All about SKIP, PEP, Badges, BBs and More!

Hi Marilyn, welcome to Permies!  The SKIP and PEP program of badges is going to be a hundred things to a hundred different kinds of people some day.  People without good heirs will give their land to capable PEP candidates.  PEP candidates will pursue badges to show their skills to get jobs or find a place to live (like your spot).  And 98 other things.

It's currently gearing up with more and more PEPpers starting to pursue badges and certification.  So I wouldn't say that there are currently a bunch of certified people to choose from to live on your land.  But there very well could be someone who wants to gain their certifications while staying on your land.

Probably the easiest way to match you to a permaculture enthusiast would be to make a new post in the Land Share forum.  That's probably where the people you are looking for are watching for an opportunity.  They may or may not be into PEP but you may get more visibility there.  

A year from now there may be a more PEP centric way to tie PEPpers to landowners...

I hope this helps?

Hi Marilyn! Welcome to Permies, and welcome to SkIP.

I think what you're offering sounds quite compelling just as it is.

Perhaps if you make a new thread (here in the PEP forum, perhaps), doing so may help you keep track of the people you converse with.

You may also consider sharing your general locale, so folks have a general idea of how far away you are from them.


Depending on how choosy you want to be, you may also consider setting a minimum PEP Certification for people you invite to work with you. For instance, this October at Wheaton Labs there's a free event that's only open to people who are BB20 Certified.

I know Paul expects in the future there to be similar events only for people who are PEP1 Certified, although no one has that level of certification yet.


Whatever you do, welcome! And best of luck getting in touch with kind, industrious people to work with you on your land.

Hello, friends,

I just learned about SkIP and the event at Wheaton Labs in Montana.

Between our organic blueberry farm, orchard, and garden and the permaculture practices we are putting into practice at a mountain property my children and I maintain, we have the experience and the skills to meet the BB20 requirements to attend.

HOWEVER, I did not anticipate this program or the need for photo documentation, so while I have a good number of pictures of our busy, manual-labor-intensive summers, there are many things where the best I can do would be to write about our experiences.

Would writing and photos where I have them be adequate to earn the needed BBs for my son and I to attend the event in October?

Thanks in advance!

I'm sorry S, for the BBs and badges to mean anything, the requirements and documentation needs to be followed for each one.  If you have the photos from when you did a BB in the past and they meet the requirements, you can post them for certification.  

I'm guessing someone who is really motivated could get to BB20 in about 3 days.

i came to this thread through an email claiming there is some kind of network thing being set up where people who want to will their land are looking for people capable of stewarding the land well

is this network official and if so, where can i find it?

Hi Michael, the network is developing.  The top post in this thread explains how far we've come.  If you might be interested in willing your land to someone, feel free to PM me about it.  If you might be interested in getting land willed to you, start doing the PEP program and earning badges to impress the folks with the land.

I think SkIP is fascinating and see uses for it outside of finding an Otis, but I have to ask: where are these "millions" of people wishing to will their land to somebody?

My neighbor is a farmer in his late 80s with a lot of extended family. He grows soybeans, corn and hay. This isn't his passion, it's just a job. If I were to approach him about turning his land into a permaculture wildlife sanctuary, he'd probably laugh in my face despite being able to see what I'm doing next door. He doesn't care and probably resents that his crops are suffering with the insects I'm attracting. He'd much rather sell the farm and let his loved ones have the money than to will it to me. Otis has to 1) have no family or 2) care enough about their farm that they want to see it continue even if that means their family doesn't get the money from selling it. They would either be very attached to their business/way of doing things, thus be unwilling to see it change, or they would already be practicing permaculture. Beyond competence and trust, Otis has to like the PEPper (good luck finding a geriatric farmer in America who will give a gay person his farm). They have to be in the right location the PEPper is seeking. The PEPper or estate has to have enough money to pay the inheritance tax or Otis has to have enough money to pay the gift tax (both are 20%-40%; tens of thousands).

I thought I would inherit a farm from one of my relatives. They sold it out of nowhere and after they died the state seized the meager scraps that were left. If that farm had been willed to anyone, much less a non-family member, there would have been a dozen ruthless vultures coming out of the woodwork to fight it and each other--myself included. I'm almost glad I was spared that battle since I want land even more now that I have to earn it.

These are only anecdotes but so are stories about supposed Otises. Finding a proper fit and having nothing go wrong with the deal would be like winning the lottery. What makes you believe there will be more Otises than capable people seeking land? Will there be some sort of outreach to find them beyond this forum? Is there going to be a more accessible and organized way to understand the program outside of digging through threads/reading the book when it's done? (I feel like it needs its own website to present/track/connect.)

What about things that don’t fit the requirements exactly? For example, if I built a greenhouse but it isn't in the style of the badge requirement, is it automatically an oddball? Is it valued less than the greenhouse badge simply because it's not the same type of greenhouse? Why?

Additionally, with how easy it would be to fake the proof of who did a task, not accepting retroactive badges is strange. There are many tasks I've already completed that would be incredibly silly if not impossible to redo, like labeling an electrical panel or installing a security camera system. Even if I had a before photo it doesn’t prove I did the work myself, I could have just snapped the shots and hired an electrician. If it's all on the honor system why would retroactive abilities not be allowed? And if it’s an honor system, why would Otis put any value on it? I have seen members approve each other for the same exact task which seems to invalidate the process more than not having a before photo.

I'm only critical because of how much I like the idea as a skill builder, I just think the goal of finding Otis is unrealistic and going to end in tears.

Hi Alicia, good questions.  I'm not Paul but I'll take a shot at some of them...

With over 7 billion people on earth, if only 1 in 7,000 of them want to do this, then we have a million Otises.

Some reasons for Otis to give you his land are:
  - his children are far enough along in their personal journeys to not need the proceeds from selling his homestead
  - his kids kinda suck and he'd rather give the value to someone else
  - he doesn't have kids
  - he cares deeply that his land continue to be a homestead, hobby farm, farm, etc and he's worried it won't if his nephew gets it
  - he likes to see initiative and these PEPpers seem to have some initiative

Some reasons for Otis to just give a PEPper some money to buy their own land:
  - Same as above minus the fourth one

Families fighting over the will is a problem but I'm thinking it can be mitigated by Otis planning and documenting his wishes well.

I think there will be more Otises than capable candidates because the Otises are out there right now.  The PEPpers are just getting going on their journey of skill building.  I'm guessing an Otis won't get impressed with a PEPper until they're at PEP2 or higher.  It takes a lot of work to get to PEP2 so that pool of candidates will be pretty small for a while.

Your greenhouse isn't valued as highly as an Oehler greenhouse because the PEP program incentivizes things Paul likes and disincentivizes things he doesn't like.  Some day there will be parallel programs to PEP (say PEAlicia) that emphasize the things you like.  If Otis has similar values to you, he might prefer to give his land to a PEAlicia2 candidate instead of a PEP2 candidate.

We spend hours and hours trying to set the bar correctly so that a candidate can't easily cheat and yet doesn't have to do overly onerous documentation.  Yes, someone could cheat and hire the work out.  But I believe that to go through all the trouble to fake enough BBs to get enough badges would be harder than just doing it yourself and would be tremendously expensive.  Because of the balance between heavy and light documentation, we're pretty stringent that BBs meet the requirements.  Thus no retroactive approvals without the required pictures.

I'm sure you could redo labeling an electrical panel if you wanted.  Don't you have a friend or neighbor that has an unlabeled electrical panel?  Or who needs a security camera system?  I don't need to change any more sink faucets but in the last year I've had the unplanned opportunity to change two out.  

If after building all these skills, there isn't an Otis that matches your needs, never fear.  You've still built tons of skills and will be ready when you get your own spot the "normal" way.  And don't forget that we do have a money back guarantee.  

I'll focus on the USA since statistics are more readily available. There were 2,023,400 farms in 2019, a number that's been steadily dropping as I'm sure you know. In 2019 there were 328.2 million people living in the US. Farm owners (if you don't count couples/companies) make up 0.61% of the population. If we were to generously assume that other countries have the same percentage of farms, then for the entire world's population of 7.7 billion there are only 46,970,000 farm owners. If 1 in 7000 of 46 million want to give their land away to a stranger that's 6710 people, most of whom don't speak English or visit this forum. Most geriatric farmers don't even use the internet and would be confused by all of this. The math just doesn't add up. I think your outlook is very optimistic for our capitalistic society and it would be easier to find a regular sugar daddy than a sugar farmer.

Those were just two examples, of course I could take off the labels and redo it. I could also Photoshop a photograph of my soffits without holes in them or I could steal someone else's before/after photos. Obviously I don't think that will be a common occurrence, my only point is that the before photo requirement doesn't do anything to solve cheating, it only deters people from participating due to the inconvenience or inability to redo a task. An example of something that would be impossible to finish again is growing more trees when there's no more room on a tiny plot to do so ("find someone who will let you grow those specific trees" is basically like saying "find Otis", and I don't have the stomach for guerilla gardening when they kill everything). All of my friends are on different continents.

Again, I do think it's good system to help people build skills. I was doing much of it already but because of everything I've said I don't think I'll waste time posting any of it; my progress is for me, not Otis the unicorn. I don't fault anyone with the collection gene who needs the motivation or wants to feel accomplished. I also think it could help pad the resume of someone who wants to volunteer or work on a farm, I just think that's all it should be because the person for whom they work is very unlikely to ever give them the land.

The only thing I'll bother mentioning then, is that there are many people out there who aren't "farmers" who do have properties that would be worth passing on to a PEPper.  Many PEPpers probably don't want a 400 acre corn/soy farm but would love to get a 5 acre place somewhere.  

Your greenhouse isn't valued as highly as an Oehler greenhouse because the PEP program incentivizes things Paul likes and disincentivizes things he doesn't like.  Some day there will be parallel programs to PEP (say PEAlicia) that emphasize the things you like.  If Otis has similar values to you, he might prefer to give his land to a PEAlicia2 candidate instead of a PEP2 candidate.

I thought of an Otis (who's still in good shape, at least mentally) making his own PEO ...

Alicia, I don't do the PEP program for inheriting anything. I only do it to show other Permies what's possible. And to build up my skills.

Read the part about Mike Oehler:

https://permies.com/t/101848/skills-inherit-property/Otis-test


Is Mike a farmer?

Did I say "farmer"?  If so, please provide a link so I can correct that.  

There are people with land.  Some would call themselves a "farmer" and others would not.  

How many homesteaders are there for each "farmer"?  




Just to be clear ....


I think that the first person that completes PEP2 will have 20 Otises to choose from


Naturally, other people will have different opinions.  

I have another opinion:   five years from now, a person completing PEP4 will have 200 Otises to choose from (and a person completing PEP2 will have zero).

At the same time, I think there is a long list of reasons to pursue BBs.   Maybe somebody will pursue PEP1 on a lark.  Maybe somebody will pursue an iron badge to prove something to themselves.  Maybe a person wants to inherit something.  Maybe a person just wants to travel down PEP road enough to guage if they have what it takes to be a homesteader.  

In time, it could be a job requirement.  

Maybe a thousand similar programs will eventually grow out of PEP.  

Maybe we will value the opinion of somebody on permies if they have a wood badge in the topic being discussed.  At least moreso than the opinion of somebody that has no badges.  

Maybe Uncle Joe says he will give you a new car if you complete PEP2.  

Some people join the army, some people join the peace corps, some people attend community college, some people attend harvard and ...  I like to think that our people will pursue PEP4.  Different people will find one program on this list to be much better than the others.  

is there a way to keep track of what bbs and bages you have im asuming it must be tracked somewhere in the system to be able yo have the bage pics in the signature also maybe we can have a leader board so you can compare youre progress i think it would be a great way to get people motivated  sure the prize of land ect at pep 2 level is a great motivator  but its nice to see where you are at and ebery badge BIT is a BIT closer. I know yall are so bussy  but id be happy to pitch in a few bucks as a bountry to see one of your coders make it happen

Hey Brian, Welcome to Skip! Congrats on BB5!


I had a similar desire to track my BB's. So I made a tracker. It's in my signature (or if you're on mobile, here's the link: https://permies.com/t/119155/PEP-Badge-Tracker-easier-track). Yes, it's for sale, but it's also one of the freebies available periodically to folks subscribed to the dailyish.


I know other folks make their own; some in their own thread, some in an excel sheet.  I hope you find the system that's right for you.

Ash Jackson wrote:Hey Brian, Welcome to Skip! Congrats on BB5! ...
I know other folks make their own; some in their own thread, some in an excel sheet.  I hope you find the system that's right for you.

Congratulations Brian. You can use an ordinary file, maybe made in Word (I use Open Office, that's free, but almost like Office). You can even write your BBs down on a piece of paper, to remember them ...

I agree, a leader board would be really cool.  Something showing the top 40 PEPpers with links to their badge submissions or something.  

The programmers are working on some software upgrades for the PEP stuff.  They're primarily focused on making approvals and rejections smoother and linking BBs to badges and peoples signature line images.  Lots more than that and I'm probably misstating what they're actually working on but you get the idea.

I track my BBs (done, submitted and planned) in Excel for what it's worth.

Mike Haasl wrote:I agree, a leader board would be really cool.  Something showing the top 40 PEPpers with links to their badge submissions or something.

Looks like a lot has been done and I love seeing what people have accomplished. Is there a PEP/BB leaderboard?  

Nope, no leaderboard at this point

Haven't posted here in a while. Last time I did was probably over a year ago when I was looking for some land and a home. I wanted way more land than we could get hold of and now just have a tiny little front garden (none at the back). I live in Japan and we just bought an old model house complete with 8.5kw solar array. No battery right now and still connected to the grid. It's not like a homestead at all as it has modcons like a dishwasher and a heatpump dryer, eco-cute water heater (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoCute) and split heat pump air conditioners (we have triple glazing and 2x6 construction with as much insulation as possible so only need 2 to heat and cool the whole house).  It is however  probably the nearest i'm going to get (Japan has rules on who can buy agricultural land and residential land is far far too expensive nowadays to buy just for growing unfortunately). This is a compromise with my husband who is a city boy and would never move to the middle of nowhere in a semi collapsed building (the only way we could afford more land). Anyway I think I have about 30-50m2 to play with in the front and I want to make the most of it. I don't want anybody's land (i'm sure I'd never find any in my area of Japan anyway) but I really want to do this for myself and for fun. It might be a great way to give me the skills and motivation to convert my tiny front garden which is currently mostly just concrete into something productive.  I luckily do have wildlife living here already (highlights include lizards and praying mantises).

Is it free just to work through the badges for leisure purposes?

Sounds like so much fun!!

(Edited to say I should have posted in the PEA section. Will post there now).

Yes, PEP is free and you can work through it at your own pace :)

Mike Haasl wrote:Yes, PEP is free and you can work through it at your own pace :)

Is PEA up and running? When looking through the badge threads, the specifics don't seem to be listed like in PEP. Maybe i"m looking in the wrong place. I think PEA would fit me better as for example It would take years for me to grow and harvest 10,000 calories of food in a container garden...I certainly don't have room to build a hugel culture but when setting up a planter last, I used a hugel culture inspired method. I used old mushroom logs at the bottom, filled with some wood chips and then half rotted compost (made from kitchen scraps) topped with leaf mould and then some soil from garden centre as I was on a balcony when I started it in a half wine barrel. I then set up a selection of 4-5 perennial vegetables. Actually only two are still going but one is totally thriving (red perilla). I used that perilla this year to make umeboshi (picked plum). The plums I used were left over from making plum wine. After sun drying my plums, the brine also becomes plum vinegar. It is an amazing process. I'd really like my own plum tree so I can complete the whole thing from start to finish. I also forage, for example last year I collected Japanese horse chestnuts and dryed them in a dehydrator and made a years worth of laundry soap. I also foraged some boke (similar to quince) and made a quince liquor. I made my own miso, was attempting to make my own doenjang (Korean miso) but couldn't source an onggi this year due to corona and so I'm stuck at the meju stage. Going to carry on in spring next year. Hopefully it will still work, fingers crossed. I also made hoshigaki (traditionally dried astringent persimmon) by preparing and hanging them up outside to air dry for 2-4 weeks.

PEA isn't quite up and running yet.  Here's a thread where it's being developed and discussed:  D. Logan's PEA Development Thread

Anyone know of any Cob Home projects going on near the Washington DC area?  I would like to be involved as an intern or just simply help out!

Camila Katydid wrote:Anyone know of any Cob Home projects going on near the Washington DC area?  I would like to be involved as an intern or just simply help out!

Hi Camila. Did you have a look at the 'cob' forum already? You can find it here: https://permies.com/f/76/cob

We're fortunate enough to have a property to work and after several years of bumbling through our own experience, PEP looks a much needed and welcome addition.  I've gone from overwhelmed to excited reading through the PEP Badge and BB requirements over the past couple of days. I could always use some inspirational direction and a little bit of a challenge. Thank you to everyone that's taken the time to put this together.  

I think this pretty much sums up the reasoning behind PEP perfectly!

Mike Haasl wrote:I track my BBs (done, submitted and planned) in Excel for what it's worth.

I've been tracking mine in OneNote on my Android phone, but Excel would probably be better suited for the task - especially for calculating totals for BB[NUM] badges and points based BBs.  The only thing that has held me back so far is the somewhat daunting task of importing all the BB's and their metadata (name, category, level, points, URL, etc) into Excel.  Is that data available in an importable format anywhere (table, csv, etc)?  Have you already done this for Excel and willing to share?

The data isn't available in a downloadable format (that I know of).

I just grew my system as I went.  I list each BB that I think I want to do down column A.  Then I mark it done, submitted or certified in column B.  When I went to Wheaton Labs last fall I highlighted the ones I had to do out there in a different color to make sure I didn't miss one.

So my list is more of a to-do list.  It probably only has 1/4th of the Sand and Straw BBs in it but they are the ones I think I can do to advance down my path to PEP2.  

So I'm guessing it wouldn't be that helpful for you

I live in a climate that does not support sunchokes ( they melt away in our humidity).  May I substitute sweet potatoes as they are perennial here?

PEP is oriented at things that are applicable to Paul's site.  We're almost done with the last couple badges after a few years of work.  If we had to sort out equivalents for other parts of the world we'd never get done.  

Hi Everyone

This thought came from looking at how to transfer PEP BBs to PEA but the idea would affect all of the BBs already created, so I've put it here.

I know Paul wants to get all of the Iron badges for PEP done before majorly concentrating on PEA and PEX is up to anyone to come up with they're own thing.

I'm thinking instead of recreating all of the PEP BB's as PEA BBs, why not convert the already created PEP BBs to PEX and just create PEP, PEA, etc as index lists.

So, move all the BB's to a PEX forum.
The PEP index pages won't need any changes.
The PEA index pages can just link to the relevant PEX BB's.


Let's say Otis wants some helpers. Otis could just look and see who has PEP Level 4 and that list will be very short for the time being.
Alternatively Otis might want helpers who have skills in one area but don't yet need skills in another area, this would be a bigger group of people to choose from.
If Otis creates a PEO, all he has to do is link to the PEX BB's that he wants people to have.
And if Otis wants a skill not listed, then he can create a PEX BB that anyone could include on their PEX list.

This isn't about changing PEP but kickstarting PEA and PEX.