Permaculture revisited

It is 25 years since I studied my permaculture design course and 28 years since I last sat down and read the permaculture designers manual from cover to cover. Maybe it is time to go back to the start and revisit the book that started it all off. Bill Mollison’s epic tome might turn out to be the most important book ever penned. OK, a humongous and not-provable claim but let us look at it like this, through the words of Buckminster Fuller.

“The world teeters on the threshold of revolution. If it is a bloody revolution then it is all over. The alternative is a design science revolution.. a design science that produces so much performance per unit of resource invested as to take care of all human needs.”
Buckminster Fuller.

This idea is illustrated beautifully below. Consider the degree of improvement in the performance of water in this model. A few simple design interventions prevents water flow from cascading directly out of this system but instead by making it travel much further it stays in the system significantly longer and has the opportunity to nourish every part of the system. The same amount of water eventually leaves the system and flows to the sea, however by simply slowing it down, the potential yield of the system and its resilience is significantly enhanced. Now imagine this multiplied over huge areas.

illustration from Bill Mollison's Permaculture a designers manual — Illustration of a permaculture approach to design; strategic interventions in whole landscape to divert the flow of water so that we may derive the maximum benefit before the water leaves the system

A policy of responsibility – to relinquish power

Living in such tumultuous times leads us to question everything and permaculture is a discipline that takes one right back to the very start, what is it that we are even trying to achieve? In this world of abstracts and disconnection our goals seem to be more along the line of how many Twitter followers we can achieve or how many 0’s and 1’s can be generated on a computer screen to represent wealth creation in some way, intangibles that in themselves are affected by so many variables that they actually have no real meaning. Going back to source, to Bill’s original worlds in Chapter 2 of the Designers Manual, we get a clear answer:

“The role of beneficial authority is to return function and responsibility to life and to people; if successful design is to create a self-managed system.

In life and in design we must accept that immutable rules will not apply, and instead be prepared to be guided on our continuing exploration by flexible principles and directives. While the sun (still) burns we are in an open system, if we don’t destroy the earth , open-system energy saving will see us evolve as conscious beings in a conscious universe.

Hard science such as we apply to material systems (physics, mathematics, inorganic chemistry) studiously avoids life systems, regarding as not quite respectable those sciences (botany, zoology, psychology) that try to deal with life. Rigorous scientific method deals with the necessity of rigorous control of variables, and in life systems, indeed in any systems, this assumes two things which are impossible.

1: that you know all the variables possible before you start

2: that you can control any of the variables without causing disorder in the life system.”

It seems apparent from the opening paragraphs of this remarkable book that we have to let go somewhat. A key lesson in our relationship with nature is that we are not in control, we cannot eliminate all background variables, especially not in understanding the dynamic complexity of living systems. We can at best be steered by nature, we must learn its lessons and decode its pattern language through a constant process of interaction.

We need to understand living systems much better because quite clearly we are destroying the one we are part of.
Steven Jones

Permaculture’s core lesson is to study and learn the patterns of nature. That no two situations are exactly the same, that we have to plan for diversity, to allow for designs to evolve, and in that process inform the designer.

Embraced within these observations is a set of tools, techniques and strategies which enable the achievement of these goals. Permaculture design is not to be confused with the tool kit. Permaculture is not forest gardens, raised beds and compost heaps, however if properly thought through and well deployed they certainly can all be components or manifestations of a permaculture design process.

Geoff goes through the whole Permaculture Designers Manual and ties it all together in one hour.

31st July 202019th October 2020

Llanfyllin Institute community growing space. Supported by National Gardens Scheme

Over the course of 2019 Llanfyllin BRACE initiative held a series of regular bi-weekly meetings along the theme of community responses to climate change and ecological emergency. These meetings brought together a range of interested people and an overlapping of us ordinary folk trying to figure out what to do with the Llanfyllin town council, with special interest groups like Severn Rivers Trust, Powys CC roads and verges, with school governors, the church, and farmers.

One of the outputs of this was a connection between the Llanfyllin town council, the public hall committee, where the town council meet, and this eclectic group of citizens wanting to channel their frustration and energy into something positive and tangible. An important note in the Transition Handbook is don’t just have meetings but make sure to prioritise creating observable, visible outcomes and changes. Having such a coalition was the genesis of this community garden project.

Previously as a community we have been able to establish Cae Bodfach Heritage Orchard in the field behind our local supermarket, so with this as a track record and new friends and connections this new space became available, an odd, steeply sloping truncated piece of land behind the public institute. It had become to be seen as a bit of a liability, not really used or productive and costing limit budget for strimming and hedge trimming. All it really takes is a bit of vision and there is always a potential for a community group to develop in a way that meets community needs.

We were exactly at that point of project genesis when the opportunity to apply to the NGS scheme came along, and we hurriedly fired off an application. Things were delayed as the national quarantine happened, so we took the plunge and ordered a few items in advance so we could be ready to hit the ground running as the new season unfolded. We were all ready with a worked out plan to get the key elements such as the raised beds in place, and make rapid progress as the season unfolded and we finally heard the grant application had been successful.

Since those early days when a small group of people was driving this project forward it has quickly grown to achieve a momentum and shape of its own. In a few short months this has come together with what is really a small injection of capital investment, but precisely enough to set something in motion that can create its own energy to become self sustaining.

We are enormously grateful to the Llanfyllin Institute and Town Council and of course the National Garden Schemes for supporting this venture and helping us get started. Next to arrive is our tool shed and that will allow us to purchase tools and other things like propagators with the remaining funds from NGS.

The biggest thanks of course to every single person who has volunteered at the garden over previous months. Tuesday mornings are the key volunteer slot and anyone is welcome.

28th December 201919th October 2020

Permaculture 2020

Filmed at The Roots Initiation 18th-20th August 2017

Sector39 are planning courses for 2020 in Wales, Uganda and Rwanda as well as working on a series of local food initiatives here in Llanrhaeadr. This is your opportunity to get involved in this essential and rapidly growing global movement of permaculture design. The video is of Sector39’s Steve Jones in Manchester from a couple of years ago, laying out the basic concepts and ideas permaculture is established on. There is one below for 2018 placing permaculture in the context of international development, presented in Nairobi at the Norwegian Refugee Council.

pdc advert — UK courses in permaculture 2020

Dragons co-op serves as a hub for creativity and enterprise

Breakdown of the six weekends of our Winter/Spring PDC at Dragons

Permaculture’s role in development, lecture in Nairobi 2018

8th July 201919th October 2020

Biochar

This is a fascinating insight into soil formation and possibly one of best ways to fight back against climate change using biological systems.

This is a classic documentary form 2002, introducing a fascinating topic, biochar (15 mins)

27th May 201919th October 2020

Dragons Co-operative & regenerative agriculture, a vision

vision statement for Dragons Co-op project — Vision statement, I am working on this… this is where I am at so far.

Biodiversity in Wales has collapsed over the last 4 or 5 decades. This became blatantly clear on the publication of the State of Nature report in 2013. No-one articulated this more strongly than local Welsh naturalist Iolo Williams when he spoke at the Senedd in 2013:

A damning indictment of the direction that policy has driven farming practices

In our response to the changing climate and the loss of biodiversity it is apparent we need new models and approaches. Ones that restore depleted soil carbon, reduce flooding and reverse erosion and that protect and enhances biodiversity.

Permaculture is a design approach that has nature at its heart and increasingly we have been applying these ideas to more and more challenging situations and at greater scale. Sector39 are currently building a coalition of partners to take on a 124 acre hill farm on the edge of the Berwyn mountains here in Wales with the specific aim of creating a model for regenerative farming that could perhaps lead the way in land reform and demonstrate how a diversity of incomes can lead to a diversity of biological life on the farm.

Cae Bodfach, is our local attempt to restore some of the diversity and habitat lost from the landscape, we hope to be able to do this kind of restorative work on a much larger scale.

We have 25 years of housing co-operative experience and community building and this would give us the chance to couple this experience with large scale habitat restoration. We have 2 objectives; one, to establish a trust to purchase this unique farm and hold it in perpetuity, and two, that we can establish a land based community to live and take care of the land.

The Trust needs to secure £400,000 in investment to secure the land for the project itself to go ahead. We already have finance in place for the actual project itself. As a training and teaching organisation we don’t anticipate any problems recruiting members to the project or tenants for the farm and buildings.

This unique farm takes in a whole water system, several springs and 124 acres of land, not all of which has been ploughed and ‘improved’ with fertilisers and rye grasses. Rather than see it disappear under the uniformity of even more ‘sheep monoculture’ our vision is to take it in the other direction; finding economic and responsible ways to restore diversity and create new possibilities for farms on especially marginal and upland locations.

steven jones sector39 personal statement p1 — Personal statement

steven jones sector39 personal statement p2

1st March 201919th October 2020

PDC: Llanrhaeadr Ym Mochnant, 6 weekends

The dates for the first weekend is set for 16th and 17th of March and we will negotiate the remaining dates with the group on the first weekend.

Times: Saturday 9.30 – for 10.00 am start until 5.30 pm
Sundays 9.30 – for 10.00 am start until 4.00 pm
Meet at Dragons, for coffee from 9.30, Llanrhaeadr High Street or Llanrhaeadr Village Hall, Back Chapel street from 9.50

Lunch is bring and share + soup and sourdough provided by Sector39

This page will be updated with more course info when available.

Please consider making a donation to Aramadham Mutebi in support of this course. Rama is a PDC graduate in Uganda from 2017 and has made significant contributions to his community since. We really hope to support him to achieve very much more.

Rama with Grace and Amy back in 2017. His colleague Prince Sebe Maloba is in the pale blue shirt.

https://www.gofundme.com/ramadhanmutebi?sharetype=teams&member=1591190&rcid=r01-155170852751-33643049f64e4309&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

29th January 201919th October 2020

End of Empire

Chris Hedges is one of the foremost ‘public intellectuals’ in the USA. One of the clearest voices on the left and a harsh critic of US imperialism. Hedges takes a clear, uncompromising view of the reality that is confronting us.

He advises us to abandon hope, as that leads to disappointment and desolation, and to focus on what we can practically achieve and through that process find deep personal meaning in our engagement.

He references many key texts, and draws on his deep experience of 20 years as foreign correspondent for the New York Times before quitting his influential position as head of the middle east office over the NYT’s refusal to accurately convey the disaster that was the Iraq war. The interview is deeply revealing of how the state controls the narrative and also how journalism has been eroded to ‘court gossip’.

Keiser Report

Ex Wall Street bond trader, turned financial journalist presents a fresh perspective on economics and social change. This episode fits perfectly into the theme of climate emergency and collapse. It’s a good watch and on topic, witty, acerbic, insightful and informed.

Are we living in an era of soft totalitarianism?
Will there be a Davos 2020?
‘Bitcoin is the guillotine of the 21st century’

Thinking about the fragility and beauty of the natural world

We need to cultivate a culture of deep reverence for nature and be prepared to accept the lessons of our own observations. I added this as a counter balance to the other two videos.

However, we see the times we are living through. It seems to me it is this interaction between our economic world and the real ecology we are embedded in, that we need to concentrate on fully as we are clearly getting this very wrong currently. The issue both of the first two videos addresses is the mechanism by which we can overthrow the status quo. The overthrow of Wall Street, of the Imperialism and the empowerment of all people to face our collective challenges together seems to be a common theme.

permaculture, climate change and community transition event in Llanfyllin — Join us on Thursday evening to explore how these key issues impact on us at a community level

23rd January 201919th October 2020

What does declaring ‘Climate Emergency’ mean?

Cornwall Council has declared a ‘climate emergency’.

The authority says the declaration “recognises the climate change crisis and the need for urgent action”. It follows a motion debated at a full Council meeting today, where the Council called on Westminster to provide the powers and resources necessary to achieve the target for Cornwall to become carbon neutral by 2030 and committed to work with other Councils with similar ambitions.

The motion – ‘Urgency on Climate Change’ – was brought to Full Council by Councillor Dominic Fairman, local member for St Teath and St Breward, and seconded by Councillor Edwina Hannaford, the Council’s Cabinet portfolio holder for neighbourhoods.

The motion was amended by Councillor for Falmouth Smithick, Jayne Kirkham, to declare a climate emergency in line with the declarations of other local authorities.

Cllr Fairman said: “After a very lively debate, a cross-party amendment was accepted which went even further than the original motion. If we are to avoid the worst-case scenarios, then the social change required will be deep.’

Town by town and now whole counties are declaring a climate emergency, but what does that entail?
Should we all be pushing for similar action locally?

The science is settled, yet we seem unable to collectively plot a course to a safe horizon. Global emissions are still rising, they are still drilling and even worse we are still subsidising the costs of bringing fossil energy to market and putting obstacles in the way of renewable energy development and investment. This must change.

But we definitely know that continuing to work in the ways we have done until now is not just backfiring – it is holding the gun to our own heads. With this in mind, we can choose to explore how to evolve what we do, without any simple answers.

Prof Jem Bendal PhD

The Prof. in a recent paper of staggering implications argues convincingly that we have to consider three courses of action, immediately, as carrying on as we are is counter-productive to our own survival.

In the paper Deep Adaptation we are urged to look at our lives under these 3 headings:

Resilience asks us “how do we keep what we really want to keep?”

What are the valued norms and behaviours that human societies will wish to maintain as they seek to survive?

Relinquishment asks us “what do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse?”

This involves people and communities letting go of certain assets, behaviours and beliefs where retaining them could make matters worse. Examples include withdrawing from coastlines, shutting down vulnerable industrial facilities, or giving up expectations for certain types of consumption.

Restoration asks us “what can we bring back to help us with the coming difficulties and tragedies?”

This involves people and communities rediscovering attitudes and approaches to life and organisation that our hydrocarbon-fuelled civilisation eroded. Examples include re-wilding landscapes, so they provide more ecological benefits and require less management, changing diets back to match the seasons, rediscovering non-electronically powered forms of play, and increased community-level productivity and support.

revolution permaculture — There is a different kind of revolution brewing, and much of it will entail a shift from us acting collectively as consumers to a role of producers.

There is much we don’t know.

Equally there is much that we do, the inevitability of transition or total collapse and the need for urgency. Every prediction made using 1990’s climate modelling is being overshot by current reality, we are looking at very grim scenarios within all of our lifetimes.. the only way we can mitigate the crisis we face is to begin to frame our collective response. If it is a crisis of our own doing, then we need to call it a crisis and stop doing those things rapidly

Regular meetings

We will be meeting in the Cross Keys again next week, that is Thursday 31st January, Llanfyllin High Street. It is a free event, refreshments are served, donations to Cross Keys are welcome. Doors open 7.00 pm formal business from 7.30.

In last week’s meeting we looked at issues around key topics.

Feedback points included the following:

Land, farming, food

A profound shift is happening in farming, localised, seasonal, organic, diversity friendly and carbon negative. There was interest in generating dialogue with farmers to release more marginal plots to re-wilding and local food projects. Starting co-ops, supporting local groups, more allotments and better growing skills and local distribution.

Church land? Other public spaces that could be re-wilded or made productive?

Education

Will also be profoundly hit by transport costs. Ideas shared; can children educate their parents, it is after all their future that is being destroyed. The kind of jobs people are being prepared for will not exist, are we even creating the right skill set in pupils? Can we cope emotionally with the changes before us?

Food growing, processing storing and cooking. Can permaculture be part of education, and children more empowered to shape the school environment and hierarchy?

Un-schooling, can we bring people of different ages and backgrounds together to share life experiences and skills and find new ways of learning?

Transport

Powys has miles of roads, a dispersed population and is very vulnerable to climate or market disruptions. We need to think a lot more about transport. Can we go car free through sharing schemes, car clubs and community taxis. Electric bikes, what other alternatives are there?

Money

Can we create a local currency, or several different types of ways to interact with local, esp. food economy. Social economy work can be rewarded with local currency.

23rd November 201819th October 2020

South Sudan refugee project: Using Permaculture design to rebuild lives

s39 team permaculture uganda — S39 Team Bidibidi

June to November have been a momentous time for our training teams here in Western Nile. In just 6 months we have been tasked with the challenge of introducing permaculture methods in this untamed region where refugees greatly outnumber the indigenous population.

In partnership with Norwegian Refugee Agency Sector39 has led a 6 month training program for refugees and host community members. Many of the trainees are not experienced farmers or gardeners, more typically cattle herders and grazers. Here in Western Nile they have been given a plot of land and challenged to supplement their basic food aid with what they can grow in kitchen gardens, using organic and permaculture approaches

This is a 15 minute narrated slideshow with thoughts about the final phase of the project with thoughts on how it can be best continued. (below)

Interviews and testimonies

This first interview is with NRC translator and host community member Julius, he has fully involved himself in the project although he wasn’t present at the initial training. He makes some very perceptive observations about the impact of the project and has taken on many of the ideas and insights himself as he can observe them working effectively.

Audio testimony from a Maaji 3 team member

Zone 4 BidiBidi have the aspiration of securing a 2 acre plot to develop a permaculture enterprise and demonstration center. The map below is the product of group discussion and consultation over several days. We have already worked together to create a small training plot right next to the church we have been using as a classroom.

We would hope very much to have the opportunity to support these pioneers over the establishment phases of this project.

Community liaison link and permaculture team member Rashida outlines the plan for a demonstration plot for Zone 4 Bidibidi

s39 permaculture — Sector39 training and action support team, Maaji, October 2018

Much elation on completing the training, hopefully just the beginning of much bigger things to come.

Food forest, perfect tropical permaculture

The permaculture team members Maaji settlement

Slides of the Maaji team design presentation

permaculture s39 — A creative vision, Permaculture Training Centre Maaji, Uganda

Permaculture Training Centre Maaji

This audio track is a presentation from the members design team which focused on building and the carpentry skills as an enterprise within training centre sketched above.

Fuel Efficient Stove project

This slideshow and narration explores progress developing and promoting fuel efficient stoves with the community members.

Next steps

Proposal: This project would benefit from support for a minimum of two years.

– ambition is to establish a permaculture training centre which will transition into a stakeholder owned and managed fully independent enterprise.

– exploring a training and Enterprise development model that can be self replicating and able to generate much of the resource need to sustain from within its own internal economy.

The vision is to work closely with the members from the training to create a new and wholly refugee (stakeholder) owned enterprise that will serve as a permaculture training and demonstration hub for the region. It would incubate several related enterprises that initially would be the service providers for the training centre.

Building livelihood, enterprise and food security is the aim and to create a thriving learning hub at the centre of this new emerging community. We envisage the centre acting as a hub for training and outreach across the Western Nile region, developing many of the resources and skills needed to create a shift in the prevailing methodology for food and livelihood security.

Project proposal summary document below

NRC S39 permaculture project outline

17th September 201820th October 2020