Neil Layton wrote:The thing is, a lot of this is fair comment:
One of the most recent permaculture books to hit the market was originally priced at $75 dollars on Amazon. ... If it weren’t for internet piracy and public libraries, the majority of books about permaculture that I wanted to read would still be on my Amazon wish list.
When I showed one video from a well known permaculture teacher about how to do build swales (water infiltration ditches) using a backhoe, one of the young Central American farmers raised his hand and asked sarcastically: “Is this guy a farmer or a miner?”
On this site, I talk about permaculture, but what I'm thinking about is agroecology, with my own thoughts on the social stuff. When I discuss my plans and ideas with anyone not on here, I talk about agroecology, not permaculture. I've never done a PDC and don't intend to.
I came to find that most people involved in the permaculture movement had no idea what the third permaculture ethic actually entailed. In fact, many permaculture leaders had different ways of defining the third ethic. Some permaculture teachers stuck to the more radical idea of redistribution of surplus, while others settled with the more ambiguous idea of “fair shares” while failing to ever define what is fair.
Meanwhile, here, discussion of the third ethic is effectively off the table or confined to the cider press. There are those growing enough to feed their families, while others brag about their profits, often on the back of free labour (i.e. WWOOFers). There is a really blurry boundary here between sharing surpluses and outright exploitation at one end.
The last time I engaged with a discussion on here about an article off site, I ripped into the article. I can find little in this article to argue with. I suspect many of us in rich countries are simply unaware of our own privilege, and this article does well to point this out.
Zach Muller wrote:
When I showed one video from a well known permaculture teacher about how to do build swales (water infiltration ditches) using a backhoe, one of the young Central American farmers raised his hand and asked sarcastically: “Is this guy a farmer or a miner?”
This doesn't really jive with me. I don't care if this guy is a smart ass and thinks everyone with a backhoe is a rich miner. So he saw something he doesnt see the value in or understand, why frame it as something beyond that?
Zach Muller wrote:
I came to find that most people involved in the permaculture movement had no idea what the third permaculture ethic actually entailed. In fact, many permaculture leaders had different ways of defining the third ethic. Some permaculture teachers stuck to the more radical idea of redistribution of surplus, while others settled with the more ambiguous idea of “fair shares” while failing to ever define what is fair.
Meanwhile, here, discussion of the third ethic is effectively off the table or confined to the cider press. There are those growing enough to feed their families, while others brag about their profits, often on the back of free labour (i.e. WWOOFers). There is a really blurry boundary here between sharing surpluses and outright exploitation at one end.
Are you saying this with some specific examples in mind, or is this just your general impression?
Zach Muller wrote:
The last time I engaged with a discussion on here about an article off site, I ripped into the article. I can find little in this article to argue with. I suspect many of us in rich countries are simply unaware of our own privilege, and this article does well to point this out.
maybe a majority of people are unaware of their privilege, but its not unanimous, and I personally feel this article doesn't really do anything positive to amend blind privilege, just aims to stir the shitpot of misinformation.
Zach Muller wrote:
Links for further reading.
To anyone interested in pursuing information of the author of this article and his background I searched out some links and connections that I find notable. These links are not meant as a commentary on the character of the author in any way, just as further reading for consideration on his opinions and agendas.
Its just the way I am.
Isreal in central america
outdated NGO monitor
Seeking a long-term partner to establish forest garden. Keen to find that person and happy to just make some friends. http://www.permies.com/t/50938/singles/Male-Edinburgh-Scotland-seeks-soulmate
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
Joseph Lofthouse wrote:I loved the title of this post!!! I've often thought something similar... In my case, I'd probably call it "Permaculture as a Yuppie Movement". I read all sorts of the newest and greatest permaculture this or that or the other. And I'm like, "Duh, that's how we've been farming since time immemorial." Welcome to the country.
Idle dreamer
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
Idle dreamer
Zach Muller wrote:it's not even close to reaching a level that will penetrate the industrial food producers here.
Idle dreamer
Idle dreamer
Zach Muller wrote: Permaculture doesn't need that abuse, it's image is already pretty bad.
"The rule of no realm is mine. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, these are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything that passes through this night can still grow fairer or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I too am a steward. Did you not know?" Gandolf
Marco Banks wrote:Who are these people who have such a bad image of permaculture? That is news to me.
Idle dreamer
"People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do."
Check out Redhawk's soil series: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil
"Also, just as you want men to do to you, do the same way to them" (Luke 6:31)
duane hennon wrote:Geoff wants to spread permaculture
by offering PDCs to increase the number of teachers
but sometimes he seems to think everyone
who is doing permaculture has to be a teacher (PDC certified)
rather than just someone who can benefit from
using appropriate techniques
Idle dreamer
Heck, there IS a free PDC [of quality instruction put on by a somewhat shady company] out there on the internet. It's a bit more dry than Geoff, but free is good.Jim Tuttle wrote:If the price of education is the subject, let's not forget that a degree in any of the "free" schools there is still mostly unattainable by the poor. I have no need for a PDC, but if I did, $2000 is nothing compared to even one year in a CA university.
Check out Redhawk's soil series: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil
franck chardes wrote:
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!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?
Kyrt Ryder wrote:
franck chardes wrote:
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!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?
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.
Tyler Ludens wrote:I think we should be solving all the problems so the bitchers and moaners don't have anything to do! One of my least favorite things is complaining about problems without working on solutions to them.
Jason Silberschneider wrote:David Easton in his amazing rammed-earth building book talks about how bobcats, diesel compressors, and foundry tampers are the best tools for the job in first world countries because technology is cheap and labour is expensive. He suggests that in developing countries it would probably be much better to use dozens of people with shovels, buckets, and sticks with blocks on the end. I'm sure when he's teaching rammed-earth building in developing countries, he uses just that.
What if a permaculture course used an excavator to build a beautiful blueprint swale, then all the course picked up shovels and made an identical one next to it? Maybe it ends up not being visually identical due to the limitations of the hand tools, but is functionally identical?
Most courses should be teaching concepts then locals ADAPT teachings to their version of real life.
If people who are from lands that do not have or cannot afford heavy machinery cannot extrapolate or lack the common sense to understand the concept and ADAPT a viable local methodology then not having books or first world people augment their incomes or give them certificates are the least of their future problems.
It's a powerful thing to know that you don't need the machinery to get the same results if you have the manpower.
Permaculture isbut one type of sustainable system. There are others. For more low tech methodologies, I am more inclined to talk about Martin Crawford and no maintenance food forests and less about a complex integrative ecosystem.Zach Muller wrote:Marco, I see what your saying and would agree for my associates who are interested in environmental restoration and sustainability have a good impression of permaculture. Although I would also mention that I know at least one ecological consultant who leave the term permaculture out of his business presentation. I'll ask them a detailed why next time I get a chance, but I think it has to do with their degree from a university being in sustainable design, rather than pc.
Most of this impression I get isn't from those types, but rather from people who don't think about sustainability as much as they think about the bottom line, and the more practical steps they go through to producr..
Zach Muller wrote:... belongs to a group that has a long history of saying one thing and doing another I find it noteworthy. I'm not accusing the author of anything specific, just pointing to the information available, which shows he is part of a group that has a primary goal beneath any stated humanitarian or ecological development. ....
if I chose some videos to show farmers I would seek out ones that demonstrated techniques that used the same tools as them. I feel confident I could find such videos as I have watched them. ...
This is what I mean by misinformation, more properly I would call it misrepresentation. .... In my perspective All he wanted was a certain reaction so he could pile on his opinions and Marxist arguments. ....
"Also, just as you want men to do to you, do the same way to them" (Luke 6:31)
Queenie Hankinson wrote:
Permaculture isbut one type of sustainable system. There are others. For more low tech methodologies, I am more inclined to talk about Martin Crawford and no maintenance food forests.
Idle dreamer
franck chardes wrote:
Kyrt Ryder wrote:
franck chardes wrote:
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!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?
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...
"People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do."
You can thank my dental hygienist for my untimely aliveness. So tiny:
A cooperative way to get to our dream farm.
https://permies.com/t/218305/cooperative-dream-permaculture-farm
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