Orchid which explode when you touch them and so much more..

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Rainwater Harvesting with Brad Lancaster (videos)

2012-02-21T19:03:00.001+01:00

Popular speaker, author and educator Brad Lancaster delivers some basic rainwater harvesting concepts with humor and clarity.

Rainwater Harvesting Basics (1) Brad Lancaster

Brad Lancaster talks about his evolution into rainwater harvesting, and the current state of our freshwater resources. Filmed at Santa Barbara City College Lifescape Garden.

Rainwater Harvesting Basics (2) Brad Lancaster

Part 2 - developing a 'resilience basket' of local food with rainwater harvesting earthworks on neighborhood commons - greywater as an important household strategy and the successful Arizona code model

Rainwater Harvesting Basics (3) Brad Lancaster

Part 3 - some basic water harvesting concepts and strategies - current projects - cultivating community acceptance of best management practices through informed example

www.harvestingrainwater.com/

See also these Articles:

8 Principles for Successful Rainwater Harvesting

Fundamentals of a Rainwater Harvesting System

and Ebooks:

Harvest the Rain: How to Enrich Your Life by seeing Every Storm as a Resource

Gardening Without Irrigation by Steve Solomon - Free Ebook Online

The City Forest: The Keyline Plan for the Human Environment Revolution

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Slow Food: Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasures of Food

2012-02-21T11:54:00.002+01:00

Remember the days before the dot.com explosion, before Golden Arches rose from the Great Plains, before the Age of Information, when the only commodity that wasn't in short supply in America was time? Time to relax and reflect, time to cook well, eat well, and live the life of sustainable hedonism. Today we pound down our Big Mac and fries as we check our e-mail on our collective Palm Pilots, at the expense of true nourishment for our bodies and souls.

"Enough!" says Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food International, a movement that encourages us to turn down the volume, unplug the answering machine, and enjoy life to its fullest. Away with nutraceutical soft drinks and breakfast cereals made from refined sugar and shaped liked clowns. Bring back the pleasure of the palate, and return the humanity to food. More than 60,000 members worldwide now belong to the Slow Food movement, which believes that the slow shall inherit the earth.

Slow Food: Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasures of Food is an anthology for cooks, gourmets, and anyone who is passionate about food and its impact on our culture.

Drawn from five years of the quarterly journal Slow (only recently available in America), this book includes more than 100 articles covering eclectic topics from "Falafel" to "Fat City." From the market at Ulan Bator in Mongolia to Slow Food Down Under, this book offers an armchair tour of the exotic and bizarre. You'll pass through Vietnam's Snake Tavern, enjoy the Post-Industrial Pint of Beer, and learn why the lascivious villain in Indian cinema always eats Tandoori Chicken. The articles are contributed by some of the world's top food writers.

Slow Food is moving fast in North America, with more than 5,000 members, loosely organized into 55 "Convivia," from Montreal to San Francisco, benefiting from enormous free publicity. Slow Food offers a clear alternative to the "fast food nation" (the title of Eric Schlosser's great book on the horrors of the fast food biz). This is a perfect follow-up to Joan Dye Gussow's This Organic Life, and is proof positive that he or she who lives slow, lives best.

http://www.slowfood.com/

Chapter 1: Building the Ark by Carlo Petrini

Those of us who work in the wine and food industry are continually faced by the worrisome fact that small purveyors of fine food and good wine are fast diminishing, while vegetables, fruits, and products that belong to our heritage are being systematically squeezed out of production. At the root of the problem lie confused agricultural policies that fail to take natural bio-rhythms into account and narrow-minded health regulations thought up for large companies and imposed on small producers. Woe betide the noble class of gourmets if they continue to neglect this catastrophic trend. On December 2, 1996, at the Taste Fair at Turin Lingotto, Slow Food organized a conference on "An Ark of Taste to Save the Universe of Savors." This conference was organized as part of a concerted effort to oppose that state of affairs. We have invested the effort with a symbolic name: the Ark, a protective receptacle for quality products that should be saved from the deluge of standardization and worldwide distribution. It is our view that, rather than pay homage to the logic of macroeconomics, we should operate within a regional framework and promote new forms of "slow" production and supply. This is perhaps the only possible quality guarantee that pays due respect to agriculture around the world.

MATERIAL CULTURE
"There is a desperately serious genocide of taste and I believe that we should intervene, not least because food is closely bound to agriculture, agriculture to the countryside, and the countryside to culture, And when we speak of culture we are obviously not referring to culture as am treasures, but material culture, which is infinitely more vast -- it is humanity's overall behavior, what gives meaning to human existence. And taste is something that gives meaning."
-- Luciana Castellina, Chairman of the European Parliamentary Commission for Culture

QUALITY OF LIFE
"Speed and the general rat race force rush upon us, but this should not stop us from doing everything we can to defend the traditions, products, and habits of our country This is something that not only manufacturers who refuse to standardize consumer products should try to pursue, but also local and national public institutions... To say that we should protect the production of 'cultural assets' simply not enough. For this to happen we must raise the necessary economic resources. Just claiming that certain characteristic cultivars and certain local processes should be preserved will get us nowhere. We need to make sure that those directly involved in such preservation can count, on a reasonable quality of life."
-- Enzo Ghigo, President of the Piedmont Regional Council

I am aware that there are conservative implications in the idea of an Ark. It is an over-simplification to advocate support for only homemade products and small purveyors as an absolute value, thereby overlooking existing industrial companies that operate honestly and deploy their entrepreneurial skill in an environmentally friendly way. The great risk is that we will end up in a world of our own, cut off from highly complex processes. This is an error that we should avoid. It is wrong to remain stuck in the past without looking beyond our noses. Yet that will certainly be our fate if we lose touch with basic common sense. We have much to learn from the worldwide Slow Food movement.

I am also convinced that "playing a defensive game" is not a mistaken policy at this particular moment in time. If the flood is on its way, the only solution is the Ark. The storms ahead herald death and destruction, and if we fail to realize this, our marketing, community policies, and clever intuitions will be of little use. We must build the Ark as soon as possible.

Information is the first issue. What we need to do is look after small, high-quality food purveyors from the source through to consumption. This means implementing a process of awareness that is a reward for the producer and a guarantee for the buyer. Those in the trade must be aware that they are bearers of culture. The pride and satisfaction thus derived, and the recognition of results thus achieved, are bound to contribute to a general increase in professionalism. We, the gourmets, the wine and food publicists, must do our utmost to give dignity to these makers of food culture.

As for the "sacred fire" of hygiene, if it is not handled cum grano salis, a tremendous gulf will be created between institutions and producers.

Safeguarding and improving agriculture and local food purveyors calls for resources. Change in the European Community (EC) contributions policy -- no longer paying a system that destroys, but paying those who work conscientiously and professionally -- has long been overdue and will take time and effort to implement. Frankly, at the moment I am fairly skeptical about it.

For our own part, we are working on another front, trying to involve those who choose, try, judge, and consume. This project cannot take off if we do not convince consumers to pay more for better products. It is high time we put an end to the demagogy of price. For years it has been little more than an alibi for those who produce low-quality goods in large quantities.

s u g g e s t i o n s

The following are some practical suggestions.

The first one derives from an idea expressed by Italian parliamentarian Carmine Nardone: the adoption of 1,500 fruit-trees that are facing extinction. Slow Food Arcigola is asking wine producers to take on this project In our vineyards, let's try to re-create something of the environment we inherited from our forebears by planting fruit trees in between the rows of vines. This could be done in the Langhe region in Piedmont, in the Valpolicella and Chianti Classico areas, in the gardens and green areas of the wine-producing towns. We would thus be establishing the first eco-museum. in Italy, a living exhibition that will give these trees a chance to survive. It's a question of saving genes in the golden age of biogenetics.

NEW VALUES
"I believe that a nation's wine and food traditions are part of its cultural identity However, concrete action is necessary to raise awareness of this in daily political activity... The disappearance and standardization of tastes the lack of interest, in characteristic flavors are part of a more generalized standardization of values and the consequence of various dominating non-values.... So the problem is not that of building on Ark of taste for an elite, bur, of redefining a new scale of values."
-- Willer Borden, Heritage and Environment Undersecretary for the Italian Government

Second suggestion: a code for the Ark. We believe that the words Castelmagno, San Daniele ham, and Grana Padano stand for a heritage to be proud of That is why we urgently require legislation that recognizes quality food products as part of a cultural heritage that should be safeguarded and appreciated. Those who work hard to pass on their knowledge and culture to future generations deserve such recognition.

Third, we believe it is essential to get a campaign of taste teaching underway. This is one of the main reasons for the existence of our organization, Slow Food Arcigola, which has always recognized and affirmed the cultural value of sensory training. Much knowledge is to be gained through the taste buds and the mucous membrane in the nose, and attaining such knowledge is an experience that is closely related to pleasure. Pleasure of this sort implies moderation and awareness and is an integral aspect of health. Moreover, all these factors together are essential to taste, which means pleasurable learning and wise enjoyment.

If we abide by such measures, we should manage to weather the forthcoming deluge. But once the Ark has fulfilled its task, it should be destroyed. We do not want to live in the Ark. Once the waters have withdrawn, we shall step out onto land and, like Noah, plant our vines. Just like him, we shall indulge *in some redeeming drunken revelry. Our children will doubtless laugh at our inebriation. However, among them there will be ones who, with the strength and conviction of a member of Slow Food, will take care of us and lovingly cultivate the vine.

a m e r i c a n a r k p r o d u c t s

An Ark product can be animal or vegetable, for example, the Red Abalone and the Gilfeather turnip. It might even be mineral, supposing a sea salt were deemed worthy of inclusion. Or it could be a food such as Creole cream cheese, produced by artisans using time-honored methods. In some cases, an Ark product will be a dawning tradition or a new creation that captures regional flavors and heritage.

To qualify as a passenger on Slow Food U.S.A.'s Ark, a product must possess these characteristics:

* Must be a unique, high-quality product with excellent flavor.
* Must be at risk or extinction -- of being lost in the world of standardized food
* Historically, socioeconomically, or culturally, must be tied to a precise territory or locality (products are often named after their place of origin).
* Must be in limited production (although a potential for increased production is desirable).
* If a refined or crafted product (such as smoked meat or aged cheese), then must be prepared according to specific techniques that reflect tradition or an innovative interpretation of traditional methods.
* Must be symbolically important as a regional food

No product containing generically modified raw materials and no transgenic breed or plant will qualify for the Ark.

The Ark U.S.A. Committee will set up a data bank and collect information about cultivars, breeds, products, and producers, as well as about shops and restaurants that are selling Ark products.

Slow Food's intention is not to create a food museum but instead to develop a lively marketplace for endangered foods. Because we recognize that food culture is regional, not national, we expect Ark products to have strong regional identities. Regional foods have deep meaning in local culture and have significance far beyond nostalgia and sentimentality. In a country as large and diverse as the United States, it is likely that Ark products from Vermont will be completely unfamiliar to people who live in Tucson or the Silicon Valley.

The Ark will not become a brand name, and Slow Food will not become a "middleman." Our goal is simply to shine the spotlight on small producers of high-quality, regional foods and to identify the markets and restaurants where these products are available. Where there is the need, Slow Food U.S.A. will create Presidia to help connect producers with consumers or restaurateurs. The Presidia can also encourage small specialty growers by helping to ensure fair prices for rare foods that have not been grown or produced because they are not deemed economically viable. The well-being of these growers and producers is intensely important to the Slow Food movement.

http://www.slowfood.com/

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The Everything Small-Space Gardening Book

2012-02-21T11:50:00.001+01:00

Vine-riped tomatoes. Succulent squash. Plump cucumbers. Growing vegetables is a rewarding - and cost-effective - way to eat better for less, yet many people believe that they lack the space necessary to grow a functioning garden. With "The Everything Small Space Gardening Book", however, readers learn how to maximise their space and grow delicious vegetables and herbs cheaply and efficiently, whether they have a small backyard - or just a windowsill!

Productive gardening can and should be a reality for everyone, regardless of the amount of land they own. "The Everything Small Space Gardening Book" has everything readers need to grow fresh produce in any size space, at any time of year.

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Urban Permaculture Designs by VEG

2012-02-20T14:54:00.001+01:00

Urban Permaculture Designs by Very Edible Gardens - Melbourne's permaculture design professionals

"We are passionate about helping people create beautiful, edible oases in their own backyards, suited to wide ranging budgets, skill levels, size of yard and personal tastes."

www.veryediblegardens.com

click to enlarge

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Liberation Permaculture Design Course

2012-02-20T07:45:00.001+01:00

In April of this year, Movement Generation and the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center convened nearly 30 activists and organizers representing various grassroots and social justice organizations from throughout California to participate in a two-week Liberation Permaculture Design Course.

Filmed by Patrick O’Conner of Oaklandsol.org for permaculture.coop

Liberation Permaculture, a framework and design science that invokes the traditional knowledge of land-based peoples, provides organizers with a methodology to resist systems of oppression through building resiliency in our communities. It is a means to prepare oppressed communities for the oncoming environmental disasters while building the world we want and need now.

Come hear these course participants report back about how they are implementing Liberation Permaculture into their organizing work and how it can provide us with a critical framework for the necessary and just transition from a carbon, consumption, and profit-based economy to the participatory and life-affirming, need-based society we envision for the future.

Presentations will be provided by individuals representing Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project, Urban Tilth, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, Ella Baker Center, Catalyst Project, People Organized to Win Employment Rights, Communities for a Better Environment and others.

Source: Oakland Local

Original article:
Liberation Permaculture - Oakland Activists

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FREE Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course - Haiti - June 11 - August 10

2012-02-19T12:28:00.001+01:00

Webpage:
http://sadhanaforest.org/wp/2012/01/haiti-pdc-course/

Instructor Name:
Nick Boyce

Location:
Anse-A-Pitre, Haiti

Start Date / End Date:
June 11, 2012 - August 10, 2012

Tuition:
FREE

Help Build a Flourishing Indiginous Food Forest!

We are now offering a FREE Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course, with hands on experience over two months in the summer of 2012 in Anse- Pitres, Haiti. This will give participants the chance to apply their knowledge and help the local Haitian community.

Sadhana Forest Haiti is an international volunteer community that aims to reintroduce an indigenous food forest to Haiti. We share with volunteers and our local community our desire to live sustainably, from organic food growth to alternative energy sources, to composting. We utilize Permaculture techniques and design philosophy to achieve our goals.

As part of the course we will travel to rural communities in Haiti, plant trees and help design and implement little food gardens!

If you have ever dreamed of getting hands on experience and helping supply food security for Haitian communities…

Here is your chance!

We urgently need enthusiastic volunteers to help us restore the environment and improve the quality of life of thoudsands of people.

You will receive training in permaculture design free of charge, while also learning intercultural communication in Haiti from JUNE 11 – AUGUST 10, 2012. Each student will have a chance to apply the permaculture techniques to a specific site in Haiti that will immediatily benfit local Hatiain families.

So if you…

Are intrested in regenerative agriculture
Are willing to contribute $4 a day for three vegan meals, made with locally purchased ingredients
Want to make a significant impact on people’s livelihood and the environment
Can offer 2 months or more of your time

Then

CONTACT US!

Enquiries can be sent to:

sadhanaforesthaiti@gmail.com

We offer…

An amazing work experience and future opportunities with our diverse range of projects in India and Haiti
A free PDC
Technical and communication training
Full community accommodation
Opportunity to get internship credits

Event Phone:
509-3834-0438

Event Email:
sadhanaforesthaiti@gmail.com

Event Link:
http://sadhanaforest.org/wp/2012/01/haiti-pdc-course/

Permaculture Directory - Free WorldWide Directory for Sustainable Living Events

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Anima Mundi – Permaculture, Peak Oil, Climate Change and the Soul of the World.

2012-02-17T10:22:00.001+01:00

Will you survive the transition of human industrial civilization happening now due to peak oil and climate change? Can you see the forest for the trees, the earth for the dream, the universe for the seed? Anima Mundi is an innovative documentary about the planetary animal called the Earth and the human animal we deny, we deny at our own peril, yet a peril that is perfect in design.

FEATURING
David Holmgren – co-founder of Permaculture
John Seed – Deep Ecology
Stephan Harding – Gaian Ecology
Vandana Shiva – Human Rights
Michael C Ruppert – Peak Oil (as seen in the movie Collapse)
Michael Reynolds – Earthships (as seen in the movie Garbage Warrior)
Noam Chomsky – Activism
Dr Mark O’Meadhra – Integrative Medicine
Dr Christine James – Psychology
Permablitz – Permaculture

Directed and Produced by Peter Charles Downey.

http://animamundimovie.com/

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A Growing Revolution: Learn Permaculture Design With Andrew Faust

2012-02-13T20:52:00.002+01:00

Andrew Faust, renowned Permaculture Scholar, has been captivating audiences with his message of how we can use permaculture to redesign the current, vulnerable economic landscape to reflect the most resilient systems functioning in nature. With over 20 years of teaching experience, he has, to date, successfully graduated over 400 students from his Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) course that is helping spawn a new wave of green businesses and organizations. The Permaculture movement is growing in the greater NYC area and has also found a home within the Occupy Wall Street community.

Permaculture is a design science rooted in the observation of natural living eco systems. Through years of study on how nature functions, Ecologists, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, discovered a set of principles at work within an ecosystem, that can be applied to the construction of human systems to ensure resiliency and efficiency. These principles allow for all basic human needs to be met without compromising the integrity of the natural environment. The core ethics behind Permaculture are care of the earth, care of the people and share the surplus, also known as earth care, people care and fair share.

Faust makes a strong case outlining how we can begin, at once, to utilize these principles and start participating in a new, regionally specific economy that supports the local ecology rather than exhausting it, and create a new system out of the shell of the current structure that is failing to meet our most basic needs. He also stresses the great need for these principles to be applied in an urban setting and highlights many of the opportunities to do so in the PDC.

“I believe more than a few of my fellow PDC students came into the class with plans to escape the city and build their Permaculture homestead-- myself included. And most of us left with goals of focusing our energies right here in the city, where Permaculture principles and applications are needed most urgently.”-- Jenna Spevack, PDC 2010

As Faust sees it, we need to move away from a consumer based economic model and become a culture of producers, in which local communities start redeveloping basic, long forgotten skills that are currently outsourced. He believes that this is where new sustainable green jobs will ultimately come from, for the people and by the people.

Faust also challenges the basic understanding of what sustainability actually is. He says, quoted from a recent talk, “first if we are going to talk about sustainability, we must ask the question, what is it that we are trying to sustain? If we refer to NYC, the city has never, once, been in compliance with the clean air or water act.”

Most view sustainability as a movement towards decreasing our impact on the environment by reducing our carbon footprint. He suggests that we need to participate with our local ecologies and increase our impact to begin shifting into a new regenerative phase, repairing and reversing severely damaged portions of the environment while simultaneously participating in an economy that supports this endeavor.

“I think the biggest shift for me that came out of the Permaculture Design Certification with Andrew, was taking this false idea that we need to reduce our impact on the planet and flipping it on it's head. We need to be improving our influence on the planet, and expanding toward a positive impact not shrinking our footprint.” -- Liz Neves, PDC 2009

Faust’s work has struck a cord within the Occupy Movement. He gave his first presentation to the movement at The Atrium Building at 60 Wall Street, where organizers and activists meet to report back on various projects and plan actions. The Food Justice Working Group, the Sustainability Working Group and the Brooklyn General Assembly have hosted him on multiple occasions, to speak on various topics. New York based Occupy farm projects are incorporating Permaculture principles with the assistance of Andrew’s knowledge and rich history in the field.

Among participating in various speaking engagements, Andrew teaches 4-5 PDC’s per year in both NYC and at Yestermorrow, a progressive green building school in Warren, Vermont. The Spring 2012 Permaculture Design Certification Program will run from February 18th to April 7th at the 6th St Community Center, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Registration is still open, on a first come first serve basis. Andrew Faust is currently the only Permaculture Teacher offering the PDC Program here in NYC.

If you would like more detailed information about classes, workshops, speaking engagements or would like to request Andrew to speak at an event, visit the Center For Bioregional Living at: http://www.homebiome.com

Original article:
A Growing Revolution: Learn Permaculture Design With Andrew Faust

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Urban Community with City Repair

2012-02-13T12:46:00.002+01:00

Michael Cook of City Repair took the JoA team on an incredible adventure to various neighborhoods where he works with communities and schools to creatively and positively transform the places they call home.

By reclaiming urban spaces to create community-oriented places, they plant the seeds for greater neighborhood communication, empower their communities and nurture their local culture.

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Urban Farming & Permaculture in the Twin Cities: An Introduction to Backyard Harvest

2012-02-13T12:45:00.003+01:00

"Backyard Harvest helps city dwellers transform their landscapes into tasty, beautiful and sustainable mini-farms. We grow food (or help you grow it!) in the yards of homes, schools and businesses. Our mission is to strengthen the Twin Cities local foods infrastructure - one yard at a time - by turning lawns into nourishing and healthy landscapes"

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Free Urban Farming Online Course

2012-02-12T11:57:00.001+01:00

Description:

It turns out, that farming on small plots can be highly profitable. In fact, hundreds of people have started farming on under an acre in urban area as a full time business.

Curtis Stone, owner/operator of Green City Acres, a pedal powered urban farm in Kelowna BC, wants you to create a successful profitable urban farm! In that last two seasons, Curtis has made $20k and $60k in sales by growing fresh vegetables on ¾ of an acre. This year, Curtis is teaching you how to become a successful urban farmer.

Listen to Curtis explain why he wants to help you create a profitable urban farm by clicking play below:

Fellow course member and co-host of the Video Lesson, Luke Callahan, explains why he is compelled to be an urban farmer. Click play below:

Luke Callahan, founder of GroAction, has zero gardening experience. He will be starting his own urban farm this year and a is fellow member of the course. He is just in the process of looking for a plot to farm in Portland, Oregon (as of 1.25.11):

Sign up for the free course at Groaction.

Why is Urban Farming important?
The reason they are so dedicated to helping you succeed is because of the huge need for our local economies to become more resilient in the coming years. Currently, industrial (supermarket) agriculture prices are directly linked to the price of oil. So, when a gallon of gas gets up to $6/gallon,food prices will also increase just as much.

This may seem scary, and in some regards it is. But, it is also a huge potential to make a profitable urban farm. By figuring out what vegetables people are paying high prices for in your area, you can grow those vegetables (local climate permitting) and sell them for a profit while helping your local economy become more resilient.

The details of the course:

**This course is laid out for you to go through all the steps of creating a successful urban farm even if you’ve never grown a vegetable before.**

1. Tasks – Each week we will give you tasks to complete for your urban farm.
2. Video Lesson - When you get the task, Curtis and Luke will go over Luke’s completed task to evaluate his progress and help you with yours .
3. Submit your progress - After you have completed your task you will submit your progress to be reviewed by Curtis, Luke, and your peers. With the submissions, Curtis and Luke will review a sample of them in the weekly video lesson, talking about the good points and what can be improved.

Check out this clip of Curtis analyzing a potential plot for Luke’s farm:

To access the course visit Groaction

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The Worlds Largest Collection of Natural Building Photos!

2012-02-08T13:48:00.002+01:00

Beautiful homes people build around the world using natural materials and often plenty of community spirit, care and love.

Every picture in every gallery will take you on a journey to other websites or blogs about natural building and natural materials.

naturalhomes.org

This album is a collection of homes in the UK from the roundwood home of Ben Law to the little cottages at Tinker's Bubble.

"This is Ben Law's home in Prickly Nut Wood near Lodsworth, West Sussex, UK [http://www.ben-law.co.uk/]. The house is a roundwood sweet chestnut cruck frame with straw bale and wattle & daub walls and a roof of handmade shingles. Ben is one of a growing number of pioneers who are recreating the human scale approach to woodland management. In addition to the woodland products he makes, he also grows and forages a substantial proportion of his food from his woodland. After building this beautiful home Ben has developed the art of roundwood timber framing [http://www.the-roundwood-timber-framing-co.ltd.uk/] and has built many other roundwood buildings. You can attribute some of the charm of this woodland home to patterns No.234, ‘Lapped Outside Walls’ and No.246, ‘Climbing Plants’ but there are many others working together. More on patterns here [http://naturalhomes.org/fbr.pattern] and you can find Ben's home on the natural homes map here [http://ow.ly/6qQt0]"

This is an album full of surprises. It's where we keep pictures of things we have fallen in love with. It contains things from the Norwegian story gamma to a mosaic mermaid.

"Where I am leaves are falling and nights draw thoughts towards a warming fire. If you live in Norway autumn can be dramatic with the prospect of listening to a story around an open fire even more inviting. I've posted about this 'gamme' [www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.turfhut] inspired kindergarten room in Norway before but one of our Natural Homes friends asked what it looks like at night. So here it is… You can see the daytime picture with the fire burning inside here [www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.storyroom]. This picture shows the room's curved sliding door closed so you can't see the fire but it doesn't take much imagination to know must be truly wonderful inside!"

This album shows you the inside and outside of natural homes. From the beehive homes of Syria to treehouses in the lavender fields of Italy.

"This is a cave home in Palestine. It was abandoned but now happily in use again. It's one of several cave homes in this part of Palestine. This particular cave has been restored by the permaculture project Bustan Qaraaqa [www.bustanqaraaqa.org]. It contains a clever solution to building waste which is not collected in Palestine and invariably finds its way into the desert polluting the environment. These beds are made from car tyres that have been packed with a year's worth of rubbish that can't be reused or recycled. The packed tyre platforms were then covered in cob as a base for the mattress. Permaculture is based on 12 principles; No.6 says, 'Produce no Waste'. You can support the development of an open-source permaculture knowledge base by donating to this worthy project [www.indiegogo.com/OpenPermaculture] where you will find a music video explaining the 12 principles."

This is the album of designs on walls using clay, lime and natural pigments. It covers pargeting, sgraffito and Japanese decorative techniques.

"Lovely decorative plaster on a house near Puerto Morelos, Mexico. Photo by Albert Bates [http://www.facebook.com/peaksurfer] author of The Biochar Solution"

None of these albums would be here without the wonderful people that built them. This is the gallery of Natural Builders of the World.

"Janell Kapoor is the founding Director of Kleiwerks International. She is an avid mud mama, international activist, designer, teacher, and community organizer who’s work has generated natural building movements of hundreds of thousands of people in over 35 countries [www.kleiwerks.org]. Janell is also founder and Sustainability Strategist of the Ashevillage Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an eco-urban education project that hosts training in self-reliant living [www.ashevillage.org]."

"This is the story behind Simon Dale's woodland home in Wales. This video is also available in Russian, Spanish and French."

If you would like to discuss issues relating to natural building please join Talking Natural Homes at https://facebook.com/groups/naturalhomes/

Natural Homes can also be found in other languages:

Russian http://facebook.com/naturalnyedoma
Lakota http://facebook.com/tipiikceka
Polish http://facebook.com/naturalnedomy
French http://facebook.com/maisonsnaturelles
Spanish http://facebook.com/casasnaturales
Portuguese http://facebook.com/casasnaturais
Lithuanian https://facebook.com/naturalusnamai
Romanian https://facebook.com/casenaturale
Japanese https://www.facebook.com/shizennoie

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Open Permaculture Crowdfunding!

2012-02-03T20:32:00.002+01:00

Help create FREE educational projects for sustainable living!

CAMPAIGN HAS LAUNCHED!! http://igg.me/p/66197?a=407447 Please share this page with your friends. Thank you!

For almost two years Permaculture Media Blog and Permaculture Directory have brought together high-quality, sustainable-living and educational media for the worldwide eco-community. These projects inspire thousands of people every day and have helped many people to start their own homesteading projects.

Permaculture Media Blog is a continually growing archive of more than 2000 FREE videos, eBooks, podcasts and documentaries, divided into 4 main categories; Permaculture & Organic Gardening, Natural & Green Building, Renewable Energy and Environmental Activism.

Permaculture Directory is a FREE listing site for sustainable-living events from all over the world. Over 1300 events are listed, which have helped thousands of people to find life changing courses, workshops and festivals.

Now it is time to amplify and expand other essential and FREE educational projects!

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Urban Permaculture Guide – FREE eBook (circa 400 pages)

This will be the first book about using principles of permaculture design in urban areas! Inside you will find DIY tips that can be applied in your flat, tiny backyard, rooftop or community garden. Including topics like:

Indoor and Balcony Gardening – Permaculture Style
Tree Crops and Edible Forests
Guerilla Gardening
Community Supported Agriculture
Mushroom log cultivation
Composting and Vermi-composting
Rainwater collection
Micro-livestock
Wind and Solar Energy
Transportation
…and much More!

This FREE eBook will also include interviews with founders of successful Urban Permaculture projects and a comprehensive list of FREE online educational resources.

Permaculture Q&A website

Let's say you're interested in growing food for your own self-sustenance, for your community or for a "grow food locally" business. You've read several books and many web pages, and maybe you've gone to one or two courses or meetings. Now you're standing on your very own piece of land (or in your very urban setting) and you look around.

Questions start to pop up in your head. How do I...? What do I...? Where do I...?

It's now that you realise there's a whole body of information that is at a distance from where you are. It's in the minds of many food growers all over the world, in databases and web pages, but somehow it's not too easy to get the exact answers to your specific, extremely local and burning questions.

Permaculture Wiki

Cultivated and expanded by community of experienced permaculture practitioners, Permaculture Wiki will bring a deeper and wider understanding of permaculture and related topics. In this wiki, community members will use principles of permaculture design to build a base of knowledge for designing sustainable human habitats.

What will the money be used for?

Summary of budget

Graphics: $3,000, 20%
Programmer & Operations: $3,000, 20%
Writer & Research: $3,000, 20%
Distribution & Marketing: 1,500, 10%
IndieGoGo Fees: min $1,200 max $1,950, min 8% [max 13%]
Donor gifts and international shipping: $3,300, 22%

Total min $15,000 [max $15,750]

Graphic designer and Illustrator: $3,000
The project requires professional graphics for the Permaculture Wiki, Q&A website but mainly for the Urban Permaculture eBook.

Programmer and Operational Manager: $3.000
Programming and managing the open source projects requires daily work with the community of permaculture professionals and authors and assumes unpaid overtime throuought the project's life.

Writer: $3,000
Writing a book require lots of time and energy. This will be the first ever book dedicated to using permaculture design principles in urban areas. Creating this unique pack of knowledge requires months of research into successful and unsuccessful urban homesteading projects including interviews with authors, teachers and homesteaders.

Distribution and Marketing: $1,500
Distributing and marketing the book to thousands of people around the world. This book will be distributed without any end user fees, entirely for free. The project's aim is to create high quality, free not-for-profit resources for everyone.

IndieGoGo Fees: $1.200 - $1,950
4% of target donation or 9% of off-target donation plus 4% transaction fee

Donor gifts and international shipping: $3,300
Some of the original gifts (see detailed descriprion bellow) are crafted by members of the project, others will be bought from money raised. In total this is expected to be 20-25% of the project's budget.

Who is behind this project?

Sophia Novack – passionate permaculture geek and environmental activist. I'm studying in Prague, Czech Republic, but spend most of my time travelling and editing Permaculture Media Blog and Permaculture Directory. If you have any questions, you can contact me at permaculture.media.blog (a) gmail (dot) com or via my social media accounts: Facebook, Google+

Permaculture Media Blog and Permaculture Directory have achieved a great amount of good with very little so far. Now we need to change the world in a huge way, and we need your financial support to do so.

Your contributions are vital to taking our educational projects to the next level, and creating the FREE resources for everyone. We aren’t just fund-raising, we are building a community!

Open Permaculture project is seeking funding to build the movement to save the ecosystems we depend on for survival, and ultimately humanity. This issue is too big to tackle from a garage. We need your help.

PERKS FOR YOU!

1. Personal Thank you message via Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to thousands of our followers

2. Special newsletter subscription – monthly updates full of the best free educational media

3. Your name with an image and link to your website will appear on the Permaculture Media Blog and Permaculture Directory ‘About’ page

4. Pre-release version of eBook: Urban Permaculture Guide (December 2012)

5. Handmade postcard with a personal message for you

6. Your name will be listed in the acknowledgements of the Urban Permaculture Guide eBook

7. Online updates of manuscripts from Urban Permaculture Guide eBook

8. One Permaculture-related eBook (pdf format)

9. An additional 4 Permaculture-related eBooks (pdf format)

10. Handmade natural bag with colourful ornaments
+ handmade badge

11. Custom Open Permaculture T-shirt!

12. Book: The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I Kept the Patio, Lost the Lawn, and Fed My Family for a Year - Full of tips and recipes to help anyone interested in growing and preparing at least a small part of their diet at home, The Quarter-Acre Farm is a warm, witty tale about family, food, and the incredible gratification that accompanies self-sufficiency. The Quarter-Acre Farm is Warren’s account of deciding—despite all resistance—to take control of her family’s food choices, get her hands dirty, and create a garden in her suburban yard. It’s a story of bugs, worms, rot, and failure; of learning, replanting, harvesting, and eating.

13. Anima Mundi DVD - a new documentary on Permaculture, the Gaia theory, Peak Oil survival and Climate Change (man-made or not).

14. Handmade Thankful Hearth

15. Your own tree in The Wolf Private Nature Reserve in Slovakia! We will send you (or a person of your choice) a thank you letter with a sticker and a certificate of symbolic ownership, along with printed photos from the reservation.

16. You can support Guerrilla Gardening events in Eastern Europe! This spring, edible trees and beautiful flowers will be planted in your name. You will receive a photo report and documentation of each event.

What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modelled on the relationships found in nature. The word "permaculture" originally referred to "permanent agriculture", but was expanded to also stand for "permanent culture" as it was seen that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system.

Permaculture draws from several other disciplines including organic farming, agro-forestry, sustainable development, and applied ecology. "The primary agenda of the movement has been to assist people to become more self reliant through the design and development of productive and sustainable gardens and farms. The design principles which are the conceptual foundation of permaculture were derived from the science of systems ecology and study of pre-industrial examples of sustainable land use."

For further reading and watching, please visit these resources:

Introduction to Permaculture - 40 hours of free video lectures
100 Best Permaculture & Homesteading Books: The Ultimate Reading List for Sustainable Living (here you will find links to over 60 Free eBook previews and full eBooks)
Permaculture / Organic Farming - Documentary Films Archive

Other Ways You Can Help

If you want to help but can't afford to contribute, that's fine! There are things you can do that may be even more important. For example, click on the heart button below the video, (so that I know you like it, and I can communicate with you) and use the other buttons to share it on Facebook or via email, word of mouth, or any other way you can get the word out to people who you think might be interested.

Writing a short personal note to a few key people is the absolute best approach (far better than sending it as a forward to thousands of people). It is also really helpful, when you post it on Facebook, if you say why you support this, and suggest that people actually watch the video. Passing it along via word of mouth and personal messages rather than just "liking" something helps us all maintain our human dignity. Keeping our communication human and personal is one of the most important things we can do in the world right now. Thank you for keeping that tradition alive as you share this.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

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Renewing America's Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods

2012-02-02T16:40:00.001+01:00

Renewing America’s Food Traditions is a beautifully illustrated dramatic call to recognize, celebrate, and conserve the great diversity of foods that gives North America its distinctive culinary identity that reflects our multicultural heritage. It offers us rich natural and cultural histories as well as recipes and folk traditions associated with the rarest food plants and animals in North America. In doing so, it reminds us that what we choose to eat can either conserve or deplete the cornucopia of our continent.

While offering a eulogy to a once-common game food that has gone extinct—the passenger pigeon—the book doesn’t dwell on tragic losses. Instead, it highlights the success stories of food recovery, habitat restoration, and market revitalization that chefs, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and foresters have recently achieved. Through such “food parables,” editor Gary Paul Nabhan and his colleagues build a persuasive argument for eater-based conservation.

In addition, this book offers the first-ever list of foods at risk in America (more than a thousand), shows how all of us can personally support and participate in such recoveries, and lists food festivals held across the continent to honor and enjoy some of the country’s most iconic foods, from crab cakes to maple syrup and filé gumbo. Organized by “food nations” named for the ecological and cultural keystone foods of each region—Salmon Nation, Bison Nation, Chile Pepper Nation, among others—this book offers an altogether fresh perspective on the culinary traditions of North America.

Renewing America's Food Traditions is a beautifully illustrated book with wonderful colors and large photographs. View some sample interior pages of the book by downloading the PDF files below.

Olympia Oyster, pages 248-249
El Guique New Mexican Chile Pepper, pages 82-83
Pre–Civil War Peanut, pages 190-191

Introduction

A Manifesto for Renewing Place-Based Food Traditions through Biocultural Conservation

When the Renewing America’s Food Traditions collaborative first came together, its founding organizations sought to find synergies and overlaps among their missions, as a means to broaden the “eater-based” conservation constituencies engaged in such work. Gradually, through discussion, debate, and the planning of on-ground pilot projects, these organizations articulated these synergies and began to model certain shared principles to guide their collective actions. The elucidation of those principles is still evolving, but one attempt at their expression is as follows:

Personal, familial, and community engagements with plants and animals, edible or otherwise, may be the surest means to keep us appreciative of their value, and to keep us alert to their vulnerabilities. When such engagement atrophies, the biological loss of species, varieties, stocks, seeds, or breeds traditionally used as food on this continent may accelerate, resulting in immeasurable cultural and culinary losses as well.

To reverse the trend toward ever-accelerating losses of diverse foods that are unique to this continent, we must simultaneously deal with root causes and effectively model collaborative conservation actions on the ground that engage food producers, resource managers, chefs, and eaters in achieving the following goals:

Recognizing which place-based foods are most at risk
Recovering their species, varieties, or populations
Restoring their habitats, in both wild and (agri-) cultural landscapes
Rescuing and passing on local, traditional knowledge about their stewardship and their culinary uses
Recuperating markets and local infrastructures to support their production and use
Rewarding the original stewards of these resources with market-based incentives, recognition of their “farmers’ rights,” and (cross-) cultural reinforcement
Reducing or altogether eliminating contamination, both chemical and genetic

This book is but one of many means we have used for identifying and publicizing the uniquely American foods most at risk of extinction and cultural loss. We have also collaborated with Bon Appetít Management Company in sponsoring a competition among its chefs to incorporate rare heirloom vegetables, heritage meats, and their stories into menus offered at restaurants based at colleges, museums, zoos, and botanical gardens. We have sponsored a series of American Traditions Picnics in great American places, from Puget Sound near Seattle to Shelburne Farms on the edge of Lake Champlain, near Burlington, Vermont. We have gathered food stories from folks like you, as they attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C., the Seed Savers Exchange Campout in Decorah, Iowa, and the Sitka Conservation Society’s Saturday gathering of fishermen and hunters on Baranof Island in Alaska. We have engaged hundreds of the best market gardeners in America in growing heirloom vegetables for local chefs and have gifted thousands of packets of heirloom seeds to Louisiana farmers who lost their own seed stores in the floods of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Underlying much of this work is our community-based field research to discern which traditional foods may be at risk in each ecoregion or “food nation” across the continent. To give this “red list” a framework—to create a culinary geography—we have roughed out a map that circumscribes the various ecocultural regions as we recognize them at this point in time. We have named each ecocultural region or food nation for an iconic food species that may have functioned as a cultural and ecological keystone there over the centuries. In a similar effort to define the food geography of North America in prehistoric times, ethnobotanist Richard Ford first defined and circumscribed certain “agricultural complexes” with regional integrity in this manner:

The concept of a prehistoric agricultural or crop complex implies a group of species with an apparent common geographic origin and mutual association within particular environmental parameters in which the complex is developed.

We have extended his concept of food crops shared within a particular region to cover wild plants, game, fish, shellfish, and livestock that form a shared nutritional base among the resident cultures found within an environmentally cohesive region. We have chosen the iconic food for each region out of several possible ecological and cultural keystone species, emphasizing those that have suffered historic or recent declines in use.

We have then selected a particular variety, population, or cultural tradition to emphasize the particular stories of certain charismatic elements of these keystone foods—sassafras leaves for gumbo filé, the American chestnuts of Alabama, range-fed bison, quahog clams of Great South Bay, blue crabs of Chesapeake Bay, sugar maples, Southern dent hominy corns, hand-harvested wild rice, El Guique chiles, the fall run of Chinook salmon, Minnesota moose, Nevada single-leafed pinyons, acorns of Englemann’s oak. None of these thirteen iconic foods is as threatened as the other eighty species or varieties featured in the following stories, but they have suffered dramatic declines in their once unfathomable abundance. Of course, not every species or variety that has reached extinction was historically rare, of limited range, or few in population numbers. The extinction of the passenger pigeon and the decline of the American chestnut remind us that formerly abundant, even ubiquitous species can sometimes be quickly lost due to combinations of overharvesting, disease, and loss of habitat.

With regard to the other eighty species and varieties featured here, we have used rather consistent criteria to select them on the basis of their truly endangered status. In a general sense, we have followed criteria first articulated by Deborah Rabinowitz for plants and then quantitatively applied Georgina Mace’s research on behalf of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) to take into account the narrow geographic range of a species or variety, the scarcity of viable populations capable of regeneration in the face of a changing environment, and the paucity of reproductive individuals within each population.

For wild plants and animals, we generally followed the NatureServe rankings of risk on the North American continent, paying closest attention to those species, subspecies, or stocks (such as salmon runs) that are found at fewer than fifteen sites or in a restricted geographic range, with small populations at each site. In a few cases, we have also included broader-ranging species that are now suffering widespread declines due to insect infestations, introduced diseases, catastrophic wildfires, floods, or droughts.

For cultivated fruits, vegetables, and cereals, we considered those most at risk to have a geographically or culturally restricted area of cultivation, where farming traditions appear to be disappearing and where few farmers remain in each community. This follows Karl Hammer’s adoption of the IUCN criteria to accommodate domesticated plant species. However, we have also pioneered the use of seed bank and nursery catalogs to assess the rarity of cultivated plants. For this book, we have focused on those varieties that are available on a regular basis from no more than three commercial nurseries or seed catalogs.

For livestock breeds, we adapted the rankings formulated by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, focusing on critically endangered breeds represented by few herds or flocks and by small herd or flock sizes. Of course, such parameters used to assess rarity shift through time, so we will use the Slow Food USA website to periodically update the larger RAFT list.

Two last notes about the map in which these patterns of endangerment can be nested: As noted earlier, the regions with the most endangered foods include Gumbo and Chile Pepper Nations, which have the highest rates of in-migration and out-migration of humans. And yet we also see the loss of farmed foods in Maple Syrup and Clambake Nations, where there has been the gradual breakdown of place-based food traditions since World War II. Aside from offering us these preliminary insights, we see this map as an imaginative, dynamic participatory exercise in which you can help assess the vulnerability of the links between your community and its cultures, habitats, and traditional dietary mainstays. We do not wish to set definitive boundaries in space and time, as if such relationships were static. The map is not meant to pigeonhole any dietary tradition nor essentialize any culture; rather, it might help you visualize patterns that answer the following questions about the place in which you live and eat:

What food fragrances, textures, and tastes have pervaded your place of residence for the longest amount of time?
How does your contemporary community relate to the plants and animals that formerly offered themselves as such signature foods, in terms of knowing the character and consuming their calories (if at all) in this day and age?
How do you imagine your community’s future in relation to those historic foods or others that have come to define the nature and culture(s) of your place?
What flavors do you want to ensure your grandchildren have a chance to experience?
How can you go about safeguarding that culinary opportunity on their behalf?

If the stories are like seeds set out for you to plant, let them grow into a garden that allows you to imagine a richer, tastier world, where the plants and animals that coexist with us have a safer, healthier home

Rob Hopkins: Making The Red Pill Taste Good (podcast + transcript)

2012-02-02T07:42:00.002+01:00

Participating in Transition does not mean that you have to already ascribe to Peak Oil or climate change or the end of growth. It can simply be a source of projects that yield positive ROI on the resources you have to invest. Rob mentions an example in his hometown of Totnes, UK where the community is funding on-site wind turbines: "You would rather have your money in a local energy company where you know the people who run it. You're excited about its progress.

Rob Hopkins is a true pioneer of the movement to intelligently prepare and adapt society for entering a post-Peak Oil future. His brainchild, Transition Towns, has been one of the most successful initiatives to date in inspiring hundreds of cities, towns, and communities around the globe towards using local cooperation and interdependence to shrink their ecological footprints.

Many readers on our site lament the inertia or hostility we all frequently encounter when trying to 'wake up' family, friends, and neighbors to the warning bells we see on the economic, energy, and environmental fronts. Chris and I often get asked for advice on how to make the red pill 'tasty' for the uninitiated. So we look at the success Rob's model is having at spurring individuals and communities to action, and ask him: What's your secret?

In short, it's about making Transition feel "more like a party than a protest march." Make it personal to the participants. Focus on celebrating the local benefits and empowerment it produces. As Rob says, the core Transition principles are "not about taking people back to something worse than today; they are a step forward. They are about building resilience, bringing people together, giving them the sense that anything is possible in such a way that everybody benefits."

The stories that we tell ourselves determine the decisions we make. Transition is all about providing new stories that help people come to terms with pressing issues from a positive angle. "When we started Transition," Rob reflects, "I imagined it was an environmental process. But increasingly I think of it as a cultural process. It starts to become this story that the town tells about itself."

You know other people that are a part of it, rather than just having your money off in distant shares of something that you have no control over." Localized economic development is an extremely powerful new trend Rob sees society just beginning to scratch the surface of.

"We very much took [building local resilience] as our focus because it felt like it was the part that was being neglected. It is the part that people are passionate about, that they care about. My sense is that people will get this at different points. And if we imagine that everybody needs to get this before we can actually do anything meaningful, we are not going to do anything meaningful in time. So the idea with Transition is that if we can get things in place which just make sense - which don’t ram Peak Oil and climate change and economic models down people’s throats - but which become the things that are creating work for people, they become the things that people are proudest of because they are celebratory of the place and of the culture."

And having this growing set of Transition Town 'success story' templates in place is yielding value as more and more communities increasingly find themselves looking for solutions the harsh economic and resource realities of today. In times of crisis, the solutions that get adopted are the ones that are already on the table. The more tested, operational and sustainable models we have ready ab available for local resiliency, the better prepared we'll be to meet the future.

In this interview, Chris and Rob discuss what we can learn from the growing number of Transition Town case studies and where the movement is headed next.

Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Rob Hopkins (runtime 47m:17s):

Download/Play the Podcast

See also:

Rob Hopkins: Transition to a world without oil - TED video

Podcast with Paul Stamets, Rob Hopkins, and Richard Manning

In Transition: from oil dependence to local resilience - Documentary film

Transcript for Rob Hopkins: Making The Red Pill Taste Good

Chris Martenson: Hello, and welcome to another ChrisMartenson.com podcast. Of course, I am your host, Chris Martenson. Today we are speaking with Rob Hopkins, somebody I have spoken with before on the other end of the interview/interviewee cycle, and Rob is a true pioneer of the movement and adaptation to a post-Peak world. Rob leads a vibrant new movement of towns and communities, cities that utilize local cooperation and interdependence to shrink their ecological footprints. He developed the concept of transition initiatives with a couple of other gentlemen, communities that produce their own goods and services, curb the need for transportation, take other measures to prepare for a post-oil future.

Now, while transition shares certain principles with greenness and sustainability, it is really a deeper vision concerned with re-imagining our future in a self sufficient way that is build upon resiliency, a concept that I am really familiar with and very much in support of. From his hometown in Totnes, UK, the original transition town, it started there; he offers to help hundreds of similar communities that have sprung up around the world, in part through his blog transitionculture.org, and through writings. So welcome, Rob; it is an honor to have you as our guest today and to speak to you again.

Rob Hopkins: Hi, Chris. Yeah, lovely to be talking to you again!

Chris Martenson: Great, so could you, for the people who may not have heard about Transition Towns, can you elaborate on the founding mission behind Transition Towns and what it is?

Rob Hopkins: Well, I guess it comes out of many of the same motivations that are of interest to those who would be listening to your podcast around economic contraction, around Peak Oil, and also around climate change. And sort of putting all of these issues together, our analysis was that actually what we lack enormously now is, as you say, resilience at the local level. You have got the ability to withstand shock, and Iain Dowie who used to manage crystal palace football club in London here in the UK. He used to describe resilience as “bounce-back-ability," and in Transition we take that idea of “bounce-back-ability," but sort of add on to it and say actually the process of making the places that we live more bounce-back-able, if that is the word.

Chris Martenson: Uh huh.

Rob Hopkins: Could actually be the making of those places and at the moment when the flight of global capital from communities such as this, means that we do not have very much to fall back on.

Originally, it came out of an analysis around peak oil and the argument that when oil becomes very expensive, the price becomes very volatile, then the globalized way of doing everything becomes very, very fragile, very, very vulnerable. So to put back that kind of more localized economy we argue even something that you do just because it is just kind of a nice thing to do, it can actually within time inevitably become the economic mainstay of the places where we live.

We use this term of localization as economic development. But this is not about sort of localization as an idea that just hangs around on pin boards in whole food shops, this is around localization being the idea that underpins how we start as local economies to think about our future. So it meets more of our needs in terms of food, clothes and goes cycles, community-owned energy companies, setting up the infrastructure we are going to need but in such a way that it benefits our communities rather than all the money just pouring out through the holes. So it is very much about looking forward, it is very much about progress, very much about framing that in the context of the scenario that we are moving into and not sticking our heads in the sand. Not running around with a panicked look in our eyes, but looking at this as a one-off tremendous historical opportunity to rethink some basic assumptions.

Chris Martenson: And of the things that need rethinking I guess something that was sort of an act of faith on a lot of communities' part was that we all do whatever we do. We do our jobs and we spend our money and somehow it all balances out. But if you back up just a couple steps, if you are a family, you know that if you spend more than you earn, you are slowly getting poor. Similarly, I guess the analogy here is for a community -- if you are importing more than you are exporting, whether that is liquid fuels or food or clothing or whatever those things happen to be, if that balance of trade is not in your favor, you are slowly eroding. And I guess as we look across this landscape where things have now, complexity has caught up with us.

It is a very complex environment to live in, and my view is that the communities that can grasp that see the opportunity in that can say how do we maintain control of the things we can. In some cases that might be if you do not have energy, if you can use less of it, that is the equivalent of importing less. So that starts to work in your favor. So this is really about knowing what our sources of wealth are, understanding them, understanding where we are hemorrhaging wealth, controlling that to the best we can. Then as we cast forward, I guess the idea would be some communities are going to fair better than others in large measure. How they approach this part of that story. Is that what you mean by economic development?

Rob Hopkins: Yeah. I mean, there is a tremendous opportunity for places to get ahead of the curve. You know when you look at this through the eyes of Peak Oil as a challenge, and the contraction of the energy that underpins globalization is inevitably going to contract, and so the distances over which we are able to do things is going to get shorter. But actually to put in place infrastructure that you need in order to have a different approach, a more resilient approach, that does not happen overnight. I mean, we are talking a longer kind of process, so the sooner places get underway and get started with it, the better, I think.

I mean, in the UK every year, we export the same amount, about one and a half million kilos of potatoes, to Germany as we import from Germany, which really benefits nobody. I mean, if somebody gave me an English potato and a German potato, I think I would be pushed to tell the difference really, and who only really benefits is petrol companies and road-making companies and creating work for lorry drivers.

Actually, the process is closing the loop, consuming more of what is produced locally, and retaking those markets is not just good from the perspective of using less fossil fuel and creating less carbon emissions. It is also really good in terms of our being more connected to the place around us to being part of an agricultural community, using fresher foods that are in season and all those kinds of things.

So sometimes things are presented, things that we need to do are presented as being some kind of a retreat, but I think that when we talk about resilience we are not just talking about community resilience, we are talking about personal resilience, ecological resilience, all of those things go hand in hand if we get it right. I mean it is important, as well, if we say the concept of resilience does not necessarily, is not necessarily a good thing. You could imagine a resilient community that is not so good in terms of social justice and community ownership and that kind of thing. So it is really important from day one [that] we get those things right and [that] models we put in place are based on good models that are going to be sustainable in the longer term.

Chris Martenson: And how would you define sustainable in the longer term?

Rob Hopkins: Well, in such a way that they are not going to be hemorrhaging money from the place and they are not going to be perpetuating and deepening social inequality. Rather, they are going to be about bringing that community together. So if, for example, you design a local food system, which is all based around some kind of futile approach where it is all owned by one family and everybody else kind of works for that family. We may be getting organic potatoes, but we are not necessarily building the kind of social cohesion and more equity than actually we are going to need for that to be sustainable.

Chris Martenson: Right, so if we default into letting circumstances proscribe that to us, we might be back to the future as it were, back to a futile state last seen in the late 1800’s or something.

Rob Hopkins: Yeah, well, people write about the idea of localization, you know, they talk about...or what academics call reflexive and un-reflexive localization, which can just mean, you know, a really good healthy form and a really dreadful form. We can look back thorugh history at some pretty dire versions of localization, which may have been more resilient then they were today, but they were repressively patriarchal, hieratical, and so on and so on. So I think at this stage now when we are starting the process of laying out what we want to be moving towards, it is really important that we do that and set those foundations in place properly at this stage, I think.

Chris Martenson: So your view is that if sufficient resources, willpower, and energy exist at this stage to make that transition smoothly or relatively smoothly...Where do you stand on that?

Rob Hopkins: I do not know for sure, I do not think anybody knows for sure. But my hope is, yes, that there would be the resources to do that, but we need to be skillful about it. You know, one of the things that some transition groups do is what we call an "energy descent action plan," because transition usually has its roots in permaculture, which is a design system.

We argue there needs to be element of planning on what we are going to do as collectively coming together, thinking about what we want to do, and actually moving towards it. This is not something that will come around by accident, and I think that is one of the things that distinguishes Transition from previous kinds of environmental community processes, in that it is very ambitious and it starts out with the kind of smaller things that we are all familiar with. Local green groups doing, like, growing vegetables and digging up lawns and swapping this that and the other, but it is very ambitious in terms of where it is going. And in the book that I have just finished which will be coming out in October, The Transition Companion, that is one of the things that really distinguishes it.

It starts out with the smaller projects, but it says this is a collective design process [and] that you need to be thinking about this process as intentional localization and then starting to move towards it. The aim is that you will start creating your own banks, your own energy companies, your own food systems that are based from the outset on those good principles.

Chris Martenson: So, then, this Transition Companion, I guess, improves the state of the arts and learnings that have been wrapped into what has happened since the original Transition book. What else can you tell us, what is new in this book and what can we look forward to there?

Rob Hopkins: Well, this is totally new, it is a totally new book, and basically the Transition Handbook which came out in 2008 said what would it look like if there was something a bit like this, did something like this, and it was very early on in the whole process. There were maybe 20 or 30 Transition initiatives when it was written, and there were some projects along the way, but it was kind of a speculative vision of what the kind of movement that felt most appropriate for the time would look like. So over the time that has gone on since, we have gone from those 20 initiatives up to many hundreds of them in 35 countries now around the world. I often think of Transition as being like a huge social experiment in that we had a very simple model, a very simple set of tools and principles, that have gone out all around the world. People have tried them out, experimented with them in setting as diverse as favelas in Sao Paulo, cities in the US, villages in England, and all different parts of London, and so on and so on.

What I tried to do in this book is to pull back in what seemed to be the learnings from that. What has been people’s experience? What is working and what is not working? Where do we find ourselves, what are the stories people are telling about their successes and about their failures? It is a very honest book, a very straightforward book, and it pulls together transitions of different models.

It is really about the idea of Transition not being something as a prescriptive model [where] you start with this and then you do this and then you must do this before you think about doing this. It is more thinking about it as like a series of ingredients, a collection of ingredients that people assemble in their own way. So it is like making a cake and everybody will make a cake in a different way. There are certain steps that you have to do you cannot just chuck the butter in the flour in a bowl and put it straight in the oven and hope for a cake. You have to go through certain stages, but within that, you very much are free to arrange things how you like. So it draws together these ingredients, these tools which are things that we have seen, where a Transition group has come up with a problem or a challenge and has come up with a solution that we have seen replicated enough times to have some kind of faith it is going to work.

I think it is a very, very rich in stories and photos from around the world. And their posters, their artwork, their stories, their experiences, and pulling all that together into something that is very, very flexible but very effective. So yeah, it has been a very deeply collaborative process, creating it, as well, you know, putting up drafts and getting people to comment on them, and I am really thrilled of it.

Chris Martenson: I think that is a fabulous approach, because you are in a very complex environment and it is going to shift in very complex ways. I am going to say unpredictable ways; local mileage will vary. There are local different sources of wealth and assets and liabilities, all of which need to be accounted for. So the idea is that there is a perfect recipe which everybody wants, but it really seems not to be something that we should really be seeking at this stage. Rather there is this idea that this is going to be an incredible period of discovery and creativity and inquiry into how things are shifting. So it is fabulous that you are collecting that. If we could go to both sides of that tale set, you know, what has been working and what has not been working so far?

Rob Hopkins: I think the things that have been working have been there are some very exciting projects starting to emerge in terms of community energy companies. There is fantastic community engagement stuff that people have been doing. There are some really beautiful stories of projects of people identifying a problem and applying that sort of creative Transition thinking that is playful and fun and coming up with some really good solutions. So certainly that process of gathering stories has been really, really heartening, I think. I think the degree to which I started out the book, thinking okay, so where is Transition going now? Where does this feel appropriate to me that this book argues that it should move? And one of those things was around enterprise, was around not waiting for government or large corporations to start putting in place the business models that we need now.

It is really time for us to get on with it, make it viable, and stop moaning around that actually nobody is doing anything. When actually we could be doing stuff if we were able to step our game up and get the right people together and start putting these things in place. But what was really interesting then was going out and looking around at what Transition groups are doing and finding that they were actually loads of those things emerging already. You know, what they call social enterprise, businesses that are setup with a larger remit rather than just making profits for the owner, but actually having a wider social benefit devoted to the community around it.

I am finding all sorts of things, from vegetable box distribution schemes, local food growing schemes, very, very ambitious community energy organizations, community shops, community pubs, community breweries, these kinds of things. They were not my idea; they were already out there, so it was really exciting to see that. I think some of the things that really do not work very well, the thing that came through time and again was the importance of setting groups up properly from the beginning. But actually sometimes we all come together with this great enthusiasm, and inspired by works such as yours or the end scene of the End of Suburbia, or wherever that momentum comes from, I am thinking, my God, we need to do something here. But then we are so driven and so compelled and so infused that actually we just, you know, think all that stuff about getting a group set up properly so that everybody knows what everyone is doing. You know, how you are going to communicate properly.

All that stuff, you think, we are in too much of a rush for that, we will do that later, we are just going to do stuff. And actually, the initiatives who we have seen that had difficulties have been the ones where they have not gotten those group processes in place. Then there are all disagreements, and then those groups fall apart. I mean a very, very small percentage, actually, but one of the key learnings really has been the importance of getting all that group stuff done from the beginning.

Chris Martenson: Right. So it is clear, some people when they first look into this landscape, and this happened to me, it is easy to come away with a fair degree of urgency. So I imagine that somebody who is sitting in Europe today and is looking at the relative levels of paralysis and attempts to fix the economic system and things are not working, could look into that situation with some degree of alarm and conclude that perhaps change was coming quickly. How does one balance that tension between the desire to act and the desire to set things up properly? How does one navigate that space?

Rob Hopkins: Well, what we are argue in the Transition Companion is that there are very simple tools and approaches, which can be woven into the first few meetings of a group like that.

Which just means that from then on everybody knows where they are at and everybody knows what is happening and the whole thing moves forward much, much more smoothly and with much less risk of difficulty. Designing in a commitment to good communication and that sort of stuff makes a big, big difference, and we have seen that time and again.

Those projects that are really, really thriving...just gave that stuff a little bit of space at the beginning to allow it to really bed in, and now they are off doing quite extraordinary things. Because that sense of urgency that drives people to think about this, and you only -- and this sounds very dramatic -- so you only get one chance of doing this. But actually, if a Transition group comes together and then you all fall out with each other, then it takes awhile, maybe, for other people to come in and say, well, let's pick this up and keep it moving forward. So it is really good to just get it going from the start, because it is really extraordinary when you see what those groups can do when they have got the right foundations in place.

Chris Martenson: Fantastic. So speaking on this a little bit, where do you see us on the Peak Oil timeline now versus when you first started?

Rob Hopkins: Well, when we first started, nobody knew at all what we were talking about. Peak Oil was something that rarely made it into the media. It was a fairly obscure sort of backwater, I guess, and it was only through meeting Colin Campbell and spending time with Colin Campbell that you actually were able to get some really rich kind of information about it at that stage, and somebody who was very compelling in terms of arguing that. Now four, five, six years later, it is pretty much in mainstream kind of recognition, I think; it has moved very, very quickly, and remarkable how that has happened, I think.

I think obviously the economic unleveling that has begun means we are in a very, very different kind of landscape. I mean I think it is interesting you know, because transition is underpinned by those three things. Peak Oil and climate change and our economic issues...actually, each of those issues kind of pulse at different times. I think in Peak Oil, from Colin when I first met him, he was talking about that idea of a bumpy platter, you know, if not, you just go up to a neat little peak and then you are going to start plummeting down the other side. You bump along the top for a while, but you are going up and down and up and down. But actually on the downward sides of those, which is what we are on now, people really stopped caring about environmental things, because the pressure on the money in their pocket becomes too intense.

Climate change, Peak Oil, these things are not such an issue, but as soon as you get back into anything resembling economic growth or any kind of an activity these issues become very much more to the floor. So I think we are in a very interesting sort of...we are pulsing backwards and forwards between being interested in those issues and being absolutely in a blind panic about the financial things. We are very much, I find it at a local level, focused on where is the economic activity going to come from. And when I look around at the local council here, our local businesses and organizations, they are still focused on the idea that when we get back to growth in two or three years, we are going to do this, that, and the other. We are going to do all these buildings, we are going to do all this, that, and the other, and whenever I give talks, I always start out by saying okay, for the next hour we are not going to use the term, when we get back to growth, okay, we are going to park it out the door and we are going to cut a space in this room where we can talk as though that is not the case. Because actually the people that work in local government, business, and so on, they do not really get to sit in that space very often, but that is really, really important.

So for me, I mean, I am not a Peak Oil expert, I am not an economic expert, [but] I am sufficiently convinced that those two things are enormously compelling pressing challenges that are not going anywhere, rather than becoming more pressing challenges. So my focus is really what do we do on the ground about it, but that is my observation. We tend to sort of waver between thinking maybe it will get all right again so we can worry about Peak Oil and climate change or be really despondent about the fact that it is all going down the tubes, in which case we forget those issues. But what is beautiful about the concept of resilience is that it draws in all those things, that it is about resilience to climate change, about being resilient to Peak Oil, it is about being resilient economically, and that is a kind of steady stream that you can ride through all of those things. It is a common language and a common focus that whether people are worrying about Peak Oil or whether they are worrying about the coins in their pocket, it is still something very steady and very constant.

Chris Martenson: Yeah, and those things probably to some degree will always be with us.

Economic concerns have been in people’s minds since the dawn of time, practically. When we came under the current system we are on -- and that is really the framework that I bring to this, is the idea that this system we have is just fundamentally changing -- let me be more specific, it cannot continue in this way and in the manner it had been going. That is really hard to get to; it is a very emotional subject. It touches on beliefs for a lot of people, like faith and technology, or belief in human spirit, or your creativity, or you have to be optimist. Whatever the belief structures happen to be, and this is the interesting period of time I find us in, is that now there is more, and more, and more compelling evidence, whichever one of those spheres that you mentioned.

You want to look at whether it is in the environmental sphere, or whether it happens to be in the economic sphere, or you want to look in the energy sphere; it does not matter. Or all three. But you can peek in there and say, wow, there is enough evidence here to suggest that the prudent thing to do would be to prepare as if we are not going back to normal, we are not going back to growth. That the ways in which we have become accustomed to things working is now shifting right before our very eyes. Certainly anybody that is in economics, the debt markets do not work like they used to and we have got about three years of proof of that and we probably have a few more in front of us.

My theory is that we are never going to see those return to what people knew for the past 20, 30, 40 years. So here we are, and the question then becomes, what are the sorts of things we do and we can do. And your approach has been to take it at the community level, communities being as large as cities I suppose. But at that level rather than the state level, as it were, or even the global level, why is it that you started there?

Rob Hopkins: Because, well, firstly to say that we do not for a moment say that the local and the community level is the only level where any meaningful change can be effective. Obviously, we need national government, we need local government, we need business, and all these things are pulling together. But I guess for me it feels like the local will be the scale that will be the most viable.

And James Kessler says the future will be inherently, intensely and inherently local, or something like that.

David Fleming, who was a brilliant economist here, he died last year, he used to say that localization stands best at the limits of practical possibility but it has the decisive argument in its favor and there will be no alternative. So we very much took that as the focus, because it felt like it was the part that was being neglected. It is the part that people are passionate about, they care about, and what you were saying there about debt and everything. My sense is that people will get this at different points, and if we imagine that everybody needs to get this before we can actually do anything meaningful, we are not going to do anything meaningful in time.

The idea with Transition is really that if we can get things in place that just make sense, don’t ram Peak Oil and climate change and economic models down people’s throats, but which become the things that are creating work for people. They become the things that people are proudest of because they are celebratory of the place and of the culture and so on. I start to see that here in Totnes, here in Devon where I am speaking to you from today, this was the first Transition town in the UK, and what we have seen I think originally when we started the Transition I imagined it was an environmental process. But increasingly I think of it as a cultural process in that it starts to become this story that the town tells about itself.

Now when they start to talk about its future, it talks about Transition. People come to visit the place because of Transition, and it increasingly becomes the thing that people are proud about and the story that it starts to tell about itself. You know, there are now some businesses that are emerging here that are, it is in the early days, but there are businesses emerging here, which are very much rooted in that and lots more in the pipeline. Models like the Totnes Renewable Energy Society, which allows local people to invest in what will be two large wind turbines on the edge of Totnes, which will be owned by the community and for the benefit of the community. These kinds of things do not say that you have to believe in Peak Oil or climate change or the end of growth in order to be a part of it. They bring people on board because they are a celebration of the place, they feel fantastic. You would rather have your money in a local energy company that you know the people who run it. You are excited about its progress. You know other people that are a part of it, rather than just having them off in some distant shares in something that you have no control over.

I think we have only just really started to scratch the surface in terms of the potential power of this, I think. The localization as economic development is a really powerful idea, and you know in climate change there is a very famous climate wedges model that says well at the moment we are rising like this. What we need to be doing is come down like this, and so that would be made up of a number of wedges, electric cars, and so on and so on. I think that actually one of the big, big wedges of those could be intentional localization if we can get it right, and I think once we have kind of proved that concept in a few places, it will really start to motor and really start to accelerate very sharply.

We have here in Lewis, in Sussex, Transition Town Lewis recently set up a local energy company, that Energy Company just launched the UK’s first community owned solar power station. They raised three hundred thousand pounds from local people to put the panels in the roof of a local brewery, and that brewery brews a special beer called Sunshine Ale to celebrate the launch. These kinds of thing are not about taking people back to something worse than today; they are a step forward, they are about building resilience, bringing people together, giving them the sense that anything is possible in such a way that everybody benefits.

Chris Martenson: Fantastic, the part about the narrative really caught me because stories shape our own lives. National or cultural stores shape destinies and really, I think we have an old story running which may not be serving us any longer. A story of growth has been the one that I focus on and because we have that story, we act in certain ways. You cannot possibly open the newspaper without hearing about a political or monetary leader talking about the necessity of returning to growth, it is just axiomatic. We do not even discuss why that is true we just have to get back to growth, growth in jobs, growth in the economy, growth in something, and obviously, if you just step back just even one full step from that story, you understand that cannot be true forever. That there is at some point an end to that story and I think we are there and that is really the deep dis-ease that is being felt across the landscape by a lot of people be they financially, ecologically, or energy focused.

They know that there is something shifting in the story but it is I find almost impossible to shift away from a story without being able to shift towards a different story. So I am hearing in your description that transition is offering a version and people are seeing that and responding to it and it really does not matter what lens they are peering through. In fact, they do not have to have any lens. You are saying that if done correctly people do not necessarily have to believe in it, look at, or understand anything about those three sorts of views or any other views that they can participate. Is that what you are finding?

Rob Hopkins: Yeah, I think it is like, I know Richard Heinberg once said about transition that it feels more like a party than a protest march, and I think you know when you were saying about moving away from one story and towards another, there are two ways you can do that. You can either sort of try and belittle and shame and terrify everybody that they have to move away from this story, this story is finished, there is no future in this story you are rubbish if you still believe in this story. Or you create the other story things that we want people to move to in such a way that it is just so enticing and it is such a more nourishing, more enriching, more celebratory place to be that you do not need to belittle the first one. I was reminded of this the other day actually and the power of story and that about three years ago here in Totnes inspired by some examples of printed local currencies from mainland Europe and from the US, particularily the Berkshire’s currency in Massachusetts.

I got together with a couple of people here in Totnes quietly on the life on TTT and said what would it look like. Oh yeah that was it, I went into an office here and they had on the wall a framed bank note from 1810 that was issued by the Totnes Bank, a Totnes one pound note and I said well what would it be like if we reissued it, it we issued a Totnes pound now. How would that work, and we talked about it, someone said well, don’t you have to have permission from somewhere to do something like that, and we asked a few people and nobody seemed to know. So we thought well lets just have a go and print them and see. So we printed just three hundred Totnes pounds and of 18 shops said they would take them and we just ran as a pilot for about three months just to see if people liked it and what happened and so on.

People did like it, the shops really liked it so that scheme has then grown into we have got two different issues of notes now. It inspired other places, Brixton and Lewis, Stroud, Howe in Scotland and a few other places to then do printed currencies and that has now inspired the city of Bristol which is a large city in the south west in England to launch the Bristol pound which will be a mixture of a printed currency and a really, really innovative electronic currency which is based on people’s mobile phones. The local council are behind it, they are very, very supportive, they are putting money into it. They are going to save and people will be able to pay their taxes using Bristol pounds.

Chris Martenson: Nice.

Rob Hopkins: Actually, that all kind of grown just from that thing of saying, what would it be like but doing it in such a way that it is a really interesting story. So that story of Totnes prints its own money had such a sort of a power to it and a resonance to so many people. But obviously when we started doing that we did not think oh yes, part of our cunning master plan for world domination and in four years time the city of Bristol will do one based on currencies. But these ideas created a push and they draw people and I think it is one of the things I have learned increasingly when you were asking what have been the learning’s from four or five years of doing transition. I think one of them is you have no idea where these things are going to go. Once you start these things off, once you kick these things off, If you do them with a good intention and get them out there, there is such a power to that, much, much more than we might actually be aware of at the time.

Chris Martenson: All right and the trust and follow, just trust that good intention and creativity, creativity spawns much, so many good things can come from it. Just to follow-up on that story of the money, so you did not ask permission. Have you had to ask for forgiveness or did nobody come knocking?

Rob Hopkins: Nobody came knocking, no.

Chris Martenson: Oh well that is nice.

Rob Hopkins: No, nobody came knocking and in fact we formed an advisory panel and some of the sort of greats and good alternative economists Richard Doweight and Bernard Lietaer people and say to them, are we allowed to just print money and call them Totnes pounds and they said, we have got no idea. Try it and see and what kind of an advisory panel is that you know. But actually I think the legal status is kind of a bit like book tokens or those kind of vouchers.

Chris Martenson: Sure yeah.

Rob Hopkins: But that thing of, I saw a Woody Allen film, I cannot remember which one it is where he sat him in the railway carriage and it was all black and white and he is surrounded by the most miserable long faced, depressed looking people he could get together to make the film. Then he looked across into the carriage and next to him in the station and everybody is having this fantastic party and all drinking champagne and everyone is gorgeous and this woman blows him a kiss through the window and he looks back at this carriage and starts the amusement, a brilliant kind of Woody Allen. But actually I think that we should be trying to make transition feel like that, like the carriage on the other side of the platform that you just really, really want to be at and that is where the party is happening.

Chris Martenson: Fantastic I like that view a lot. So here we are, the world is in my view in that bumpy plateau of this peak oil era, and what is your view. So how does this all, so you should put your forecast hat on you, you look in and you see where we are on this bumpy plateau best guess and the question here is will we have that critical mass of transition towns or new narratives or whatever we need and to really sort of have a relatively smooth transition. Are we going to find ourselves some well prepared communities and some at varying levels of vulnerability, how do you see this playing out?

Rob Hopkins: It was really fascinating to see, we had the transition network conference, which we do once a year and one of the things I have always wondered about transition. Because as I said in the beginning it is an experiment was when you get to a time when things get really difficult, you know, when the chips are down and things are clearly very, very tricky, how does transition inform the response.

There is a very famous quote by Milton Freedman about in times of real change, it is the ideas that are on the table that are the ones that are picked up and examined. You know that might be the case for transition and so we had people there from various parts of the world, we had some people there from Brazil where transition has just been on fire for the last 18 months, all across Brazil in the very poor areas, favelas of Sao Paulo and the more wealthy middle class parts of Brazil. They had terrible floods there about ten months ago and they was one town that was largely just washed down the hill, there was transition training going on nearby and they said anybody who is from this community can come and do the training for free. Quite a few people came and did that and now transition is one of the key elements that is feeding how that community is redesigning itself.

In New Zealand, there were parts of New Zealand where there were earthquakes recently where they had transition groups very active there for the last three years, putting in place time banks and this kind of thing. When things are really, really difficult, quite a lot of people got in touch and said you know, we are so grateful for having those initiatives in place and what they have done has been really, really, and integral part of that response. In Japan as well you know, where they had all kinds of dreadful difficulty there over the last year or so. Again, the transition groups have been very much a part of that. So it is that question about does transition get into the drinking water, does it get into the DNA so that when things get difficult, that is one of the key tools that gets picked up.

As I said before with the pound story you know, once you start things you have no idea where they go and so that was really fascinating insight for me. That actually in those three places where things are really tricky that was what had been picked up. Also you know, the idea of whether we will get enough people onboard and enthused. I think sometimes there is this obsession with you have to get the kind of unconverted onboard, I think that is the case and it is a good thing to aspire to. But what is as important or more important is that the people who are onboard, the people who are already willing to put their shoulders to this, have the right tools in order to be able to get moving.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book the tipping point, he says somewhere between 15 and 17% of people in the community constitutes the tipping point which is why I think we are seeing some places that have had transition going on for a while, really starting to get moving and get motoring. But those tipping points you never know when those tipping points come, when all of a sudden the idea that actually you shift your focus to investing more locally and building these kinds of institutions just becomes completely accepted as mainstream where is it blindingly obvious isn’t it?

Chris Martenson: So to paraphrase, Churchill I believe he was the one who said in a time of crisis, the solutions that get adopted are the ones that happen to be lying around. So if we get into this crisis period like you mentioned with the floods in brazil or other crises, however they happen to come about, the fact that there is a template nearby in another community or perhaps in that same community that can be then used, is just, well that is a natural thing. That is how humans tend to operate anyway. So good for us for having some templates of how to organize, now to work , how to be effective, how to take matters into our own hands with that being one of the surprising sort of determinants to success here.

Rob Hopkins: Yeah because it is not about waiting for permission you know, no one is going to kind of commission us to design a more localized, more resilient economy is going to be like. It is really about just getting on with it and doing it with creativity and a good motivation in that way.

Actually, I think it is fascinating observing in places, a degree of pride there is about the transition group that is underway and the projects they have got going on and here, we did a big project here called transition street, which was about working to try and support behavior change but on a street by street level. So it was not about saying the council needs to come and give everybody grants or whatever. It was about getting out on the street, get a group of six to ten households together, here is a simple thing to do where you meet seven times one week and look at energy and then you look at water, so on and so on. Look at food and you reduce your emissions, you reduce your consumption and on average, each household cut its carbon emission by about one and a half tons.

Saved itself nearly 700-800 pounds a year, but actually when you meet people in the street, a lot of people here walking around just after having done it, they did not talk to me about how much carbon they had saved.

They did not talk to me about how much less oil they used, or how all about the global economy, what they talked about was how they now knew Dave over the Rotary was teaching them such and such. How them and Saundra down at number seven were now working on the waste pieced of ground at the end of the road and turning it into something else. It was that social cohesion that people were really, really craving. So if we can design this process in such a way that it brings people together in that kind of celebratory way, all the things that kind of spin off of that build people’s commitment to this kind of process. But that cannot be done from the top down, that is a process that has to happen from the ground up.

Chris Martenson: So I know, I know there is somebody listening to this right now who feels like they are sitting in a glum boxcar and they are looking through a window of this podcast and saying wait a minute, there is a party happening over there. How do people find out about their local transition initiatives if there happens to be one or go about starting one? How does somebody become engaged with this who is listening right now?

Rob Hopkins: Well there are some very good resources online if you are listening in the US, transitionus.org has very good ways of finding out where all the initiatives are. Some very good tools for getting started. In a month or so, they will be able to get their hands on Transition Companion, it will be able to tell you that stuff, but if you are not in the US then transitionnetwork.org has a map of the world and all the initiatives and a transition near you button where you can find out what is happening, who are the people, what are the projects, what are the initiatives that are happening around where you live. If there is a group then go along and get involved and bring what you are passionate about to it.

Transition is really a process and if you are really passionate about food, then transition will not require you to go and sit through lots of boring meetings about energy or whatever. It is about what you are passionate about, you bring that to this process, and you make that happen. So there are lots of resources out there and you can go on YouTube and type in transition towns and there is a whole range of good things on there. There is this film we made called In Transition 1.0 and version 2.0 is coming out at the end of the year. There are all kinds of materials online, which pull together those stories, there is transition US to the newsletter, transition network does a monthly newsletter of what is going on. There is plenty out there yeah, jump in, the water is lovely.

Chris Martenson: Fantastic, well I really want to thank you for your time today and for the enthusiasm and most of all for bringing your creativity and vision to the world and then sitting back and watching it run and collecting the stories. I think that is just a fabulous model and it has obviously been very successful. So all the best and wonderful talking to you again.

Rob Hopkins: Thank you, thank you Chris and yeah, thank you for your work also.

Chris Martenson: All right, you are welcome and thanks for that, bye.

He is the co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network. This grew out of many years experience in education, teaching permaculture and natural building, and setting up the first 2 year full-time permaculture course in the world, at Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland, as well as co-ordinating the first eco-village development in Ireland to be granted planning permission.
He is author of ‘The Transition Handbook: from oil dependence to local resilience’, which has been published in a number of other languages, and which was voted the 5th most popular book taken on holiday by MPs during the summer of 2008, and of ‘The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times’, published in October 2011. He publishes the blog www.transitionculture.org.

Original article:
Rob Hopkins: Making The Red Pill Taste Good

Perennial polyculture & the hard limits of post-carbon farming

2012-02-01T16:56:00.003+01:00

An agriculture that stands a chance: perennial polyculture & the hard limits of post-carbon farming

by Dan Allen

“The American food system rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs. It must be reinvented in the face of declining fuel stocks.”
-- Richard Heinberg and Michael Bomford, ‘The Food and Farming Transition‘ (http://www.postcarbon.org/report/41306-the-food-and-farming-transition-t...)

“The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades. ...[W]arming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.”
-- NCAR report, quoted by Joe Romm at http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/20/ncar-daidrought-under-global-warmi...

“If you're looking at how daunting a task is, you're looking at the wrong side of the equation and you will find the things that will limit you and prevent you from succeeding. Put roots in the ground. Grow your food. Build your shelter. Create a Permaculture enterprise and provide real Permaculture goods and services, then link up with others that are doing complimentary things. This is the way we will create a new culture and economy.”
—Mark Shepherd, farmer (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-12/mark-shepherds-106-acre...)

Summary

Our fate as a nation in the post-carbon era hinges, to a great extent, on the fate of our agriculture. Unfortunately, US agriculture faces a slew of constricting limits (energetic, climatic, material, etc.) that gravely threaten the continued viability of our current annual-monoculture-based model. An alternative agricultural model based on polycultures of perennial crops will likely be more than just a ‘good idea’ in the coming post-carbon era – it’ll be a damn NECESSITY. So grab your shovels, America -- it’s time to begin the transition to an agriculture that stands a chance.

Note on References

For those of you who are taken aback or unbelieving of the ‘doomish’ warnings I’ll be slinging about in the first part of this essay, check out the following sources for background:

Food & Agriculture: search archived food & agriculture posts on www.energybulletin.net and http://e360.yale.edu/; see also books by Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, Sharon Astyk, and Lester Brown;
Energy & Economy: search www.energybulletin.net, www.theoildrum.com, and www.chrismartenson.com; as well as Richard Heinberg’s ‘Blackout’, ‘Peak Everything’, and ‘The Party’s Over’;
Climate Change: See daily updates & archived climate-science posts at http://climateprogress.org/category/science/; explore ALL the links on James Hansen’s website at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/; search http://e360.yale.edu/; and see books on climate change by James Hansen, David Archer, Joe Romm, and Fred Pearce.

Your Food System = House of Cards

I have some bad news: If you’re not at least ‘deeply disturbed’ about the prospects for US agricultural in the 21st century, you’re not paying nearly close enough attention to the trajectory of biophysical reality in this country.

Because despite the bountiful yields of food and fiber we currently extract from our soils, trouble looms really big and really scary in the coming decades for US agriculture. And I don’t mean just ‘fewer selections of canned soup’ in the local Stop-N-Shop; I mean NO soup in the Stop-N-Shop.

Maybe no Stop-N-Shop. Maybe no shopping, period. I mean hunger. Maybe famine. Here. Soon. Perhaps of ‘biblical proportions’.

Huh? Doth he exaggerate? Coming troubles in the land of the ‘heaping corn mountains’? Food shortages in the republic of super-markets and super-sized bellies? These seeming incongruities are resolved if we acknowledge the scary truth about US agriculture: it’s about as fragile in its current fossil-fuel-dependent, annual-monoculture form as a trembling house of cards.

Examined closely, our current, record-breaking, industrial-agricultural yields are dependent on a tenuous combination of EACH of the following ‘pillars’: (1) OIL & GAS: cheap fossil energy for making nitrogen-fertilizer, mining phosphate, running farm machinery, transporting food, and maintaining a functioning growth-dependent economy where credit is available, (2) LAND & SOIL: ample acreage of currently-productive soils (threatened now by erosion, salinization, sea-level rise, and incipient shortages of key nutrients), (3) WATER: ample irrigation water from snowmelt and groundwater-aquifers, and (4) CLIMATE: a climate that is still passably stable, without too many severe droughts, storms, or temperature extremes.

My doomish leanings with regard to our current industrial food system derive primarily from the following two facts: (1) The failure of ANY ONE of the above four ‘pillars’ will bring our food system to its knees. This, of course, is the result of our food system being structured (as most industrial systems are) to maximize efficiency at the expense of robustness and resiliency. In other words, our sleek, streamlined, modern food system adheres to ‘Liebig’s Law of the Minimum’ – it only works as well as its weakest link. (2) One or more of these pillars will almost certainly disintegrate at some point in the next few years or decades over a large portion of the food-producing US. Of course, this disintegration is already under way -- all four of these pillars are eroding rapidly as we speak (literally & figuratively; see references above). And all four are highly vulnerable to a rapid ‘phase change’ in the near future – this decade, perhaps.

In short, you SHOULD be disturbed by our agricultural prospects – DEEPLY disturbed. Our industrial agricultural system is about to stop working. The house of cards that provides your food is trembling…swaying…ominously, while darkening skies and a skittering armada of little dust devils presage one helluva storm about to kick up.

Portrait of the Food System as a Young Catastrophe

So with industrial agriculture about to slam head-long into a score of biophysical limits all at once, plausible scenarios for epic failure of our food system in the next few decades are numerous indeed.

But before I go into recommendations for an agricultural system that might actually stand a chance in the coming era of rapidly constricting limits, I’d like to briefly outline the most likely general scenario for the failure of our current industrial food system in the US.

I think we can neatly summarize the coming demise of our current agricultural model as a lethal one-two punch from the following executioners: peak oil and climate change. As discussed above, either one of these factors BY ITSELF would spell disaster for our food security under the current industrial model. But guess what? We’re getting BOTH at the same time. Interesting times indeed! (We are truly blessed in that sense, no?)

As presented in chilling detail at the 2010 ASPO conference, we have a few years (at the most, and probably less) before fossil energy that is both cheap and abundant is permanently a thing of the past. And even before that happens, our current growth-dependent economy is very likely to implode as it becomes increasingly starved of its key growth-enabling ‘nutrient’ -- cheap fossil energy.

During such an economic implosion, much of the fragile logistical and energetic infrastructure on which our current industrial food system depends would very quickly evaporate.

Because, really, how are we going to run the tractors, combines, and food-delivery trucks on their necessarily-tight industrial schedules when fossil fuel supplies suddenly become undependable or outrageously expensive? The answer: We’ll have trouble. Supply lines will break down. Crops won’t get planted here and there (or everywhere) for lack of credit or lack of fuel. And all this would then very quickly translate into localized or national shortages of cheap food – and possibly even shortages of food at any price. There will be hunger and want in many an unfortunate region in the US. People will get cranky. People will lose their manners. People will lose their lives.

And while the government/military will likely assume control of the foundering industrial-agriculture ship in short-order, given the time-sensitive nature of most agriculture manipulations, it seems highly unlikely that severe food-supply ‘discontinuities’ could be avoided unless a crack emergency plan was ready and waiting to be implemented by the present government. But as Chris Martenson and Rick Munroe have discussed recently, there does not seem to be such a plan.
(http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/future-chaos-there-no-plan-b/46331)

So, with apologies to the National Beef Council: hunger, want, anger, and violence – it’s what’s for supper!

Evolution of a Food Catastrophe

Unfortunately, looking even longer term, past the initial chaotic food shortages and socio-political upheaval, the picture doesn’t get any prettier. In fact, it becomes horrifying.

Our current industrial food system in the US is just not designed to produce food with limited energetic and material inputs. Like the industrial economy as a whole, it just doesn’t DO limits. And hard, constricting limits on these inputs will not only be a hallmark of the initial economic convulsions -- they will continue indefinitely into our Greer/Kunstler-illuminated future. There will be no energetic or economic recovery of our industrial economic system – no respite from these ever-constricting limits.

So then, what sort of industrial-agricultural yield trends might we expect in grain and vegetable-producing regions of the US with vastly-restricted N/P-fertilizer inputs that will surely accompany our energetic and economic difficulties? The answer: crap. And the next year: less than crap. And the next year…etc.

And this, of course, sets up the killing blow to our now-reeling agricultural system: climate change.

For we have, through our knowing corruption of the atmosphere, already earned centuries of increasingly destabilized climatic conditions across our continent. We can almost certainly expect a dramatic increase in crippling droughts, destructive/flooding storms and hurricanes, farmland-destroying sea-level rise, and killing temperature extremes of both destructive magnitude and unexpected timing. (Oh, and did I mention the oceans are dying? i.e. There goes ‘Plan B.’)
Furthermore, evidence suggests that ‘slow’ positive feedbacks (melting sea ice, ice sheet decay, methane degassing from tundra and polar oceans, etc) are ALREADY kicking in. The repercussions of these feedbacks may push the climate system towards the ultra-deadly upper-end of current climate change projections within this century -- the ones heretofore largely based on suspect fossil fuel reserves. Tipping points may well be close at hand – in fact, they may have already been passed. Every second the CO2-belching industrial experiment continues diminishes our future and edges us closer to disaster. It is a VERY scary picture indeed that is revealing itself in climate-science-land. Horrifying, in fact. (See climate references above.)

So in light of these still-evolving climate change realities then, we are forced to ask ourselves the following questions: What sort of yields will we get in corn, bean, & wheat country (and vegetable country) when beset by the crippling ‘biblical’ droughts that are expected? The answer: crap. And what sort of yields will we get in the currently-productive irrigated regions (presently watered with depleting fossil aquifers and endangered mountain snow-packs) when the water is no longer flowing? The answer: virtually none. And what sort of yields will we get when freakishly-intense storms, ill-timed ‘weird weather’ temperatures, and climate-change-induced pest outbreaks attack our vast industrial monocultures? The answer: Well…you get an agriculture that increasingly resembles Russian roulette.

Now combine all this climate-related mischief with the coming energetic, material, and economic limitations from peak oil discussed previously. What kinds of yields might one expect then? Seriously, what would you get then, as we move into the middle decades of this century? With all these increasingly-likely depredations conspiring against our fragile industrial food system, what would you get? Would you get ANYTHING? (Note: A chilling shudder around the shoulder area and a pensive gaze out the window would be appropriate here.)

And so it goes. Because the bleak future of our current industrial agricultural system --pummeled as it will be by energetic/material shortages and climatic disturbances -- is ALREADY dialed-in. The fossil-energy and climate situations described above are, at this late date, no longer ‘problems’ to be solved with technological or social cleverness, but rather ‘predicaments’ to be adapted to as they inevitably unfold and degenerate. We have dallied too long at the ball, and the carriage is already turning back into a pumpkin -- no matter how skillfully we argue that it cannot possibly do so.

So, note to country: Our current food system is ALREADY condemned. It will fail in its current form, significantly or entirely. Guaranteed. And probably pretty soon – within the next several decades. And maybe very soon – perhaps within THIS decade. As such, it must be replaced as soon as possible with an agriculture that conforms to the new biophysical realities confronting us.

Simply put, it must be replaced with an agriculture that stands a chance.

The Trouble with Annual Monocultures

But what might such a replacement agricultural system look like? And really, is agriculture even POSSIBLE under such dire biophysical limitations? To answer this, we must first examine the foundation of our current industrial system in a little more detail -- and with an ecologically-trained eye, at that. (Note: See Wes Jackson’s “New Roots for Agriculture” for a full discussion of this.)

Current industrial US agriculture is based primarily on ANNUAL crops – plants that must be planted anew every year from seed. The annual trait introduces several problems that have plagued agriculture since its inception, but which have taken on new and ominous dimensions as the ever-more-crowded industrial era draws to an end:

Soil loss and degradation: Annual replanting requires soil disturbances multiple times every year, resulting in erosion, oxidation of vital soil organic matter, and leaching of nutrients. Without careful amendments, such disturbances beget a steady lessening of productivity and a decreased resilience to stress.
Energy input requirements: All these soil-massaging manipulations necessitate significant energy inputs to power the fleets of tractors and combines. Of course, this energy input today is handled by fossil fuels; formerly it was accomplished through draft animal and slaves; in the future we’ll all likely need to contribute. But whatever the source, the energy requirements of annual agriculture are prodigious.
Inefficient nutrient & water utilization: The relatively poorly-developed root systems of these annually-grown plants prevent efficient utilization of water and soil nutrients. Also, any potential assistance from mycorrhizal fungi are minimized (or prevented entirely) by the constant disturbances involved in annual cultivation. Furthermore, disturbed soil captures and holds significantly less water than soil that is not disturbed annually. Considerable quantities of desperately needed water and nutrients have and will increasingly continue to be lost by the relatively feeble root systems of annual crops.

In the drought-stricken, fertilizer-limited agricultural era to come, these screaming limitations of annual crops are simply a recipe for famine.

But that’s not all! Our current industrial agricultural regime is also based on MONOCULTURES of these annual plants – large fields of just a single type of crop, and usually a very genetically-similar representation of that crop at that. This genetic homogeneity presents several significant problems in the coming energy-starved, climate-destabilized era:

Pest vulnerability: Monocultures are notoriously susceptible to devastating pest outbreaks. And such outbreaks will not only be intensified in a destabilized climate, our energy-limitations would prevent us from controlling them in the familiar energy-intensive manner.
Inefficient nutrient & water utilization: Each plant in a monoculture competes perfectly with every other plant -- and thus rapidly depletes a single region of the soil profile of both water and the suite of nutrients favored by that crop.
Increased vulnerability to weird weather: Weird or extreme weather very rarely knock out multiple types of crops in a single field. But in a monoculture, there is a good chance of losing an entire gigantic crop from just a single (increasingly common) weird-weather event – rather than just one crop out of many.

Now combine the limitations of monoculture crops with the drawbacks of annual crops, and you quickly realize that relying on an agriculture of annual monocultures to get us through the coming energetic, economic and climatic limitations is simply suicide.

We flat-out need to find a better way.

Perennial Polyculture Rising

OK, so we’ve established two things so far: (1) trouble’s a-comin’ in the form of severe energy limitations, economic collapse, material-input-limitations, and climatic destabilization, and (2) that our current agriculture based on annual monocultures is just not gonna cut it.

But knowing these uncomfortable truths brings up a host of difficult questions: Like, what then do we DO about it? Is there anything we CAN do? Because how do we “fix” an agricultural model that is almost 100% at odds with the constricting demands of biophysical reality in this country?

Well, a possible solution is already taking shape in various forms around the country – albeit at a much smaller scale and growth rate than we need. And while this new agricultural ‘movement’ has no official unifying name at the moment, all the strategies rely on POLYCULTURES of PERENNIAL crops. This strategy, of course, is the polar opposite of our current annual monoculture-based system. And, as we’ll discuss shortly, it just might work for the exact same reasons our current system will fail.

You can find these various efforts presently under names like Natural Systems Agriculture, Permaculture, Forest Gardening, Mixed-species Organic Orcharding, Holistic Pasture Management, and The Land Institute’s perennial grain program. But again, all these diverse strategies involve efforts to fashion a food system based on polycultures of perennial crops. As such, we can perhaps lump them all together under the name ‘Perennial Polyculture.’ And note that none of these strategies are really ‘new’ – they’ve just been increasingly marginalized and neglected throughout our species’ unfortunate 10,000-year infatuation with the short-term benefits of annual monocultures.

Advantages of Perennial Polyculture

OK, so why, specifically, might this ‘new’ perennial polyculture strategy work – or at least give us a fighting chance in the challenging times ahead?

First let’s look at the ‘perennial’ aspect – i.e. the ability of these crops to survive multiple years -- sometimes decades, sometimes centuries -- without replanting. The Land Institute’s Jerry Glover summed up the advantages of perennial crops nicely in a June 2010 article in the journal Science entitled “Increased Food and Ecosystem Security via Perennial Grains.” In it, he wrote: “Compared with annual counterparts, perennial crops tend to have longer growing seasons and deeper rooting depths, and they intercept, retain, and utilize more precipitation. Longer photosynthetic seasons resulting from earlier canopy development and longer green leaf duration increase seasonal light interception efficiencies, an important factor in plant productivity. Greater root mass reduces erosion risks and maintains more soil carbon compared with annual crops. Annual grain crops can lose five times as much water and 35 times as much nitrate as perennial crops. Perennial crops require fewer passes of farm equipment and less fertilizer and herbicide, important attributes in regions most needing agricultural advancement.” (http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/SEC/Publications%3E%3EScien...)

And now consider the ‘polyculture’ aspect – which we can define as the planting of a diverse mixture of crops in the same field, as well as the presence of a diverse genetic make-up within each individual crop. This multi-level diversity presents a host of advantages that mirror the disadvantages of monocultures discussed previously. Namely, polycultures would offer (1) a decreased likelihood of and vulnerability to pest outbreaks, (2) a more efficient holding and utilization of both water and soil nutrients, and (3) a decreased risk to catastrophic crop failure from weird weather events.

In short, both the ‘perennial’ and ‘polyculture’ aspects of this ‘new’ agriculture lend themselves well to the daunting biophysical challenges bearing down on us. And facing these challenges honestly, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the rapid and extensive deployment of an agriculture based on perennial polyculture is probably our only hope for reliably feeding ourselves in the decades ahead.

The Four Smiling Faces of Perennial Polyculture

OK, now that we’ve sung the praises of perennial polyculture, I think it’ll be helpful here to lay out the four main types of ‘perennial polyculture’ agriculture currently being practiced (or developed) in the US. I do this, of course, not to say that a given farm-of-the-future needs to pick just one type, but just to point out the key features of each.

As mentioned above, none of these perennial polyculture forms of agriculture are new, nor are they completely absent from our current agricultural mix in the US. But since none of them fits nicely into the current industrial model, they have been either (1) relegated to niche status by the subsidy-distorted market, (2) co-opted and debased to fit the industrial model, or, especially in the case of still-developing perennial grains, (3) denied their rightful share of national funding for research and development.

So here they are, the four smiling faces of perennial polyculture:

Holistically-Managed Pasture: These are the good, old-fashioned pastures of perennial grasses and clovers for the grazing of (and fertilization by) ruminants (sheep, goats, and cows) -- but managed in a more ecologically-informed manner than has been practiced for much of our nation’s history. Such enlightened management considers both the needs of the plants and the animals, as well as the needs of the surrounding people and ecosystems. For a good, accessible introduction to this art form, see Gene Logsdon’s “All Flesh Is Grass.” See also Joel Salatin’s Virginia farm as featured in the movie ‘Food Inc.’ or any of his wonderful books. For a more hard-core version of this method of managed grazing, see books by Allan Savory and Andre Voisin. I should note here that much of the ecological devastation of modern animal ‘farming’ has been due to its debasement in conforming to the industrial model. But the raising of animals needn’t be immoral or ecologically destructive, and, if limited in scale and managed skillfully, can allow the farm to fit comfortably and beneficially within the surrounding ecosystems.
Mixed Fruit & Nut Orchards: Here I refer to another seeming relic from days-gone-by – the organically-managed, low-input, mixed fruit and nut orchard. And while this tree-crop form of agriculture has been just as debased by the industrial model as livestock raising, it need not be the chemical-soaked, fertilizer-guzzling, soil-eroding, ultra-fragile abomination it is today. Why? There are multiple species of fruit and nut trees in any given region of the US that produce reasonably or even exceptionally well with zero chemical inputs. Moreover, there are varieties with each of these suitable species that perform better than others on a given year or in a given soil type. If these are identified, and planted on a sufficiently-large scale in an ecologically-informed manner, they can make a VERY significant contribution to our food supply. A good theoretical foundation for this form of agriculture can be found in the extensive permaculture literature, including “Edible Forest Gardens” by Jacke & Toensmeier. See also “Tree Crops” by J. Russell Smith (originally published in 1939, and now with an introduction by Wendell Berry). For a good real-life example of what I’m talking about, check out the recent article describing Mark Shepherd’s incredible Wisconsin farm at http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-12/mark-shepherds-106-acre.... I should say, on a personal note, that reading the above piece about Shepherd’s Wisconsin farm was almost a religious experience for me, and will probably (hopefully) define much of the remainder of my work here on Earth.
Perennial Vegetables, Berries, and Cane-Fruits: Huh? Perennial vegetables? But most people are already familiar with at least some of these already: asparagus, rhubarb, artichokes, horseradish, and sunchokes come to mind. There are, however, many other species of perennial vegetables that might be developed into big contributors to our future food mix. Check out Eric Toensmeier’s utterly fantastic book, “Perennial Vegetables” for a number of examples suitable for different US regions. And as Toensmeier points out, the much-needed development and breeding of these vegetables can be accomplished by you and me – testing out and improving different species and varieties, and finding ways to incorporate them into our traditionally-annual veggie gardens and truck-farms. Berries and cane-fruits, of course, should be part of any vegetable operation, and many wonderful books detail their low-input rearing and uses.
Perennial Grains: This is the only one of the four ‘pillars’ of perennial polyculture that is not yet ready to be deployed. It also would have, arguably, the largest impact of the four strategies, if successful. Wes Jackson’s The Land Institute (Kansas) has been working for decades on developing a mixture of perennial grains that can be planted in the same field and harvested together. Given that almost all grain production currently comes from annuals (corn, wheat, rice, soybeans), an extensive breeding program is being undertaken by The Land Institute (and others) to develop the new perennial grains that would work in such a system. This involves both perennializing annual grains and domesticating existing perennial grains. Check out ALL the literature available at their website (http://www.landinstitute.org/), which includes books, scholarly papers, and articles. Also get a hold of ALL Wes Jackson’s books, including (and especially) his seminal 1980 book “New Roots for Agriculture.” And one final note here: While The Land Institute’s perennial grain program is probably the most important scientific project on Earth, it probably gets less national funding than the stretch of highway that runs through my town. …Priorities, priorities.

We Must Do This Ourselves

All right, lets take stock of what this rather long essay has attempted to accomplish so far: (1) establish that our current annual-monoculture-based industrial agricultural system has no future and is in danger of imminent collapse, (2) outline both the inherent ecological drawbacks of annual monocultures, and the corresponding virtues of perennial polycultures, and (3) give examples of (and references for) the four promising specific applications of perennial polyculture that can be implemented in this country.

So what’s left? Well...we just need to frickin’ DO it!

Now look, I was as cautiously-hopeful (shamefully-delusional) as anyone that Obama would somehow rise above the miasma of corporate toxicity in our nation’s time of need; that he would attempt to fix an obviously-broken food system headed for disaster; that he would channel his inner Jimmy Carter and tell us the damn truth. But he hasn’t. And he won’t. And I think it’s just a flat-out waste of time and energy to pretend, at this late hour, that ANYONE up top will ever get a clue.

So sure, it’d be great if the US Government wasn’t infected by a terminal case of corporatus suicidalis. And it’d be fantastic US Department of Agriculture was guided by thinking human beings who were serious and knowledgeable about agriculture and its tenuous ecological underpinnings.

And it’d be super if the US citizenry were informed enough to recognize the dangerous insanity of our food system and demand a change. But sadly, none of these are true, nor will they ever become true in time to avert the coming food catastrophe in this country.

So then what can we DO about that? We do the only thing we CAN do: we do it OURSELVES.

We call up our neighbors, lace up our boots, grab some shovels from the shed, load the seedlings into the wheelbarrow, and start building a sane fricking food system all by our damn selves. We say “f*%k off” to these ‘leaders’ whose short-sightedness and greed would doom our children and grandchildren to hunger and misery, and we get down to some good work -- some work that just might make a difference. That’s what we do.

We rebuild our local food systems OURSELVES, at the individual and community level, as best as we can in whatever time we have available. THAT’S what we do.

Building Our Knowledge, Gathering Our Tools, and Honing Our Skills

Now, I suppose if I’m turning you all out into your lawns and fields to build this new food system, you might want me to supply a few specifics, huh? OK, here’s a brief outline on what we need to get going. And note that you can begin TODAY -- in whatever season you happen to be reading this. For clarity, I’ll divide the necessary tasks into three categories: building our knowledge, gathering our tools, and honing our skills.

Building Our Knowldedge: Learn the basics of soils and ecology. Internalize both Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic (“A Sand County Almanac”), and Holmgren’s permaculture principles (“Permaculture: Principles and Pathways”). Read every book by Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Gene Logsdon. Learn the natural histories of the perennial species of tree, shrub, vine, cane, vegetable, and grain we’ll be employing, as well as their means of propagation (Toogood’s “Plant Propagation”). Learn the art of permaculture landscape design (Mollison & Holmgren). Read-up on how to keep a couple sheep, goats, and chickens -- and maybe a cow, if you have the room.
Gathering Our Tools: Get your hands on as many varieties of as many species of food-producing perennials as you can -- trees, shrubs, veggies, etc. (ex: See http://empirechestnut.com/, http://www.forestag.com/, and the ‘fedco trees’ division at http://fedcoseeds.com/, and http://millernurseries.com/). Plant them anywhere you can. These will be the genetic stock of the new perennial agriculture that you and your community will create. Construct a little plant propagation ‘lab’ in the corner of your house, garage, or lawn. Stock it with whatever you might need (see Toogood’s “Plant Propagation”). Get some good picks and shovels. Get some materials to protect your trees until they’re above deer-level (http://www.forestag.com/). Try to find other like-minded people in your community -- you’ll need both their help and their moral support. Find some good low-input breeds of sheep or goats & get a breeding pair for your back yard.
Honing Our Skills: Practice propagating the various perennials you’ve collected. Start distributing them around your property and anywhere else anybody will let you plant them. Watch them closely & note which work best for you. Practice selecting and breeding for traits you want. Try to get as many people as you can to plant perennial food species in your community -- work on your techniques of ‘gentle persuasion’. Experiment with storage of your bounty -- root cellars, rodent-proof boxes. Pay attention to your animals and your pasture.

OK...Got all that? Hey, but even if you don’t have EVERYTHING yet, it doesn’t matter -- it’s OK to ‘wing it’. Just keep the trajectory moving forward. Plant a couple food trees this spring, and then even more in the fall…and then even MORE the next Spring.

And call me crazy, but all this learning, planting, observing, and community organizing actually sounds like a heap-load of fun to me. i.e. This stuff doesn’t need to be grim or oppressive – it can be a CELEBRATION if you make it so. And even if this stuff ISN’T your cup of tea, you can still help: consider letting somebody else plant stuff on your property, lend some tools or funds to a community effort, pass this message on to somebody who might be interested.

So let’s get this ball of perennial polyculture goodness rolling! Good luck!!!!

From the author: "I'm a high school Chemistry teacher in NJ. I'm also a concerned father, organic farmer, and community garden organizer.
You can contact me at danallen1968@yahoo.com.

Original article available here

Other posts by Dan Allen at Energy Bulletin include:
The Speech Obama Needs to Give
What 'Lower Consumption' Means
A Doomer's Christmas Carol
Cornucopian Man vs. Biophysical Reality
Sasha and Barack Debate the Merits of Peak Oil Preparation
'Generation Limits': An Open Letter to Teenagers
Who Then Will Lead Us?
Peak Oil Rock & Roll
387 ppm and Rising: A Plea for Increased Urgency in Developing Post-Carbon Living Arrangements
Post-Carbon Schools: Back from Hell
The Fierce Urgency of this Spring: Veggie Seeds and Nut Seedlings for Us All
The Infinite Energy Machine and the Myth of Green Energy
That Which May Be Gained: A Return to Scale, Community, and Morality
Conservation and the Community Garden: One Suburban Model That Works
The Lessons of Climate History: Implications for Post-Carbon Agriculture
A Land & Community Ethic: Preliminary Draft
The Lost Civilization: A Dream
The Lost Civilization: Finding a Reality-Based Frame of Reference in the Age of Delusion
Surprise! I’m your new President-for-Life: The post-peak military coup & beyond

Planting our perennial future: Corn trees, oil bushes, potato thickets, & sweater swards

2012-02-01T08:29:00.003+01:00

by Dan Allen

"Food production is already becoming strained as ecological degradation, water constraints, and the burgeoning effects of climate change push against a rising population and changing diets. ...Declines in oil production are likely not only to reduce global food production, but to undermine the economic systems that made food accessible and affordable." -- David
Korowicz, Energy & Food Constraints will Collapse Global Economic Recovery

“How to garden in the best of times was not an issue. …I needed to understand more about how to garden in hard times. I needed a more resilient garden.” – Carol Deppe, The Resilient Gardener (2010)

“You can be in my dreams, if I can be in yours.” – Bob Dylan, Talkin’ WWIII Blues

SUMMARY: The current industrial model of US agriculture is economically, energetically, and ecologically doomed. Any hope for a livable future requires that we accelerate the creation of resilient, ecologically-viable ‘shadow structure’ replacements for industrial US agriculture in the diminishing time available to us. We already possess the tools, knowledge, and organizational structures to begin such projects at the family and community level. Here are some things I’m excited about.

DAD, DAD, DAD, DAD!! LOOK HOW MUCH WE GOT!!
It’s been a relatively busy Fall, so I was elated when my daughter (6yrs) and nephew (8yrs) came to me, hankerin’ for some honest physical work. I told them I had a 12’ x 3’ patch of sunchokes in the garden, and they could try to get whatever they could. I handed them a stack of buckets and sent them on their way.

Now, I WAS sort of expecting big things out of the sunchokes this year. I finally had them in rich, cow-manured garden soil where the deer couldn’t get them, and they had been adequately-drip-watered through the nasty month-long, mid-summer drought. The improbably-tall plants, with their fetching yellow flowers, had looked almost obscenely lush all summer; they even had to be tied up.

About a half hour later, my daughter comes running up to me: “Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad! Come and look how much we got! There’s SOOOOO much!” Indeed, they had managed to pull out four, full-to-the-top, 5-gallon buckets – about 80 pounds! At this point they found a garter snake and I lost their attention, so I pried the rest of the crisp, knobby tubers out of the ground myself – another 120 pounds!

So that’s 200 pounds of sunchokes from a 12’ x 3’ bed!! (They were the ‘Stampede’ variety from www.johnnyseeds.com) I was elated. And this on top of my multi-pronged excitement from the following recent perennial-polyculture-related developments here on the farm: (1) having my young Chinese chestnuts bear a measurable yield for the first time, (2) planting a bunch of hybrid hazelnut seedlings for the first time, (3) finally getting around to count up all the fruit & nut trees and shrubs I’ve planted over the past 10 years and seeing the number go into the several hundreds.

I mean, could it really get any more exciting around here?!

THE CAUTIOUSLY-THRILLING THING ABOUT ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
The answer, of course, is yes – I suppose it COULD get more exciting. Ummm…well, maybe.

Because while, here in the nascent stages of industrial collapse (e.g., see http://www.feasta.org/documents/risk_resilience/Tipping_Point.pdf), there is very, very much to fear, there is ALSO very, very much to be excited about. A world of possibilities opens up to us as the ecocidal trappings of industrial life begin to crumble all around us; as our corrosive, fossil-fueled blinders – both mental and physical – are cast off; as we are forced to re-enter the community of beings on this still-verdant planet.

Now, I don’t want to down-play the likely nastiness of the socio-political and environmental shit-storms piling up at our doorstep – it’s not gonna be pretty. But there’s an undeniable element of excitement here too: Like maybe we can make something BETTER here; something that DOESN’T kill the Earth; something that DOESN’T kill our children; something that DOESN’T kill our souls; something WORTHY of our ancient lineage as a species; something WORTHY of the insanely beautiful planet we tenuously inhabit.

And I fully realize that maybe I’m dead wrong to be excited here. Perhaps mine is the naive excitement of the young democracy demonstrator just before the first baton crashes down onto a skull; just before the blood starts to flow and the still-potent force of a dying state is unleashed.

Maybe this is the youthful euphoria of a teenager just handed the car keys – just before the crash.

Maybe it’s the excitement of a good yield on the eve of a twenty-year drought.

…But maybe not. Maybe the excitement I feel WON’T be snuffed out by all the bad stuff coming our way – at least not all of it; at least not everywhere. …Maybe.

In any case, what follows are some things I’m getting excited about. Sue me.

CAROL DEPPE'S DREAM TEAM REVISITED
If you haven’t read Carol Deppe’s book, “The Resilient Gardener” (2010), you should find a copy.

It’s absolutely wonderful. (Actually, in a sane country, the entire Chelsea Green catalog would be required reading for all high-school students. Alas – sane we are not.)

In her book, Deppe outlines five key crops she deems essential for a resilient agriculture in the troubled times ahead: corn, beans, potatoes, squash, and eggs. She goes into some detail with each of these, concerning their culture, breeding, storage, and food preparation.

In formulating her ‘dream team’, Deppe was looking for ESSENTIAL crops – the key ones that will allow us to survive/thrive even though all sorts of climatic/economic/socio-political heck might be raging around us. And although Deppe is located in the Pacific Northwest, slight variations of her instructions allow them to apply to many other parts of the US.

Being an enthusiastic tree-planter, semi-informal permaculturalist, and general devotee of perennial polyculture (see http://www.energybulletin.net/authors/Dan+Allen), I was thinking about what a perennial version of her ‘dream team’ might look like – at least where I live, in New Jersey. Why?

Well, for various ecological and sociological reasons, an agriculture featuring a healthy percentage of perennial crops would likely be even more resilient to the coming economic/climatic shit-storms than a strictly annuals-based mix. (e.g., see Wes Jackson, et al.’s work at The Land Institute, the extensive permaculture literature at Chelsea Green, and some of my essays above)

So here’s my perennial dream team: Chinese chestnuts, hybrid hazelnuts, sunchokes, and grass-fed sheep – plus The Land Institute’s perennial grains, if they ever pan-out. I’ll VERY briefly outline the promises and possibilities of each of these in the paragraphs that follow. And keep in mind that these perennial ‘resilience essentials’ can be thought of initially as compliments to Deppe’s annuals-based dream team – to be introduced in progressively greater percentages, as we (hopefully) approach some resilient, ecologically-sane, place-adapted versions of post-carbon agriculture here in the US.

One can dream, can’t one? (Yes, one can!)

CORN TREES
Full disclosure: I’m in love with Chinese chestnuts. There, I said it. I love the spiked leaves, the grey bark, the pungent flowers – that striking bouquet that wafts across the fields and roads in the gathering heat of the summer. I love the chestnuts themselves – the impossibly-wicked spininess of the seed-case; the shiny, deep-brown hue of the nuts; the smooth, heavy feel of them in my hand; the rich, earthy aroma after roasting.

I love ‘em!

That said, chestnuts have three key attributes that earn them membership on my dream team:

(1) The nuts are just about nutritionally-equivalent to carbohydrate-rich corn. Indeed, “corn on a tree,” as some growers say. This is a key point because, as Wes Jackson reminds us, we get most of our food energy from carbohydrates – presently in the form of annual grains. If we’re going to replace our beloved-but-ecologically-devastating annual grains, we need a carbohydrate-dense alternative – and few fruit/nut trees deliver such a concentrated nugget of carbohydrates as chestnut trees. And for those who question the yield potential of chestnuts versus corn, I say this: What yield will corn give you once industrial NPK fertilizer is no longer available? Being able to explore a larger portion of the soil profile actually gives the deep-rooted chestnuts an advantage here. (And of course, the ultimate solution in two words: Hu-manure. See Gene Logsdon’s wonderful book, “Holy Shit”.)

(2) They’re deep-rooted, drought-resistant perennials. Perennials hold soil – heck, they can, with sound management, even IMPROVE soil. And as healthy soil is one of the KEYSTONE resources for our species in the post-oil era, this is no small attribute. In addition, as our climate destabilizes, brutal droughts during the growing season may soon become commonplace. Deep-rooted trees will have more access to scarce soil water (and nutrients) during these key weeks/months, thus allowing at least SOME yield where annual crops would fail utterly.

(3) They are multi-purpose organisms. We can use their excellent wood for building/heat after the trees pass on, and they provide top-notch wildlife habitat while they are alive. Walk through a chestnut grove in mid-spring and you can just feel Life coursing through the Earth; walk through a cornfield and you feel as if you’re on a tour of the factory floor. And not only that, but you can even graze sheep and cows under the widely-spaced, full-sized trees. Not a single photon goes to waste!

For the past few years, I’ve ordered a few pounds of chestnut seeds in the Fall
(http://www.empirechestnut.com/), kept them in the fridge over the winter, planted them in gallon pots in the Spring, and then popped them in a well-drained field/pasture/tree-line in the Fall. You can do it other ways, but that’s what has worked best for me. Of course, they also need protection from nibbling mice and deer (http://www.plantra.com/buynow/bntreeshelterO.php). After I get a
sufficiently diverse genetic base, I’ll start saving and replanting my own nuts anywhere I can. Danny Chestnut-seed!

Check out these sites (http://www.empirechestnut.com/ or http://www.uky.edu/Ag/NewCrops/introsheets/chestnuts.pdf) for more details on culture, harvest, storage, and cooking.
But watch out – you might just fall in love.

OIL BUSHES
So if I’m in love with chestnuts, I guess you could say that I’m READY to fall in love with hazelnuts. I don’t TRULY love them yet – but only because I don’t know them as well. We just met. Well, sure, I’ve always loved to EAT hazelnuts – from the Nutella days of childhood to my more whole-foody present acquaintance with the raw nuts themselves.

But they’ve always seemed like semi-exotic visitors from the Northwest US – a treasured guest, but not someone to fall head over heels for. Not someone to get attached to. That is, until I heard about the exciting breeding work being done to bring hazelnuts to the Northeast US as a food crop.

Hazelnuts have never worked as a crop in the Northeast US for two reasons: (1) the commonly-used European cultivars couldn’t withstand the eastern filbert blight fungus, and (2) the plants’ reproductive parts couldn’t withstand the cold. Recently, however, many breeders – both at universities and private growers – have been developing good-yielding, blight-resistant hybrids between the native and European hazelnuts (see http://www.arborday.org/programs/hazelnuts/consortium/ & references therein).

Nuts from both ‘named’ hybrid varieties and from well-producing hybrids on private farms are starting to become available. I just planted some seedlings gleaned from Mark Shepard’s farm in Wisconsin (http://www.forestag.com/nursery.html) this past Spring, but it’ll be a few years before I can assess their productivity. Plant-breeder Tom Molnar from Rutgers University is currently running field-size trials of many promising hazelnut cultivars not too far from my house. (Molnar advises: “I think your seedling plants from Mark Shepard should do well here in NJ. You might also want to consider trying some of the eastern filbert blight resistant plants (clones) coming out of Oregon State University. The best for nuts are Jefferson and Yamhill, with their pollinizers Theta, Eta, and Delta. Burntridge, Raintree, and Grimo nursery sells them. Grimo also has a number of their own selections that are worthy of test. The OSU and Grimo plants are doing pretty well here at Rutgers. ”)

Hazelnuts have essentially the same laudable ecological/resilience attributes as chestnuts – except that they’re nutritionally equivalent to oil-rich soybeans instead of corn. “Oil on a bush.” Imagine that -- an oil crop that doesn’t skin the Earth alive! Of course, they’ve got a lot more nutrient-wise than just oil. In addition, they apparently work well in sub-optimal, rocky soil. No problem, because we’ll be putting lots of composted humanure on them, won’t we? Sure we will. They’ll do just fine.

I should add here that if you’re planning on ramping up hazelnuts for biofuel on any scale larger than for the occasional small-farm usage, you may as well just put a loaded pistol next to your grandchild’s head & pull the trigger. …Same end result. The Earth can’t afford that. …Food, not bio-fuel! That’s what they make muscles, hand-tools, and neighbors for.

POTATO THICKETS
OK, so if I’m ALREADY in love with chestnuts and I’m READY to fall in love with hazelnuts, where do sunchokes fit into this tangled phyto-romantic menagerie? Well…I’d have to say that I’m ASTOUNDED and EXCITED by sunchokes – otherwise known as Jerusalem artichokes, sunroots, or Helianthus tuberosus. (I’ll stop the love/lust analogy right here, lest it get too raunchy.)

How else could you feel about a tough-as-nails plant that delivers edible tubers to the tune of over 5.5 pounds per square foot?! (200lbs/[12’x3’] this year from my rich garden soil). And I’ve grown them under less-ideal conditions other years ( i.e., in reach of nibbling deer, unwatered during a crushing mid-summer drought, in so-so soil, etc.) and still gotten impressive yields. Potatoes are nowhere near as forgiving as these beautiful, brawny, bushy, 10-foot-tall, photosynthesizing phenoms.

Now, I’d be remiss here if I didn’t include some important caveats about the carbohydrates in sunchokes. Carol Deppe states the following: “[They] are easy to grow and are productive, and would seem to be a reasonable candidate for a carbohydrate staple. However they aren’t. The starch in sunroots is inulin. Humans don’t digest inulin.” ...And she has a point. Because what good is a starchy staple if the starch sails right on through your digestive pipes? That is, of course, until it hits your colon. There, the local inulin-digesting bacteria toss a huge gassy shindig, creating quite a carbonic ruckus, and waking all the neighbors (…or at least the wife).

Nevertheless, I’m ‘long’ on sunchokes (to use a soon-to-be-meaningless economic terminology) for the following reasons: (1) As the first European explorers found, Native Americans were growing lots of sunchokes in their wonderful gardens, along with beans and corn. If they were good enough for a place-adapted people using zero fossil fuel and looking seven generations ahead, they’re good enough for me. (2) Inulin apparently has beneficial effects on our internal flora & fauna, as a soluble fiber and ‘prebiotic.’ (3) Inulin hydrolyzes to digestible forms of sugar over storage or with prolonged cooking. Thus it CAN act as a good carbohydrate source if prepared appropriately. …And by the looks of things economically, we’re about to have a lot more time on our hands to think about and appropriately prepare home-grown food. (4) As they know in Europe, sunchokes ferment readily to make home-made alcohol – a valuable commodity when the huge fossil-fuel-guzzling beer factories shutter up and succumb to entropic and catabolic decay. (5) They make a cheap supplemental hog and chicken feed for those days when the household doesn’t happen to make enough food-scraps for the family ‘organic-waste recycling’ pets. (6) After easing them into my diet, I find their gasiness subsides. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here, but it seems like perhaps I’m digesting them better over time and leaving less intact inulin for those gassy cave-dwelling critters down below.

So there. You can get a variety of starter sunchokes from www.johnnyseeds.com, www.fedcoseeds.com, www.seedsavers.org/, and a bunch of other places. But after that, just store a bunch of your tubers in the ground, the fridge, or a root cellar over the winter (don’t let them dry out!) for re-planting the next year. I keep mine in closed buckets in a cold (but not freezing) back-room. (My two pounds multiplied to 200 pounds in one season!) Go nuts with them. And screw the warnings about ‘you’ll never get rid of them’ (not true) – and besides, why would you WANT to get rid of such wonderfully resilient food-producers as these?

Now, I suppose sunchokes, as they’re commonly cultured, aren’t REALLY perennials – at least not too much more than potatoes are. I’m moving my sunchoke plot from year to year for preventative soil-nutrient and pest-control reasons, so I’m effectively growing them like an annual. However, if you keep grass-clover strips between your annual rows, as I do (http://www.misty-acres-farm.com/), you’ll have zero erosion problems and you can still sleep easy at night.

Your seventh-generation descendents will be none the worse for your sunchoke fetish.

SWEATER SWARDS
Nothing’s easier to grow than grasses and clovers: they’re deep-rooted & drought tolerant; they can take a beating and sprout right back up; they’ll re-seed themselves if given the chance; they’ll sprout up everywhere – including places we don’t want them; they hold & build soil, improving it over time as the clovers fix atmospheric nitrogen; etc., etc.

As far as resilient plants go, they’re top of the heap.

The problem, of course, is that we can’t eat them. Pass a clover leaf through a baby (as my brother did recently) and you get a still-perfect, slimy clover leaf in a diaper. We simply lack the appropriate digestive system flora and fauna required to dismember the tissue of these bountiful plants and unleash their nutrients.

Enter the ruminants. Sheep, goats, and cows ARE able to digest this bountiful, resilient energy source. And not only that, they convert this otherwise-nutritionally-useless plant material into some totally wonderful food and fiber that we CAN use: meat, wool, milk, & other dairy products, hides, bones, soil-enriching manure, etc. …Spectacular! Almost too good to believe! You couldn’t dream up such magical creatures!

So if we’d like to incorporate the top-notch resilience of grasses & clovers into our agricultural system, we need to partner up with these magical ruminants beings. All they ask of us in return, of course, is for us to allow them to express their special sheepness/cowness/goatness in an appropriate fashion.

They simply ask us not to try to debase them as we would, say, a human industrial factory worker – trying to turn them into a mere machine. They ask to be given their due respect as a living organism.

That’s all.

How to pull off this partnership in a way that benefits both parties requires a special mix of knowledge and compassion that’s becoming increasingly rare. You can still find it today, perhaps, in a special neighbor. But it’s also found more certainly in the essays, poems, and stories of Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry. Another contrary farmer, Joel Salatin, is also worth checking out.

Maybe start with Logsdon’s “All Flesh is Grass.”

So do that before you pursue the partnership. But if you’re interested in a resilient food system – one that has a chance in the face of all the back-breaking craziness that’s a-comin’ -- you’d be mad to leave out the ruminants.

I have a small flock of Tunis sheep. I’d recommend a small/medium-sized, old-time breed – they’re easier to move and don’t need to be pampered. Check out the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website for some good possibilities – http://albc-usa.org/.

And allow me to mention again: Sheep and cows are perfect compliments to a sprawling, standard-sized-tree, fruit & nut orchard – lazily eating the grass between the large, spread-out trees in a bucolic scene that will just melt your damn heart. (Goats, of course, will voraciously strip the bark off every tree and BREAK your damn heart to pieces – so beware.)

PERENNIAL GRAINS AND OTHER COOL STUFF
All four pieces of a resilient agriculture mentioned so far – chestnuts, hazelnuts, sunchokes, and sheep/cows/goats – I have at least some experience with. But there are other cool things on the horizon too – things I haven’t done, but which look exciting in terms of trying to build a resilient food system. These include (1) The Land Institute’s perennial grain breeding program, and (2) the widening selection of perennial vegetables available to the home grower.

If you’re not familiar with Wes Jackson’s Land Institute and their perennial grain breeding program, check out every word at http://www.landinstitute.org/ and in Jackson’s excellent books. In a nutshell, they’re trying to breed an array of PERENNIAL grains to replace the ecologically-destructive ANNUAL grains we’ve used since the beginning of agriculture. It’s quite an ambitious task, and they’re using a two-pronged breeding strategy of both domesticating existing perennial grains and perennializing existing annual grains.

And while the Land Institute is still perhaps a few decades from their ultimate goal, the fruits (or grains) of their labor are already starting to spill forth. “Kernza”, their first perennial wheat variety, is already starting to be made available to farmers. And if their entire breeding program ever reaches fruition, it has the possibility of making human agriculture orders of magnitude less destructive than it has historically been.

Good stuff.

And I should note finally, that perennial vegetables are really starting to get under my skin. While we’ve always grown asparagus, rhubarb, horseradish, and chives, I’ve been experimenting lately with a bunch of other neat possibilities: skirret, scorzonera, stinging nettle, Chinese yam -- as well as the nominally-perennial shallots and potato onions. Since perennials take a few years to really get going, the jury’s still out on each of these, but I eagerly look forward to the creeping spread of perennials throughout my annual veggie plots over the next decade. I’ll try to add a few new ones every year.

See www.fedcoseeds.com for a basic selection of these perennial veggies. Also check out Eric Toensmeier’s excellent book, “Perennial Vegetables” (and his website, http://perennialvegetables.org/about/). There are SO many neat possibilities, and our climatic future is SO uncertain that we’d do well to experiment with as many of these deep-rooted perennials as possible.

For example, I hear that Carol Deppe is experimenting with breeding scorzonera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_salsify) as a perennial lettuce-like leaf crop. Cool! So many possibilities!

WHERE WE ARE & WHERE WE'RE GOING
…So there. How was that? Inspiring? Uplifting? I’d say that if this stuff doesn’t just fill you with the warm fuzzies, then…well…you need a great big hug or something.

…There -- does that help?

But warm fuzzies aside, I think we should end here by briefly putting all this good stuff within a larger (and unfortunately far scarier) context: Like, where exactly ARE we as a civilization? And where are we GOING? And what do we need to DO?

Because we DON’T just live in happy little small-farm/gardening bubbles, and it’s dangerous to pretend we do. We’ll be planting chestnuts, hazelnuts, sunchokes and clover within the larger framework of a dying civilization – a larger context that has much more control over our lives at this point than we do.

So let’s get outline the context here:

Where are we? Well, we are at the beginning of the end; for we have already begun the accelerating collapse of industrial civilization. As Nicole Foss says, “we’ve been eating our seed corn for decades” – but due to inertia and pseudo-clever bookkeeping tricks, the inevitable socio-economic troubles are just starting to manifest themselves now. We are hours, days, weeks, months, or at most a few years away from the next catastrophic downturn – one far larger perhaps than that of 2008. And there will be more to come – likely many more. …We are also, of course, at the beginning of the end of climatic stability. How fast and far this progresses is anybody’s guess, but given a near-term catastrophic industrial collapse, we will soon be completely at the mercy of positive feedbacks in the climate system – hard, cold, biophysical reality. No treaties or negotiating here. We will pay for our sins. God help us.

Where are we going? As David Korowicz says, “We are going somewhere we’ve never been before.” (http://www.feasta.org/documents/risk_resilience/Tipping_Point.pdf) We are going to a place where the ‘operational fabric’ that supported our industrial lives literally unravels around us – sometimes overnight; a place where our very life-support systems stop working properly, or even at all. But unlike other civilizational collapses, we will find that the fabric this time had been suspending us VERY VERY VERY high above safe ground; and many of us will fall and fall and fall and fall.

People and ecosystems will be falling and falling and falling all around us. And if it doesn’t look like they’re falling it will be because we are falling with them. And the landings will be hard. Often too hard. People and ecosystems will be dying and dying and dying and dying all around us. And if we stop noticing them dying, it will be because we have died ourselves. These are the places we will be going.

WHAT WE MUST DO
SO what must we do? What CAN we do? Isn’t all this chestnut and sunchoke stuff really then just piddling nonsense against this larger catastrophe unfolding around us? For if what I say comes to pass -- as it must by the inviolable thermodynamic laws of our universe -- is there ANYTHING we can do?

Firstly: no, working to invent a less-destructive, more-resilient, perennial-based agriculture is decidedly NOT nonsense. And secondly: yes, there are many things we can do – that we MUST do.

(1) We can PREPARE for the coming fall as best as possible, in whatever grace period remains.

We can learn skills and collect tools. We can gather cultivars of food trees & seeds of vegetables; we can plant them skillfully and tend them lovingly. We can get to know our neighbors – human and non-human, living and non-living. And we can let them know us. We can try to wend our way down towards safer ground before (and while) the supporting fabric of our lives disintegrates. We can try to fashion resilience parachutes and risk-safeguards that may cushion the fall. …And, of course, some or all of these preparations may be for naught. But we can try. …I’m going to try.

(2) We can MAINTAIN OUR COMPOSURE as the fabric disintegrates beneath us. We can try to keep a clear head, a steady hand, and a firm footing as all hell breaks loose around us. We can help our family and neighbors. We can sacrifice our comfort for others – hoping, but not demanding, that others do the same for us. We can remember our manners and clear our vision – seeing others not as objects to be manipulated for gain, but as sacred, sentient beings on a shared journey. We can keep our shit together.

(3) We can HARDEN OUR RESOLVE for the long hard road to stability. We can keep our eyes on the prize: to become emotionally and physically fulfilled individuals enmeshed within healthy human and biotic communities. And we can keep believing in that dream, even when all we can see around us is death and failure. And we can keep fighting and working for that dream even when all we feel is tired and worn out. And we can resolve to live and teach the dreams that inspire us. (e.g., For me, that dream borrows heavily from Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and Wendell Berry’s agrarianism.) And we can just not give up. …I’m not gonna give up.

I'LL LET YOU BE IN MY DREAMS, IF I CAN BE IN YOURS
So there -- preparation, composure, and resolve. That’s what we can do.

Everyone can do it in their own special way, of course. What I outlined in this essay is partly how I’m going to try; it’s part of MY dream. You can try something different – your own dream; something that fits you and where you are.

But try something. We have to try. We have to have dreams. And we have to hold onto them as things fall apart. We have to not let go.

And maybe some day my dream will work – at least part of it; or some version of it. And maybe yours will too – at least partly. And maybe so will a bunch of other people’s dreams.

And maybe at some point they can start to fit together.

And maybe we can all be in each other’s dreams.

That would be nice.

Original article available here

From the author: I'm a high school Chemistry teacher in NJ. I'm also a concerned father, organic farmer, and community garden organizer.

You can contact me at danallen1968@yahoo.com.

Other posts by Dan Allen at Energy Bulletin: http://www.energybulletin.net/authors/Dan+Allen

The Speech Obama Needs to Give
What 'Lower Consumption' Means
A Doomer's Christmas Carol
Cornucopian Man vs. Biophysical Reality
Sasha and Barack Debate the Merits of Peak Oil Preparation
'Generation Limits': An Open Letter to Teenagers
Who Then Will Lead Us?
Peak Oil Rock & Roll
387 ppm and Rising: A Plea for Increased Urgency in Developing Post-Carbon Living Arrangements
Post-Carbon Schools: Back from Hell
The Fierce Urgency of this Spring: Veggie Seeds and Nut Seedlings for Us All
The Infinite Energy Machine and the Myth of Green Energy
That Which May Be Gained: A Return to Scale, Community, and Morality
Conservation and the Community Garden: One Suburban Model That Works
The Lessons of Climate History: Implications for Post-Carbon Agriculture
A Land & Community Ethic: Preliminary Draft
The Lost Civilization: A Dream
The Lost Civilization: Finding a Reality-Based Frame of Reference in the Age of Delusion
Surprise! I’m your new President-for-Life: The post-peak military coup & beyond
An Agriculture that Stands a Chance: Perennial polyculture & the hard limits of post-carbon farming
My Chestnut Seedlings Don't Know the Economy is About to Collapse
The Perennial Imperative: Breaking the Land-Abuse Spiral of Annual Agriculture
Deus ex Machina: Will Economic Collapse Save Us from Climate Catastrophe?

The perennial imperative: Breaking the land-abuse spiral of annual agriculture

2012-02-01T08:29:00.001+01:00

by Dan Allen

“Was there ever a time since our gathering and hunting days that the planet’s capital stock has not been drawn down to support agriculture and civilization? …[A] hypothesis: Since agriculture began, humans have produced no technological product or process – including our crops and livestock – without drawing down the earth’s capital stock and, thereby, reducing the overall net primary production of its ecosystems using only contemporary sunlight.” – Wes Jackson, in “The Virtues of Ignorance” (2008)

“In the broadest sense, the life span of a civilization is limited by the time needed for agricultural production to occupy the available arable land and then erode through the topsoil. How long it takes to regenerate the soil…defines the time required to reestablish an agricultural civilization – providing of course that the soil is allowed to rebuild.” – David R. Montgomery, in “Dirt” (2007)

“What must we do? …[W]e must not work or think on a heroic scale. …We must work on a scale proper to our limited abilities. We must not break things we cannot fix. There is no justification ever for permanent ecological damage. If this imposes the verdict of guilt upon us all, so be it.” – Wendell Berry, http://energybulletin.net/stories/2011-05-05/what-must-we-do

SUMMARY: It’s time to admit that annual crops are an inappropriate technology. We can’t HELP but misuse them, and the consequences of their inevitable misuse are dreadful, essentially permanent, and morally unforgivable. Their use must be strictly controlled and viewed as potentially dangerous to our well-being. We must find a better way.

A TEACHABLE MOMENT ON 'ADVENTURE CREEK'
Will it ever be possible for us to tread more carefully upon this Earth? -- To wield our clumsy power with an appropriate caution? To acknowledge and respect our unavoidable ignorance? To strop thrashing about carelessly and, in the end, diminishing all that we touch?

On bad days, I’d say no. On good days, like today, I’d say maybe.

…Listen to this:

Lately, after my daughter & nephew (6 & 7 years-old) help out in the community garden on Saturday mornings, I’ve been taking them down to a nearby wooded creek for an ‘adventure.’

Our latest quest brought us to an exposed stream-bank that featured a pretty perfect soil profile – plants in the thin dark organic O-horizon, 8-inch root-filled A-horizon, and then a thick lower layer of dense clay. While we sat there making a small arsenal of gooey clay balls with which to pelt a nearby tree (-- OK, I indulged them), I had a good opportunity to see if it was possible for little kids to grasp one of the most important earthly ideas of our species – what Wes Jackson calls, “the problem of agriculture.”

I pointed out the difference in qualities between the topsoil and the subsoil -- they got it. I showed them how plants have an easy time growing in the topsoil, but would have a tough time growing in the dense, clayey subsoil – no problem. I told them that if you plowed-up the soil surface or let the plants get eaten down too much, it was pretty easy for the topsoil to wash away – understood. I amazed them with the outrageously long time it took to build up just an inch of topsoil & thus how precious and vital it was – got it. I pointed to the mud-colored stream and asked them where the mud came from and what would be the result of it going bye-bye – they nailed it. And finally I offered them the example of my sheep-pasture/mixed-fruit-nut-orchard as an alternative form of agriculture that would hold onto the precious topsoil – slam dunk.

Two converts. OK…so that’s two down, 7 billion to go.

The key points here, and ones I hope I can drive home a bit more in this essay, are this: (1) healthy, living topsoil is THE foundation of all human life and is essentially non-renewable on human time-scales, (2) annuals-based agriculture – even almost all non-industrial versions – is inherently/inevitably wasteful of topsoil, (3) there is another type of agriculture (perennial polyculture) that inherently/inevitably BUILDS topsoil, and (4) we have not only the knowledge and opportunity to make a transition to a smarter, saner form of agriculture over the next several decades, we have a moral obligation to do so.

So yea, the three of us tackled ‘the problem of agriculture,’ pelted a silver maple with some clay balls (to the admonishment of a resident chipmunk), and went on to have, in the words of my nephew, “the best adventure ever!”

…So then how DO we stop ourselves from thrashing about so destructively? How DO we learn to be careful and respectful of our ignorance? To stop wrecking the joint? Well…maybe we just need to start teaching the right things – the important things. And then we need to start DOING the right things – the important things.

And maybe then we have a chance. …Maybe.

ENTER ANNUALS, EXIT SOIL, EXIT HUMANS
If you have not read geomorphologist David R. Montgomery’s book “Dirt” (2007), you need to (1) find a copy, (2) brew a strong pot of tea, (3) sit down, and (4) spend a few hours staring the stark-naked truth of our species’ 10,000-year agricultural experiment dead in the face – the whole shockingly-terrible, pathetically-repetitive, tragically-avoidable truth.

(See also this interview: http://www.energybulletin.net/media/2010-08-05/deconstructing-dinner-ero...)

If Montgomery’s book does not horrify, shame, humble, anger, and sadden you, you have not understood it -- repeat steps 2 to 4 until you do. If it does not fundamentally change the way you think about the future of annuals-based agriculture in this country, you need to start thinking a little more seriously about agriculture.

A main theme of Montgomery’s “Soil” is this: the massive soil loss/degradation associated with annuals-based agriculture is not just an artifact of just our irresponsible 500-year colonial period, or even the frenzied industrial orgy of the past 150 years – it is an inevitable result. i.e., Wherever humans have tilled the soil and sown annuals, destruction of the soil and essentially permanent reduction of biotic potential followed – sometimes over centuries, sometimes decades, sometimes in a few disastrous years, but ALWAYS eventually.

And as soil is the foundation of every civilization, the inevitable degradation of soil subjected to annual tillage presages the end of every civilization that has chosen the annuals-based path. Because as a civilization becomes soil-challenged, the pace of soil degradation inevitably increases (for reasons I’ll go into shortly), and the civilization becomes increasingly vulnerable to a host of civilization-ending ailments on every front – agricultural, social, economic, political, and climatic/environmental.

In fact, given the preponderance of historical evidence we now have, it is not unreasonable, I think, to summarize our 10,000-year experiment with annual agriculture in the form of a general principle: Enter annuals, exit soil, exit humans.

So as a country enthusiastically washing away our top-soil as we speak – and likely set to embark on another massive erosive assault on marginal lands as industrial agriculture falters – is this not something we should maybe address like grownups at some point?

THE LAND-ABUSE SPIRAL OF ANNUALS-BASED AGRICULTURE
So, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of this land degradation business.

Now, it is one thing to make the cogent historical observation that annuals-based agriculture has weakened and destroyed civilizations, but it is another task to show why this end result is so inevitable – i.e. why annuals-based agriculture, for all its seductively bounteous yields, cannot HELP but self-destruct in the end. Montgomery develops this theme nicely in ‘Dirt’, but I’d like to formalize it here as a sort of general algorithm: the Land Abuse Spiral of Annuals-based Agriculture (LASAA, for you fans of annoying agricultural acronyms – AAA’s).

In a nutshell, the ‘spiral’ goes like this: (1) a few years of low agricultural yield leads to (2) economic stress in the agricultural sector, which leads to (3) the initiation or expansion of poor land-use practices, which leads to (4) soil-loss and degradation, which leads back to (1) again – lower agricultural yields. The cycle continues to spiral downward in a positive-feedback loop generating ever more soil loss/degradation and ever lower yields.

The end result, after a few years/decades/centuries of this land degradation, is a host of nasty consequences (for those living it) that go by some rather innocuous-sounding names (by those recounting or predicting it): agricultural failure, civilization collapse, rapid depopulation, and abandonment of the land. Human abandonment (or extreme population reduction) is then followed by a loooooonnnng period (hundreds or, more typically, thousands of years) of biotic impoverishment, as the geologically-slow processes of soil re-accumulation and ecosystem rebuilding occur – often from near-primary succession.

…Oh those barren, rocky hillsides of our soil-denuded homeland – land where the scrawny, rock-lickin’ goats roam!

THE SPIRAL OF CERTAIN DOOM: FLESHING IT OUT A BIT
In the interest of space, I won’t go through the relentless, grisly accounting of historical examples of this land abuse spiral. For those of you interested (or skeptical), take a look at Montgomery’s book. He presents a veritable silted-in-dam-load of detailed examples ranging from the dawn of agriculture to the present day – from Mesopotamia to Manaus.

But in order to flesh it out the destructive spiral a bit more, consider the following slightly-more-detailed scenario. And note here that we could start at any of the four cornerstones of the land-abuse spiral of annual agriculture (LASAA!) -- but for the sake of example, let’s begin with this:

(1) Some inevitable climatic stress (severe drought, series of intense storms, extended temperature extremes) causes a reduction of agricultural yield -- e.g., lower yield per acre, per input cost, per energy input, and/or per capita.

(2) This reduction in yield contributes to stresses in the agricultural economy -- e.g., financial trouble & bankruptcies of smaller farms, loss of skilled farmers and farm-culture to cities, consolidation of small farms to absentee owners and salaried tenant farmers, increases in population as a response to social breakdown and/or economic needs of subsistence farmers, decreases of small-farm size below subsistence-level.

(3) These economic stresses contribute to poor land-care practices -- e.g., deforestation & cultivation of marginal lands (semi-arid, hillsides, drained wetlands) previously under perennial vegetation, overstocking & over-grazing of livestock, abandonment of soil-conserving techniques (berms, contour-plowing, fallowing, windbreaks, crop-rotations, and legume cover-crops), increase of farm-size above internal nutrient-cycling capacity, increased use of herbicides & pesticides, over-use of slow-recharge aquifers, and the use of ‘one-size-fits-all’ farming practices not suited to a particular field/farm/region (e.g., plowing Great Plains, irrigating deserts).

(4) These poor land-use practices contribute to soil loss & degradation – e.g., storm-water erosion from tilled fields, wind erosion, land-slides from deforested slopes, nutrient depletion, organic-matter depletion & decreased water-holding capacity, stream & riverbank erosion from more rapid storm run-off, salinization from over-irrigation of semi-arid soils, build-up of toxins in soil, and collapse of ecosystems within agricultural soils.

…and then we (tragically) return back to the start of the cycle as soil loss & degradation leads to even (1) lower yields. And on and on and on, in a positive feedback loop -- to the part where scrawny goats are licking barren rocks.

There are, of course, additional feedbacks and interconnections conceivable in real life. A fully fleshed-out diagram of the cycle could get VERY messy.

One example: Reduced agricultural yields (and the resulting high prices and scarcity) can lead to general economic/social/political stresses (e.g., failure of credit systems, rioting & social upheaval, war, breaking of supply chains) that can cascade back to economically stress the agricultural sector and accelerate the overall cycle.

Another example: Poor land-care practices can lead to a host of more general biotic-impoverishing (and food-reducing) environmental degradations in addition to soil-loss – e.g., species extinctions from agricultural expansion, siltation of rivers, dams, and estuaries, chemical contamination of drinking water, dead zones off the coasts.

And there are many other ways to get on the spiral in first place, aside from just a climate disruption. Indeed, you can hop on the spiral at any of the four ‘stops.’ For example, unwise political decisions can initiate unwise land-use practices (see Dust-Bowl era US, 1960’s-era USSR, present-day Brazil, etc.) and the ensuing spiral.

And so on.

THE WORLD WILL BE A WORSE PLACE ONCE YOU HAVE PASSED ON
So while the web of social/political/economic/environmental/agricultural interactions is mind-numbingly messy in real life, I think the integrity of the general model holds. The positive-feedback, land-abuse cycle of annual agriculture (described above) seems to be a valid model for explaining why our annuals-based agricultural adventures (a.k.a. civilizations) have ALWAYS ended tragically. Every…single…one.

In fact, the inevitable implosion of annuals-based agriculture is as close to a universal principle as you’ll ever see in the messy chronicles of human history.

Of course, it doesn’t happen the exact same way every time. Depending on various factors (technology used, soil type, climate, socio-economic pressures, etc.), it may take anywhere from a few years to many centuries for the land to be exhausted to the point of human extirpation – but again, degradation, eventual mass-abandonment of the land, and long-term biotic impoverishment is guaranteed EVERY TIME a civilization goes down the annuals-based road.

The bottom line is this: You start down the road of annuals-based agriculture and the gradual wasting of life-giving biological capital has begun. Your days as a civilization are numbered and the world will be a worse place once you have passed on.

How’s that for an epitaph? Not exactly inspiring, huh?

ANNUALS ON THE RAZOR'S EDGE
So having savagely excoriated the growing of annual crops, I think I should at least briefly address the times and places where annual agriculture has NOT been destructive – where it has even (for a time at least) helped to BUILD biological capital.

Because there are scores of historical (and current) examples of people NOT screwing up the Earth with annuals. Witness the skillfully tended Far-East landscapes of F.H. King’s ‘Farmers of Forty Centuries’, the mixed annual-perennial “cultura promiscua” of the early Roman era, Gene Logsdon’s small-scale grain raising, Carol Deppe’s ‘resilient gardening’, Eliot Coleman’s intensive organic production, my annual veggie garden (http://www.misty-acres-farm.com/), etc., etc.

In other words, it IS possible to do annuals right. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. The problem here is that it’s MUCH easier to do it wrong. And the consequences of doing it wrong are both dire and essentially permanent on the human civilization time-scale.

“Doing it right” requires a tenuous combination of skill, self-discipline, long-term economic/political/social stability, and maintaining the proper smallness of scale to ensure essentially closed nutrient cycling. Consider a partial list of “inconvenient” things you need to keep doing year-in and year-out to avoid slipping into the land-abuse spiral with annuals: locally-adapted crop-rotations with legumes, regular manuring, strict maintenance of berms and terraces on even mildly-sloped land, extended fallowing periods, alternating relatively thin strips of annuals with perennials, a strict avoidance of deforesting the seductively-beckoning hillsides.

Such sound and virtuous measures can and have been implemented for years, decades, and even centuries. But…then they broke down. Every time. It’s just TOO easy to fall off the good-practices wagon in this crazy mixed-up world. Humans are too fallible. The weather (increasingly) is too uncertain. Gravity is too universal. The Second Law is too relentless and unforgiving.

Once you drop it, an egg doesn’t un-break. Once you fall off the ‘good-practices’ wagon of annuals-based agriculture, topsoil doesn’t pick itself up off the sea floor and scamper back up to your cornfield in time for planting season. It’s gone.

In this sense, any civilization following the annuals-based path is very much walking on the razor’s edge of non-reversible disaster. Once the path of soil tillage and annuals-based agriculture is chosen by a civilization, it is only a matter of time before ‘something goes wrong’ and the land-abuse spiral is initiated – e.g., enter severe economic down-turn, drought, war, chaotic revolution, wave of migration & social upheaval, unwise national agricultural policies, natural disaster, industrial disaster, etc., etc., etc. Take your pick.

Every year is a roll of the dice. Every growing season. Every storm. Every drought. Every recession. Every regime change.

…And we have a winner! …Or rather, a loser!

A MOST INAPPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY
So I think, at this point, we’re forced to make a pretty darn uncomfortable admission (a la Wes Jackson): The suite of technologies that comprises annuals-based agriculture – that crown-jewel of human ingenuity, those strokes of genius that separated us from the beasts – was, is, and forever will be just a flat-out bad idea as the main food source for a civilization.

Ouch.

The plow, the disc, the harrow. Those rolling fields of corn, beans, wheat, and rice. -- Bad ideas, all of them.

Ouch.

And now consider this: Technologies that are just flat-out inappropriate for the human species on this planet tend to have some things in common – they’re fast, they’re powerful, they initially seem to be almost magical in the “making life easier” department, …and they all release seven kinds of hell on us when the biophysical-consequence chickens come home to roost.

Witness fossil fuels. Witness nuclear power. Witness annuals-based agriculture.

Our ignorance is too great, our inherent weaknesses and flaws as a species too numerous, and the workings of the world too complex for technologies that work too fast on too big of a scale. Mistakes happen…and then they compound. Such technologies turn us, effectively, into toddlers with loaded machine guns.

Rat-a-tat-tat…Hey, gimme that!!...Rat-a-tat-tat-tat…Good lord!!....Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat….Oh, the humanity!!!!...

In this vein, permit me to raise one more objection to annuals-based agriculture: In addition to the locked-in fate of annuals-based agriculture to degrade the land (via the heretofore-discussed Land Abuse Spiral), there is something about the “speed” of annuals-based agriculture that introduces another unfortunate side-effect for our species. -- Namely, annuals are just too darn FAST.

Cut the trees, plant the crops amongst the stumps, and collect the bounty. A one-year agricultural yield increase of many, many fold over the hunting and gathering yield of the same land. Instant energy = instant population explosion. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the 10,000-year story of our species’ experiment with annual agriculture.

The phenomenally fast rate-of-return – one season and you get a yield – has certainly been a significant driver in our yeast-like population explosion over the past 10,000 years. It’s just too darn EASY to grow human population when you get this sort of rapid energy-increase feedback from annual crops. It takes too much discipline and luck for us NOT to screw up eventually – for us NOT to overpopulate like yeast in a bottle.

So permit me this analogy: Annuals are the original ‘fast-food’ -- seductive, immediately-rewarding, and prone to both degrade and rapidly expand your biomass. The short-term payback of actual ‘fast foods’ trick us into eating too much. The short payback time for the annual crops tricks us into f***ing too much – bringing on overpopulation and the ensuing land-abuse spiral before you can say, “Hey, just LOOK at all these kids!”

Lacking the consistently-engaged, higher-order mental capabilities that humans do not (and will never) possess, it’s just too easy to overshoot carrying capacity on a diet of fast-return (but ecosphere-diminishing) annual crops. So we overshoot. …Time and time and time and time again.

I suppose this theme could be developed more, but I think I’ve made a sufficient case for the following general statement: Annual crops are an inappropriate technology. We can’t HELP but misuse them, and the consequences of their misuse are both dreadful and unforgivable. Their use must be strictly controlled and viewed as potentially dangerous to our well-being. We must find a better way.

Ouch.

THE PERENNIAL IMPERATIVE
Now, I say ‘ouch’ here because, to most people, saying that the widespread use of annuals is bad for us and we need to find a better way is like saying, “Oxygen is bad for us. We must find a better way.” In other words, it’s inconceivable to most people – even many ‘progressives’ in the alternative agriculture movement – that we could or should ever move to something beyond an annuals-based agriculture. Amber waves of (annual) grains foreva!

“…But, but, but …we just need to do annuals RIGHT!” “The change you advocate is too radical! “The consumers won’t go for it!”

But looking ‘big-picture’ here, we really have no choice -- especially if we introduce morality into the equation.

Because, if the biological potential of the Earth inevitably becomes degraded with each go-round of the annual-agriculture carousel, can we maybe see where this is eventually going? Can we extrapolate the trend-line here – even tentatively?

And are we really OK resigning ourselves to the inevitable diminishment of the planet? Is that the only moral and physical legacy we can hope to achieve? Are starving, rock-licking goats forever to be the final stage of human succession?

I propose that – in the spirit of Wendell Berry’s agrarian sensibilities, Wes Jackson’s “nature as measure”, Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic”, and Dan Allen’s “I Want My Daughter to Have a Life Worth Living Ethic” – maybe we should try something else.

And that something else, of course, is the perennial-based agriculture conceived, advocated and enacted by the permaculture movement, Wes Jackson’s The Land Institute, Wendell Berry, Sir Albert Howard, J. Russell Smith, Liberty Hyde Bailey, and scores of historical experiments in perennials that were snuffed out by the seductive poison of the annual-crop expansion.

Why is it so hard for us to renounce agricultural suicide?

When will we let ourselves learn from the people who already have renounced it and want to show us how?

When will it be too late?

THE PERENNIAL TRANSITION: JUST PLANT IT!!
Now, this has been a rather long essay and you’ve all been very patient with me. Thank you. So here’s the part you’ve been waiting for: Let me now describe exactly how the perennial transition will work.

It’s simple, we just need to…ummm...we need to…well...hmmmm…maybe…
OK, I don’t know -- I admit it. …Well, at least not the details.

But for the host of physical and moral reasons discussed so far, we MUST make the transition -- and I can guarantee that we WON’T make the transition at all it if we don’t try. And so, despite our ignorance, we need to try. So let’s try. …Fine details be damned at this point!

…But we’re not totally in the dark, of course -- there ARE some ideas out there already.

For a long-term strategy at the national level, I suggest you take a look at The Land Institute’s “A 50-Year Farm Bill” (http://www.landinstitute.org/pages/50yrfb-booklet_7-29-09.pdf). They present a well-reasoned plan for transforming the current 20:80 perennial:annual mix of US agriculture to an 80:20 perennial:annual mix over the next 50 years. And while you’re at it, check out ALL the publications at The Land Institute’s website (http://www.landinstitute.org/).

The only thing I’d advocate for in regards to their plan is the possible expansion of already-existing perennial tree crops and vegetables for the more well-watered regions of the US. As just one example among many, chinese chestnuts have a nutritional composition very similar to corn, and when a FULL accounting of energy, resource, and environmental costs are included the carbohydrate yields may be comparable. And of course, as discussed previously in this essay, from a long-term physical and moral standpoint, there is no comparison at all.

I’ve written previously on what might be required to transition to a perennials-based agriculture in my essay, “An Agriculture that Stands a Chance” (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-12-13/agriculture-stands-chan...).

Check out this essay for someone who’s doing some pretty cool perennial stuff on a farm-sized scale: http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-12/mark-shepherds-106-acre....

And check out another large-scale perennial operation from Greg Miller’s Empire Chestnut website: http://empirechestnut.com/aboutus.htm.

And of course, I’d highly recommend exploring the complete works of both Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry -- as well as the now-voluminous permaculture literature (maybe start with http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore). Learn the science and art of perennial crops. Learn the ecological principles and practical considerations of planting a food forest (or food prairie…or food savannah…) in your back yard (or back 40).

But more than anything else, you just need to start DOING it. Start planting perennial food crops wherever and whenever you can. For the past ten years, I’ve been experimenting by planting dozens of types fruit and nut perennials – hundreds of trees/bushes/vines in total – to find out what sorts of things work in my area. I plant them in my yard, in my sheep pasture, in the yards of near-by relatives, in my annual-veggie garden, on township-owned land (via the community garden) – wherever I can! And in the past few years I’ve been experimenting with a dozen or so species (and counting) of perennial vegetables. Again, wherever I can!

As noted previously, perennial crops are the original ‘slow food’, so you’ll need to start your experimenting NOW. i.e. Don’t wait until you have a masters degree in permaculture design and have memorized the genus and species of each perennial crop. – Just learn some basics about your soil and the plants’ natural histories and toss those babies in the ground to see what you get. Watch them closely. If it doesn’t work, try something else.

But try SOMETHING.

And let’s try to get off this land-abuse spiral. I think this whole planet’s getting’ a little dizzy, no?

Original article available here

Other posts by Dan Allen at Energy Bulletin: http://www.energybulletin.net/authors/Dan+Allen

The Speech Obama Needs to Give
What 'Lower Consumption' Means
A Doomer's Christmas Carol
Cornucopian Man vs. Biophysical Reality
Sasha and Barack Debate the Merits of Peak Oil Preparation
'Generation Limits': An Open Letter to Teenagers
Who Then Will Lead Us?
Peak Oil Rock & Roll
387 ppm and Rising: A Plea for Increased Urgency in Developing Post-Carbon Living Arrangements
Post-Carbon Schools: Back from Hell
The Fierce Urgency of this Spring: Veggie Seeds and Nut Seedlings for Us All
The Infinite Energy Machine and the Myth of Green Energy
That Which May Be Gained: A Return to Scale, Community, and Morality
Conservation and the Community Garden: One Suburban Model That Works
The Lessons of Climate History: Implications for Post-Carbon Agriculture
A Land & Community Ethic: Preliminary Draft
The Lost Civilization: A Dream
The Lost Civilization: Finding a Reality-Based Frame of Reference in the Age of Delusion
Surprise! I’m your new President-for-Life: The post-peak military coup & beyond
An Agriculture that Stands a Chance: Perennial polyculture & the hard limits of post-carbon farming
My Chestnut Seedlings Don't Know the Economy is About to Collapse

Healthy Soils for Sustainable Gardens

2012-02-01T08:25:00.001+01:00

The key to growing healthy, beautiful plants is good soil. This practical all-region guide helps you understand the unique characteristics of your garden’s soil and build its natural fertility using organic and sustainable methods. Written by soil and horticulture experts from across North America, it emphasizes the importance of nurturing a diverse ecosystem of beneficial soil organisms, using recycled and renewable organic amendments and mulches, planting nutrient-enhancing cover crops and ornamentals, and selecting plants that adapt with ease to your site conditions.

Natural Polycultures: Mimicking Nature in Your Veggie Garden

2012-01-31T11:43:00.001+01:00

The following is an excerpt from Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, Second Edition by Toby Hemenway. It has been adapted for the Web.

Nature binds plants into interdependent communities and associations. Indigenous people, too, have crafted plant combinations that weave synergies among species. In the past two decades, ecological designers also have blended plants into communities that contain partnerships. Permaculturists call these imitations of natural associations guilds.* Formally defined, a guild is a group of plants and animals harmoniously interwoven into a pattern of mutual support, often centered around one major species, that benefits humans while creating habitat.

Guilds are one way to bridge the broad gap between conventional vegetable gardens and wildlife gardens by creating plant communities that act and feel like natural landscapes but that include humans in their webwork. Vegetable gardens benefit only humans, while wildlife or natural gardens specifically exclude people from their ecological patterns.

Gardens for wildlife are immensely valuable, but they are only a partial answer to habitat loss. As I’ve said before, if we ignore the material needs of humans in our urban and suburban landscapes, we’re doomed to continue our voracious consumption of wild land for factory farms and tree plantations. Ecological gardens, using guilds and the other tools described in this book, help our developed land to blossom into nourishing places for both humans and wildlife.

The Three Sisters
Let’s begin our exploration of guilds with a very simple example that illustrates some essential principles. Then we can proceed to more complex guilds—ones that go beyond vegetables.

Familiar to many gardeners is the Native American triad of corn, beans, and squash, a combination often called the Three Sisters. The trio qualifies as a guild because each of these plants supports and benefits the others. The beans draw nitrogen from the air and, via symbiotic bacteria, convert the nitrogen to plant-available form, boosting the growth of all three vegetables. The cornstalks form a trellis for the bean vines to climb. The rambling squash, with its broad leaves, forms a living parasol that densely covers the ground, inhibiting weeds and keeping the soil cool and moist. Further cementing this trio together comes the news from scientists that the roots of the corn ooze specific sugars that are the perfect nourishment for the nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Together, the Three Sisters produce more food, with less water and fertilizer, than a similar area planted to any one of these three crops in isolation. Jane Mt. Pleasant, an agronomist at Cornell University who has blended her Iroquois heritage with her research, has shown that total yields of this guild, measured in calories, are about 20 percent higher than comparable yields of corn grown alone in an equal-sized plot.

Look at how many interconnections this guild bears. Beans furnish nitrogenous fertility for themselves, the corn, and the squash; squash shades soil for the benefit of all three; corn feeds the bean-hugging bacterial nodules and creates a trellis for the beans. Three plants, weaving at least eight connections. The Three Sisters guild is a perfect place to begin creating a richly connected garden.

Growing the Three Sisters Guild
Mark out a series of planting mounds about three feet apart, a couple of inches high, and a foot or so in diameter. (To calculate how many mounds you need, figure that you’ll get about four or five ears of corn per hole.) Then poke three or four kernels of corn into each mound.

Your favorite sweet corn variety will do, although Native Americans developed shorter, multi-stalked cultivars specifically for this guild, such as Black Aztec, Hopi White, or Tarahumara sweet corn, so you might consider a similar many-stalked variety. When the corn sprouts, start mounding the soil up around the young stalks.

Don’t cover the sprouts; just build up earth around the base. These mounds, by exposing soil to the air and sun, will warm the sprouts, speeding their growth. The mounds also improve drainage. Don’t thin the corn—you want two or three stalks per mound, hence the greater-than-usual distance between mounds.

About two weeks after planting the corn, select some pole beans, rather than a bush variety. Common pole bean varieties such as Blue Lake work well enough, although I’ve been told that very vigorous hybrid pole beans clambering up skinny hybrid corn stalks can pull the spindly corn down. Again, old-style varieties used traditionally in the Three Sisters work best. These include less-vigorous climbers such as Four Corners Gold and Hopi Light Yellow. But plants are forgiving, and most varieties will do well enough.

If you can, coat the bean seeds with a legume inoculant specific for beans (available from many seed suppliers). This ensures that the all-important nitrogen-fixing bacteria will find a happy home among the bean roots. Plant two or three bean seeds near the edges of each corn mound.

At the same time you start the beans, plant squash or pumpkins between each mound. Don’t use zucchini, as their tall stems will push the corn aside. Grow a vining squash variety that will sprawl over the soil.

Aside from these trio-specific instructions, grow the Three Sisters by following the cultural guidelines on each vegetable’s seed packet. After harvest, leave the stalks, vines, and other organic debris on the ground to compost in place. This returns some of the extracted fertility to the soil and protects the ground from erosion. Although much of the bacterially fixed nitrogen will be concentrated into the protein-rich bean pods, plenty will remain in the vines and roots, ready to go back to the earth.

* The term guild is used by ecologists to mean something slightly different (a set of different species that use a common resource in a similar way, as in “the guild of seed-eating birds”). This overlap is unfortunate and potentially confusing, but permaculture’s use of the term guild is well established, and I will stick with this common usage rather than introduce another term.

See also:

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway (ebook preview) - The first edition of Gaia’s Garden sparked the imagination of America’s home gardeners, introducing permaculture’s central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers.

Toby Hemenway - How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but Not Civilization (video lecture)

Permaculture on Your Balcony: Writer’s Voice Interviews Toby Hemenway

Home Scale Permaculture: Interview with Toby Hemenway

Food Not Lawns - Foreword by Toby Hemenway

Organic Livestock Farming: Everything You Need to Know about Natural Farming on a Small Scale

2012-01-31T11:38:00.001+01:00

The Complete Guide to Organic Livestock Farming: Everything You Need to Know about Natural Farming on a Small Scale (Back-To-Basics Farming)

Small scale farming has grown greatly in popularity during the last two decades, with a greater turn in public awareness toward locally grown, organic, grass fed products that have not been modified, chemically altered, or poorly fed. For that reason, those looking to start a small scale farm and raise livestock have a greater chance than ever before to take advantage of the new market for small scale goods.

This book will show any potential small scale farmer how to start raising their livestock and marketing it to the organic, natural lifestyle community that so fervently seeks out these products.

You will learn how to start the basic outline for your new small farm, including which livestock to raise, how to build their pens and habitat, and what you will be feeding them to maintain a healthy, organic farm.

You will learn the basics of animal husbandry, from genetics and breeding to feeding, building locations, and proper health and reproduction care.

You will learn how to find yourself in the right niche for selling your products and what legalities you must see to as well as the butchering and processing phase

Hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews have been conducted for this book with top experts in farm management to provide you with details about farm planning, financial planning, and proper livestock planning. A complete appendix will detail the various breeds and needs of cattle, chickens, goats, horses, pigs, and sheep to help you select the right livestock for your farm. In addition, you will learn the basic composition of most feeds, different grasses and legumes you can use, and find a plethora of outside resources to utilize.

For anyone with dreams of a small farm and raising livestock in their future, this is a book for you.

Conservation and the Community Garden: One Suburban Model That Works

2012-01-31T11:34:00.000+01:00

by Dan Allen

SUMMARY: Conservation efforts are surely the only sane response to the insane destruction accelerating all around us. But what should we spend our time conserving, and how can we maximize success? In this essay I discuss my local community garden as a conservation project and the factors that I believe are making it successful.

SANITY IN THE AGE OF DESTRUCTION
By any measure, we are surely destroying the world.

Every aspect of it.

And we are doing it with a determination and fury that literally resembles war.

We are scattering the toxic elements of the lithosphere heedlessly across the living surface of the planet. We are fouling our sacred oceans, making them waste bins for every conceivable poisonous substance we have ever produced. We are systematically dismantling every terrestrial ecosystem, replacing them with habitat suitable only for machines. And we are profoundly corrupting our atmosphere -- and with it, the very energy balance of our planet! – altering it on a geological scale in a matter of decades.

And of course, by killing the Earth we also kill ourselves -- for we are and will always be OF the Earth. But that is not enough for us. In our fevered industrial delusions, we also turn the bitter wrath of our worst impulses directly back onto ourselves. We cynically sell our hearts, our communities, and our children to the soul-killing scourge of rapacious consumerism. And to secure our ever-larger consumptive fix, we steal from the easiest victims – the poor -- locking them into cycles of self-destruction and misery. Then we riddle them with bullets in the name of corporate profits – brazen theft and murder we rename as ‘economic aid’ and ‘nation-building’.

It is, of course, a form of insanity. All of it. And it has been easily recognized as such by indigenous peoples for hundreds of years. But it is recognized as such only rarely by those whose minds are colonized by the pernicious worm of industrialism.

But sometimes it IS recognized -- and even resisted. And this resistance is the ONLY form of sanity in the face of destruction.

It is called conservation.

It is the conservation of wetlands, forests, rivers, lakes, and grasslands. It is the conservation of watersheds, farmland, ecosystems, and species. It is the conservation of traditional knowledge, seeds, skills, and languages. It is the conservation of families, neighborhoods, and communities. It is the conservation of honesty, forgiveness, kindness, and mercy. It is the conservation of hope.

And in every single act of conservation -- this noble resistance against the howling insanity of industrial destruction -- is the redemption of our fallen species.

CONSERVATION AND COMMUNITY GARDENS
OK, so that was heavy. But now that we’ve perhaps established that conservation is the only sane response to destruction, how does one go about conserving stuff?

Biologist David Ehrenfeld, author of Becoming Good Ancestors (2009) and the founder of the journal Conservation Biology, gave a talk recently in which he outlined the rather narrow set of practical circumstances by which conservation projects in his field have tended to succeed. He gave three necessary conditions: (1) intimate knowledge of the ecology of the organism and its habitat, (2) close involvement of local people in the conservation project, and (3) assistance and cooperation from the governing body of the area.

He gave several interesting examples from his research -- peppered throughout with his self-effacing humor, honesty, and compassion – but I started thinking about how our local community garden might fit in with his model of successful conservation.

First of all, I like to think that our work in the local community garden would fall under the category of ‘conservation’.

I would argue we are trying to conserve several important things as we gather every week to work, talk, and enjoy the weather. We are trying to conserve the fertile soil of our garden, saving it from erosion and industrial depredations. We are trying to conserve the ancient knowledge of food production – now largely lost through attrition and neglect in our industrial culture. We are trying to conserve the little genetic miracles of open-pollinated vegetable seeds from the anonymous demise to which so many have already succumbed. We are trying to conserve our connections to each other – the bonds of our community – by working and talking together in a shared, meaningful endeavor. And we are trying to conserve our connections to the natural world – the now-almost-forgotten world that lies beyond the blinking screens, paved roadways, and climate-controlled boxes that have enveloped us and numbed us to reality.

And in addition to working towards conserving some things, I would also like to think we are succeeding – at least so far and on some limited basis.

Our garden, now in its second year and hitting its stride, has been wildly successful by any standards. The third-of-an-acre plot (plus an attached and expanding orchard) is visited each Saturday morning by 20 to 50 eager gardeners – ranging from senior citizens to toddlers; from novice and experienced. Enthusiasm, learning, hard-work, and neighborly good cheer are the prevailing themes – and have been maintained as such steadily since the garden’s inception. These positive attitudes have not only persisted throughout the entire first year, but have increased markedly so far in the second year.

We’re growing good vegetables and good community at the same time. The whole thing just feels right. So in its necessarily-limited scope, I’d say that, yes, our garden is a success – or at least it’s on a successful trajectory.

OUR COMMUNITY GARDEN: THE PHYSICAL SET-UP
Now, in the next few parts of this essay, I want to do two things: (1) describe the general model we use for our successful suburban community garden, and (2) outline some of the key organizational features that I believe have helped it thrive.

And I’m not doing this to brag -- but rather as an attempt to educate. So many community gardens in my area have failed in short order, while ours is the sole survivor. And it is my general impression that, nationwide, there are many attempts at community gardens, but few real successes.

Perhaps my community has unwittingly hit on a suburban model that works and could be replicated in some appropriate fashion in other suburban areas. And perhaps it can make some small contribution to the myriad other small efforts to conserve of our world in the face of all the imposing forces that have marshaled together to destroy it. It’s worth a shot.

OK, so how is our garden set up?

We have a fenced-off 120-foot by 120-foot plot (about one third of an acre), plus large adjacent hayfields into which our fruit/nut orchard is expanding. The land is owned by the NJ state farmland-preservation program and administered by our township as a public park. Our official community garden meeting time is Saturday at 10am, but people can come and go on the property as they wish during the week. The garden gate is not locked.

We initially roto-tilled 23 permanent 3-foot-wide, 100-foot-long rows within the garden. Four of those rows (so far) are planted in perennial veggies & fruits, while the others are roto-tilled once per year in the Spring and planted in a diverse collection of annual veggies. There are 2-foot-wide grass paths/strips between each row, which we mow once per week. The grass clippings are collected and composted. Our orchard has over 20 fruit and nut seedlings so far and will expand annually.

We fertilize the permanent rows with both composted manure from local farms (cow & horse bedding) and our own composted garden and kitchen waste. We don’t use any herbicides, pesticides, or chemical-fertilizers. Pest damage is lessened by the use of row covers and crop rotation. We have a hose-fed drip irrigation system that we have needed to use infrequently so far – basically for drought insurance.

HOW IT'S RUN: ORGANIZED ANARCHY
I would call the people-part of our garden organization a sort of ‘organized anarchy’. In other words, there are few rules, but a definite conscious nudging by the informally-appointed garden leaders towards a desired outcome. And it’s been improbably effective.

The garden is open to all Township residents on a very informal basis. In other words, there is no obligatory annual fee, no official member list, no assigned work hours, and no assigned harvest amounts. It’s very-much a self-policing, self-organizing entity in many (but not all) respects. Some monetary donations are necessary, of course, for seeds and essential tools, but that is more than covered by voluntary annual contributions of usually $20 by many of the families involved.

Again, I wouldn’t necessarily have expected this very loose arrangement to work, but it has. Maybe chalk it up to ‘small is beautiful’ in both the overall scale and management senses.

We meet once a week, on Saturday mornings, from 10 am to about noon. I send out JUST ONE email during the week to about 150 people on our contact list. The email outlines what we did the previous Saturday, what we need to do during the coming Saturday, the financial summary, the map of garden plantings to date, and some general info for new members (directions to garden, some soil-care info, etc). Note: If you want to get on this email list to see what I mean, just email me at danallen1968 at yahoo dot com.

On Saturday mornings people show up – usually between 20 and 50 people -- and find something useful to do. This involves things like weeding, planting seeds, starting seeds, watering germinating seeds, spreading or turning the compost, mulching, and harvesting. Both I and another experienced gardener dispense seeds, technical advice, and assign tasks to people who don’t know what to do.

Inexperienced gardeners usually fall-in with those who have some experience. Kids (and rank beginners) are heartily welcome to participate -- and some unquantified lessening-of-yield is accepted from their innocent and inevitable depredations.

Some people can’t make it on Saturday and come during the week to do some work. We’ve also organized both a ‘mowing team’ and a ‘germinating-seed watering team’ to take care of those tasks during the week. Also, any seedlings started at the garden are taken home to be cared for by experienced gardeners.

Harvest works like this: If you show up and do some work, you go home with some food. How much? Each person takes some approximately-appropriate fraction of what’s harvestable that day.

If there’s not much, only take a little. If it looks like there’s a lot or it’s verging on over-ripe, take more. First come, first served. Again, it doesn’t seem like this loose model would work, but it does – so far, and at this scale and gardener-density at least.
So there it is – our community garden in a nutshell.

BUT WHY IS OUR GARDEN SO SUCCESSFUL?
Now I realize that our model, however successful for us, is not necessarily transferrable to other suburban areas. Local cultures, while quite industrially-homogenized at this point, are still different in many ways. Economic situations may also be very different.

But that begs the question: Why is our particular garden so successful while so many others have failed. To answer this, I think we can go back to David Ehrenfeld’s model of conservation successes I discussed earlier.

Perhaps we can apply Ehrenfeld’s successful-conservation-project model to illuminate the key essential elements of our garden that make it a success. And maybe it is these essential elements, rather than the specific details of our garden, which CAN be transferred to other areas and generate a better rate of success than we currently see with community gardens.

Again, it’s worth a shot.

REQUIREMENT ONE: SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING
Ehrenfeld’s first requirement for conservation success is an intimate knowledge of the ecology of the entity or entities to be conserved. In our case, we could say that we are conserving gardens, gardening skills, and heirloom seeds. This requires an intimate ecological knowledge of how gardens work – the seeds and plants, the soil, the weeds, the compost, the climate of the area, and both the pests and beneficial organisms that share our garden.

Put another way, you need one or two people who really know what they’re doing – who understand Ecology and who’ve maybe done gardening on at least a semi-commercial, farm-stand level.

Our garden has this presently, in me and another fellow. And even though perhaps it sounds self-aggrandizing, I have a feeling that the whole operation wouldn’t work otherwise.

It’s just too crucial to know that, for example, you shouldn’t put tomato seedlings outside in early-April even if it is 95 degrees. Or that succession plantings give a more even harvest for a lot of veggies. Or that compost really IS really important. Or that you really should take some extra time to get a good seed-bed before planting. Or that maybe fifty feet of turnips is more than people will want. Or what row really needs to be weeded RIGHT now to avoid lots more work later on. Stuff like that.

REQUIREMENT TWO: MAKE IT FUN AND LOOSE
Ehrenfeld’s second requirement for conservation success is the close involvement of the local people. In our case, that means getting the people to come out to the garden and to KEEP coming out – to maintain enthusiasm in the face of crop failures, hard weeding, hot weather, gnats, and busy personal lives.

And the way to do that in absence of a pressing physical need to grow their own food is to simply make the garden fun.

I think we do that two ways. The first is to keep everything positive. I’ve chosen to keep my ‘doom and gloom’ stuff out of the weekly community garden email. The people in my community are, for the most part, just really not into that stuff. And I don’t want to drive them away from this important project because they think we’re gathering to hone our post-carbon survival skills and gird our community for the techno-pocalypse. Now, of course, that’s precisely what I think, but I keep it to myself at the garden. I just put a ‘good for our health, good for the environment, and good for the community’ spin on my weekly email, and people can handle that.

This avoidance of overtly addressing our very real and very pressing environmental and energy predicaments is perhaps a little bit of a cop-out, I suppose, but I want the project to be primarily about learning how to garden and community-bonding, and I think this tact is the best way to advance those goals – right now, and in my community, at least.

The second way we get people to keep coming, I think, is the very loose organizational structure of the garden. People are so damned busy these days with all their industrial dithering-about that, for the most part, they just can’t fit another hard-and-fast commitment into their schedule.

There are only a handful of members who come like clockwork to the garden every week. A good part of our weekly attendees are the part-timers who we see only once every few weeks or once a month. But since we have lots of these part-timers, we still get a quality showing every week. I purposely don’t take ‘attendance’ so people won’t feel bad showing up sporadically like this.

In other words, by making it OK to come only now and then, and to stay for however long they want when they do come, we’re able to tap into even the too-busy-for-a-garden population – which is sizable in our suburban town. And really, it’s THESE people anyway who will need to know a hoe from a horseradish root when the manure hits the fan on a grand scale.

REQUIREMENT THREE: GET HELP FROM ABOVE (...BUT NOT TOO MUCH)
Ehrenfeld’s final requirement for successful conservation projects is the assistance and cooperation of the local governing body – in our case, the township government. With my somewhat anarchic political leanings, I initially bristled a bit at this idea. But in thinking about it more, especially in relation to our garden, I can see its wisdom.

Firstly, our garden has indeed benefitted from encouragement and timely assistance of our town government – namely from my mom, Julia Allen, who happens to be our mayor. As not only the mayor but one of the architects of the very-successful NJ state farmland preservation program, she was one of the co-founders of the garden – seeing it as a good use of one of the township’s preserved farms. In addition to offering the land for the garden, our township also erected the deer/groundhog fence and hauls a few loads of manure to our garden each spring.

But that’s it.

Other than that generous help to get us started, they leave us totally alone. I don’t have to fill out any stupid reports or beg them for any more money, or anything at all. I just keep the self-sustaining garden organized and on track. Our town government has simply facilitated the project and then faded into the background – still paying attention, but not intrusive.

Perhaps this is the definition of good government.

Contrasting our township government’s involvement with that of neighboring towns is instructive. These other towns are making prospective garden organizers jump through hoop after hoop, with the result being some combination of stagnation, watering down, or outright death of the project.

The lesson here is this: the local authorities, through various legal and financial means, usually control the kill-switch on community projects like these – no matter how virtuous the organizers’ intents. As a result, you pretty much need at least their blessing to get started. BUT…that’s where the involvement should end. Any community project worth its salt should be able to be pretty much self-sustaining from here on. Otherwise it’s not really a ‘community’ project in the truest sense.

It is for this reason that I have consciously avoided applying for all the sizeable community-garden grants being thrown our way – both from locally-based multi-national corporations and from other state and federal governmental organizations. I just ignore them. Why? Couldn’t we use several thousand dollars to ‘improve’ our garden? My answer: NO!!! DOUBLE NO!!! HELL NO!!!

As the Patron Saint of Economic Sanity, Wendell Berry, has written, any movement trying to make a positive change within this maelstrom of industrial destruction has got to content itself with being poor. Why? The reason is, I think, deeper than just the “money corrupts” answer that first springs to mind.

The reason is simply that the ONLY way out of the deadly and doomed industrial sewer we’ve dug ourselves is through refashioning the intricate web of local economic and social relations that can bind a local community together. And this doesn’t require money inputs from outside. And it doesn’t require organizational help from the state and federal governments.

No, it requires trust and familiarity between neighbors; it requires hard work and practical knowledge; it requires the conscious practice of kindness and cooperation. Basically, it requires people realizing that these social and economic connections within the community are worth far, far more than money or possessions or anything having to do with industrial consumption. That’s it.

Our garden needs to run, so to speak, on community and ecological power – not money.

So let them keep their money. Heck, it’s not gonna be worth anything before too long anyway. But our community will. It’ll be damn priceless, for sure.

BUT C'MON, IS THIS TYPE OF THING REALLY ENOUGH?
Now, as proud as I am of our Community Garden and the progress we’re making, there’s a nagging, doomerish voice in the back of my head that says, “C’mon, give me a break. The s#*t is so close to the fan at this point, and is so much larger than anybody realizes that this sort of community garden piddling is about as useful as a bail-bucket on the titanic.”

While I admit that annoying-scary voice sort of has a point, it begs the question, “Then what the hell else are we supposed to do?”

Here’s the deal: In light of our imposing environmental, energetic, and environmental predicaments, it’s quite clear what we need to do as a civilization. We need to deconstruct our doomed and deadly growth-based economy in a step-wise manner before it both implodes catastrophically into apocalypse and erodes the biological foundation of our species any more than it already has.

It’s also quite clear that we’re not gonna do it. Apparently we’re not even gonna try.

All ‘signals from above’ indicate that our corporate/political leaders (for they are truly the same at this point) are indeed willing to have it all go down catastrophically. Our industrial culture is so far removed from biophysical reality at this point that it is literally unable to collectively read, much less respond to, the crystal-clear warning signals emanating from every single molecule on the planet.

Despite the understandable-but-delusional hope that Obama was the one to save us, he is not. We are full-speed-ahead, pedal-to-the-floor, with the abyss of the approaching cliff now clearly in view.

There is no one who is going to save us. The ship is going down – probably hard and fast when it finally happens.

As scary as it is to imagine it, we will shortly be very much on our own. How long do we have? Months? Years? Hard to say. But sometime soon, if neither you, your family, nor your community can supply something for you, you will not have it. Period. Furthermore, if you or your family have something and your community doesn’t, don’t plan on keeping it very long.

What this implies, of course, is that we must use every ounce of our energy, creativity, and will-power RIGHT NOW to prepare ourselves at the individual, family, and – especially – at the community levels for the coming no-money, low-energy, climatically-destabilized future.

And that means that ANY effort to obtain the skills we will need is worth our time.

And sure, maybe it WON’T matter. Maybe a horde of barbarians will sack our gardens to dust at the peak of ripeness. Maybe a mega-drought or mega-storm will utterly depopulate your entire state in a few years or decades.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But maybe not. Maybe the skills we learn and the connections we make this season WILL make the difference. Maybe a BIG difference.

Heck, it’s the only chance we’ve got. So let’s do it.

…So then I’ll see you at the garden on Saturday? I’ll bring the seeds. I think the tree swallows are fledging.

Original article available here

The Biodynamics Now! Podcast: An Interview with Joel Salatin

2012-01-31T11:31:00.003+01:00

Subscribe to The Biodynamics Now! Podcast

On the evening of December 22 (correction: the interview is now rescheduled to December 27), we’ll tape an hour long interview with Local Food/Real Food production innovator and mentor of thoursands of ecological farmers, the self-described “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-lunatic-Farmer,” Joel Salatin, about any and all topics pertaining to food from how to produce it to how to assure we have access to it in its purest form. (The podcast will be available here and through iTunes by noon on Thursday, January 6, 2012.)

You can ask Joel a question for this forthcoming interview by going to the “Podcast” menu above and choosing the “Ask a Question” sub menu. We’ll try to bring all questions to him on the evening of the 22nd. (No need to ask a question after December 22.) (Now rescheduled to a December 27 deadline.)

If you haven’t read Joel’s newest book yet, you should get hold of it. It’s truly a deluxe publication: over 350 pages long (each one containing both facts and informative humor), hardcover with pictorial dust jacket and, unlike many books in the Health and Wellness genre, has an index! It’s a delightful, informative and entertaining read that makes clear the precarious situation we Americans have worked our way into by supporting a food system based on personal convenience and corporate profitability. Unlike many books on this topic, this book gives concrete ways and simple steps that every family can use to improve the quality of their nutrition and promote a higher level of household food security as a hedge against the insecurities of the weather, mainstream economics, and politics.

While Folks, That Ain’t Normal is written for people who are just beginning to join the Local Real Food choir, I have to admit that although I have a lifetime of farming experience I gleaned a lot of practical knowledge from this easy-to-read book, from firewood gathering to old time hog butchering. Although our flock of heritage laying hens is around 200 strong, after reading Joel’s book, I’m pretty much convinced that I’m not practicing appropriate culinary ecology by not having a few in my backyard to eat table scraps as efficiently as possible and reduce the theoretical carbon food print of our breakfast eggs.

from the publisher:

Joel Salatin is a third generation family farmer working his land in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with his wife, Teresa, son Daniel, daughter Rachel and their families. The Salatin Polyface Farm, an organic grass-fed farm, services more than 3,000 families, 10 retail outlets and 50 restaurants through on-farm sales and metropolitan buying clubs. Joel Salatin writes extensively in magazines such as Stockman Grass Farmer, Acres USA, and American Agriculture.From farmer Joel Salatin’s point of view, life in the 21st century just ain’t normal. In FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL, he discusses how far removed we are from the simple, sustainable joy that comes from living close to the land and the people we love. Salatin has many thoughts on what normal is and shares practical and philosophical ideas for changing our lives in small ways that have big impact.Salatin, hailed by the New York Times as “Virginia’s most multifaceted agrarian since Thomas Jefferson [and] the high priest of the pasture” and profiled in the Academy Award nominated documentary Food, Inc. and the bestselling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, understands what food should be: Wholesome, seasonal, raised naturally, procured locally, prepared lovingly, and eaten with a profound reverence for the circle of life. And his message doesn’t stop there. From child-rearing, to creating quality family time, to respecting the environment, Salatin writes with a wicked sense of humor and true storyteller’s knack for the revealing anecdote.Salatin’s crucial message and distinctive voice-practical, provocative, scientific, and down-home philosophical in equal measure-make FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL a must-read book.

Show Notes

1 – Discussion of new book “Folks, This Ain’t Normal” including sales report, rave reviews and information from Ron Paul’s website that lists Polyface Farm Videos including conference recordings, field walk recordings

2 – Discussion of Ron Paul by joel Salatin – conservative, constitutional, entrepreneurial, non-hypocritical integrity. Discussion of government regulations

3- BSA/ slanted Governement research; government regulations on milk; illegal to label milk as being non-BSE

Question 1 – What is Polyface farm’s relationship to veterinarians? Does Polyface Farm use a vet? Use of homeopathy at Polyface; discussion of alternative decisions about animal health.
Need for “control” for comparison on farm based research on soil, etc.

Question 2 – Are you still using kelp at Polyface Farm? Discussion follows about kelp use also poultry nutribalancer. Use of nutribalancer and great results with cows.

Question 3 – How do you handle egg washing on your farm? Established benchmarks of excellence in this are; discussion of ways to stop “egg-eaters”, loitering by chickens;methods of egg washing; time of day to gather eggs, etc.

Question 4 – How much is too much to charge for a dozen eggs? Discussion on organic certification and using GMO free feed. Discussion about the spike in commodity pricing and the high price of grain. Some possible solutions font paying the high price for feed. Some discussion abut government regulation and licensing.

Question 5 (Pam Lund, Florida) -As an urban goat diary, we have no browsing area for the goats, instead we keep good hay, always diverse, grass, alfalfa, peanut and 24/7 supplementing with grains and soon-to-be sprouted grains. What is the best alternative to grass browsing dairy goats in a small area? Joel emphasizes the importance of browsing for goats and offers some solutions for the urban goat farmer/dairy.

Question 6 (Richard Hooten, Canada) – In your opinion, what are the causes of the atrophying the world? Is it overpopulation, climate change, invasive species, soil depletion, inability of man to sustain himself? What would you deal with first? Joel discusses starting with himself and offers a few things that a person can “do”. Brainstorms ideas.

Question 7 – How do you feel about biodynamics in a larger sense? Why wasn’t it included in your book? joel presents his observations on biodynamics. Emphasizes creativity, observation and humility.

Question 8 – Do you use a refractometer? Are you brixing your pastures?

Closing comments. Tillage is the answer! (not!) Joel’s favorite part of “Folks, this Ain’t Normal” is the section where he talks about tillage and the expense of historic grain. The importance of herbivores and perennials are an important component in soil building.

Source: http://bdnow.org/

Infographic: The Day the Internet Stood Still

2012-01-31T11:21:00.003+01:00

Source: frugaldad.com

'Earthships New Solutions' Official Trailer for new Earthships Documentary

2012-01-30T14:34:00.001+01:00

'An inspiring and personal story about a group of people building sustainable housing in the Baja California peninsula in Mexico, it also serves as an introductory guide to building alternative sustainable housing, as well as describing with the use of animation, how these buildings offer solutions to today's most important issues like: energy, water, food, shelter, sewage and recycling.

See also:

GARBAGE WARRIOR (2008) - Earthship Biotecture by Michael Reynolds

Earthship Planbook

Earthship Global Model Operation One: Tire Work (Earthship Global Volume How to Build Your Own)

Michael Reynolds: Earthship Webinar - 8 videos

Natural Timber Frame Homes: Building with Wood, Stone, Clay and Straw

2012-01-30T12:07:00.000+01:00

In the rush to acquire bigger and better homes and to pay off increasingly larger mortgages, many of us have been left feeling dissatisfied. Why is this so? There is compelling evidence that what we really desire is not bigger homes, not more space, but better space.

Natural Timber Frame Homes lays the philosophical groundwork for how locally available materials result in more durable and beautiful homes. It asks us to consider the source of our wood, stone, clay, and straw and suggests that this awareness contributes to our perception of character in a finished house. Building naturally also gives us the feedback necessary to be conscientious environmental and economic stewards and allows us to play a meaningful role in the creation of our dwelling.

This book puts the theory of natural building into practice by providing the tools to evaluate your area for potential building materials.

Photographs and drawings pull the theory together into workable timber frame construction details with floor plans that are adaptable to your specific needs, including your climate and landscape.

Beauty and character of traditional timber frame homes are a result of natural materials being crafted by the hands of the builder. By injecting ourselves into the process of home construction, we have the potential to live more connected to the natural world and influence the future of the Earth for the better.

See also documentary film:

Channel 4: Grand Designs: Ben Law - Build an Eco-Home from the woods - In this monumental documentary, the famous British woodsman Ben Law is covered as he plans and executes the development of the wooden house of his (and monay others') dreams. Build entirely of wood that he himself has husbanded, on land that he has cared for, this represents the culmination of a lifetimes work and acheivement in modern environmentalism.

Small Strawbale: Natural Homes, Projects & Designs

2012-01-30T11:58:00.000+01:00

Small Strawbale is a meditative exploration of the innumerable reasons to consider strawbale as a viable building material. Environmentally friendly, super insulative, economical, and natural, strawbale can be used to build everything from garden walls to small homes. Small Strawbale tells the stories of people who have successfully created structures out of this easily replenishable building material, reminding us that our human roots are ultimately grounded and dependent upon the earth and its bounties.

This practical guide is filled with rich photos of homes, greenhouses, studios, sheds, open-air structures and more, each pulsating with unique yet subtle creativity. Both a pragmatic construction manual and a philosophical, artistic guidebook, Small Strawbale is an inspirational starting point for a strawbale dreamer, and a great source of information for those who are ready to get bailing.

Bill and Athena Steen are the authors of Built by Hand, The Straw Bale House, and The Beauty of Straw Bale Houses. They are heavily involved in their nonprofit organization, The Canelo Project.

Committed to developing and educating others about simple and sustainable living, they regularly teach workshops on straw bale building and artistry with clay and lime. They live in Arizona. Wayne Bingham has worked as building program director for the state of Utah for ten years and has been in private architectural practice for twenty years. He was instrumental in developing and building the AIA Habitat for Humanity house, and served as chairperson of the AIA Committee on the Environment. His work has been published in Architectural Digest and Popular Science, among others. Bill is building a straw bale home in Teton Valley, Idaho.

The New Strawbale Home

2012-01-30T11:54:00.001+01:00

The New Strawbale Home compiles flor plans and images from forty cutting-edge homes across North America, from California to Quebec, New Mexico to New England, showcasing a spectrum of regional styles and personal aesthetic choices. This practical guide discusses varying climate considerations and essential design details for problem-free construction and low maintenance, and also points out the ecologically friendly, energy-saving aspects of strawbale construction.

Author and photographer Catherine Wanek produced and directed the Building with Straw video series, and has spent more than a decade being involved in strawbale technology. She lives in New Mexico.

Simple Survival Model Earthship (video)

2012-01-30T11:54:00.000+01:00

Can be replicated to create larger buildings. Aimed at being the cheapest and most affordable Earthship possible.A very simple set of details to put together.

Radically Sustainable Buildings. The Most Versatile and Economical building design in the world.

Earthships can be built in any part of the world, in any climate and still provide you with what you need to survive, with 'modern' amenities, if desired. The Earthship building method has been evolving for over 40 years.

http://earthship.com/buildings

See also:

GARBAGE WARRIOR (2008) - Earthship Biotecture by Michael Reynolds

Earthship Planbook

Earthship Global Model Operation One: Tire Work (Earthship Global Volume How to Build Your Own)

Michael Reynolds: Earthship Webinar - 8 videos

Earthships on Bob the Builder (video)

2012-01-29T23:50:00.000+01:00

Bob the Builder builds an Earthship.

We have always been big fans of Bob the Builder. Educating our children is so very important. It just makes sense.

Buddhism and Deep Ecology

2012-01-28T19:59:00.002+01:00

Buddhism And Deep Ecology (the latter can be considered the spiritual dimensions of the environmental movement) is approached on a holistic, consciousness, and value I basis. It presents basic ideas, knowledge, experiential exercises, examples, public participation aspects, and a Dhammaecology glossary on how Buddhism and Deep Ecology relate to each other and to protecting natural forests and the environment. The essential teaching of Buddha are related to Deep Ecology and visa versa, especially under Oneness, ecocentric, and spiritual orientations, for awareness, compassion, loving-kindness, and care for all living beings, including trees, for a wide spectrum of readers.

Download full eBook here.

See also Documentary film:

Arne Naess and Deep Ecology Movement - The Call of the Mountain (1997) - Portrait of the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and the Deep Ecology Movement. Made in 1997 by Rerun Productions, The Netherlands. Shot on location in Naess's hut Tvergastein on the Hardangervidda mountain plateau, and in Berkeley, USA. With Bill Devall, Vandana Shiva, George Sessions, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Harold Glasser.