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The Growing Fabrication of Anarchie

In 1899, Peter Kropotkin, anarchist geographer, detailed a vision of 'the factory amidst the fields' in which the 'two sister arts of agriculture and industry' are joined to meet the needs of all and to give each worker an opportunity for 'brain work and manual work'. Never have more supportive material conditions prevailed for the realisation of Kropotkin's vision. The advent of 'personal fabrication', presently most fully realised in the fab lab (fabrication lab), provides "widespread access to [the] modern means for invention" which have historically been limited to large capital. Additionally, Kropotkin's vision is being made more achievable with the unprecedented developments in regenerative strategies for the production of food, fuel and fibre. The significance of this is, of course, not in the realisation of the ideas of a nineteenth century anarchist but in the present viability of a life within ecological limits. A life not of mere toil but for whole human beings. In this post, I hope to be able to share some of my excitement about combing fab labs with the farm and hackerspaces with horticulture.

What are Fabrication Labs?

Fab labs consist of a set of machines and tools for making things. The number of things which can now be economically made in a small workshop is steadily increasing. As a character in Cory Doctorow's 2009 novel Makers says:

"... any moderately skilled practitioner can build anything these days, for practically nothing ... Every industry that required a factory yesterday only needs a garage today." --- Tjan in Cory Doctorow's Makers, p. 115

Each fab lab has a set of core machines:

A computer-controlled lasercutter, for press-fit assembly of 3D structures from 2D parts

A larger (4'x8') numerically-controlled milling machine, for making furniture- (and house-) sized parts

A signcutter, to produce printing masks, flexible circuits, and antennas

A precision (micron resolution) milling machine to make three-dimensional molds and surface-mount circuit boards

Programming tools for low-cost high-speed embedded processors

The frequently asked questions page at the "Fab Central" website based at MIT contains an estimate of the set-up costs for basic machines and materials of around 60,000 USD. However, Kevin Carson, author of The Homebrew Industrial Revolution writes that:

"Open-source versions of the machines in the Fab Lab have brought the cost down to around $2-5,000." --- Kevin A. Carson, The Homebrew Industrial Revolution, p. 221

Garage or farm-workshop (or desktop!) fabrication is still in a seminal stage, as this difference in cost indicates. The direction for fab labs is from machines which can be purchased by a well funded research institution like MIT to open source specifications and self-replicatability. That is, a minimal set of machines which can make another minimal set of self-replicating machines from open source specifications. Self-replication and open source specifications puts set up costs at little more than the cost of materials.

Fabs Labs for Farming, Gardening and Cottage Industry

The machines listed above may seem like they are only for making electronic gadgets or plastic playthings but in fact these machines provide the basic technology from which most other tools and machines can be produced. For example, the roller crimper developed by the Rodale Institute for no-till mechanical weed control, the plans for which are freely available, could be cut out on the CNC machine ready for welding. This is, of course already possible in many farm workshops. The fab lab becomes most useful where precision is critical. The ability to print circuits and to machine precision parts makes possible the manufacture of efficient, small scale equipment, sensitive instruments for monitoring or custom machines for new or niche crops. These possibilities are game changing for the production of food, fuel and fibre. As Carson writes:

"The higher the fixed costs of an enterprise, the larger the income stream required to service them. That’s as true for the household microenterprise, and for the “enterprise” of the household itself, as for more conventional businesses … innovation in the technologies of small‐scale production and of daily living reduce the worker’s need for a continuing income stream. It enables the microenterprise to function intermittently and to enter the market incrementally, with no overhead to be serviced when business is slow. The result is enterprises that are lean and agile, and can survive long periods of slow business, at virtually no cost; likewise, such increased efficiencies, by minimizing the ongoing income stream required for comfortable subsistence, have the same liberating effect on ordinary people that access to land on the common did for their ancestors three hundred years ago." --- Kevin A. Carson, The Homebrew Industrial Revolution, pp. 1-2

Blair Evans of Incite Focus, whom I met at IPC10 in Jordan, introduced me to the sloganistic phrase "move bit not atoms". This phrase captures another energy (and cost) saving. Where we're talking about atoms, distance is energy. Bits, however, are trivial to move in comparison.

To summarise, this kind of networked fabrication capacity

drops financial barriers to entering production

facilitates no / low dept production

increases the resilience and flexibility of production businesses by reducing overheads and facilitation rapid retooling / adaptation to new market opportunities

facilitates producers becoming processors

facilitates local or crop specific design solutions while gaining access to the designs and inventiveness of others

the human and environmental cost of transporting goods is rendered unnecessary

In the three day regenerative agriculture workshop I attended in November, Darren Doherty presented an adapted Keyline Scale of Permanence which included two additional items:

9. polymarketing

10. energy

Under the heading of polymarketing Darren includes farm succession, processing, distribution, marketing and everything which puts producers in control of all the things which makes a farm profitable. Networked fabrication will become an essential element of producer control and as such must be considered an essential part of polymarketing. It may even deserve its very own place on the Scale because of the dramatic implications it has for other elements.

Permafacture in Practice

Factor-e-Farm is one place in which some of these implications are being worked out. This farm is the site of Open Source Ecology's project called the Global Village Construction Set. The project aims to produce 50 machines for village scale development. Several prototype machines, all with open source specifications, have been built already including a compressed earth brick press and tractor. Like the fab lab, OSE aims for their machines to be able to be produced from a minimal set of self-replicating machines. Listening to Frank Aragona's interview with Marcin Jakubowski in 2008 was what first interested me in the possibility of low energy, high tech fabrication within regenerative design. I liked the notion of permafacture, which Marcin spoke of and which Vinay Gupta is supposed to have coined. Since that time, OSE has proved that this idea has legs and the project is steadily gaining momentum.

The Necessity of Sharing

There are conditions for a kind of networked fabrication which is consistent with permaculture and with Kropotkin's vision. The necessity of sharing perhaps encompasses the major conditions:

sharing knowledge, and;

sharing profits

Sharing Knowledge

The sharing of knowledge, as represented by the philosophy of 'open source', 'free culture' and appropriate licensing such as the GNU GPL, creative commons or copy left is what allows the rapid spread and innovation of technologies for a life within ecological limits. This way of holding culture in common is also what allows for the fabrication of useful machines and tools at very low cost. Kropotkin writes:

"In proportion as technical knowledge becomes everybody's virtual domain, in proportion as it becomes international, and can be concealed no longer, each nation acquires the possibility of applying the whole variety of her energies to the whole variety of industrial and agricultural pursuits. Knowledge ignores artificial political boundaries." --- Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops, p. 25

He goes on (in 1899!):

"Those who dream of monopolising technical genius are 50 years behind the times. The world --- the wide, wide world --- is now the true domain of knowledge." --- Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops, p. 48

It is almost as though he could foresee the significance of strings of the letter 'w' for the sharing of information. Sharing technical information is essential to low cost networked fabrication. Neil Gershenfeld of the Centre for Bits and Atoms at MIT recognised this in rural India where he was assisting with fab lab development:

"The proviso of personal fabrication for those billion users is in "open source" hardware, meaning that they can collaborate on problem solving by sharing files for a project such as the development of an improved agricultural instrument or a healthcare sensor." --- Neil Gershenfeld, Fab, p. 49

As we develop vital solutions we must be willing to share what we are able of the associated vital information. This is not charity, it is a practice ultimately beneficial to our own capacity to make use of other people's improvements on our work and the obligation implicit in our making use of the knowledge of all who have come before us.

Sharing Profits

Colin Ward first re-issued an edited edition of Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and Workshops in 1979 under the title Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow because Ward saw that this vision was becoming ever more realisable even if Kropotkin's thesis of its inevitability was wrong. More than ever we know that decentralised, human, ecologically regenerative work and life is not inevitable. That there are powerful forces working against just these things for the profit of a few also becomes ever clearer. Kropotkin recognised this even if he could not see that he wrote during the beginning stages of the concentration of capital in trans-national corporations. He wrote:

"Of course, as long as society remains organised so as to permit the owners of the land and capital to appropriate for themselves, under the protection of the state and historical rights, the yearly surplus of human production, no such change [the integration of industrial and agricultural, manual and brain work] can be thoroughly accomplised." --- Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 26

This element of Kropotkin's vision cannot be forgotten and calls for communal, cooperative approaches to the business of production and consumption and for just the kinds of resilient and agile farm businesses which networked fabrication facilitates. These qualities will assist producers in weathering the storm against larger corporate interests and support the vital experimentation required to move towards regenerative production systems.

Fields, Factories and Workshops Today

The development of post-industrial fabrication, the hacker movement and movement for free culture are well under way. So also, developments in regenerative modes for producing food, fuel and fibre are proceeding rapidly. There is a tremendously productive space in which geeks and gardeners, fab folk and farmers might meet for mutual benefit and for the benefit of humanity. Kropotkin saw the potential for 'the factory amidst the field' in 1899. Today, the fabricator's and the biohacker's lab in garage and garden and on the farm will enable the always inventive gardener and farmer to gain access to the means of invention which have hitherto been out of reach and so also limited the capacity for a truly harmonious relationship with the land and for cooperative and communal production.

Below are some starting points so you can get collaborating:

Fields, Factories and Workshops --- http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7097698M/Fields_factories_and_workshops

Fab Lab Central (MIT) --- http://fab.cba.mit.edu/content/tools/

Open Source Ecology --- http://opensourceecology.org/

Marcin Jakubowski --- Open-sourced blueprints for civilization - http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html

Kevin A. Carson --- The Homebrew Industrial Revolution --- https://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/contents/

The Bucky-Gandhi Design Instition: Free science and engineering in the global public interest --- http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/

The Permafacture Institute --- http://www.permafacture.org/

Anil Gupta --- India's hidden hotbeds of invention --- http://www.ted.com/talks/anil_gupta_india_s_hidden_hotbeds_of_invention.html

Hackerspaces at Wikipedia --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace

Reprap --- http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

Makerbot --- http://www.makerbot.com/

Thingiverse --- "a place to share digital designs that can be made into real, physical objects" --- http://www.thingiverse.com

Yochai Benkler --- Open Source Economics - http://www.ted.com/talks/yochai_benkler_on_the_new_open_source_economics.html

Michel Bauwens --- The Emergence of Open Design and Open Manufacturing - http://www.we-magazine.net/we-volume-02/the-emergence-of-open-design-and-open-manufacturing/

Regenerative Agriculture: Three Days with Darren Doherty

Recently, I had the privilege of attending a course in regenerative agriculture strategies with Darren Doherty. The course was structured by an interpretation of the Keyline Scale of Permanance with a couple of additional items:

Climate

Geography

Water

Access

Forestry

Buildings

Fencing

Soils

PolyMarketing

Energy

The Keyline framework was used to introduce a suite of regenerative strategies, including:

Holistic Management;

Pasture Cropping;

Biofertilisers and Chromatography;

Mycorestoration;

Regenerative Forestry;

WET Systems;

Effective Micro-organisms;

Induced Meandering for Riparian Restoration;

No-kill Cropping;

Agroforestry; and

Natural Sequence Farming

As well as all this, we saw a Keyline plough in action in a West Sussex pasture.

Why is all this so exciting? To my mind, an approach to agriculture that creates systems which build biological capacity in the form of soil, biomass, biodiversity and balanced natural and human managed ecosystems (agroecosystems) is the foundation of the possibility of our flourishing in the earth. And it is interesting and fun. What more exciting thing is there to do in the world than to join with those natural forces which would produce abundance with ecological health; to foster productive systems which teem with life and invite others to join in this creative work.

Darren presented people throughout the world who have been involved in this work with beautiful and profitable results. Profit, in these cases, is gained while ecological health is improved. There is still the issue of to whom those profits might rightfully accumulate or with whom they are most properly shared, but that will be a subject for another day. While I am working the most part of every day to build a barn to store some cereals, I have to hold back on exploring all that I am learning and thinking about. I have written a little bit about some of these people and strategies here before (holistic management, pasture cropping, keyline design, agroforestry). Some of the others strategies in the above list will be the subject of future posts. Some of Darren's own ideas were also very provocative and will doubtless find their way here in the near future. For now, I have to get off to bed so that many years of work in gathering and multipying diverse cereals are not exposed to rain and sun and lost before we get a barn built.

#regenerative agriculture #Darren Doherty

Keyline: More Than Water Harvesting

"We are discovering a new Australia! As yet, few Australians have seen it." - P. A. Yeomans

Percival Alfred Yeomans is a greatly underappreciated figure in Australia's history. This is the conclusion to which I have come while reading "The Challenge of Landscape" in preparation for a course in regenerative agriculture in West Sussex this week. Yeomans developed a system of landscape development which dramatically and quickly improves even very poor agricultural land by considering and working with landscape pattern. Within permaculture, the keyline system is often misunderstood or treated vaguely as simply a water harvesting technique, amongst other things. Like permaculture, however, keyline is principally about design --- "... from pattern to detail."

As a mining engineer, Yeomans came to farming with a unique outlook. He poured over maps, particularly contour maps, with the idea that there must be some pattern which would allow him to work cooperatively with nature's forces. Allan Yeomans, his son, writes in the introduction to "The Challenge of Landscape":

"He discovered that a contour line, that ran through that point of a valley, where the steepness of the valley floor suddenly increased, had unique properties. Starting from this line, and cultivating parallel to it, both, above the line, and below the line, produced off contour furrows, which selectively drifted water out of the erosion vulnerable valley. He named this contour "The Keyline". The entire system became "The Keyline System"."

Water is primary within the Keyline System but only because it is the first thing over which we may exercise some significant influence in what Yeomans calls "The Keyline scale of relative permanence of things agricultural." What is more succinctly known as "The Keyline Scale of Permanence" includes:

Climate

Land shape

Water supply

Farm roads

Trees

Permanent buildings

Subdivision fences

Soil

One of Yeomans' most important insights in comparison to his agricultural contemporaries was the recognition that soil can be built quickly. With something of a prophetic ring, he announces:

"Soil will improve until Australian soil everywhere is richer and deeper than nature has ever provided."

Nevertheless, soil is last on the Keyline scale because, though most important, it is the least permanent. Yeomans sees soil improvement and fertility in general as a function of other more permanent factors with which we must first work:

"If the effect of climate on soil is fully understood, I believe we have a basic knowledge that will enable us to increase the fertility and productivity of any natural soil ... While there are many ways of worsening the soil climate to reduce fertility of soil, and we have no doubt employed them all, there are, in my opinion, as many ways of improving the soil climate and increasing fertility ... The fertility of good soil can be destroyed before a line of fenceposts will rot. A poor soil can be changed into a highly fertile soil in about a tenth of this time."

This rapid improvement is achieved through adressing the items on the scale over which we have control in turn, beginning with the foundation of water:

"With full water control from Keyline planning, the farm environment improves, the soil improves; the pasture, crops and stock improve in health and their numbers may increase many fold with the growing capacity of the property."

Keyline, then, while emplyoying amazing techniques for slowing, speading and sinking water into the landscape, is not just a technique. It is a system of planning or design for increasing fertility through harvesting sunlight while facilitating sensible placement of agricultural elements in accordance with their relative permanence. We'll get into the geometry and detail of keyline in future posts --- for now, here are some links with great information about Keyline design:

Keyline on Agroinnovations

A 1955 film on Keyline from RegenAg®

Books on Keyline in .pdf and .epub

#P. A. Yeomans #keyline design #water #the keyline scale of permanence

A Few Keyline Resources

I have been lax in my posts. My intention has been to post each week on a Tuesday but I have been working very long days on the farm and getting little time for writing.

So, excuses aside, I have decided to make a less-than-substantial post which points to some resources I have recently created on the back of other people's generosity.

Next week, I am going to be attending to course on regenerative agriculture with Darren Doherty. As far as I can tell, the course follows essentially the Keyline Scale of Permanance. Some of the key texts in the 'recommended reading' list are three which Steve Soloman of the fantastic Soil and Health Library has made available with the permission of Alan Yeomans --- one of the sons of the indomitable Percival Alfred Yeomans, the author of these three works.

I wanted to be able to read these books on my e-reader, so using 'wget', a GNU / Linux command line tool, I downloaded the full illustrated HTML and, using Calibre, an open source e-book manager, I converted the texts to .epub format, a free and open standard for e-books.

Just in case anyone else finds illustrated HTML as frustrating as I do, I am making the .epub versions of the books available here:

The City Forest

The Keyline Plan

The Challenge of Landscape

Thanks again to Alan Yeomans for giving permission for the Soil and Health Library to host these important works. If you appreciate them, why not buy a hardcopy of Yeomans' classic work "Water for Every Farm" to show your gratitude.

If you're interested in the idea that free e-books could improve sales of hardcopy books, check out Cory Doctorow's book 'Content', available as a free e-book or audio book on his site craphound.com.

#keyline design #P. A. Yeomans #Cory Doctorow

What is Permaculture? An Historic Response

When introducing myself, I inevitably mention permaculture. I then conduct a careful scan of my conversation partner, looking for signs of recognition or bafflement. Very often, this situation is followed by the question 'Permaculture? What is that?' and more often than not I find myself answering historically.

Permaculture is about design. However, permaculture is a design system with a particular historical analysis. This analysis involves three very broad swathes of history centred on the current period of high energy — pre-industrial, industrial and a hoped-for future time characterised by design.

Pre-industrial life, excepting some energy excess of imperial powers, is largely characterised by a low-energy, labour intensive life and limited exploitation of natural resources.

Industrial life is characterised by a high energy, low labour and resource intensive life.

Permaculture envisions the possibility of and looks forward to a life which is characterised by relatively less labour and dramatically lower resource use than industrial life — a knowledge-intensive or design-intensive life.

This design-intensive future is made possible by the purview afforded by the present energy peak. The degree to which we can come to know about other people and places in time and space is an unprecedented product of the high energy age. Permaculture seeks to use a knowledge low energy systems of the past and present to design low-energy systems for the present and future which possess the advantages of both the pre-industrial and industrial periods of the past without destroying the ecological foundations of human society.

The reason I have come to use this explanation most often is because of how exciting and expansive this vision is. It encompasses all the strategies of low energy life from holistic management to bio-intensive gardens; eco-building to fab-labs; cooperatives and communities to creative commons and free culture. Permaculture is a meta-framework and foundation for the development of a satisfying life exploitative of neither person nor place — a life within ecological limits.

DIY Biological Innocuant: Using Indigenous Micro-Organisms (IMOs)

I had heard of effective microorganisms (EM) before and I had the impression that I would be paying a lot for something quite simple. I am always suspicious of things which require money rather than knowledge and effort. Thanks to Itai Dolev Hauben from Costa Rica and Rico Zook from New Mexico, I discovered that my suspicion of EM was unfounded.

According to Itai, the man who developed the powerful cocktail of organisms which came to be known as effective microorganisms, Teruo Higa, wanted the information about how to cultivate this melange to be spread far and wide. Itai gave a great workshop on the first day of the International Permaculture Convergence in which he outlined a recipe for EM. Rico coined a name for the cocktail which I really like ---indigenous microorganisms, or IMOs. Rico's name captures some of the significance of this process --- it can be done by anyone with locally available materials to cultivate a tremendously useful set of microorganisms which are indigenous to a particular place. It is to the great credit of Teruo Higa that he recognised that such a powerful process ought not be kept from anyone.

Why are IMOs Useful?

IMOs cultivated according to this process are extremely versatile. It seems that there are few things which are not benefited by their presence. They can be

… used as a foliar or soil spray to promote plant health,

… added to animal feeds for healthier animals,

… added to a a composting toilet or kitchen food waste bin to stop bad smells and aid decomposition, and

… added to pond water to maintain living, healthy water.

How to Cultivate IMOs

Now for the recipe. This one is for a 55 gallon drum batch. The same proportions can be used for a batch of any size:

Ingredients:

25 L of mulch, manure, soil, leaf litter and healthy (white / off white) fungal strands from healthy ecosystems

25 L of rice semolina (or equivalent)

25 L wheat bran

25 L powdered charcoal

50 L rice husk / wheat husk OR softwood sawdust

200 g bakers' / brewers' yeast

2 L raw milk

3 - 5 L molasses / cane sugar / brown sugar / silan (or equivalent)

Combine ingredients and check that the moisture level is that of a squeezed out sponge (like an ideal compost moisture level).

Put in drum / container with an airlock (simple plans for this soon).

Allow to ferment for approximately one week or until bubbling stops (time will vary with climatic conditions).

Open drum. The mix should have a pleasant smell.

Dry the mix slowly in the shade for later use; use directly on soil, in animal feed, kitchen waste or composting toilet; or make up a liquid mix (1 kg dry mix, 1/2 litre molasses, 20 L water) for foliar or soil application.

Thanks again to Itai for sharing your knowledge. read more

#EM #IMOs #IPC10 #DIY

The Underground Forest: Using Biodiversity to Help People

One of the highlights of the tenth International Permaculture Convergence was meeting Tony Rinaudo of World Vision Australia. Tony is a living example of the posture required for the development of truly regenerative systems. Tony has come to see patterns of people, plants and landscape which allow deserts to grow trees again. He does this by opening himself to the voice of the land.

While working in Niger, Tony noticed that what appeared to be small shrubs were in fact trees which had been coppiced by continuous grazing pressure, firewood harvesting and the impulse of farmers to keep crop land free of trees. Tony calls these trees 'the underground forest.'

'Do you speak tree?'

Rather than continue to plant trees as great expense only to have them die, Tony began to work with the natural processes which would allow this underground forest to grow. He says that it is necessary to learn to speak a new language --- 'Tree'. Not knowing whether it would work but trusting the natural fecundity the land, Tony worked with some farmers to select particular healthy stems, remove all but one to five of the remainder, cull to the required number of trees per hectrare and prune to promote healthy growth. This simple approach Tony calls Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). FMNR is based on

"... the systematic regeneration of living tree stumps, roots and seeds."

In Niger, 5 million hectares have been reafforested in the last 20 years using FMNR. This change can be seen from space as a spread of green where once there was a growing desert. Niger, as a result of FMNR, is the only African country with net afforestation.

'It's not a bad thing to be ignorant.'

I listened to and spoke with Tony several times over the course of the convergence and what became clear was that Tony is not just peddling a technique. At the beginning I mentioned Tony's 'posture'. Tony's posture is one of enquiry, not expertise; listening, not just advising. This same posture comes to characterise the farmers with whom Tony works. Each community or farmer does things slightly differently according to their circumstances. Where Tony recommended keeping a maximum of 20 - 40 stems per hectare, some farmers have begun to leave 100 - 150 stems per hectare with an increase in their crop yield. They have found out what works through their own observations of natural regenerative processes.

Using Biodiversity to Help People

The trees and shrubs which grow up from the underground forest are the native species which have sometimes not been seen for decades. As a result, the community comes to have not only double or triple the crop yield between the trees but also tree fruits and nuts, medicines, firewood, fodder and shade for livestock and habitat and food for birds and insects which bring fertility and other ecosystem services. FMNR allows for the regeneration of biodiversity and so also the regeneration and maintenance of ethnobotanical knowledge which might have dried up with the desert.

FMNR is almost scandalous in its simplicity. Working with nature, Tony has been able to be a co-creator with that force which lies at the heart of nature and would produce abundance. It was a great privilege to meet Tony and to learn about his work. FMNR is one of the best examples of permaculture in practice and gives me great hope for the future.

Tony also has a lot to share about edible Acacias but that is another story altogether and a post for another day.

FMNR on YouTube

The Development of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration

Tony's presentation "Against the odds: Reversing Desertification" at the IPC10 Conference (skip to about the 8 min mark)

Mr Tony --- turning deserts into food bowls

#Tony Rinaudo #FMNR #IPC10

Brad Lancaster on Rainwater Harvesting - Day 1 of IPC10: Slow, Spread, Sink.

Beginning with the questions

"What is the story of your place?" and "What is the story of its water?"

Brad Lancaster began to tell two tales of water --- a degenerative story and a regenerative story.

A Degenerative Story: "The Hydrophobic Society"

Showing images of urban landscapes designed to hasten the movement of water from those landscapes, Brad suggested that these landscapes were indicators of a "hydrophobic society."

Not only is water wasted by this hydrophobia but the risk of flooding is increased 10 fold when paved, concreted and otherwise sealed areas feed the 'dehydration infrastructure' designed to solved the 'problem' of water inundation in drylands.

"Distance is energy"

The result of seeing rainwater as a problem which must be drained is waste and, therefore, expense. More rain falls on Brad's home, Tucson, Arizona, than is necessary for drinking, washing, food production and industry --- all of Tucson's water needs. Yet the pumping and transportation of water from the Colorado river is the largest consumer of electricity and the largest single source producer of carbon. Waste creates expense --- "distance is energy."

A Regenerative Story: "Run off" to "run on" which is "right on."

In Tucson 3,000,000 l of water falls on each kilometer of sealed road each year. Outside of their house, Brad and his brother began to use some of this water to irrigate native mesquite trees on their verge. The kerb was cut to allow the water from the road to 'run on' into the mulched basins in which the trees were then able to grow. Sufficient water falls on the roads of Tucson to passively irrigate a mesquite tree in a mulched basin every 8m. Recently, these mulched basins have been found to host a soil ecology approaching that of an established forest in comparison to the surrounding, relatively dead and degraded soils. Where mesquites have been grown in this way, local people have been able to earch $25 an hour picking mesquite pods to be processing into a naturally sweet flour and made into many kinds of food for sale. Here is one example of the creation of a regenerative system which turns 'run off' into 'run on' while increasing biodiversity, growing shade, food, community and livelihood. These basins are examples of 'infiltration infrastructure' --- 'rehydration infrastructure.'

"Show the flow"

Mulched basins and other water harvesting earthworks which are a part of rehydration infrastructure not only catch rainwater where it falls but are also able to receive greywater. Brad prefers to keep the greywater outlet pipe above the mulch level to prevent it being blocked up by roots and to 'show the flow.' I know that washing day is an exciting time at my house. There is something special about seeing this productive use of water which would otherwise go to waste.

"Plant the rain and the plants will plant themselves."

Brad emphasised that we must:

"Slow. Spread. Sink!" rather than "Pave. Pipe. Pollute."

By slowing water and allowing it to spead out and infiltrate, the earth responds with growth. Native and productive trees planted with an awareness of the the rainwater harvesting budget of a site can provide shade, food, biodiversity and many other benefits. Water is the beginning of the creation of regenerateive landscapes which provide many yields while improving ecological health.

Brad closed an inspiring talk with the suggestion that we all have a role to play in the story of water in our landscapes. We can choose the story and we can choose the role. Degenerative or regenerative? Not a hard choice, really.

Watch Brad's talk from the live streaming of IPC10.

Brad's books: Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands - Volume One - Volume Two.

#Brad Lancaster #water harvesting #IPC10

Water for Life: Towards Jordan and IPC10

Water is the condition of life. Without it organisms from bacteria to birds of prey can neither flourish nor survive. For Sepp Holzer

"wasser ist leben." (water is life.)

For Brad Lancaster

"Rain is the embodiment of life." --- Rainwater Harvesting For Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, p. 1

Water can be a limiting factor in plant growth and ecosystem function where it is scarce or irregular and water can be a powerful destructive force in the form of flooding, soil erosion and waterlogging where it occurs in great quantity or in disturbed ecosystems.

For P. A. Yeomans

"There can be no satisfactory or permanent agriculture without permanent water supply."

Yeomans developed a system of design called Keyline which conserves and utilses water where it has hitherto been scarce and, where it is in relative superfluity, directs and distributes its otherwise destructive flow. These possibilities open up from an understanding of pattern in landscape. Increasing moisture or improving drainage improves the biological capacity of a place and its potential to produce yields for human use without ecosystem degredation.

The tremendous value of water combined with the perception of its scarcity derived from its waste makes it a contested resource. The potential for conflict over water will only icrease in the near future with continued misuse and pollution of water and with the desire for big solutions to the problems of climate change, peak oil and the collapse of biological systems. For Vandana Shiva

"Water is a commons because it is the ecological basis of all life." --- quoted in Lancaster, Rainwater Harvesting For Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, p. 16

Water is the theme of this year's International Permaculture Conference and Convergence in Jordan. There are few better place to consider the human relationship with low energy water harvesting than the home of the Nabateans --- an ancient people who created a desert civilization founded on rain water harvesting and conservation.

Only the propagation of methods like those outlined by Yeomans in his works on Keyline or those made eminently accessible by Brad Lancaster in his works on water harvesting earthworks for dryands hold the possibility of avoiding the commodification of and conflict over water which will ensue if all people are not empowered to catch rain where it falls, improve the land of which they are stewards and, on that foundation, develop secure livelihoods.

I hope to learn more about these vital strategies over the coming weeks in Jordan and in Palestine. I will be sharing here what I can of the things I learn during the conference and convergence and in the ensuing time. There is also the possibility of seeing and hearing some of what is going on at IPC10 by having a look at the live streaming.

Water will be a bit of a theme and there may be a bit more action that usual at Perennial Ideas from now up to and after the keyline and regenerative agriculture workshop I will be doing with Darren Doherty of RegenAg and Australia Felix Permaculture in November so check back soon or subscribe to keep up with news from IPC10 and the upcoming regenerative agriculture course.

Mycorrhizal Associations: The Web Resource

I have been researching mycorrhizal associations with cereal crops as a part of my work with John Letts at the Heritage Cereals Institute and I stumbled upon this amazing resource:

MYCORRHIZAL ASSOCIATIONS: The Web Resource

What is really cool is that it is a Western Australian initiative and funded by the Lotteries Commission of WA. read more

Bread and Beer: Cereals in Permaculture?

"Without bread, all is misery." --- William Cobbett, Cottage Economy

"...really good bread is a thing of so much importance, that it always ought to be the very first object in domestic economy."---William Cobbett, Cottage Economy

"A judicious labourer would probably always have some ale in his house, and have small beer for the general drink." --- William Cobbett, Cottage Economy

Since returning to Oxford after travelling in Spain, I have been working on a small farm in Buckinghamshire assisting with the production of cereal crops for grain and thatch. John Letts, whom I am helping, is an archeobotanist who has returned to his farming roots to grow some of the ancient grains he studied academically. We have recently been joined by Joy Hought who is completing her master in Agroecology. As we have talked and worked, I have been considering the place of cereals within a permaculture. These reflections would not have been possible without the convivial conversation of happy farm workers. I am indebted to the John and Joy for their insights.

Humans began, for better or worse, to develop a closer relationship to grasses around 17,000 BCE with the harvesting of grain from wild populations in the areas surrounding the Tigris, Euphrates and the Nile rivers --- aka. the Fertile Crescent. This was followed by the transition to agriculture and settlement --- the so called 'Neolithic Revolution' --- around 9000 BCE.

These facts imply one answer to the question "why cereals?" --- Most humans have formed deep preferences for foods derived from cereals; bread and beer, for example. Bread and beer have been around since humans began to process cereals. These two items stand as symbols of the way in which cereals have been embedded in human culture for millenia. The quotes from William Cobbett above illustrate just how strong can be the preference for cereals products --- and I certainly wont disagree on the value of these two items of food and drink. This deep cultural preference for cereals is one of the many reasons why the embrace of food derived from perennial plants is likely to be a slow one.

There are other, less contingent, reasons that cereals are and have been so highly valued, including:

high calorific value;

high protein content / nutritional value;

storability; and

the ability provide a quick yield relative to perennial crops of similar value.

In his Cottage Economy, William Cobbett compares potatoes with wheat and suggests that a bushel of wheat will yield sixty five pounds of nutritious matter as bread where the same volume of potatoes will yield only five and a half pounds of equivalent material. That is, according to Cobbett (and I would appreciate being pointed to a more recent source!), by volume, wheat is near to 12 times more valuable than potatoes as a staple. The nutrient density of wheat means that it requires less storage space and land for its growth than an equivalent in potatoes.

All but the final of these values intrinsic to cereals apply to perennial yields like acorns or chestnuts. The establishment time of these valuable crops is a significant disadvantage and again we encounter the problem of established cultural patterns and preferences as such foods are less easily rendered into something appealing in most cultures.

This first step of analysis suggests that cereals, given their value and in accord with the need to "obtain a yield" might at least find a place in the early stages of the development of a permaculture as the transition to a more stable perennial system and set of cultural patterns is developed. But could cereals also be a part of the long-term design of a permaculture? David Harris elegantly describes the crux of the problem of historical cereal culture:

"...once land clearance and tillage is practiced regularly on more than a very small scale, the energy-input demands of the system increase substantially." --- David R. Harris, 'An evolutionary continuum of people-plant interaction', Foraging and Farming, 1989

The continuous disturbance regime of ploughing and its associated impacts is the problem of most cereal culture.

The incorporation of cereals into the long-term stability of a permaculture requires a regenerative grain culture. Larry Korn reports that

"Until Bill Mollison read The One-Straw Revolution he said he had no idea of how to include grain growing in his permaculture designs. All the agricultural models involved plowing the soil, a practice he does not agree with." --- Larry Korn, Masanobu Fukuoka's Natural Farming and Permaculture, 2003

Masanobu Fukuoka's methods were revelatory to Mollison because they were able to give a grain yield equivalent or greater than the neighbouring farmers who were using conventional methods while continuously improving rather than destroying the health (ie. the life) of the soil by tillage. Since this early recognition of the possibility of cereals within permaculture, other cropping systems have been developed, notably pasture cropping. The folk from Milkwood Permaculture have very recently outlined the way in which pasture cropping opens up the possibility of a regenerative cereal culture:

"Pasture cropping sows crops (like oats, rye, wheat) into perennial pastures. The crop is raised and then harvested, leaving the stubble standing in pasture, with no bare ground or tillage involved. That pasture is then grazed within a holistic management style regime with sheep, which suppresses the pasture plants growth while increasing their root mass, species diversity and creating impressive amounts of topsoil. And that regime is followed by another crop."

Like Fukuoka's methods, pasture cropping does not disturb the soil in the way that a plough agriculture does but it is much more suitable for (though not limited to) dry or 'brittle' landscapes where herbivores perform important nutrient cycling functions. In addition, the stable ground cover ecology deals with the nuisance plants which otherwise inhabit a distubance ecology (aka. 'weeds').

I am coming to learn that these systems are not enough by themselves, however. I have found myself in the unique position of being able to learn, from a man named John Letts, about the additional dimension of plant genetics and its importance for low-energy systems. John has been searching out and developing cereals which are genetically superior in low input systems. No, its not GM; its back to the future of ancient and old grain species and varieties.

Agricultural crops are products of the agroecosystem in which they are grown. Modern cereals are bred for use in systems with high levels of soluble nutrient and to meet the needs of industrialised processing industries (eg. baking, oil production etc. etc.). The so called "Green Revolution" was ushered in by the development of cereals which were shorter, less competitive amongst themselves and which could most rapidly convert soluble nutrient large yields of high protein grain.

Most modern cereals, then, are precisely those which will be disadvantaged in any low input, regenerative system which relies on a biological pathway from organically complexed (and so stable) soil nutrients to the crop. In fact, trials in the early 80's (Austin 1980 - 'Genetic Improvements in winter wheat yields since 1900 and associated physiological changes') showed that older varieties of wheat, on average, had a higher percentage of nitrogen (protein) in individual grains than the newer modern varieties in both low and high input conditions. The lower yields of the older varieties means that there is, on average, a lower overall percentage of nitrogen than the modern varieties. To the cheap energy mind this latter point is the more important. Low yield of an individual crop in a complex system with a high aggregate yield has never been an problem for the cultivator of permacultures.

Having sourced thousands of genetically distinct samples of old cereal varieties from gene banks around the world, John Letts is developing genetically diverse cereal populations suited to his region. This redevelopment of genetically diverse landraces is a foundational work of each place in which a regenerative cereal culture is sought. Nick Romanowski has begun this work for the eastern states of Australia but as far as I am aware, no one in the Western Australian wheat belt is developing such endemic cereal populations.

John says that:

"Older varieties of wheat are lower yielding, but they are also hardier, and produce grain with good gluten content as well as tall, strong straw perfect for use as thatch. They also grow better and are more reliable than modern varieties in low input/organic conditions. The biodiversity of our fields helps keep them free of disease, and the tall stems and large leaves helps choke out weeds." --- John Letts, Interview with the Real Bread Campaign

Such old varieties in conversation with the particularities of climate and land within no tillage cropping systems are the next best thing to high yielding perennial grains grown in polyculture. This latter breeding project is being undertaken by Wes Jackson and The Land Institute. Jackson says that

"If we're to solve the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture, we're going to have to perennialize the major crops and put them in mixtures so that we can bring the processes of the wild to the farm." --- Wes Jackson, Q&A, Mother Jones, Oct, 2008

Cereals don't get much more permaculture than that but high yielding perennial mixtures are yet some time off. In the mean time, we must 'obtain a yield' and the best approach I can see is the combination of zero-till cropping systems like pasture cropping and natural farming with ancient and old species and varieties of cereals grown in landrace populations or mixtures. There is certainly a place for cereals within permaculture. read more

Sepp Holzer and the Water Landscape of Tamera

The morning swim in the creatively named "Lake One" at Tamera was one of my favorite parts of the time I spent in Portugal. If "Lake One" has something of the revolutionary resonance of "year one" it would not be wholly inappropriate. This first and (currently) largest of the rain-fed water retention basins at Tamera is, for the Tamerans, the first in the movement to re-hydrate the landscapes of Tamera, Portugal and the dry lands of the world.

These large expanses of water are striking in semi-arid Mediterranean climate Portugal. They are the result of the Tamerans working with Sepp Holzer to develop a permaculture which will sustain the several hundred residents of Tamera and become a model for Portugal and elsewhere. The Tamerans live where Portugal's cork oaks (Quercus suber) once dominated the landscape as a part of a stable relationship between people, pigs and trees. Where this most stable Mediterranean climate agroecosystems once existed, the land is now undergoing desertification.

The Tamerans are trying to develop such a stable agroecosystem again --- they call it a healing biotope. They are starting with water. And where better to begin? Following Sepp Holzer's methods, the Tamerans have created a series of large water retention spaces along with other smaller water harvesting and water distributing earthworks.

Surrounding Lake One are terraces of vegetables and fruit tree polycultures. Experiments in hugelkultur are also being conducted next to the retention basins.

A more recent basin is surrounded by fruit trees only. Trees are densely planted on small finger berms which allow for passive irrigation on the low side of the basin. On the high side trees are planted along or below a small off-contour distribution swale with micro check dams to slow the water and encourage infiltration. These swales are fed by pumps and irrigation lines from the dam.

The Tamerans appear to be working from a different tradition of water landscaping than that represented by the Keyline tradition. Influenced by Holzer and by writers like Viktor Schauberger, the Tamerans see water as a living thing which must remain vital as it moves through a living landscape --- the 'earth body'. To my eyes there were signs of some destructive patterns and underutilsed resources --- things which might have been avoided by greater familiarity with the writings of P. A. Yeomans, more recent works like Brad Lancaster's books on Rainwater Harvesting in Drylands and the work of practitioners such as Darren Doherty of RegenAg. These signs included the erosion patterns which were visible below the overflows of the retention basins, the relative lack of small scale earthworks like basins for individual trees and insignificant greywater systems given the number of people on the land. Nevertheless, the intuitive approach taken by the Tamerans has resulted in a beautiful place which is rapidly undergoing regeneration.

Every effort is needed to hydrate and re-hydrate dry landscapes to make best use of the resources of soil and sunlight and to ensure the continued function of these often delicate but important ecologies. The water landscapes of Tamera represent a significant movement towards such landscape regeneration.

Vines, olives, wheat and walnuts et. al.

The landscape of much of the Rioja district of northern Spain is characterised by ´patchiness´. Patches of vines, patches of olives and wheat and occasional patches or borders of walnuts or almonds or even apples if there is an irrigation ditch. Wine, olives, oil, bread, walnuts, fruit and vegetables. Not a bad subsistence diet. The contrast is stark between this area and, for example, the Margaret River wine region or the wheat belt of Western Australia. No doubt it is a function of their different histories. Western Australia's resource extracting history need not determine its future, however. Indeed it must not. Western Australia has a lot from its older Mediterranean sibling.

The wines of the Rioja were no doubt widely traded following the establishment of vines in the area by the Phoenicians and the Romans. This did not keep the Rioja cultivator of the vine-tree from developing a robust set of crops. By contrast, the export crops of wheat and wine in Western Australia developed in an historical, geological and geographical context which discouraged such diversity.

The patterns of the Rioja are mostly monocultural paired with the common Mediterranean climate weed- and fire-prevention strategy of absolutely bare earth. Irrigation is mostly by flooding. There are few of the earthworks which might dramatically improve this landscape.

Despite these limitations, the patchy diversity of the Rioja is striking. The patchiness is formed by small monocultures of perennial and annual staple crops. Complemented by the home vegetable gardens which are frequent in the towns and on their outskirts, these patches signify a remarkably coherent cultural and agricultural landscape.

After thousands of years of agricultural productivity, there are signs in the Rioja of the monoculture of the mind by which most of modern agriculture is characterised. In comparison to the steady degredation and destruction of the delicate Western Australian ecosystems, however, the Rioja is a model of stability.

There will yet be a day when patches of perennial polyculture characterise Western Australian agriculture. There is much to learn from Spain and other places with Mediterranean climates in which delicate and infertile soil, scarce and irregular water and intense insolation have been the conditions under which human interaction has yielded millenia of stable productivity.

Espalier, grazing and grapes: Use edges and value the marginal

Miniature horses grazing the roadside in the Basque country of the Pyrenées. Edges can be dynamic, productive places and they can be neglected or marginal places. These photos represent good use of edges which might otherwise be wasted to sustain horses, maintain the roadside (ie. low energy mowing) and to grow fruit.

Espaliered apple trees on the edge of a vineyard.

Grapes and fruit trees between pylons of aquaduct in a grain field. read more

#Spain

Spanish Solar Harvest (with a bit of wind): Catch and Store Energy

Home vegetable garden and wood pile. At the moment, I have the special pleasure of walking in northern Spain. As such, I have little internet access. I have decided that I am going to keep more of a photo blog while I am walking with reflections on David Holmgren´s permaculture principles.

A Basque wood pile.

As might be expected in a rural area, there are many instances of the ´power principles´ --- ´obtain a yield´ and ´catch and store energy´. In the Basque country of Spain, very neatly stacked wood piles are commonplace, as is the home vegetable garden (vegetable garden photos to come). Here are a couple of other examples of catching and storing energy:

A harvest of sun and wind, low tech and high tech: piles of straw with wind turbines in the background

Derelict beech coppice (Fagus sylvatica) in the temperate Pyrenees. read more

Forest Gardening with Martin Crawford

Martin Crawford is the most experienced forest gardener in the modern tradition of temperate climate forest gardening. Martin has been developing his forest garden on the Dartington estate in Devon in the UK since 1993 --- for 18years. What began as 2.1 acres (0.85 ha) of pasture land is now a garden in many layers which provides a diversity of nutrient dense human food and other goods while building soil and providing a refuge for biodiversity. According to Rob Hopkins of the Tranition Network, Martin

"...has made the single most extraordinary contribution to what makes a forest garden actually work." --- Rob Hopkins in the preface to Creating a Forest Garden

I was very lucky to spend some time with Martin this last weekend. Twenty four other people joined me on Saturday morning in the Dartington church hall to learn from Martin and his forest garden about providing for human needs by gardening in three dimensions. The two day workshop consisted of Martin detailing the essentials of forest gardening according to his experience and several daily visits to the nearby forest garden site to see how things worked out in practice. The Devon weather was uncharacteristically fine so we were able to spend most of our time in the forest garden.

On each visit to the forest garden Martin would focus on different forest garden elements: hedges and shelter; the canopy layer; the shrub, herb and groundcover layer; ponds; vines; edible mushrooms and mycorrhizal fungi and useful tools for forest gardening.

The focus of the course was design. It is design which makes Martin's forest garden such an important example. In contrast to Robert Hart, the initator of the modern forest garden concept and Martin's principal inspiration, Martin has designed his forest garden with great care. Martin says:

"In a forest garden, we allow the plants to do what they want ... its not completely wild, its all pretty managed, but lightly."

This lightly managed wildness allows plants to meet their own needs and to have their needs met by other plants and animals. At the same time these plants are generating products for human use and improving the soil. This requires very careful design. For Martin, the most important thing is to "start at the top". He goes on to say:

"I regard canopy design as the most important because the canopy most of all effects everything else."

As a result of careful design, not much of Martin's original canopy design has changed --- a couple of trees removed, a couple of deaths and a few new plantings. Martin is still experimenting with the groundcover and herbal layers of the garden, trying to find the best combinations of plants. His forest garden is experiemental. It is not designed for maximum yield. Forest gardening is the cutting edge of applied and functional ecology so there is still a lot to learn and Martin is committed to learning and to sharing that knowlege.

For me, the most important thing about the workshop was seeing such an established, well designed forest garden and to hear from Martin about the work involved in getting it to this stage (the food, including a 'forest garden salad', was also a highlight!). Many of Martin's methods and the species he uses are not appropriate for Western Australia. There is therefore an exciting work ahead of developing for W.A. and other Mediterranean climates the kinds of practical knowledge which Martin has aquired for England's South West. Do get in touch if you'd like to join me in this work.

Forest gardens and agroforestry more generally offer the possibility of working with W.A.'s native species, vegetation communities, soils and climates to develop complex, beautiful, productive, biodiverse systems from backyard to farm.

I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to have learned directly from Martin and to have seen and be inspired by his forest garden which stands as such a potent sign of the future. Thanks to everyone who helped me to get there. May your polycultures be overyielding!

Edible Forest Gardening: Just the Pith

It is the eve of my visit to Devon, UK to attend a course in forest gardening with Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust. I'm really excited and I want to briefly share why. I will curb my enthusiasm now in preference for pith and I will share more details after the course.

So What is an Edible Forest Garden?

Martin Crawford says that a forest garden is:

"… a three dimensional garden of useful plants … all designed to maximise beneficial interactions and minimise competition — designed to be sustainable in the long term …" —Martin Crawford´s Forest Garden video.

Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier say that:

"… a forest garden is an edible ecosystem, a consciously designed community of mutually beneficial plants and animals intended for human food production." — — Edible Forest Gardens, vol 1., p. 1

… And Why Are Edible Forest Gardens Good?

Edible Forest gardens (along with homegardens and other agroeological systems and perennial polycultures) are the future for the provision of food and many other human needs. Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier describe the Seven F's:

food

fuel

fibre

fodder

fertiliser

"farmaceuticals" and

fun

These seven F's are the categories of yields which can be derived from forest gardens et. al. Because forest gardens are designed to mimic natural ecosystems, these things can be produced sustainably with a minimum of human input.

In March this year, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food said that:

“To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available, … Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavorable environments.” — Mr. Olivier De Schutter, Eco-Farming can double food production in 10 Years

From the scale of the many hungry in the world to the urban courtyard, the ideas of forest gardening and like systems have the potential to provide human needs sustainably.

Convinced? Let me know. I'll be writing more soon (including a bibliography) and I'd love to hear your first impressions before I do.

For more than just the pith, check out:

The Agroforestry Reseach Trust's page on Forest Gardening (including a great video - also quite pithy)

Edible Forest Gardens - the webpage of the two volumes of the same name

Transiton Initiatives' Rob Hopkins' recent interview with Martin Crawford

Permaculture Magazine UK's Maddy Harland's posts at Mother Earth - an introduction and designing and planting

#edible forest gardens #Martin Crawford #Dave Jacke #Eric Toensmeier

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