Permaculture at The Farm
Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Albert Bates January 13, 2012
 Former stockbroker Brian Bankston now calls himself the “Keyline Cowboy” after a carbon farming course at The Farm’s Ecovillage Training Center transformed his life. He quit his job, bought a keyline plow and compost tea brewer, and moved to The Farm. |
Climate Prophylaxis
For the past 10 years or so, the land management decisions of The Farm (a 40-year-old intentional community on 1750 acres in rural Tennessee, pop. ~200) have been informed by permaculture. Permaculture was influential in the design and early curricula of The Farm’s Ecovillage Training Center in 1994, and since many, if not all, of the community’s residents have now been exposed to it, it is not surprising to learn that a number of people serving on various village committees, as well some in public office in the surrounding county, have Permaculture Design certificates.
Our relationship with permaculture traces back to our connection to Bill Mollison, one of permaculture’s founders, who received the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” in the year after we did. RLA winners are a gregarious lot and gather from time to time to swap tales, so we have been fortunate to share such meetings with Bill over the past 30 years. We are also fortunate to have had the influence of an erstwhile neighbor, Peter Bane, who for many years published the quarterly Permaculture Activist from his former home in Primm Springs, Tennessee.
Today, as a permaculture instructor, I travel to many of the convergences of the movement and have come to know many practitioners. Our Farm team has taught permaculture courses on six continents and in 27 countries now, so it would only be surprising if The Farm did not have permaculture going on.
Comments (5)The Rise of Tricycle Pushcarts
Consumerism, Energy Systems, Markets & Outlets, Society, Village Development — by Albert Bates January 11, 2012
Wandering tortillas
Comments (2)Even in backward mining communities, as late as the sixteenth century more than half the recorded days were holidays; while for Europe as a whole, the total number of holidays, including Sunday, came to 189, a number even greater than those enjoyed by Imperial Rome. Nothing more clearly indicates a surplus of food and human energy, if not material goods. Modern labor-saving devices have as yet done no better. — Lewis Mumford, Myth of the Machine : Technics and Human Development, 1967.
Maya Mountain 7th Annual Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) and Advanced Design Courses (Belize, Feb-Mar 2012)
Courses/Workshops — by Albert Bates
Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course:
Where: Maya Mountain Research Farm, Belize
When: Feb 20 – Mar 2, 2012
Instructors: Albert Bates, Andrew Leslie Phillips, Cliff Davis, Chris Nesbitt
Cost: US$1250 (including food and accommodation)
Advanced Design Course:
Where: Maya Mountain Research Farm, Belize
When: Mar 4 – 10, 2012
Instructors: Jono Neiger, Eric Toensmeier and Chris Nesbitt
Cost: US$700 (including food and accommodation)
More Info: www.mmrfbz.org or info(at)mmrfbz.org
Comments (0)Maya Mountain Research Farm – 6th Annual Permaculture Design Certificate Course
Courses/Workshops — by Albert Bates February 9, 2011
What: 6th Annual Permaculture Design Course
Where: Maya Mountain Research Farm, San Pedro Columbia, Belize
When: March 5th through 18th, 2011
Instructors: Albert Bates, Andrew Goodheart Brown, Andrew Leslie Phillips, Maria Ros, Christopher Nesbitt & local guest instructors.
Comments (1)Sustainable Tropical Agriculture Systems in Southern Belize
Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Trees — by Albert Bates
by Albert Bates
Getting to the Maya Mountain Research Farm in southern Belize is its own wild side adventure. You can fly or bus to Punta Gorda Town on the coast and then bus or taxi up to San Pedro Columbia, a little village in the highlands of the Maya Mountains that is a jumping off point for river travel.
Toledo, with a population of 27,000, is the least globalized and most rustic district in Belize. The pyramid city of Lubaantun, near San Pedro Colombia, is a late classic Mayan ceremonial and commerce center where the famous crystal skull was found by the teenage daughter of archaeologist F.A. Mitchell-Hedges in 1926. The many small villages scattered at the edges of forests and along rivers look nearly the same today as they looked in 1926, 1826, or 1726.
From San Pedro, a boy with a dugout “dory” cedar canoe poles you up river past Lubaantun for two miles until you reach the shallow bend with the tall stands of bamboo on the starboard shore.
Comments (3)
