You have to be amazed when looking at the power of nature. Its one of those aspects that are unimaginable, but if one does not gasp the core of what keeps us alive, understand that if we don’t take care of nature – human kind will die. You have to admit – that’s pretty powerful.

Penny Milburn, Karim M’Barek & Katherine Szuminska where hosting in EarthCare Center a 2 day crash course into Permaculture. They deserve a big thumbs up for arranging very educating course for a affordable price.

My reasons to be there where to find more solutions that could be implemented into TVP, and initially – to find real means and technologies for a possible TVP Australia city. Food, water, energy and housing methods need to be covered and sustainable solutions need to be put together before we can get our hands dirty.

Permaculture covers mainly the Food aspect.

What is Permaculture?

Simply stated Permaculture is a Design Science that is based on Ecology.  At its heart are three core ‘Ethics’, that of ‘EarthCare’ (care for Earth’s land and water based living systems) and flowing naturally from that ‘PeopleCare’ (care for human and animal inhabitants) and finally that of FairShare (share surplus and place limits upon consumption).  Around this are structured a series of Key Principles that aims to create stable, sustainable, yet productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants.

By preferentially selecting natural methods, by working with Nature instead of against it, balanced relationships can be established between various ‘Elements’, that the Permaculture Designers, place within their living systems and environment.  A perfect example of this is seen in the approach to building fertility into their soils.  Modern Industrial Agriculture seeks remedy with synthetic fertilizers, whilst in a Permaculture design they turn to Natures millennia old method of natural soil creation ‘Compost’.

But Permaculture is not simply focused on organic farming.  It is a broad-scale ‘Holistic’ system for Permanent (human) Culture, extending to many aspects of social, fiscal, economic, government and organizational infrastructure to provide a complete and balanced living environment.  Ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all part of the picture, using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter and infrastructure to provide for inhabitants needs.

Highest disadvantage would be its labor needs and partially accessibility to needed resources. Thou a full blown system can be enchanted with technology, little high technology was developed for mechanization of that system.  That is not something that cant be changed of course.  I found some solution’s proposed, where mind blowing in its simplicity and functionality. All the problems today are dealt artificial. Simply said:  if we have a soil problem – we buy artificial fertilizers.  But Permaculture has a solutions that allow you to enrich soil in a matter of 20 days through Berkeley Method using house hold materials. Today’s conventional farming – called the Monoculture is far from sustainable. It looks more like we are at war with Nature. Weeds are one of the problems of today’s farming, and its not considered that weeds essentially have a function in a natural eco system. They are there to repair the farmed soil. Unfortunately, profit driven Monoculture has no time for cultivation or natural regeneration process, thus so the use of artificial pesticides, artificial fertilizers and self destructive gene-modified soil organisms and seeds.

In contrast to this linear model, Permaculture ‘thinks local not global’ and uses a cyclic approach of natural Polyculture food production systems.  Here the principle of diversity enables a Permaculture Design to use various techniques in ‘Small-Scale Intensive – Home Garden systems’ to optimize yield whilst maximizing stability.  Focusing food production in your local community in preference to that offered via the Global supermarket chains already discussed, provides access to cheap, good quality, nutrient rich food that requires minimal amounts of packaging, transportation, energy costs and the need for food processing including the use of additives and preservatives.

Whats wrong with current system?

Have you ever looked where our food comes from? Or what exactly is made off? I have personally found off season strawberries in local supermarket, imported from USA, i began to question myself… So I began to question the whole food story for myself… How can all this produce really be fresh? Organic food seems like a excellent solution for a city placed family. And its definitely a better way to avoid the horrors Monoculture can produce and a by-product but – Organic farms cant often keep up with the profit demand laid upon them without using some soil artificial enchantments. And until Organic farming practices wont become a standard in our current system- Organic Food will be considered as a scarce product, thus so always food that average Joe cant eat everyday.

Our current domestic food supply chain is based upon Global large-scale Monoculture systems (single crop harvests farmed on a wide area), interlinked – in a linear fashion – with supply chains that span the planet using shipping, road and rail and even air transportation, through packaging and distribution warehouses to ultimately end up in our supermarkets.  Tracking nutrient flows even further, we can see that where the packaging (if not recycled) ends up in landfill, ALL the remaining useful nutrient content not consumed (our effluent), usually ends up poisoning our coastal waters.

NSW discharges the largest amount of raw sewage in our oceans and rivers every day. Fact!  Sydney Water sends more than seven times the amount of primary sewage into the ocean than any other water utility, according to a Federal Government map of water use in Australia.  This linear; producer-to-consumer, resource-to-waste, convenient consumer driven mentality is inefficient, costly, energy intensive, environmentally damaging and delivers to the consumer very low quality food.   As a Western meat eating human you are estimated to be responsible for around 12 tonnes of ‘Top-Soil’ loss each year.  In Australia, some 85 tons of waste makes its way to landfill every day, that’s in NSW alone.

Not to mention the fact that the current system is completely unsustainable!

Furthermore, various Fast-food companies shocked me into becoming a vegetarian after i have learned of their ‘food animals’ sources and handling. Recent well known, and blown off by the media viruses – like; bird flu, mad cow disease, one less mentioned – Pfiesteria, and one very recent – swine flu are an effect of Monculture and profit driven interest. Poetically said – nature’s reminders.

If you are more interested how Monoculture works, watch a short movie by Annie Leonard “The Storry of Stuff”.

And if you are interested how Polyculture works,The Power Of Community is a great movie showing how it was implemented in Cuba on a National scale.

And if you are interested how Monoculture and what Capitalistic, profit driven Corporate Pathology can do to animals, rent at your Video Store move Earthlings or watch it here.

What now?

Permaculture circles in Australia have heard of The Venus Project and Zeitgeist Movement. You can read their say here.

There is also a well established community around Australia that promotes Permaculture and teaches its practices.  Most of the people involved in the Permaculture movement are well aware that the current systems is unsustainable, but are not so familiar with the so called ‘conspiracy’ side of TZM. There are any Permaculture Projects going on around the world, but it has been no more widely developed than in Cuba, where it was adopted as a mantel for the entire country.  The U.K. has recently witnessed the rise of the Transition Town initiative, which is also based on Permaculture Principles and looks to address the issues faced by Peak Oil.  They have begun by infiltrating local government and even going to the lengths of printing their own money.  TT Regional Hubs have now spread overseas and are beginning to get established around the world.

But until the oil starts to run dry and the wheels of profit driven interest start to grind to a halt, Permaculture will remain more of a back yard project and off the mainstream radar for most people.  Nevertheless it is a very valid method to research while building TVP, and has the benefit of science standing behind it – to look past it would be an oversight. So far, it is the best and most practical method for a single family or a small TVP town to absolutely get off the grid.