It’s true, Lorraine and I have spent the last four days in an Indian Casino in Temecula near San Diego. And it was very generously paid for by a member. Confused, yes I was too when we walked in and smelled the cigarette smoke. We attended the first Permaculture Voices conference. The casino was big enough and cheap enough to hold all 600 attendees. The first speaker was Joel Salatin and it continued with high powered speakers until late on Sunday evening. We were there because quite frankly organic farming is not going to be enough in the coming climate change and energy/water crisis. I have been uncomfortable for many years with a whole host of organic practices that are not sustainable. I do not even like the word sustainable as in my opinion it has been used for so much green washing by corporate America. I bought my Permaculture manual in 1990 and read it from cover to cover several times. I could not get how we could scale it up to farm vegetable and fruit production. A couple of years ago Lorraine and I went to an ACRES USA conference in Kentucky. I took a two day course with Mark Shepard. He practices what we call Restoration Agriculture or farm scale permaculture. Listening to Mark I got it and have been, reading, thinking and planning ever since. At Eatwell Farm we do many permaculture practices but we have not as yet tied it all together. We listened to Pasture farmers from Missouri, Virginia and Zimbabwe. Farmers who grow crops between trees rows and soil scientists who told us it was all about soil biology. Farmers who get better yields of corn with no commercial chemical or organic inputs. So much information but it is coming clearer what we have to do.
Want to learn more...
Alan Savory's TED talk on how to reverse desertification.