Why aren't Dakotans into Permaculture?

While doing research on permaculture as an industry I found in google trends that north and south Dakota had pretty much no interest in searching for permaculture on google. (or maybe interest is so comparatively low that for the last few years it simply didn't rank).

Is it that nobody in the Dakotas uses google? Was there some kind of anti-google movement there so that all the permie type people don't use it. Maybe they are not tracked for a legal or technical reason.

Are there any PDCs or influencers teaching permaculture in those states?

I can speak with some modicum of authority on the issue having worked and tangentially lived in one of the Dakotas and with both parents having originated from the other one.....

With the exception of occasional flare-ups of whimsy and progressivism (Google 'Non-Partisan League') that befell the Euro-immigrant populations of the Dakotas, they remain largely skeptical of information that is not delivered in an authoritarian manner.  You can draw a pretty straight line through the deity they brought with them down through their local priest/pastor yet paradoxically including the golden calf of money:  Entities and people with money were enough like the authoritarian figures they left in Europe that "the shoe fit" in terms of worshipping those entities and buying into their messaging...... which not surprisingly was a very non-permies message except for those rare individuals who bucked the trend.  (Clearly I'm not including the indigenous in this overview as, historically, they were 'beyond permie' with their lifestyle and ethics and might understandably look inward to their culture before Googling 'permaculture' for local or regional solutions.)

Ironically, even as your statistics may be correct, many like Gabe Brown and Fred Kirschenmann in western North Dakota and likely some operations in South Dakota are Googled by Permie devotees as sources of information on low-input grazing and rotational crop production on the high plains.  But when it comes to Googling *by* the local population, it's more likely going to be to see what kind of deals Walmart or Menard's has this week.  Overall it's a pretty conservative population that has been, on the whole, out-migrating with proportionally little in-migrating, the latter of which might be expected to change general attitude.  Just one Dakota-lineaged opinion, of course.....

I know I'm in Tennessee, but I imagine there are people like me that do not appreciate being tracked, and marketed too.. I use DuckDuckGo.

Ben House wrote:I know I'm in Tennessee, but I imagine there are people like me that do not appreciate being tracked, and marketed too.. I use DuckDuckGo.

I also use DuckDuckGo, I'm probably one of the more paranoid internet users here knowing how most everything works on a technical level. I may have to loosen up on some of my privacy habits since I'm starting a permaculture-oriented marketing agency, doubtless, google is a useful tool. I see so much potential in what other people are doing. Unfortunately, most permaculture-oriented companies are not the best at branding and marketing, with a few notable exceptions like Geoff Lawton who has very high-quality marketing. If I can help get a few more influencers to that level think about how many people that could bring in from the mainstream.

Paul has done an excellent job monetizing permies.com that and his other efforts are probably the reason Montana is 3rd on the trends list.


I wonder if the lack of data has to do with the tribal presence in the Dakotas perhaps they don't like Google or Google does not like them. Maybe there is a story here, but I'll leave it to someone else, I'm after data, not stories.

T Simpson wrote:
Are there any PDCs or influencers teaching permaculture in those states?

Maybe it has something to do with your search terms.  I saw several permaculture websites and some offerings pdcs.

Maybe now would be a good time to start spreading the word about permaculture.

What I have found is that while many of permies' members are aware of permaculture, a lot of folks still have not heard of the term being used.  I had never heard of it when I found this website back in 2016 and still have not heard anyone speak of it.

How about a search on permies:

This was from 11 years ago:

https://permies.com/t/3472/Permaculture-Design-Certification-PDC-Pine

There are several threads, here one:

https://permies.com/t/21819/North-Dakota

Best wishes for spreading the word.

Anne Miller wrote:

How about a search on permies:

This was from 11 years ago:

https://permies.com/t/3472/Permaculture-Design-Certification-PDC-Pine

I refined my trends search by Permaculture as a topic and narrowed it down to 2010 and it seems all the states bordering Montana were not ranked despite there being a PDC in SD during that timeframe. The PDC from 11 years ago was on the Lakota reservation, which makes me wonder if that the native population being the ones promoting permaculture in the area have some kind of objection to Google thus reducing the discoverability from Google searchers within the state. Or perhaps the permaculture businesses in the Dakotas didn't do SEO very well leading to low discoverability/search trends.


The most interesting trend is that there is where there is no trend at all. Perhaps I can help quail springs permaculture get noticed online across those states. I'll be sure to reach out to them.

I suppose that's why I'm collecting data like this, figuring out who I can help get noticed.

Looks like for some reason 2010 was a good year for permaculture in the Dakotas:

https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/rlnd/about-us/the-gardens-at-bismarck-state-college

Maybe contact with the lady who wrote this article might prove interesting.

Most of the people in the Dakota's who would bother living off the land are the Native people's. They're still looked down on & somewhat discriminated against, despite the fact that most of the US has moved past that. (Though, I do fear that as their population grows & their adamancy to keep their own religions persists, that discrimination may grow back, sadly.) Also, they mostly already know what they're doing & are pretty insular. They're also pretty poor. In fact, one of the worst poverty gaps in all of the United States in in southwestern South Dakota-- the only large community of anyone in that area is the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation.

Beyond that, the region basically has two groups of people, those who live in the city, who probably don't have a whole lot of room for gardens, & those who live in the country, who are likely either farmers or working in mines. Depending on what they're mining too, you probably don't want to be growing anything to eat near there, native or not.

Then, I guess there are land conservationists who want to restore the prairie, but their plan isn't really for anyone to be eating off of it.

Too cold.

Drill baby drilll!

Are you in the Dakotas?

There is a large chance we'll be relocating that way soon. Cutting our growing season by half will be my newest challenge. I will definitely be looking for like minded producers for advice and experience!

I am curious if my lemon and lime will hold up near a sunny window there? Area we are currently looking is 4B-5A.

Been in 4b Dakota's for a while now and have yet to try citrus but we've managed to grow just about every veggie and herb in a window as experiments. Growing seasons get interesting up here, good luck.

I think there is probably a large overlap in permaculture-interested people and people who don't like companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. (I use Brave browser with Duck Duck Go.)
But I think this is more likely a result of state privacy policy, North and South Dakota have stricter laws around citizens tracking and information.

It may be the way google processes the results. If you search "Google", both states show results. So you know they are in fact using Google. If you search "composting" both also show results.  

If you search "Korean Natural Farming" only Texas and California show up...

From Google Trends:

Interest by subregion
See in which location your term was most popular during the specified time frame. Values are calculated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is the location with the most popularity as a fraction of total searches in that location, a value of 50 indicates a location which is half as popular. A value of 0 indicates a location where there was not enough data for this term.
Note: A higher value means a higher proportion of all queries, not a higher absolute query count. So a tiny country where 80% of the queries are for "bananas" will get twice the score of a giant country where only 40% of the queries are for "bananas".

So it is probably a combination. It is a result of lower population, and a lower number of searches (which could also be due to less use of google, and/or state privacy policies)

I was looking at Tubi the other day, and I wondered,  what if Sepp Holtzer put one of his Permaculture video on Tubi.

I would love to see a video of One Straw Revolution put on a major video stream like Hulu.


By the time you are paranoid it is too late.    Switch to Startpage, even better than Duckduck go

Some states are cutting Google out of their lives,  I am glad they are.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-07/google-set-to-be-sued-by-states-over-alleged-play-store-abuse

I am on a pilgrimage to remove google from my life.    They are not on my android anymore,    stopped using their search engines.    In process of switching out of email.

T Simpson wrote:

Ben House wrote:I know I'm in Tennessee, but I imagine there are people like me that do not appreciate being tracked, and marketed too.. I use DuckDuckGo.

I also use DuckDuckGo, I'm probably one of the more paranoid internet users here knowing how most everything works on a technical level. I may have to loosen up on some of my privacy habits since I'm starting a permaculture-oriented marketing agency, doubtless, google is a useful tool. I see so much potential in what other people are doing. Unfortunately, most permaculture-oriented companies are not the best at branding and marketing, with a few notable exceptions like Geoff Lawton who has very high-quality marketing. If I can help get a few more influencers to that level think about how many people that could bring in from the mainstream.

Paul has done an excellent job monetizing permies.com that and his other efforts are probably the reason Montana is 3rd on the trends list.


I wonder if the lack of data has to do with the tribal presence in the Dakotas perhaps they don't like Google or Google does not like them. Maybe there is a story here, but I'll leave it to someone else, I'm after data, not stories.

As someone who relocated to South Dakota 26 years ago I would say John Weiland's explanation is the closest to the truth.  People here don't Google permaculture because they don't know what it is and aren't interested.  On the bright side, in my case, we live in a small town (160 according to the census) that most don't know exists.  As long as what I do isn't a danger to someone else, no one really cares what I do on my property.  Closer to "town" and I would have neighbors telling me I can't plant catalpa trees because they make seed pods, I need a white picket fence around my garden, etc.

What's funny is most of the few hits in South Dakota were probably me

Gary Hoff wrote:What's funny is most of the few hits in South Dakota were probably me

.....and even then you were probably just trying to find a vegan recipe for chislic....

John Weiland wrote:

Gary Hoff wrote:What's funny is most of the few hits in South Dakota were probably me

.....and even then you were probably just trying to find a vegan recipe for chislic....

Does anyone outside of S. Dakota even know what chislic is?
(my brother-in-law married a gal from S.D. - they farm sheep and beef cattle, and we've been out to the farm often enough to have chislic at the local place with them a few times)
They are 'conventional' farmers but are trying hard to get fruit trees and other veggies to grow around the house.

Lol, nope. I'm not too big a fan of chislic. I was trying to find a community of like minded individuals but people here act like you're crazy for saying we should be more sustainable or plant anything besides grass, hostas and daylilies. It's a big reason why I've been considering leaving the state for somewhere in the PNW as I don't even have land to work into a food forest, let alone the possibility of employment in something sustainable.

Gary Hoff wrote:Lol, nope. I'm not too big a fan of chislic. I was trying to find a community of like minded individuals but people here act like you're crazy for saying we should be more sustainable or plant anything besides grass, hostas and daylilies. It's a big reason why I've been considering leaving the state for somewhere in the PNW as I don't even have land to work into a food forest, let alone the possibility of employment in something sustainable.

I was writing about this on a thread somewhere here--didn't know there was an older thread already stating it.

Our little city just told us a few weeks ago that you can be fined $500 if they see dandelions in your yard. I kid you not.

So all the freedom fighters who will let you know in an instant (without you asking) that the gubermint won't tell them what to do are out there spraying their brains out with glycophosphate and other cancer causing garbage because the second that even the local yokel government tells them what to do, they do it.

My yard is really green and pretty and I mow once a week and I have two gardens. But I am not spraying poison. I see the little bees gathering their pollen in those wildflowers all over town and think about how ridiculous it is to crack down on 'weeeeeds' as though it is a crack problem. To me that kind of meddling in nature is mental illness level crazy while the potholes in Main Street are looking like they might be portals to another dimension, and the local drinking issue and people driving around said potholes drunk while kids ride bikes could, oh I don't know, be a bit more serious of a prob than those little yellow flowers.

A lot of this kind of stuff, the lack of a love of permaculture, is, IMO:

1. A belief that the environment or caring about preserving anything in it is left wing commie hippie stuff.
2. They are selling chemicals here to the farms/monocrop producers and want you to use them in regular neighborhoods too, more money and let's get people believing they do no harm.
3. They have a way of doing things that their grandpappy before their grandpappy did and how dare you say it might be wrong.
4. Lack of objective reasoning--weeds bad. crops good.
5. Little almost defunct towns who have the same old city management and want things not to change, they have businesses that they are 'in bed' with so to speak who want you to spray your brains out and believe agro should be run like big business and anyone saying you don't have to do it that way 'has never farmed' (Cough cough, Gabe Brown, cough).

Emily Elizabeth wrote:
Our little city just told us a few weeks ago that you can be fined $500 if they see dandelions in your yard. I kid you not.

That is sheer madness. What has happened to this country?