Permaculture article in Urban Farm

There’s a nice 8 page article in the Jan-Feb issue of Urban Farm magazine, by Eric Knutzen. It gives a nice overview of permaculture and the last page talks a bit about the difficulties of learning about permaculture – as we were discussing awhile back. It points out the cost of PDCs as being a stumbling block and that after you have one, your only job opportunity it teaching permaculture.

I wonder if permaculture needs to reassess itself. What is the goal? To have everyone in the country have a PDC? Or to have permaculture be a mainstream, household word and give people access to permaculture information, techniques, guidance AND PDCs if they decide they want to go that far.

A little story: I happened to stumble across the Ellen Degeneres show one day awhile back and she had some actress Ellen Page on – who had recently completed a month at a permaculture farm out west somewhere. Ellen P. was going on about how great it was and Ellen D. asked her what the heck permaculture was. Ellen P gave a perfect, dead-on definition and description of it. I’m watching this in amazement, because here’s somebody talking about permaculture on national TV! And then, and then…she blew it. Ellen D asks what she did while she was there. What did she learn? Ellen Page’s answer? “Oh I shoveled goat shit and pee’d in a bucket.”

And everybody laughed and the conversation moved on. Sigh.

Opportunity lost.

Anyway, just some ramblings. Check out the magazine if you get a chance. You can buy it (or just sneak a peek) at Barnes & Noble.

-Kathy