Farmers’ Handbook

Courses/Workshops, DVDs/Books — by Craig Mackintosh January 6, 2010

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. – Chinese Proverb

Worldwide, mainstream aid projects tend to deal with the symptoms of problems, rather than the problems themselves. In fact, often aid projects actually exacerbate the root issue, by supply free food and clothing that undermines the ability of people on the ground to make a living. In other words, we put them out of their low carbon business, forcing them off the land into cities where they must become part of the consumer treadmill, or perish.

But, sometimes, people with clear heads and unselfish hearts manage to help in much more substantial ways. The links to follow are to individual chapters of a Farmers’ Handbook created by Chris Evans (UK) and Jakob Jespersen (Denmark), who have spent considerable time in Nepal, helping to develop locally appropriate methods and technologies that can help the people of Nepal live better lives, and sustainably so.

Although the information is specifically tailored for Himalayan conditions, almost everyone will find some useful ideas and information in this comprehensive work. The whole handbook is 50 chapters in 5 volumes – a total of 792 pages, including 170 pages of colour photos and illustrations.

Aside from gleaning valuable ideas for your own region, I post this work, with permission, in the hope it will inspire others to do likewise for their own region and climate zone. This is the kind of information sharing that will move humanity onto a sustainable platform of peace and low carbon prosperity.

Please note: These files are free for personal use and circulation (please just link to this page), but can not be used for commercial purposes. They are copyright of Chris Evans and Jakob Jespersen. The Farmers’ Handbook is also still in a draft form and any suggestions of improvement are welcomed. Chris has the original editable version – if people are interested to translate this production into another language, or offer other suggestions, please contact Chris on: cevans (at) gn.apc.org

All files to follow are PDFs.

10 Comments »

• a great valuable resource for all of us hands on practitioners all over the world! thank you

  Comment by CRAIG JONES — January 6, 2010 @ 5:11 am

• Fantastic work! We will now utilise this handbook as an extra resource to capacity build our permaculture enthusiasts in the Himalayan areas of Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal, Uttarakhand and the North Eastern States! Thank-you so much for your selfless dedication to the Permaculture cause! We hope that you’ll find a little time to visit us in India live or online at http://permaculture.in … we will also promote your work on our website!

  Comment by Vic Gaffney — January 6, 2010 @ 7:13 am

• This is fantastic! Thanks for posting!

  Comment by Julie Pagliaro — January 6, 2010 @ 7:14 am

• awesome link up of resources …

  Comment by Trevor bamford — January 6, 2010 @ 7:33 pm

• Amazing simplicity, easy to undertand and translate.
  Spread the word by doing and sharing knowledge. Thanks for helping everyone.

  Comment by Ruben — January 7, 2010 @ 5:22 am

• People may also be interested in the ginormous CD3WD collection of appropriate tech.

  http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/cd3wd/index.htm

  Comment by greg — January 10, 2010 @ 6:14 pm

• Is there a way to download this all in 1 file ?

  thanks this stuff is awesome

  Comment by Byron — January 25, 2010 @ 4:07 am

• hi Chris!!!

  THANK YOU FOR THIS WONDERFUL RESOURCE… I am prepping up for another research and design trip to the eastern village of Nepal – this will be very helpful.. I hope I get to meet you, if you are in Nepal during that time.

  best regards,
  Priyanka

  Comment by priyanka — February 12, 2010 @ 12:59 pm

• Appreciate this contribution and am excited about using it in a new project in Spain

  Comment by David Juan — February 13, 2010 @ 1:56 am

• Thank you a lot from Portugal, you are inspiring hundreds in the other side of the world

  Hope to see someone from the PRIA in portugal soon,you ll be very weel received, we would like to listen to your precious advises in formalizing and linking the growing permaculturist comunity in portugal

  Best regards
  Pedro Franco

  Comment by Pedro — March 9, 2010 @ 5:04 am

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