David West
Mekong Sustainable Farming Forum
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Question from Nola Guest House
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Hi All
This month’s blog from me is all about Thailand’s 3rd annual Permaculture convergence.
I met a lot of energized people who are interested in the whole concept of the self sufficiency movement that has Permaculture as one of its labels. What struck me most was that it has many names, but ultimately we are all talking about the same issues. If anyone is interested in a more in depth analysis of what was discussed, please contact me directly.
As
for the blog that you are a recipient of, it will
continue in its present form for a month or two yet, till we have set up
a new format.
The idea is to bring together a platform that includes a larger area
than the present
Mekong basin. We will then invite all on the present list to join the
new platform
as members. Any one not wishing to continue receiving the information
can just
click the unsubscribe button. Any questions and their replies will be
circulated as soon as received so please ask away. Write to this forum
or dgw...@gmail.com
The new platform will be based on a face book page, which has a private member area for discussion, which will be monitored to avoid the trolls. It will also be bi-lingual (Thai/English), to bring in more of the locals, and a public area, which will hopefully bring in new people who are interested in the subject. There will be a place for volunteers to connect with hosts, as well as a list of upcoming events and courses.
This is the closing statement of the main organizer of the conference, which closed on the 29th of March. I was really impressed by the organization and the energy of those who supported and attended the convergence. I believe that the movement is starting to gain momentum in this part of the world as the locals realize that Permaculture has been practiced for many years under many different names. The site for the 4th Annual event has not been decided yet, but a small subcommittee has been tasked with looking at all options.
Thai Permaculture Convergence 2015
Dear All,
Thanks for making this event happen and be a success. As you can
imagine, I was a bit stressed that maybe this concept and method of
meeting together in a co-owned participatory way, might not work.
Also
even with all the effort that we put into preparing Wanakaset to receive
you all, of course things could go wrong.
But I feel the energy from the event was really great. Yoke (my wife)
felt that she was really in many ways with an extended family. The
common vision and work she said made her feel a real connection with you
all, and I think many of you had time to hold and play with our son,
Merlin. As I suspected, while it took a bit to get into the rhythm,
the energy of mutual support and exchange, (the co-ownership), came more
and more together.
Since I did not thank her in front of you before, I would like to
recognize the incredibly hard work done by Wee (Chaweewan). She
worked
at least as hard as me overseeing any sort of logistical needs to make
this happen. Unfortunately only Wee and P Kunchit really know where
everything is at Wanakaset. So a lot fell on her and she had less time
to join our programmes.
I should say to this email list, I have added a few people who were key
in helping develop this convergence and in the past convergences.
I have added Marco (and Nok) (of Mae Mut Gardens), and Rosanne of Sawang
Boran, along Sukha and YJ (of Kailash Akhara) who were the key
organizers of the last event, they all provided advice on developing
this event. I have added Kyle (of Panya) the place of the first
convergence. And Anja and Christian, of the Mindfulness Project, who
have also been very involved in this process and I think at some time
will take the torch for a future convergence.
In the last sessions of the final day. We discussed What to take
forward for the next Convergence.
I have written this up. (You can choose from Open Office or MS word
files below)
I added 3 more points, that I felt were important and I receive much
support for from others. They are listed below. As this is a
co-owned
event, I need to hear if you agree (or disagree) with the 3 additional
points.
Non-profit / low cost- This convergence tried to set the cost at
the
minimum to meet actual expenses and no one (except the 3 main cooks-
received payment for their work). We did in the end have excess money
(as many gave more than the minimum and we had one key benefactor). If
the membership agrees, this money will be used to support the
initiatives developed from this convergence.
While it was not our intention, as a number of participants gave their
contribution on the last days and some insisted they wanted to
contribute more, along with the key supporting contribution from
Rosanne, we have leftover budget. (About 18,000 THB).
In addition we
have some in kind contributions that were not sold. (Honey from Mae
Chaem, Spoon from Banda, Silk from Sawang Boran). Pun Pun also
contributed additionally to the van cost for the Mop Euang visit which
was more than expected (but a fair price for the journey which then
included a drop off in Bangkok)
I would request that these in kind contributions can be used for the
benefit of Wanakaset and its members. We intend to give some honey
and
a silk scarf to Pooyai Viboon and his wife directly. We also received 2
water filters from Melanie, one which Wee will use and another which I
think my family will use to filter our well water.
For the leftover money, this we consider to be collectively owned by the
Convergence. I need your views, but my proposition is that this
budget
could be quite useful to facilitate the work of the 4 ideas advanced.
I have thought while I fully support volunteerism, I would also be happy
to give some financial contribution to someone to help translate the
website (and other info) to Thai.
I think the Permaculture Open House events, that may be started with
City Farm of Prince and Jik on the 3rd of May might receive a small
fund, (like 1000 THB) to help cover costs to organize.
I also would like to pass on the burden of managing this money to
others. So if you agree to this proposal, then I can transfer funds to
the point persons of the different proposals to manage and use. It
is
not a lot of money but enough to help facilitate some costs for these
initiatives.
I am not much for formal accounting, and I think as long as we provide
transparency with how we use the funds and the decision to use funds
receives support from a couple other members then I think this is enough.
Please advise if you agree on this use of the remaining funds or wish to
suggest another use.
Kind Regards,
Michael
PermacultureNews.org - News |
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Posted: 15 Mar 2015 02:07 PM PDT Everyone
is at least somewhat familiar with the plant kingdom but the fungi
kingdom is very little known and understood and yet the more we look
into mushrooms the more they seem to offer. Some mushroom species have
the ability to clean up serious toxins in our environment and some offer
valuable medicine. They all... Read more »
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One Last Push to Fund “Poo to Peaches” Composting Toilets Posted: 15 Mar 2015 02:06 PM PDT “Your
Potty is a Wonderland” With only three more days to fund the
Kickstarter “Poo to Peaches – a Composting Toilet Book”, we need your
help! We are still about $3,800 shy of our goal. We hope this video, a
spoof on John Mayers’ “Your Body is a Wonderland”, will inspire you to
drop a... Read more » |
Ploughing On Regardless - monbiot.com |
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Posted: 25 Mar 2015 05:58 AM PDT
Almost all other issues are superficial by comparison to soil loss. So why don’t we talk about it?
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 25th March 2015
Imagine a wonderful world, a planet on which there was no threat of climate breakdown, no loss of freshwater, no antibiotic resistance, no obesity crisis, no terrorism, no war. Surely, then, we would be out of major danger? Sorry. Even if everything else were miraculously fixed, we’re knackered if we don’t address an issue considered so marginal and irrelevant that you can go for months without seeing it in a newspaper.
It’s literally and – it seems – metaphorically, beneath us. To judge by its absence from the media, most journalists consider it unworthy of consideration. But all human life depends on it. We knew this long ago, but somehow it has been forgotten. As a Sanscrit text written in around 1500 BC noted, “Upon this handful of soil our survival depends. Husband it and it will grow our food, our fuel, and our shelter and surround us with beauty. Abuse it and the soil will collapse and die, taking humanity with it”.
The issue hasn’t changed, but we have. Landowners around the world are now engaged in an orgy of soil destruction – so intense that, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world, on average, has just 60 more years of growing crops. Even in Britain, which is spared the tropical downpours that so quickly strip exposed soil from the land, Farmers’ Weekly reports that we have “only 100 harvests left”.
To keep up with global food demand, the UN estimates, 6 million hectares of new farmland will be needed every year. Instead, 12 million hectares a year are lost through soil degradation. We wreck it, then move on, trashing rainforests and other precious habitats as we go. Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters, making them available to plants. That handful the Vedic master showed his disciples contains more micro-organisms than all the people who have ever lived on Earth. Yet we treat it like, well, dirt.
The techniques that were supposed to feed the world threaten us with starvation. A paper just published in the journal Anthropocene analyses the undisturbed sediments in an 11th century French lake. It shows that the intensification of farming over the last century has increased the rate of soil erosion 60-fold.
Another paper, by researchers in the UK, shows that soil in allotments – the small patches in towns and cities that people cultivate by hand – contains a third more organic carbon than agricultural soil and 25% more nitrogen. This is one of the reasons why allotment holders produce between four and 11 times more food per hectare than do farmers.
Whenever I mention this issue, people ask, “but surely farmers have an interest in looking after their soil?”. They do, and there are many excellent cultivators who seek to keep their soil on the land. There are also some terrible farmers, often absentees, who allow contractors to rip their fields to shreds for the sake of a quick profit. Even the good ones are hampered by an economic and political system that could scarcely be better designed to frustrate them.
This is the International Year of Soils, but if you’ve missed it you’re not the only one. In January the Westminster government published a new set of soil standards, marginally better than those they replaced, but wholly unmatched to the scale of the problem. There are no penalities for compromising our survival except a partial witholding of public subsidies.
Yet even these pathetic standards are considered intolerable by the National Farmers’ Union, that greeted them with bitter complaints. Sometimes the NFU seems to me to exist to champion bad practice and block any possibility of positive change. Few sights are as gruesome as the glee with which it celebrated the death last year of the European Soil Framework Directive. This was the only measure that had the potential to arrest our soil erosion crisis, yet the NFU, supported by successive British governments, fought for eight years to destroy it, then crowed like a shedful of cockerels when it won. Looking back on this episode, we will see it as a parable of our times.
Soon after that, the business minister, Matthew Hancock, announced that he was putting “business in charge of driving reform”: trade associations would be able “to review enforcement of regulation in their sectors.” The NFU was one the first two bodies granted this privilege. Hancock explained that this “is all part of our unambiguously pro-business agenda to increase the financial security of the British people.” But it doesn’t increase our security, financial or otherwise. It undermines it.
The government’s Deregulation Bill, that has now almost completed its passage through parliament, will force regulators – including those charged with protecting the fabric of the land – to “have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth.” But short-term growth at the expense of public protection compromises long-term survival. This “unambiguously pro-business agenda” is deregulating us to death.
There’s no longer even an appetite for studying the problem. Just one university – Aberdeen – now offers a degree in soil science. All the rest have been closed down.
This is what topples civilisations. War and pestilence might kill large numbers of people, but in most cases the population recovers. But lose the soil and everything else goes with it.
Now globalisation ensures that this disaster is reproduced everywhere. In its early stages, globalisation enhances resilience: people are no longer dependent on the vagaries of local production. But as it proceeds, spreading the same destructive processes to all corners of the Earth, it undermines resilience, as it threatens to bring down systems everywhere.
Almost all other issues are superficial by comparison. What appear to be great crises are slight and evanescent when held up against the steady but unremarked trickling away of our subsistence.
The avoidance of this issue is perhaps the greatest social silence of all. Our insulation from the forces of nature has encouraged a belief in the dematerialisation of our lives, as if we no longer subsist on food and water, but on bits and bytes. This is a belief that can be entertained only by people who have never experienced serious hardship, and who are therefore unaware of the contingency of existence.
It’s not as if we are short of solutions. While it now seems that ploughing of any kind is incompatible with the protection of the soil, there are plenty of means of farming without it. Independently, in several parts of the world, farmers have been experimenting with zero-tillage (also known as conservation agriculture), often with extraordinary results. There are dozens of ways of doing it: we need never see bare soil again. But in the UK, as in most rich nations, we have scarcely begun to experiment with the technique, despite the best efforts of the magazine Practical Farm Ideas and other innovators.
Even better are some of the methods that fall under the heading of permaculture, that means working with complex natural systems, rather than seeking to simplify or replace them. Pioneers like Sepp Holzer and Geoff Lawton have achieved remarkable yields of fruit and vegetables in places that seemed unfarmable: 1100m above sea level in the Austrian Alps, for example, or in the salt-shrivelled Jordanian desert. But, though every year the Westminster government spends £450m on research and development for agriculture – much of it on techniques that wreck our soils – there is not one mention of permaculture either on the websites of the two major funding bodies (NERC and BBSRC) or anywhere in the government’s entire web presence.
The macho commitment to destructive short-termism appears to resist all evidence and all logic. Never mind life on Earth; we’ll plough on regardless.
Some useful info in here for food forests and kitchen gardens.
Sweet article re gardening - DO it! - grow yer own!
10 Tips for First Time Veggie Gardeners
Hi.
So, we made the level of our land higher as well. Now we have a brown ground with no grass. The soil comes from the area around here.
Ends