The Farmers Are At It Again
Animal Forage, Commercial Farm Projects, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, News, Plant Systems, Society — by Paul Douglas September 7, 2010
There they go again, making liars out of us, undermining our critique that their industry is contributing to the wholesale destruction of water, soil, air and biodiversity.
You know what the farmers have done, don’t you? They’ve only gone and realised that a diverse range of endemic, perennial, drought-proof fodder crops are better for their farm animals, their soil, the atmosphere and their bank balance than introduced, annual, copyrighted fodder crops. Not only that, but there is a symbiosis occurring between the annual pasture crops and perennial natives which is causing both sets of plants to grow better than they would normally otherwise. I happened upon this information via the Landline show on TV last week. I am constantly amazed by how much farmers are warming to the benefits and joys of permaculture elements without even realising it. They’ve been trialling alternative fodder crops, starting with the admittedly non endemic tagasaste “to repair the land and provide feed and shelter for [their] sheep”, and farmers in rural Australia have also long been planting Old Man Saltbush, both as a stock fodder and a way of helping combat soil salinity. This was also reported on Landline in 2008. Recently, they’ve begun trying out other crops, especially native perennial shrubs and have been crash grazing the test paddocks with sheep and experimenting with plant and crop row spacings in order to maximise yield.
Comments (7)Permaculture for Kids
Community Projects, Education Centres, Society, Village Development — by Paul Douglas August 30, 2010
Editor’s Note: Please welcome new contributing writer, Paul Douglas of Victoria, Australia!
During my two week immersion into permaculture design, Bill Mollison was asked by a student, "How do we go about teaching permaculture to our children?” to which Bill replied something along the lines of, “I don’t believe we should be teaching Permaculture to children. They already have enough on their plates in terms of responsibilities and such, so we shouldn’t overburden them with yet another subject.”
True enough, if you take permaculture as the full 72-hour course that we adults tend towards. But I approach the idea that teaching children permaculture is vitally important to the sustainability of life itself and needs to be taught to youths so that by the time they are adults, permaculture is no longer a subject, but a way of life that is as natural as breathing.
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