Sound Of Sirens

‘We’ve got multiple products coming from different production systems and over the years there has been a tremendous amount of insulation against variations in the market.
In that sense I think that permaculture’s got a very valuable lesson for farmers in the 21st century.’
Rod May, one of Australia’s most succesful and prominent organic farmers

Permaculture – Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability, David Holmgren

www.permakultur-info.de - Information on permaculture and initiatives/projects in german speaking countries.
more info on permaculture

Ich komme gerade von der Jahres-Konferenz des Rates für Nachhaltige Entwicklung. Alles in allem geht/ging es dort (noch) sehr wenig um Selbstermächtigung. (Und was die Moderatorin unseres Forums von einer ‘Nachhaltigkeits-Konferenz der TV Sender’ erzählt hat, war ehrlich gesagt auch nicht sehr inspirierend…) Es geht immer wieder um Konsumenten und Konsumverhalten, Hilfe für Projekte, die sich in anderen Teilen der Welt befinden, hilflose Kommunikationskonzepte in den Medien…etc. Aber nirgends ist die Rede, Menschen zu unterstützen hier und jetzt von abhängigen Konsumenten zu selbstverantwortlichen Produzenten zu werden. (Eine Möglichkeit dazu bietet das Permakultur Konzept. www.permakultur-info.de) Und natürlich werden auch nicht unsere Gesellschaftstrukturen als solches oder unsere Art zu Denken in Frage gestellt, die ja eigentlich all das geschaffen hat.

Der britische TV Kanal Channel 4 hat jetzt ein Projekt gestartet, das sich Landshare nennt. Es geht darum, dass Einzelpersonen und Organisationen, die Landflächen besitzen, das nicht oder kaum genutzt wird, diese für Menschen zur Verfügung stellen, die Gärten zur lokalen Obst und Gemüseproduktion anlegen möchten. Ziel ist es, britisches Land produktiver zu machen und frische, lokale Produkte für alle zugänglich.

Inspiriert wurde das ganze wahrscheinlich unter anderem durch das Garden Share Projekt der Transition Town Initiative in Totnes.

Hier findet sich ein ausführlicher Artikel: www.doorsofperception.com

This website is a great resource! You can spend days listening to the podcasts alone. It comes in english and spanish. Use this site!

Agricultural Innovations seeks to collaborate with international organizations, national agencies, and local communities to apply the latest in GIS and Information Technology towards the design of sustainable resource management systems and to encourage the adoption of permaculture and appropriate technology throughout Latin America and the United States.

Our philosophy is based on several core principles that provide an ethical foundation for our practice in the field. Poverty, malnutrition, land degradation and loss of biodiversity are among the fundamental issues of our time. Agricultural Innovations is committed to fighting poverty and promoting peace and prosperity through sound planning initiatives.

www.agroinnovations.com

Hoping that this is an inspiration for us here in Germany and Europe: Check out www.localharvest.org

LocalHarvest is America’s #1 organic and local food website. We maintain a definitive and reliable “living” public nationwide directory of small farms, farmers markets, and other local food sources. Our search engine helps people find products from family farms, local sources of sustainably grown food, and encourages them to establish direct contact with small farms in their local area. Our online store helps small farms develop markets for some of their products beyond their local area.

Spread the word!

For me Masanobu Fukuoka was a poet. He is known as one of the pioneers of natural farming and was an inspiration for the originators of the permaculture concept.

“If a single new bud is snipped off a fruit tree with a pair of scissors, that may bring about a disorder which cannot be undone…. Human beings with their tampering do something wrong, leave the damage unrepaired, and when the adverse results accumulate, work with all their might to correct them.”

“To become one with nature — agriculture is an occupation in which a farmer adapts himself to nature. To do that, you have to gaze at a rice plant and listen to the words from the plant. If you understand what the rice says, you just adjust your heart to that of the rice plants and raise them. In reality, we do not have to raise them. They will grow. We just serve nature. A piece of advice I need to give you here. When I say gaze at a rice plant or stare at its true form, it does not mean to make an observation or to contemplate the rice plant, which makes it an object different from yourself. It is very difficult to explain in words. In a sense, it is important that you become the rice plant. Just as you, as the subject of gazing, have to disappear. If you do not understand what you should do or what I am talking about, you should be absorbed in taking care of the rice without looking aside. If you could work wholeheartedly without yourself, that is enough. Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature.”

One Straw Revolution is maybe one of his best known books (’Der Grosse Weg Hat Kein Tor‘ auf deutsch) and even if you are not particularily interested in gardening, I recommend to read it, and if it’s just for a few paragraphs.

The Fukuoka Farming Website:
www.fukuokafarmingol.info

The Plowboy Interview: Masanobu Fukuoka

Some miscellaneous articles coughed up by my rss reader today:

• No Graduation Ceremony For Student Who Rode Horse To School - No Comment. Click!
• How To Host An Eco-Friendly BBQ, from “The Green Parent - The Kid-Friendly Guide To Earth-Friendly Living” hehe…
• Brave New Word - Tim Flannery’s radical climate change ’solution’.
• US car dealer in free gun (or 250$ gas card) offer - lol, the Americans again! Click!
• Completeley new to me - List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming, an official wikipedia entry.
• Europe seeks greenest city - Commission launches European Green Capital Award
• Polar bears are fine, says Exxon-funded…astrophysicist?
• Digitales Soma - Frogdesign springt auf den Grünen Zug auf und stellt ein rosa grünes Brillenkonzept vor.

Finally, Walt Handelsman sums it up:

Picture by newsday.com / Walt Handelsman

Just click on the play button and let her speak for a minute…She is clear, honest, accessible, intelligent,…

Read also SOS on Tour article on a talk of Vandana Shiva at the Schumacher College in march ‘08 (in german).

Find more articles of her here.

This is one of her book publications: ‘Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace’ / ‘Erd-Demokratie. Alternativen zur Neoliberalen Globalisierung’.

See, the thing is: I like gathering things I consider beautiful. These ‘things’ can be objects or images I saw, thoughts I found, ideas, activities, whatever. And then I like to go and share what I find…This project by Ã…sa Sonjasdotter is many things at the same time: It is about art and activism, about self-empowerment, about agriculture (past and future), about the beauty of diversity, about the beauty of people, about questions of sustainable living and cultivating, about the preservation of indigenous knowledge and culture, about europe and regulations, about personal experience, engagement and learning…you name it.

I find her work with this project deeply inspiring, educational and beautiful.

Now you take a look (www.potatoperspective.org).