franck chardes

Kyrt Ryder wrote:

franck chardes wrote:

Todd Parr wrote:That article annoyed the hell out of me. Are there honestly people in the world that don't realize that if you can dig a swale with a backhoe, you can do the same with shovels, it will just take longer?

Some permaculture enthousiasts need to get real, need to understand that farmers aren't young and cool urbanites working an office job who don't mind some exercises during their vacations...Over here if you tell a farmer something like "Do you realize you can dig swales on your 4 acres with shovels...it just take time you know...?" he'll probably answer you with a nice "F... you!" And I won't blame him!

Nor would I, because it seems that the person teaching him hasn't clearly demonstrated the overall time savings of a fine-tuned system.

It's also challenging adapting a current working farm without a sudden massive energy investment, either in the form of Machine Labor or hired Human Labor. Trying to adapt a decent sized property [I'm working five acres myself for now, though I haven't yet hit the point of marketing product] by hand on one's own is incredibly time consuming, though probably less time consuming for one accustomed to such labor.

But permaculture systems don't *have* to be implemented quickly despite the benefits of doing so, they can be done peacemeal, an hour or two day. Take a swale for example: a swale for a 4 acre property might be dug one hour a day during the Dry Season in a tropical local. After it demonstrates its value in a year or two it might be repeated on a different elevation.

Unfortunately conventional agriculture is still successful here (Taiwan). I mean very productive and allowing farmers to make a decent living. As long as this system is still working, oil and chemicals still affordable...farmers won't embrace permaculture. Too much hassle for them. They want immediate results. Most farmers are simple people with just one expectation: making enough money to raise their family. They aren't adventurous, they don't like risk and change...this is why the two major category of people interested by permaculture are: 1/Neo-rurals or 2/very poor uneducated farmers from very degraded land who need to relearn efficient subsistence farming in a environment that doesn't allow conventional farming. They have no other choice than to go the permaculture road...

Take a look at this french permaculture forum:

http://forum.permacultureweb.fr/

Hugel is not well suited to large scale project under semi arid and arid climates for an obvious reason: where do you find the massive amount of wood needed? Trees are a rather rare resources in this kind of environment.