Here, it is noteworthy that building a complex device such as a nuclear weapon poses a number of massive challenges, in engineering, chemistry, physics, computing, management, electronics, and a number of other fields. Some technical minds (and I should perhaps include myself here) are strongly attracted by such "formidable technical challenges". Quite often, even what was thought to be pretty much impossible eventually turns out to yield to our persistence and cleverness. Solving such a hard technical challenge pretty much feels like reaching the summit feels to a mountain climber. After a lot of frustration, numerous set-backs, and an insane amount of effort, finally, "I won". What we often forget, however, is that "success" does not offer us any guidance for the most important question: are we actually on the right track? However we decide to invest human effort and creativity, ignoring this question can be a fundamental problem.

So, if we could step outside our present cultural context for just one day, would this help us to improve our judgment on how we should proceed? Most likely, this would be a good idea. But, as we cannot really do this, a number of questions arise. One of them certainly is: is there anyone who can articulate an outside perspective on what we are doing that is accessible to us? Considering the present multi-faceted "mankind and nature" crisis, one of the names that might come to one’s mind here is the Japanese farmer-philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka. Another name is Mohandas Gandhi, the "Mahatma".

Interestingly, people in western cultures know very little about Gandhi, and the little they think they know often misses the key point. To us, it certainly does not help that Gandhi is so easily associated with the image of "a half-naked fakir", as Churchill put it, but one has to keep in mind here that, for most of his life, Gandhi worked to improve the lives of people so poor that starvation was a common experience to them. He certainly would not have been anywhere as effective in his regional context if he lived his life in a way that is closer to the everyday experience of most members of western nations. While working as a barrister, he actually did, of course, dress in a suit. Much later, when in England representing India, he of course dressed as a representative of the poor of India.

Actually, only a small part of his work was related to what he is most famous for in the West – independence from the British for India – indeed, a number of his most important achievements are linked to the history of South Africa. We seem to have a tendency to regard Gandhi – and a very small number of others with similarly remarkable biographies – as "saints", which may in part serve as an excuse "for us mere mortals" to not even consider adopting parts of their philosophy in our own life. But precisely this – a fairly sophisticated yet at the same time embarrassingly simple philosophy that has a lot to say about our culture, in conjunction with our collective inability to take a closer introspective look – calls for a deeper investigation.

Gandhi was well aware of the problem associated with becoming an "idol": he realized that much of what Jesus had to say made a lot of sense to him, while much of Christianity essentially seemed to him a clever self-deception designed to avoid the core message through devoutly worshipping the messenger only. In this sense, the imperative is to focus on the structure of Gandhi’s reasoning, rather than on the person and his biography, whose only actual relevance may lie in demonstrating the practicality of these ideas.

In order to understand Gandhi, one has to realize that, growing up in Hindu society his cultural background is very different from that of members of western civilization in one quite fundamental aspect: the perception of the concept "religion". When we try to take a look at Hindu religion, what we see is "polytheism", which we try to comprehend in relation to our culturally dominating "monotheistic" perspective. Now, presuming that any higher powers that may exist perhaps would be quite bemused (if they had such feelings) about our feeble attempts to articulate their characteristics in terms accessible to us, "monotheism" perhaps should be regarded as a consequence of other cultural ideas rather than as a fundament.

My contention is that, quite likely, "monotheism" is a natural concept in a "manipulative" society: If it is implicitly understood and accepted that one interacts with other people by getting them to "do" something that is of advantage to one’s own objectives, then, naturally, the ability to make other people do things is a measure of "power" (or, synonymously, "leadership"), and, as a further natural consequence of this is a "power hierarchy", it is evident that in such thinking, there must be a "supreme power", and as a concept with almightiness can not exist without an almighty, we can pretty much expect monotheistic language to express concepts of "the other world" in a manipulation-minded society. (I first realized this years ago during a fairly technical talk by an Indian physicist on a model of the Universe that does not have a Big Bang. In some aspects, it did not at all seem convincing, but neither do some aspects of the established "Big Bang Theories". I wondered whether the fact that such a model was studied by an Indian physicist had any significance, and came to the conclusion that a "Big Bang" so nicely fits the concept of an act of creation that we may subconsciously favor it, given our cultural programming. While I still do not like this alternative, I now wonder to what extent this may be due to such cultural biases which are difficult for me to assess.)

It certainly would be completely wrong to claim that concepts such as power, manipulation, and hierarchies did not exist in Hindu society. Still, this concept does not seem to play as central a role in the Hindu concept of religion. Cosmology gives an interesting clue here: while we think in terms of an initial act of creation of the Universe by The Almighty, the Hindu sees the world as never-ending cycles within cycles. So, in a sense, where our thinking is mostly focused on power, their thinking is mostly focused on permanence. (One may speculate whether this is what one would naturally expect to see in a society that has been in contact with the soil that sustains it for a very long time, and hence depends on realizing the importance of functioning cycles.)

Why is this clash of perspectives, "manipulation" vs. "permanence", so important? Actually, a common pattern underlying promising approaches to sustainability is to regard it as a three-dimensional problem. In Permaculture, this is encoded in the core ethics which consists of an environmental, a social, and an economic statement (Earth Care, People Care, Redistribution of Surplus). The same idea lies at the heart of the "triple bottom line" approach, only it is expressed using different language ("People, Planet, Profit"). A similar core concept again is found in Holistic Management. The problem is that, in a manipulation-minded society, such an approach appears to be of unmanageable complexity, as the three parts of such an ethics are perceived as independent tools to be used ad libitum to argue in favour or against some new idea depending on whether or not we would like to see it implemented according to more egoistic (potentially subconsciously so) reasons. So, insights that show us how to safeguard against such abuse are extremely valuable, and relevant.

What is the core element of Gandhi’s approach to interacting with the world? Gandhi’s most famous sentence perhaps was: "God is Truth". The actual title of his autobiography is "The continued story of my experiments with Truth" (here, "continued story" refers to the way it was published in the newspaper "Indian Opinion"). So, given that "Truth" plays the key role, what is Gandhi’s concept of "Truth"? Interestingly, it is seen as elusive, impossible to grab with both hands, impossible to put into a flask, impossible to "possess". (There is a natural tendency of many members of western societies to react quite strongly whenever the term "Truth" gets mentioned, as many of us have great difficulties to either consider it as something that might be a valid concept at all, or cannot see it in a different context than that of someone claiming to be in possession of it.) The way Gandhi lived suggests he saw "Truth" as an imperative, something that requires all our effort to be unearthed, even as we know we might at best catch a glimpse of it. Why is it so difficult – actually impossible – to "attain Truth"? A key problem is that the conscious human mind stands in the way: consciousness works very hard to interpret the world in a way so that the human Ego can maintain a positive self-image. Individually, it is impossible to completely overcome this obstacle to finding "Truth". But we might nevertheless sometimes manage to pull back the curtain a bit. A very interesting passage from Gandhi’s autobiography is:

The instruments for the quest of Truth are as simple as they are difficult. They may appear quite impossible to an arrogant person, and quite possible to an innocent child.

The seeker after Truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after Truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of Truth.

Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems buried there, in the shape of openings for an even greater variety of service.

In the march towards Truth, anger selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way, for otherwise Truth would be impossible to attain. A man who is swayed by passions may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will never find the Truth. A successful search for Truth means complete deliverance from the dual throng such as of love and hate, happiness and misery. – Gandhi

It is intriguing that in our manipulative culture, the issue of Ego self-protection plays such an extremely dominant role. The concept of "saving face" is a widely known and accepted one. We accept that, at times, many lives get sacrificed for this. How strange then do words such as these sound to us:

The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after Truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of Truth. – Gandhi

Once one accepts – as Gandhi evidently did – that "Truth" has a transcendental reality, and any idea of "possessing" it would hence be as silly as the idea of "possessing God", a natural conclusion is to pursue aligning oneself with Truth. For, if we live in a way that is in conflict with some fundamental truth, we will experience this sooner or later. Naturally, this world is quite forgiving in the sense that, whenever we make major mistakes, we get feedback in numerous ways, at least for those who pay attention. If we grow grain on steep slopes, say, we easily lose so much topsoil that we notice we will not be able to do this for long. Quite obviously, once one realizes that to be in conflict with some fundamental truth, the best one can do is to correct this as soon as possible. Truth cannot be cheated, and cannot be negotiated. If we stay on the wrong path, we will just keep on getting ever stronger feedback that we have gone wrong. If we stubbornly persist, we may reach the point where external circumstances get so bad that we are deprived of all power.

This phenomenon of making things much worse by sticking to obsolete beliefs is often encountered quite visibly during the last days of a major war. At the end of World War II, some of the Third Reich’s soldiers risked their lives to prevent the destruction of vital bridges which might have delayed the inevitable by just a few days at most, yet would have made the recovery of society a much more difficult challenge. Hence, the aspect of Truth that – sadly – might be most accessible to a society shaped by power-dominated thinking is: "Truth is what will ultimately break your neck if you persist on being stubborn to the last moment". But, as everything works in both ways, there is a flip side of that coin as well, one that shows a positive way forward, a way out of major present-day dilemmas. This will be the topic of Part II. Stay tuned.

Editor’s Note: This is Part III of a series. Read Part I here, and Part II here.

Does Costa Rica hold the secret to happiness? According to a number of different studies, Costa Ricans are the happiest people on the planet, with a longer life expectancy than Americans. Over the past weeks, major news outlets such as the New York Times and the BBC have reported on these results. One figure, called “happy life years,” results from merging average self-reported happiness (where subjects rate their happiness on a ten-point scale) with longevity. Using this system, Costa Rica ranks first, the United States is 19th, and Zimbabwe comes in last.

Latin American countries generally score higher on happiness surveys, perhaps because of the cultural emphasis on family and community.

Another approach combines happiness and life expectancy but adjusts for environmental impact. Here again, Costa Rica tops the list, achieving contentment in an environmentally sustainable way. The Dominican Republic ranks second, the United States 114th (because of its huge ecological footprint) and again Zimbabwe is last. One could argue that happiness is linked to the preservation of nature and people’s access to it — Costa Rica has made the protection of biodiversity a top priority with its extensive network of national parks and indigenous reserves. The country also prohibits private ownership of the coastline, even forcing large hotels to run shuttles across their property to allow locals access to the beach.

We got to check out the Costa Rican health care system up close recently when Louis went to the hospital to get a botfly removed from his belly! This nasty little jungle pest bites you and lays an egg which grow into a worm-like larva. His was only about an eighth of an inch long, but apparently if left there they can grow much longer — gross! However, the experience of the hospital was very positive: the wait wasn’t long, the staff were friendly (joking that the larva they extracted was their new pet) and guess what? When we were finished and asked for the bill, they laughed and waved goodbye – it was free! Needless to say, that made us very happy.

As New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof pointed out, another major reason for Costa Rican happiness might be traced to a decision made in 1949 to abolish the national army and invest instead in education. The investment paid off in many ways: a more stable society free from the violent conflict that has ravaged much of Central America; a narrowing of the gender gap (a few days ago Costa Rica elected its first woman president); and a strong economy that has fostered the effective health care and social systems.

Costa Rican pacifism and biodiversity are both sources of national pride — while waiting in line when we first arrived at the airport on this trip, we enjoyed a video which proclaimed “our army” over footage of leafcutter ants, monkeys and iguanas, and “our navy” over footage of fish and sea turtles.

My family has now been living here for over two months, working on the development of a nascent ecovillage called Tacotal, and examining for ourselves what we need to be happy. Having stripped down our lives from the comforts and amenities of California to a tent in the jungle with no electricity, we’ve been slowly rebuilding those luxuries and considering what comforts are truly necessary to us. Last week we moved into our newly-built bamboo and wood casita, which we managed to complete for about $1500. Nearly all of us in the community (now about 15) contributed to making it over the past month, and it’s definitely made me happier to have a little more space and some furniture.

The A-frame casita serves as a two story sleeping and living space for me, Louis, little Lîla and baby Ren. The roof is a tarp made of a repurposed advertising banner, which works for the dry season but will probably be replaced by something more permanent in May (we see the Kotex logo directly over our heads when we lie in bed). The floor and some of the framing is laurel, a hardwood that (so we hear) is locally and sustainably harvested. The main framework, deck floor, and ladder are Costa Rican bamboo, and the walls are made of a breathable shade cloth they call zaran.

A next step is to work on getting some more solar power. At present we’ve got one 56 watt photovoltaic panel for the community, which is not enough to meet all of our needs. We’re working on the design for our own composting toilet nearer to our cabin, which will all serve as the mount for our own panel (currently somewhere on route from the United States). More lights at night and a baby monitor so we could go up to hang out in the community kitchen after putting the kids to bed would make me happy.

Among the other upcoming projects are putting in a polished earthen floor for the main kitchen, which is currently made of loose dirt (imagine our 3 year-old after a day of playing in the kitchen and the way our baby continually drops her toys—ugh!) Fixing the floor might help reduce the need for building the bike-powered washing machine we’ve been collecting materials for. We’ve got most of the parts save one key gear that has been hard to get a hold of. The rest of the community seems somewhat ambivalent about the washing machine, but I’ve got a pressing need, and that is cleaning diapers.

Sign language for ‘toilet’ has an obscene connotation here.

Diapering is a big question for many new parents, and by now between the two kids I think we’ve tried about all the options — disposables, diaper laundering services, compostables, and washing our own. With Lîla we also started “elimination communication” at six months, teaching her the sign language for “toilet” and having her use the potty at an early age. Here in the jungle, it just didn’t seem right to use disposables for baby Ren, especially when we have no garbage pickup and have to bring our own garbage into town and find a dumpster. Not to mention the fact that we’re supposed to be starting an ECO-village. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that the sign language for “toilet” also means “sex from behind” in Costa Rica….

We’ve gone through the suitcase of compostable diapers I dragged down here. So for now, I’m hand washing the cloth ones in solar-heated hot water, with bio-detergent (imported), soap berries, and limes (both from our land). We spray off the poop into a special compost pit, which after some time will be full of super rich soil. It’s what permaculturists call a closed-loop cycle. And to balance out this fairly unpleasant labor of love, we spend the money we’d use for disposables to pay a local mama to do our other laundry in her machine, so I have time for other things (like making marmalade with some of our million oranges).

For me, happiness is finding that precious overlap between sustainability and comfort, where my family’s needs are met within the boundaries of a healthy ecosystem. And that’s what permaculture is— creating positive, regenerative relationships between humans and the planet. If Costa Rica has a secret to happiness, perhaps it is in the ways it has put this ethic into practice, for the benefit of its people and its environment.

Since the main shed was moved up to the top of the property we’ve been running up and down in the ute more often.

Most Australian farmer use a petrol powered Ag bike to do these smaller trips but on a Permaculture farm where you don’t travel a lot of steep slopes because of the swales a pedal powered bicycle would be perfect, not to mention more environmentally friendly.

Geoff knows I like playing with bikes so he asked me if I would be able to design a bike to get us around the property. The design brief goes like this:

• Secondhand where possible
• Easy to ride the slopes
• Rugged
• Doesn’t have to go fast but must be able to carry tools and miscellaneous items

There were a few bikes around the property so I gathered them up and had a look. With my good design hat on I looked at why these bike were put down in the first place. The common theme was the gearing system. Most failures on a bike are easy to ignore or repair but when the gears are stuck in the wrong spot or in between its game over.

So now to design it from the available parts. I decided on the following:

• Mountain bike frame & wheels with chunky tyres
• Fixed low gear for climbing not speed, eliminating complex derailers and cables
• Ideal tyre pressure 30 PSI to absorb some of the bumps
• Baskets front and back attached with surplus bamboo
• Single back brake

The only new parts used were the cable ties for the baskets however wire or twine would do the same job, I just happened to find the ties first.

It was all done with basic hand tools (pliers, 2 hex keys, hacksaw and screwdriver) plus a drill with a 6mm steel bit (but you could use a hand drill if needed). The front derailer was removed completely and the only challenge was fixing the back derailer which was overcome with a small piece of a coat hanger. After a few rides I decided the best spot was gear 1 on the front and gear 3 on the back but that comes down to personal preference and the property it’s to be used on.

I’m pretty happy with the result and I’m certain these bikes will stand the test of time as they are very basic and easily kept in service. If Geoff’s happy with this one I will build a fleet of 4 or 5 before the internship is over in April.

Total cost $0. Rugged Ag bike: Priceless

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a series. Read Part I here.

Yoga on the deck which will become our temporary bedroom

We’ve been here a month now, and I’m actually writing from a hammock with my laptop powered by the sun, underneath a pair of orange trees. This is our new “living room” in this experiment in outdoor living, outfitted with a log bench, a couple of rocking chairs woven with cord in the local style, outdoor kitchen and shower and a repurposed buoy that serves as a swing. A few steps away are kitchen and shower, cross a little bridge to the bathtub/dipping pool, and another few meters is our newly finished wooden platform where soon we’ll be sleeping. For now it makes a great yoga deck and has a sweet view across the Machuca River valley to a steep hillside dotted with grazing white cows.

A lot of folks have called us “brave” to move out here with our two little daughters, Serenne (5 months) and Lîla (3 years). From my perspective, parenting here allows me to do basically the same things I’ve been doing at home in Berkeley, but with more of a sense of purpose and alignment with my values. Whereas in the U.S. I find myself feeling like a somewhat unwilling, slightly apologetic housewife, driving my little ones around, grocery shopping and turning up the heat to stay warm, here I can take care of my family’s needs with a much smaller ecological footprint. That is, minus the impact of the plane flight here, which is considerable — a subject I’d like to return to in a future post.

Being in the jungle with a pre-crawling baby is easier than it will be when she’s on the move, as I spend much of my time with her in a carrier. My approach to parenting is strongly inspired by Jean Liedloff’s book The Continuum Concept, which is linked to “attachment parenting” and the resurgence of baby wearing in the U.S. Liedloff based her book on experiences living with indigenous people in the Amazon and observing their relationships with their babies and children. She believes that allowing babies to spend the majority of their first year worn close to mama’s body and snuggled close to her at night helps develop an essential sense of security and trust that stays with the child into adulthood. This concept of “kangaroo care,” and the idea of skin to skin contact as important, especially for newborns, has started to gain credence even in U.S. hospitals.

While the indigenous families observed often saw mama carrying her baby, she would usually have him or her in a sling or wrap so that hands could be free for work, even while nursing. Yet when mama tired of carrying baby, the extended family and community were often available and interested in spending time with the little one. This way of raising children feels right and sensible to me, in contrast to the way I feel when I’m home alone with my baby all day, isolated and trying to stay sane, and driving my toddler to and from preschool.

So far, even though the number of us living at Tacotal is small, my reality has been much closer to that of the indigenous mama, and I love that. There are lots of hands to hold baby and tell stories or show plants and animals to Lîla. The one major issue is that little Serenne’s thermostat is set to North America, so she has been really hot since being here. In the heat of the day when it seems too hot to wear her, I put her in her play gym in the kitchen and give her lots of little baths. She is just as cheerful as she’s always been most of the time, and I’ve been giving her little tastes of our bananas (we’ve harvested a big bunch from one of our trees since arriving) in anticipation of starting her on solid foods in a few weeks. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with the banana yet but is very interested in the new taste. I’m anticipating that when she starts crawling in a few months, it will be trickier as there are currently no baby-friendly floors here. An upcoming project will likely be to finish the kitchen floor, which is now dirt, and make a polished earthen/adobe floor. This will also cut down the frequency of laundry that’s needed and hopefully reduce the layer of red dust that big sister Lîla usually wears around.

I wrote earlier that we’re able to meet our needs with a smaller ecological footprint, and want to discuss a few of the systems that make that true. One major difference from life at home is being off the power grid and away from municipal garbage and sewage lines . I can honestly say I enjoy my daily visit to our composting toilet here, which is up on a breezy hillside and built of bamboo, wood, and recycled materials. It has a small area in front for pee that separates it from the poop, which allows the “humanure” to dry out and prevents bad odor. Instead of flushing, we put a few cups of sawdust in to complete our mission and close the loop (food to poop back to soil where we grow more food).

With no garbage pickup here, we are very aware of the waste we create, and in fact I’m looking right now at the border of our “living room,” marked with green glass wine bottles. Since we don’t have a fridge, we buy more dry bulk items with less packaging. We separate out organic waste for the worm compost, leftovers that feed the chickens, and citrus for the regular compost. Packaging is separated into plastic, glass and metals which can be recycled and paper and cardboard is used for kindling in the wood stove. Another ingenious little system which was put into place since we last visited involves creating building material — mass that can be built into an earthen wall — by stuffing small plastic and cellophane bags that can’t be reused into empty plastic bottles.

Stephen demonstrates how to ‘flush’ the composting toilet

Of course, a major difference from home and one of my favorite parts of being here is the lack of driving. I especially dislike trying to get two kids in and out of their carseats several times a day and fighting the traffic in the Bay Area. The road in here is so rough that you need a good reason to drive out — riding a horse or walking is actually more comfortable. With the number of folks living here, we each only need to leave every few weeks for groceries, though most of us probably venture out once or twice a week to get supplies, go to a restaurant, or visit the beach (about 30 minutes from the end of our bumpy road to the first Pacific beach at Tarcoles. Since I want Lîla to be able to learn more Spanish and have a chance to interact with more kids (there is presently just one other kid here, her good friend Jazz), we’ll be driving a bit more often when the two of them start school next month. Unless we find a school accessible by horse!

Continue on to read Part III

Our bonds with other species are as vital, to survival, as our bonds with other people. If we don’t choose our company carefully, disaster is likely to ensue.

As a species, we should be shopping for the best relationships. There’s a lot a stake, and we don’t want to be abused or neglected. When searching for a good fit, we should keep in mind the following characteristics of good relationships.

Healthy Relationships Are:

• Supportive
• Stable
• Trustworthy
• Reciprocating
• Versatile
• Low Maintenance

Any signs of abusiveness, jealousy, extreme neediness, aloofness, instability, selfishness, should be bright red flags. To satiate our needs, we require an assortment of healthy relationships, from lovers and close friends, to co-workers and acquaintances. We know that too few or too many relationships can be a bad thing.

The most conspicuous relationships of the human species involve domesticated plants and animals. Our common pets, and almost all the food items in a grocery store, are domesticated organisms. These are the barnyard plants and animals we learn about from the moment we begin to talk.

But these creatures were not always domestic. All of them descend from wild ancestors, just as dogs descended from wolves. In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond provides an excellent overview of domestication’s history. The domestication of food plants and animals was the basis of the Neolithic Revolution, when Old Word hunter/gatherers became farmers. Diamond make a good point: the reason we domesticated wolves and wheat, instead of moose, zebras, or cheetahs, is because wolves and wheat had a natural tendency to associate with people.

Wolves, for instance, probably first encountered people while scavenging meat scraps from hunting camps. Since wolves and people where both social hunters at that time, and since both species had something to gain from cooperation (increased hunting success), it was highly likely that a relationship would form.

It was the same way with plants like wheat, which probably thrived in man made disturbances before it was domesticated. Out of this relationship people gained food, and wheat gained habitat. Moose, zebras, and cheetahs don’t associate with people, if they can help it, and don’t have much to gain from a relationship.

When examining the planet’s organisms, we find a whole spectrum of tendencies for associating with people. On one side, we have animals like spotted owls and arboreal salamanders, who have very different needs from people. They want little to do with us, because we have nothing to offer them. Endangered species are likely to occupy this side of the spectrum, because, as we modify their habitat to suite us, it becomes less suitable to them.

In the middle of the spectrum are organisms that have needs and habitats similar to ours. Deer for instance, were not abundant in Western Washington State, until people began clearing the old growth forest to suite their needs. While this activity seriously threatened the spotted owl, deer thrived in the fields and thick re-growth that resulted. Similarly, apple trees have a habit of sprouting up in disturbed forests around human settlements. Since people like to eat deer and apples, this is a happy relationship, and both parties have something to gain. But an important distinction is that these species do not absolutely need us. Deer and wild apples would do fine without human help, perhaps making use of natural burn areas. (Read Northwest Lands Northwest Peoples, edited by Goble and Hirt.)

At the far end of the spectrum are organisms that need humans to survive. Corn is an excellent example. In the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan pointed out that without human intervention, corn could not even reseed itself. Helplessly, corn relies completely on people for it’s propagation. Corn is so needy, it can only survive by rewarding the humans who plant it with prodigious amounts of food. Through the hybridization and genetic modification of corn and other domestic organisms, we make them still more dependent on us. If humans quit supporting them, these organisms would cease to exist.

The Domestication Spectrum:

The most domesticated organisms in the spectrum reward us with the greatest quantities of food, but it comes a cost. Anyone who’s noticed the luxurious lifestyle of some pet dogs has witnessed that cost. I am referring to the frightening phenomenon of co-domestication.

Sure, dogs keep us company, they intimidate thieves, and they fetch the paper. But these same dogs enjoy a constant supply of free food and the freedom to sleep the entire day, while their owners slave away at full time jobs. Who has domesticated whom? This article (PDF) sheds light on how powerfully canines have shaped our species, not just vice versa.

All domestic organisms are the same way. They give more because they need more. The reason they can yield so much more than their wild counterparts is that they have differed the work of their upkeep to us. As much as we have domesticated them, they have domesticated us. We do their bidding, even when it becomes painful.

But do we want to be domesticated? Jared Diamond demonstrated that such relationships have been a primary vector for pandemic diseases throughout history. Almost every plague can be traced back to a domestic animal, even the more recent "swine flu". Domesticated animals also develop much smaller brains than their wild counterparts. Neoteny, or juvenilization, is a common trait exhibited by domesticates, a phenomenon by which adult animals retain the traits of juveniles, becoming helpless, cute, dumb, and compliant. This process can happen in as little as fifty years, as demonstrated by Dmitri Belyaev’s experiment in domesticating the silver fox. The idea that humans have been similarly tamed is a chilling one. (See http://www.primitivism.com/domestic.htm for effects of domestication.)

Have our co-domesticates made lap dogs out of us? Consider that most of the calories you consume come from just four crops. Consider that most of the carbon that comprises your body was fixed by corn. Or take a drive through Middle America and see it stretch to the horizon; corn, corn, corn, corn…. Or better yet, visit the Gulf of Mexico’s vast "dead zone" where all the fertilizer washed from the Mississippi’s corn and soybean fields accumulates, and becomes a patch of lifeless reeking sea as broad as Massachusetts. (http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/general.html)

Who is in charge here? Whose greed is ravishing the planet? Is it the Exxon? Is it George W. Bush? Is it Wal-Mart?!

No. It’s corn. Corn is in charge.

People are conceited enough to believe that we are the cause of this nightmare. But if our species was really in control, the world would look a lot differently. However greedy we may be, it was never in our interest to pollute and overpopulate the planet, dine on high fructose corn syrup, work long hours plowing up the soil, and cover every arable acre with wheat, rice, and corn. This is, however, very much in the interest of corn.

The human/grain relationship is the definition of unhealthy. Of all the plants we could have loved, we’ve chosen the ones that destroy our home and feed us junk. This is abusive. If we had any spine at all, we’d ditch them forever.

As a species, it’s time we had a talk with crops like corn. What we ought to be saying is, "Look Corn, things started out alright between us. I remember when we first got together in Mexico, we hung out with Beans and Squash, we made tortillas together, it was beautiful. But things aren’t the same anymore. Corn, you’ve been so draining lately. I’ve taken you everywhere and given you everything; land, water, fertilizer, herbicide, even genetic modifications – do you have any idea how many prairies and watersheds I sacrificed? I butchered the nitrogen cycle for you! And what do I have to show for it?! Corn-syrup! Lousy corn fed beef! Diabetes and heart disease! That’s what I have to show for it! And if it was up to you, I’d never have anything else. A person can’t live on cornflakes alone! Corn, I’m an omnivore, I need variety, adventure, and Omega 3 fatty acids. I don’t mind having corn on the cob now and then, but corn syrup on every label? You’re even in my gasoline! I can’t go on like this. You’re jealously is insane! This relationship isn’t working for me anymore. I think it’s time I saw other species."

What would it mean, to divorce ourselves from our co-domesticates?

A healthier relationship with our food might resemble our hunter/gatherer past, when we utilized a greater diversity of plants and animals in our diet. Hunter/gatherers across the world eat somewhere in the ballpark of 200 different plant species. We are omnivores, descended from a long line of omnivores. Even our chimpanzee cousins eat about 200 plant species. Primate intelligence may have evolved, in part, to facilitate such an eclectic diet. Ethnobotanists estimate that indigenous people from my home region, the Columbia Plateau, utilized at least 135 plants for food. When we consider how many non-native plants are available to us, as the result of global exchange, it does not seem unreasonable to demand a 300-plant diet. This is not to mention animal foods, which lag not far behind plants in hunter/gatherer diets, in terms of number of species eaten. The markets of the undeveloped world are a tantalizing example of just how much culinary variety we miss out on in the industrialized world. Broadening the scope of our menu would certainly improve our health and the health of the planet.

A healthier relationship with food might also look a little more independent. By eating from a wider swath of the domestication spectrum, and avoiding the extremes, we could spare ourselves internal and external damages. For instance, most of the vegetable greens consumed by modern Americans come from domesticated crops grown in intensively managed fields, which is totally absurd. There is no shortage of wild greens growing in our waste places, even in urban settings. Commonly overlooked "weeds" such as nettles, lambs quarter, amaranth, purslane, etc. are higher in vitamin and mineral content than their domestic counterparts, and thrive with zero maintenance. Many of these taste as good, or better, than domesticated greens (see http://www.eattheweeds.com). They are more than abundant enough to meet the vitamin and mineral needs of everyone. If we incorporated these semi-wild plants in our diets, we would waste less money and energy, and preserve our integrity as low-maintenance omnivores. Instead, most of us continue to be trapped by our bias toward tame, high-maintenance things.

Few societies are as irrational as ours in this regard. Most of the world’s other cultures have realized that while some foods are worth the effort to cultivate, others are best harvested from the wild. The hunter/gatherer Indian cultures of the Northwest were happy to adopt domestic species like chickens, potatoes, and turnips. It was no stretch. After all, they had been gardening tobacco for a very long time. But almost nothing could stop them from harvesting huckleberries, or wild salmon. Only our culture would build the Grand Coulee Dam, thus terminating a free and abundant supply of wild salmon, in order to irrigate potatoes. Most long-established agricultural societies derive a significant part of their diet from the wild. Farming corn did not keep early American societies from dining on venison and nuts as well.

Sea food, the one wild harvest industry our society wasn’t so squeamish about, is rapidly being replaced by high-maintenance fish farms, and other forms of aquaculture. On the whole, the industrial world has done a very poor job of striking a balance between low and high maintenance sustenance strategies. Indeed, we seem to have an uncanny tendency toward the latter extreme. Why? Why would we go to so much trouble? Perhaps it is because, as any government employee can tell you, make-work can be profitable (the Grand Coulee Dam makes another pertinent example). But this is an entirely different topic, perhaps better covered by Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine.

If you’re like me, make-work isn’t your forte. You’ve got better things to do than labor for things nature offers for free. You may also like the idea of moving your diet toward the healthy norm – two or three hundred plant species. Find out more about increasing the diversity of your habitat at: https://sites.google.com/site/humanhabitatproject.

Permaculture education should be in every school, everywhere. If it was, I believe most of the world’s problems could be solved within a decade.

One of 55 eco-friendly homes nestled amongst newly established gardens

An hour or so south of the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo is the fishing district of Kalutara. Although only one of many regions hit by the 2004 Tsunami, post-disaster relief efforts here were unique in that Sarvodaya determined to use the situation to create Sri Lanka’s first eco-village.

Designed with the technical advice and guidance of world renowned Australian permaculture experts Max Lindegger and Lloyd Williams, who are affiliated with Ecological Solutions Inc. and Global Eco-village Network (GEN), the village has become a model of sustainable development.

The Sri Lankan government allocated a parcel of land situated five kilometres inland for the purpose, and financing for construction came via Sarvodaya as well as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC), the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the Asia Pacific Forum for Environment and Development (APFED). The combined gifts culminated in the construction of Lagoswatta – a model eco-village, situated on a gentle five acre slope bordered by rice fields, that is now home to 55 families from three villages in the area.

I was of course very keen to take a look, and so after winding our way from the coast, through small farmlets and a rather beautiful and shady rubber tree plantation, I arrived in Lagoswatta for a brief look.

Beginning in April 2005 and completed in 2006, an important aspect of of the work was the involvement of the intended residents in the construction process itself – providing an excellent opportunity to build a sense of ownership and self-determination for their future, whilst giving survivors a sense of purpose that helps them deal psychologically with trauma, loss of loved ones and their subsequent dramatic change in circumstances.

Each earth-brick home in Lagoswatta is virtually identical, measuring about 46 square metres (500 square feet) and consists of two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and sanitation facilities. Each home has its own garden, and practical involvement of residents are positively encouraged with training in composting, gardening, recycling and also maintenance of the solar panel and battery that provides electricity to each home – something many residents never had before. Homes are also equipped with a recycling receptacle and on the edge of the village is a small recycling station where materials are separated and stored for monthly collection. The project also included a Subterra biological soakage system for household greywater.

Water for drinking and irrigation is one of the biggest problems Sri Lankans face. Construction for Lagoswatta thus included fourteen rainwater harvesting tanks to collect roof run-off, five drinking wells and two communal bathing wells.

An important aspect of design for any eco-village are those that encourage community interdependence. In addition to housing, a multi-purpose community center was built that includes a doctor’s office (manned on Mondays), library, computer room, a childcare/Montessori school centre and a playground – all encouraging community interaction and the pooling and development of the creative abilities of individual villagers. Programs assisting in social mobilization and livelihood support foster this development as well.

A boy plays in the community childcare centre

The edge-of-town recycling station – emptied monthly

One aspect of village life I found interesting was that, unlike other Sarvodaya villages, where the very first stage of development is ‘awakening’ to the Sarvodaya principles based on earth care and the ten basic needs, the villagers of Lagoswatta were somewhat thrown together suddenly at a time of extreme stress. Additionally, many of the villagers were previously fisher folk, so once moved from the coast to Lagoswatta they’ve had to take on a whole new existence. Whilst villagers on the whole largely seemed content and adapting to their new surrounds, it was clear to me there wasn’t the same industriousness and cohesion found in some of the other villages who had opted to join the Sarvodaya network out of acknowledgement and appreciation over time of the principles that forms the basis of the movement.

In other words, these people were somewhat thrown together out of necessity, rather than inspired choice.

A Lagoswatta villager harvests compost from his bin

Practical examples of this could be seen by observing the state of different gardens in the village, where some were making excellent use of their land – cultivating quite a diverse range of fruit, vegetables and herbs and developing a lovely shaded environment that is a major advantage in the tropical heat – while others were making merely token efforts.

Some villagers were making excellent use of their garden space

I spoke with a few villagers about how well their solar system worked. One man spoke despondently about how after only four years the battery had already failed and he couldn’t afford the 15,000 rupees to replace it. Considering this man didn’t have power in the shack he and his small family lived in prior to its destruction, I was conscious of how this ‘upgrade’ in their life was making them dependent on polluting technologies that were too expensive for them to maintain. When I mentioned the failed battery in a neighbour’s house, it was explained to me that the first man had not been maintaining the battery as he was told (topping up with water) and so killed it from neglect. Considering this, I remembered that that particular man’s garden was also largely non-existent, indicating either a general lack of pro-active interest or difficulty in adapting, and it made me appreciate all the more the importance of Sarvodaya’s stepped program that prioritises individual transformation at its base.

Each home has a battery that stores power from a small roof-mounted
solar panel. The only appliances for most houses are normally only lights,

a radio and/or television.

As they say, a house does not a home make. In the same way, a collection of buildings and people does not an eco-village make. It became obvious to me that you cannot just lump a divergent range of people together and call them a ‘community’. A truly successful community requires some planning at a spiritual level to facilitate cohesion – and this centres in all involved being inspired with a sense of positive purpose and collectively shared goals. Disasters like that which gave birth to Lagoswatta obviously do not provide the luxury of time for such considerations, but I think this is an important facet to consider wherever possible.

Villagers said their conditions were improved – homes were warmer in winter,
cooler in summer, and power, water and garden features were all appreciated.

The good news is that Sarvodaya’s efforts in this regard continue to this day, and Lagoswatta has become an excellent model for not only Sri Lanka but also for village development and disaster relief efforts worldwide.

Stay tuned for the next edition in this series….

The community centre is appropriate for culture and climate

The community library was spartan, but it’s a start

Composting toilets are culturally unacceptable to Sri Lankans, so Lagoswatta
utilises septic tanks for black water. Outside are rain-fed washing facilities.

A typical Lagoswatta kitchen. Some homes house two or three families, as
families would open their doors to relatives struggling after the disaster.

A children’s park completes the picture. The sign reads:

"This park is a gift to the children from the American people."

As we enter 2010, the script for a futuristic agriculture, which brings back the smile on the face of farmers, without leaving any scar on the environment, is being rewritten.

What began as a small initiative some six years back in a non-descript village in Khamam district, has now spread to over 2 million acres in 21 districts of Andhra Pradesh. I remember when I first talked about the miracle brought about in village Pannukula in Andhra Pradesh, many thought I was simply trying to romanticise agriculture. How farming can be done without the use of chemical pesticides, I was repeatedly asked.

Pannukula dug out a lonely furrow, but eventually blazed a trail. In the next four years, more than 318,000 farmers in 21 out of the 23 districts of Andhra Pradesh have discarded the intensive chemical farming systems, and shifted to a more sustainable, economically viable and ecologically friendly agriculture. A silent revolution is in the offing. In Kharif 2009 (the monsoon season), some 1.4 million acres was covered with what is now known as Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA).

As I write this in the first week of January 2010, the area had expanded to 2 million acres of 21 districts. More than 0.6 million acres increase in a farming system that does not use chemical pesticides, and is also phasing out chemical fertiliser, that too in matter of few months, is a record of sorts. And all this has happened without any push from the government agencies and the private sector. I see no reason why this environmentally safe, and a farmer-friendly system of sustainable agriculture, cannot cover 200 million acres across the country in another ten years or so if the government gets serious.

60,000 acres increase in a farming system that does not use chemical pesticides, and is also phasing out chemical fertiliser, that too in matter of few months, is a record of sorts. Ten years from now, in 2020, when we try to look back, Indian agriculture can be transformed into a healthy and vibrant system where farmer suicides have been relegated to history, where distress and despondency has been replaced by the lost pride in farming, and where agriculture becomes sustainable in the long run and does not result in climate change.

What began as an experiment to evolve a farming system without the application of chemical pesticides is now also phasing out the use of chemical fertilisers. It uses a mixture of scientific proven technologies, indigenous knowledge and traditional wisdom. Farmers are replacing chemical fertilisers and pesticides with microbial formulations, intensive use of composting techniques, vermi-composting, and apply bio-fertilisers, and use bio-extracts for controlling pests.

Paddy crop has increased significantly under CMSA. It therefore brought in a complete shift from conventional agriculture and offered secure and stable livelihoods. The crop yields have remained the same, the pest attack has drastically reduced, and the soil is returning back to its natural fertility levels. As soil fertility improves over the years, crop yields have started going up still further. More importantly, farmer’s expenditure on health problems emanating from pesticides application has also gone down by 40 per cent on an average.

There is more money now in the hands of the farmers. The cost of cultivation per acre has also come down by 33 per cent. Take the case of cotton, a CMSA farmer saves more than Rs 12,500 per hectare in a year on account of no application of pesticides alone. With his crop productivity remaining stable, cotton farmers have got a new lease of life. The environment too has become healthier and safe.

What began as an experiment to evolve a farming system without the application of chemical pesticides is now also phasing out the use of chemical fertilisers by relying on a mixture of scientific proven technologies, indigenous knowledge and traditional wisdom. Normally, 56 per cent of the cost of cotton cultivation is primarily on account of pesticides. And don’t forget, elsewhere in the State and for that matter in the country, 70 per cent of the farmers who are committing suicide are engaged in cotton cultivation.

No farmer has committed suicide in the areas where non-pesticides management system of farming is being followed.

More money in the hands of farmers means less debt. I haven’t seen any other village in the country in past three decades of my work in agriculture, which has been able to recover its entire mortgaged land from the money lenders in just three years of adopting non-pesticides management. This happened in village Ramachandrapuram in Khamam district where all 75 farmers have even paid back the outstanding rate of interest.

Studies in five districts show that out of the 467 families that had mortgaged their land, at least 386 have recovered it in two years time.

This is a roadmap for the future of Indian agriculture, and for that global agriculture. It not only provides a sustainable path, with a very low carbon footprint, and has tremendous potential to remove poverty and hunger. It has been conclusively demonstrated that household food security has improved with a 40 per cent drop in the purchase of food from the market. The crop yields have gone up, and farmers are now able to cultivate two crops in a year. This is the Zero Hunger model that I normally talk about which needs to be adopted under the proposed National Food Security Act.

Women and farmer Self Help Groups’ play a critical role in CMSA. Savings have increased, and a federation of 850,675 self-help groups now involves 10 million women from the poor households. This federation now holds a corpus of US $ 1.5 billion providing a bundle of economic services. No wonder, sustainable agriculture without external inputs can revolutionise the rural landscape, where hunger and poverty becomes history.

Devinder Sharma is an award-winning journalist, writer, thinker and researcher respected for his views on food and trade policy. His writings focus on the links between biotechnology, intellectual property rights, food trade and poverty. He is a regular contributor to leading national print publications.

A gentle slice of moon on the star crowded sky of southwestern Madagascar just set gracefully and yet another day is over; we are now in the second half of January 2010.

And what day is today: Monday, Wednesday or perhaps Sunday? We easily lose track when in the field, especially during our prolonged stays – keeping busy in the nursery, forest and the village of Ranobe with several community participatory projects – keeping the momentum of excitement and action. The dynamics are encouraging and there is wonderful energy flowing. Every day is somewhat special; ups and downs along the journey to the ultimate balance. Capacity building is about trust building and about generosity, patience, humbleness as well as discipline. It’s a wonderful lesson for all of us, for ho avy team and for FIMPAHARA.

And what is the fresh news? Ino vao vao? As expressed in Malagasy. Aha… tsisy vao vao, is the universal answer – there is no news (even though there actually are news). In fact, misy maro vao vao – there are many good news in the process of ‘growing for the future’. And so let us fill you on those:

Work in our three native tree nurseries has been truly a rewarding time; reconnecting with nature and sharing the cheerful time with FIMPAHARA members actively involved. It’s been a pleasureable time of nature observations, provided that we are situated between a nice patch of mostly continuous forest in southwestern Madagascar and diverse agricultural land. Our nurseries attract a lot of incredibly interesting wildlife. Spectacular wildlife moments are abundant: we have been observing several local endemic species of frogs, a slim worm-sized transparent skink Voeltzkowia sp. ‘pallida’, about which not much is known, ancient looking dragonflies, beautiful butterflies and their colorful caterpillars, bizarre insects, flies, beetles and even a ‘may fly’ specimen looking quite prehistoric.

The forest is culminating in its green coat refreshed by spectacular flowers of the most bizarre shapes and structures, opening after a couple rain storms, the first just before Christmas and in the first week of January, each yielding about 20 mm. Days have been pretty hot here with maximum of 39°C and up to 70% humidity, so we like to spend our lunch breaks at what we call ‘a la plague’ (on the ‘beach’ of the lake Ranobe) in a shadow of graceful bananas. Since the beginning of January we have a very good track of weather measurements logged by our meteorological station; great tool for long term monitoring of climatic changes.

Trees in our two full-to-capacity nurseries are doing well. New species are germinating continuously and we have been monitoring their growth each month. Replanted trees have each gotten their unique tags for long-term monitoring. FIMPAHARA receives introductions to plant growth monitoring. Ho avy together with FIMPAHARA is finding local solutions to upcoming issues such as nutrient balance and plant survival. We have been supplying the saplings with compost tea, with a solution of local natural insecticides: the soaked bark of katrafay (Cedrelopsis grevei and soaked crushed leaves of neem, Azedirachta indica), keeping the insect herbivores off and strengthening the health of the seedlings; this is part of our nursery maintenance lessons we have engaged FIMPAHARA into.

Creating sunken vegetable beds

Our third nursery’s construction has just been completed we have been filling it up with pots rapidly. It is an extensive nursery, 4m wide and 16m long, with a capacity of more than 6000 pots. At the moment we have 4000 pots waiting for planting in just a few days and we are continuously filling new pots. We anticipate the seed planting will be finished by the end of January – when we will be up to 10,000 pots with growing native plants. This is certainly exciting progress. The children are a dynamic component in that progress; they have been engaged in pot filling and cheerfully carrying bags on their heads. One boy has carried a pot filled with soil on his nose; laughing when we called him ‘mifioky’ (which is the vernacular name for the endemic ephemeral chameleon Furcifer labordi – meaning the one with long nose who can whistle). We have been designing the third nursery to combine natives, food and medicinal plants, using the full potential of the nursery and proximity to the agricultural field for future tree transplanting to agroforestry schemes.

Last Sunday we had an important meeting in the village, during which FIMAPAHRA and ho avy organized a guided tour through the three nurseries, potato cropped land, our two new completed biogas installments, of which the first one has started to produce biogas already, just after two weeks. This is certainly one exciting alternative to the local cooking options – that being open fire and charcoal from the endemic forest wood. One night, returning from the nursery after the sunset, Ondra, our biogas technician grabbed our attention and whispers "come over… I’ll show you something." Taking us to the biogas storage tank, he lit the burner and … a powerful blue flame lightened up the scene. We have natural gas! It’s methane produced by anaerobic fermentation from zebo dung and water.

The villagers were impressed by the flame, and with the fact this may reduce the amount of wood they burn to cook their daily rice. More than 75 members of the community, the local land and land management association (GELOSE), local forest service (SAGE), WWF, the inter-communal association MITOIMAFI, ho avy and FIMPAHARA have gathered to carry discussion on forest protection and sustainable use within the new protected area being finally zoned. All the involved parties have officially approved patrolling against further wood cutting and charcoal making and assist ecological restoration within an area of up to one thousand hectares behind the nursery. This is certainly an incredible step forward with the prospect of sustainable conservation of the unique spiny forest in Southwest Madagascar. We are currently drafting and discussing further agreements between individual parties and discussing the local land policy (dina) for protection and enforcement. The next couple months will be an exciting time to get these documents finalized and implemented.

Along with the nursery works many activities have been carried on in the village through the interactions of ho avy and FIMPAHARA: an effective wood burning mud stove built by ho avy as demonstration has been already replicated in the seasonal home at rice fields, a new well with natural and effective filtering system put in place, language exchange has become popular and we have finally started and are highly energized for building our reforestation center which will be developed over the next month.

Well building

For more information about our progress look at issue three of the newsletter (PDF) of the program ho avy.

Recent photo galleries can be viewed at:

• http://picasaweb.google.com/martina.petru/FinalPicasaNewYear#
• http://picasaweb.google.com/martina.petru/ForNFWebblogging#

The village of Necpaly sits at 510 metres above sea level, on the eastern edge of the Necpalská Valley, in the Turiec region in the mountainous north of landlocked Slovakia. The area is filled with rolling hills and cascading valleys framed by mountain ranges peppered with deer, wild pig and bear. And, noteworthy for this particular article, the area boasts abundant flows of crystal clear water.

The village itself is ancient. Earliest written records/documents from Necpaly date back to the year 1266, but archeological evidence of habitation go back as far as the bronze age. I would describe the climate as cold temperate. The average annual temperature is 7.5°C and rainfall is around 830mm per year. Temperatures can reach as high as 42°C (108°F) in summer and as low as -25°C (-13°F) in winter. (As the climate warms the former, high temperatures are becoming increasingly common, and the latter lows almost not known any more.)

Entering the village of Necpaly

The other side of the turbine

I recently had opportunity to visit Necpaly to check out a micro hydro system that has been running there for three years now. The village has a population of around 850 people, with, I would guess, a little less than 200 houses. The turbine pictured at top has minimum/maximum generating capacities of 16 to 21 kWh, depending on seasonal water flow changes. This is enough power for more than twenty five houses, although its actual usage is a little more complicated, since instead of just feeding private residences the electricity powers street lights as well as the main community infrastructure buildings like the village hall, school, etc.

The micro hydro installation consists of a three hundred metre long diversion from the village stream, with the turbine situated part way along this man made channel. The diversion enables an artificially generated height advantage for increased head pressure, and runs for two hundred metres to create a four metre drop where the turbine sits, and then runs for another one hundred metres before it meets back up with the originating stream.

The intake for the diversion also has a few overflow spillway points to ensure the turbine doesn’t attract more water than it can handle. Excess water simply drops back down to the originating stream.

Part of the three hundred metre stream diversion

Where the diversion returns to its source there is an additional three metre drop where another, smaller, turbine could be installed. There is, in fact, a plan for two more smaller turbines to add to the success of the original.

The whole system is quite aesthetically laid out – with parts of it forming attractive water features for the village.

Most people looking at the turbine would intuitively assume the water powers the turbine from above. Instead, the turbine spins in an anticlockwise direction (if you’re facing it as per picture below).

The water drops four metres and is focussed through a smallish opening at
bottom of the boxed construction, forcing the water to rush upwards and fuel
the turbine from below

The installation cost €100,000 (US$140,000). Given its generating capacity alone, the system should pay for itself within ten years at the outside. But, it gets a little more attractive again in this instance, as excess generating capacity is sold back to electricity companies, in accordance with EU laws that require these companies to purchase excess renewable power. This is called a Feed-In Tariff, a mechanism that has had a lot of success in ramping up the uptake in renewables in Europe – Germany in particular, being the first European country to begin serious implementation of the system. This factor should decrease total payback time quite significantly.

The installation was financed by an EU subsidy as well as local shareholder investment in the project. Investors get a return by way of the above-mentioned sell-back of excess power as well as sale of base power to the villagers themselves.

Once established, maintenance for the system is low. Beyond the hardware connected to the turbine itself, winter and spring months bring leaves that need to be filtered out of the system, and the diversion itself can require a little patching to reduce leakage.

Some maintenance in spring is essential – clearing autumn leaves and branches
that wash down the valley into the system. This metal grid filters the leaves
and creates a collection point for them

Water can leak through the diversion channel

Mankind has harnessed water energy to power village life and labours for thousands of years, and there is no reason why this cannot still be the case for a great many places worldwide. A little further intelligent design of such systems could see other synergies incorporated. At the moment, for example, Necpaly villagers are toying with the idea of farming fish in the diversion channel, and another potential improvement could be to see overflows running into swales to subsequently and passively irrigate gardens, etc.

Tell us your micro-hydro tales!: I’d love to hear your micro-hydro stories. Not only for largish-turbine systems such as this, but also smaller power generating systems that might supply small house clusters, single houses, or even just aspects of a single house. Reading about these systems on the net is one thing, but getting practical insights and endorsement from people who’ve installed and/or tinkered with and tailored such systems speaks volumes more. Let us know either by comments below, or send a few pics and a short article to me on editor (at) permaculture.org.au for posting on this blog.

A Honey Buzzard patrols Necpaly – keeping the mouse population in check