Ryan Copeland

  I have been a teacher working in Taiwan for several years now.  I also have been interested in Permaculture for sometime, and went to Australia to take a course with Geoff, and many others along the way.  

  I finally moved back to Texas, to work on a Permaculture project here.  That's my basic background.

  I'm going to run a trip for Taiwanese college aged students that are interested in Permaculture.  I want to introduce them to a general range of "Permaculture" farms/projects, with particular focus on things that are relevant to them.  A bit about Taiwan for those who aren't familiar.  It is mostly sub-tropical, with the southern part being tropical, and densely populated in the cities.  The entire country is only about the size of New Jersey, with more than half of that being mountains.  

 Here are my basic ideas:  Rocky Mountain Perm. Inst. because of the greenhouse, and high mountains that is found all over Taiwan.  
   - I'm looking for a Perm. farm with rice paddies, since that's a big part of their farming
   - Also Chinapa's would be amazing, since you see all those great plans in Bill's Perm. books, I just don't know anyone who has one
   - Another really big one, and I might go to a couple because this is big, is a rooftop gardening.  This could be huge in Taiwan with so many people living in cities, with a high standard of living to support the rooftop gardens income
   - Small Scale Aquaponics is another big one.  I'm in Texas, so I have been looking at Jack Spirko's setup, and he youtubes a lot on the subject.
   -Lastly I think a good food forest, preferably in a hotter place (Florida?), would be a good idea.  Taiwan has a massive amount of beetle nut plantations that could be transitioned over to a polyculture set-up

The program will run about 3-4 weeks, and start from my home in Texas, so the route and distance is something to  consider for the project.  I'll probably need to stick to one side of the country or the other to keep us at sites and not on the road all the time.  Any recommendations on sites/farms would be great.  Thanks Permies Community.  

 I am about to start a several month trip around China and am looking for any Permaculture sites I can find around to check out.  I have been searching online, but have not found a lot.  

 So far I know of the one in the Loess Plateau that had a documentary made about it, but I can't find any specific sites, just an entire region.

 Hangzhou has a small farm, that I've seen on Permaculutre News.  

 Near Guilin also has one.  

 There are several to check out in Hong Kong, but not a lot around beyond that that I'm seeing.

Any ideas or info everyone?  I have looked into the fish/rice farming too, and am looking for good sites to see this.  I also remember seeing a NYTimes article I believe about a farm outside of Bejing starting the big push towards organic farming, which isn't exactly Permaculture, but it's the closest in the ballpark.

I still have a month before I leave, so if anyone has any recommendations I can put it in my route.