Category Archives: agriculture
Raising Money for Permaculture
What would you recommend giving as rewards?
There are two kinds of campaigns. The first is one that is aiming to produce something that may be useful to potential contributors – such as Charlie Jones’ Permaculture Ukulele Musical Project.
These kinds of campaigns are aiming to raise funds from the actual consumers of their products, and I would highly recommend that they give that product as a reward, at or below the retail value. It is these types of campaigns that sometimes achieve hundreds of contributions, and potentially go way over their stated goal!
The second kind of campaign is one that provides or benefits the community, or the person posting the campaign, such as raising money for tuition. The primary motivation for people giving to these campaigns is not to for a reward, but to help make the campaign successful. For these, it makes more sense to give something of symbolic value, as a way of thanking a person for their contribution. (Source)
Kickstart Pump
Help fund this foot powered irrigation pump by pledging here to contribute to the project.
How Digital Potatoes Grew
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE63BYWdqC4[/youtube]
Practical Post-Scarcity
What these guys are doing is amazing, check out Open Source Ecology for your building needs…
Africa Pivots
If you missed Pivot East, there’s some interesting things coming out of Kenya- a recent IPO48 competition winner, a farming tool for connecting buyers with crops seems awfully useful.
Indoor Garden and Compost
On-going BP Oil Spill Effects
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VVyPiV5xdY[/youtube]
The best piece of professional journalism I’ve read on this issue in a long time comes, not surprisingly, from Al Jazeera:
New Orleans, LAÂ - “The fishermen have never seen anything like this,” Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. “And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I’ve never seen anything like this either.”
Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010.
Cowan’s findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP’s oil and dispersants. (read the entire article)
Cocoa Farmers : Happy Earth Day!
Cocoa farmers in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire share their sustainability success stories in a short video narrated by Rainforest Alliance trainer and auditor Noah Jackson.
Ghost Town Ecoaldeas
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91pBFyLWIx4&[/youtube]
It’s a utopian fantasy- discover a ghost town and rebuild it in line with your ideals-, but in Spain where there are nearly 3000 abandoned villages (most dating back to the Middle Ages), some big dreamers have spent the past 3 decades doing just that.
There are now a few dozen “ecoaldeas†– ecovillages – in Spain, most build from the ashes of former Medieval towns. One of the first towns to be rediscovered was a tiny hamlet in the mountains of northern Navarra.
It was rediscovered in 1980 by a group of people living nearby who had lost their goats and “when they found their goats, they found Lakabeâ€, explains Mauge Cañada, one of the early pioneers in the repopulation of the town.
The new inhabitants were all urbanites with no knowledge of country life so no one expected them to stay long. At first, the homes weren’t habitable so they lived 14 in a large room. Slowly they began to rebuild the homes and the gardens.
When they first began to rebuild, there was no road up to the town so horses were used to carry construction materials up the mountain. There was no electricity either so they lived with candles and oil lamps.
After a few years, they erected a windmill by hand, carrying the iron structure up the hill themselves. “Even though it seems tough and in some ways it was, but you realize you’re not as limited as you think,†says Mauge. “There are a lot of things people think they can’t do without a lot of money and there’s never been money here.â€
In the early years, they generated income by selling some of their harvest and working odd jobs like using their newfound construction experience to rebuild roofs outside town. Later they rebuilt the village bakery and sold bread to the outside world.
Their organic sourdough breads now sell so well that today they can get by without looking for work outside town, but it helps that they keep their costs at a minimum as a way of life. “There’s an austerity that’s part of the desire of people who come here,†explains Mauge. “There’s not a desire for consumption to consume. We try to live with what there is.â€
Today, the town generates all its own energy with the windmill, solar panels and a water turbine. It also has a wait list of people who’d like to move in, but Mauge says the answer is not for people to join what they have created, but to try to emulate them somewhere else.
“If you set your mind to it and there’s a group of people who want to do it, physically they can do it, economically they can do it. What right now is more difficult is being willing to suffer hardship or difficulties or… these days people have a lot of trouble living in situations of shortage or what is seen as shortage but it isn’t.†(Source)