Sail Power Reborn – Transporting Local Goods by Boat
Community Projects, Energy Systems, Markets & Outlets, Processing & Food Preservation, Village Development, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson March 9, 2012
Peak Moment host Janaia Donaldson joins Fulvio Casali, Kathy Pelish and Alex Tokar, co-founders of the Salish Sea Trading Cooperative, on the deck of the sailboat Soliton, docked in Ballard, near Seattle, Washington.
The Salish Sea Trading Cooperative have teamed up with Nash’s organic produce in Sequim, where twice a month they arrive by sailboat, to collect the produce, before heading back to Ballard for distribution to the local community through their CSA scheme.
Comments (0)Farmer Faces Possible 3-year Prison Term for Feeding Community
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Markets & Outlets, Processing & Food Preservation, Society — by Liz Reitzig February 27, 2012
Press Release
February 24, 2012
Contact: Liz Reitzig, Co-founder, Farm Food Freedom Coalition
301-807-5063, lizreitzig (at) gmail.com www.RawMilkFreedomRiders.com
Farmer Faces Possible 3-year Prison Term for Feeding Community — Customers and Other Supporters Stand with Farmer
Baraboo, WI—Food sovereignty activists from around North America will meet at this tiny town on March 2 to support Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger and food sovereignty. Hershberger, who has a court hearing that day, is charged with four criminal misdemeanors that could land him in prison for three years with fines of over $10,000. The Wisconsin Department of Agricultural Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) targeted Hershberger for supplying a private buying club with fresh milk and other farm products.
Comments (1)Permaculturists in Sunday Times – Living Fluidly
Consumerism, Economics, Markets & Outlets, Society, Village Development — by Richard Perkins January 12, 2012
(IM)PERMANENCE film was noticed by the Sunday Times who featured our family in an article regarding "living fluidly".
In case you didn’t catch the article in the Sunday Times last week, our family was featured in an article about living fluidly, how a generation of people are now forging new ways to interact to meet their needs in these uncertain times. To add to this I wished to further explain some of the design thinking behind developing poly-income streams, how and why I connect different aspects of my life together so there is functional interconnection with meeting various goals whilst moving me towards my highest visions and aspirations.
Comments (1)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.
Hana Farms: Regenerative MicroEnterprise (and a Lesson from Crustaceans)
Community Projects, Markets & Outlets, Social Gatherings, Village Development — by Matthew Lynch December 2, 2011
Hana Farms, Hawaii, 2007
- 1 roadside stand in a Costco tent (above)
Rebekah (Ucellini) Kuby, Permaculture Designer and Community Activist, remembers when this community enterprise began:
Comments (4)FRESH – World’s Wildest Supermarket
Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Fungi, Markets & Outlets, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Structure, Trees, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Kenneth Gronbjerg November 17, 2011
A holistic and most outrageous concept being turned into reality in Denmark.
From: Sepp Holzer’s Permakultur, Leopold Stocker Verlag, 2008
Fresh is the concept for an organic, living supermarket in cities and villages, where instead of taking the items off the shelf, the customer harvests the produce directly from raised beds!
It is a system that works with nature rather than against it.
By harvesting, the customer contributes to the work of producing to such a large extent that the produce can be offered at a never before seen quality and price. It’s almost for free. This is what you may call a win win win situation!
Comments (6)Australia’s National Food Plan – Heard about it?
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Markets & Outlets, Processing & Food Preservation, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Genevieve Hopkins August 15, 2011
Have you heard about the Australian Government’s proposed National Food Plan? Nope? Neither had we until we read an article in the most recent newsletter from Green Pages stating that Senator Joe Ludwig has extended the deadline for submissions until September 2. Don’t get us wrong, we’re supportive of extending the deadline but we are very concerned that this is the first time we’ve heard anything about the government’s efforts to develop a national plan for our food production, supply and consumption.
Comments (5)Shifting to Community-Scale Food Thinking
Commercial Farm Projects, Courses/Workshops, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Markets & Outlets, Plant Systems, Seeds, Village Development — by Milkwood Permaculture July 27, 2011
This week I received all our yearly seed catalogs, and, as usual, started planning feverishly. How many is too many weird and wonderful heirloom watermelon varieties? And then I paused. Wait a minute, we’re aiming for community scale in our vegetable production this year. This shifts the goalposts entirely.
I’m now realizing that, for our organic market garden adventure, we will no longer be focusing on the craziest colored tomatoes. At least for this first year, while we learn the ropes, we will be going for yield and nutritional density as top priority. Pragmatic organic, here we come.
Comments (2)Sustainable Agriculture and Off-Grid Renewable Energy
Biodiversity, Biofuels, Community Projects, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Economics, Energy Systems, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Land, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Society, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by I-SIS July 20, 2011
Small integrated farms with off-grid renewable energy may be the perfect solution to the food and financial crisis while mitigating and adapting to climate change
Note: A fully referenced and illustrated version of this report is posted on ISIS members’ website and also available for download here.
A Sarvodaya villager sells a diverse range of organic produce roadside
– with more than 95% of it grown behind the stall, and by her own family
Photo © copyright Craig Mackintosh
In a Nutshell
An emerging scientific consensus that a shift to small scale sustainable agriculture and localized food systems will address most, if not all the underlying causes of deteriorating agricultural productivity as well as the conservation of natural soil and water resources while saving the climate.
Comments (1)City Kids Move to the Country (and One Moves Back Again) – Part VI
Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Fungi, Markets & Outlets, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Recipes, Trees, Urban Projects — by Nicola Chatham June 30, 2011
Pit-falls, projects and laughs from our Permaculture journey.
Ah… Autumn… beautiful!
“It’s just too hard!” the voice in my head said. “How am I going to cope with the house, garden, turbo-charged grass and eroding drive-way on my own, now that Chris has moved back to Brisbane for work?”
Then my eye was caught by something orange on the swale. Wandering over, I noticed flies were buzzing around it like mad. Closer inspection revealed, draped under the new navel orange tree, this!
Comments (16)The Ancient Taberna in a Future World
Biodiversity, Building, Community Projects, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Economics, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by Oyvind Holmstad March 4, 2011
Ladakh, India
All photographs © Craig Mackintosh
A taberna (plural tabernae) was a single room shop covered by a barrel vault within great indoor markets of ancient Rome. Each taberna had a window above it to let light into a wooden attic for storage and had a wide doorway. A famous example is the Markets of Trajan in Rome, Italy built in the early 1st century by Apollodorus of Damascus.
According to the Cambridge Ancient History, a taberna was a “retail unit" within the Roman Empire and furthermore was where many economic activities and many service industries were provided, including the sale of cooked food, wine and bread. – Wikipedia
Some people claim that the Markets of Trajan was the world’s first shopping mall. But there is a difference to today’s malls. Trajan’s Market was beautiful and it offered ingenious personal services and variety, something which is rare today. I’ve yet to see a beautiful shopping mall built in the era of consumerism. Those few nice examples are all reused train stations and so on, from a lost time. No, the Trajan Market was not at all like today’s ’supermarkets’ — it was a superb market!
Comments (1)Organized Barter and Redistribution of Surplus
Community Projects, Consumerism, Economics, Ethical Investment, Financial Management, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Thomas Fischbacher January 11, 2011
In chapter 14 of the Permaculture Designers’ Manual, Bill Mollison gives an interesting example of a restaurant (Zoo Zoo’s) that needed money for renovation but came up with a creative alternative to borrowing it at interest from a bank: they sold dated vouchers at a discount — e.g. an "a meal worth $10, redeemable in July" voucher for $8 — and thus raised money via a subscription system. (Vouchers were dated to prevent the problem of everybody showing up at the same time.) An interesting and maybe un-intended side effect of this was that these vouchers started to become "money" in the sense that people who had them but where short of cash started using them to pay one another for entirely unrelated economic activities (think piano lessons, hedge trimming, etc.). Evidently, these vouchers had a clearly visible value, and hence could be used to meet obligations between people who shared the belief in the value of these vouchers.
Comments (4)PRI at The Channon Market
Community Projects, DVDs/Books, Markets & Outlets, Social Gatherings, Village Development — by Bee Nagle December 27, 2010
Recently, on Sunday the 12th of December, following a lengthy absence and despite the un-seasonally heavy rains predicted, the Permaculture Research Institute returned to the local monthly Channon market.
Food Swaps
Community Projects, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Nichole Ross December 22, 2010
Like a typical pregnant woman, I woke up this morning with food on my mind. However, it wasn’t the stereotypical indulgences and strange combinations like bon bons or peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. Instead, I was thinking about the idea of small-scale food swaps, something I believe could become the future of how people might obtain the majority of their food needs.
The idea came to me as a result of experiences I had during the recent 4-course series the Permaculture Research Institute USA (PRI USA) held on the small Island of Molokai, Hawaii. As part of the Molokai Permaculture Education Initiative, PRI USA sponsored approximately 15 local Molokai residents to take all 4 courses in the series (Permaculture Design Course, Practicum, Teacher Training, Earthworks). In partnership with local group Sust’Aina Ble Molokai, it was our goal that this integrated training would provide these students with a solid skill set in permaculture that would lead to a highly-motivated army of local activists, ready to share skills with the larger community and take on island-wide projects that would pave the road to a sustainable future.
In exchange for sponsorship, local students contributed whatever resources they had access to toward running the courses, including a site to hold classes, tools, machinery, temporary housing for staff and students, transportation, cultural experiences, humorous and insightful stories and lots of local food.
Comments (5)Mark Shepherd’s 106 Acre Permaculture Farm in Viola, Wisconsin
Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Economics, Education Centres, Financial Management, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Chuck Burr December 18, 2010
by Chuck Burr
I recently had the pleasure of visiting Mark Shepard’s family permaculture farm in Viola, Wisconsin. Mark has planted an estimated 250,000 trees over the last 15 years on his 106 acre farm. Forest Agriculture Enterprises is known for its hazelnut, chestnut, butternut, nut pine and apple produce, scion-wood and value added products. Mark has a lot of wisdom on not only farm operation but also community and staff and intern economics.
