About the author:

Michael Pilarski is a multi-disciplinary thinker and hands-on guy specializing in organic, sustainable agriculture, forestry, agroforestry and permaculture. He is a farmer, tree-planter, author and educator. He has planted 80,000 trees so far.

The problem = the solution. The main thesis of this article is that there are large numbers of people not doing useful work and a large amount of useful work that obviously needs to be done. Let's put the two together. Look at how many people are available for useful and needed work!

Unemployed, official and unofficial.

Unemployed because of mental or physical handicaps.

Underemployed.

Employed but doing useless work.

Employed but doing harmful things to the earth and/or

people.

Goats are technically browsers (more similar to deer than cows which are grazers). Despite the common practice of running goats on grass/legume pastures (or feeding them hay in corrals), goats will prefer browse if given the choice. They like the mineral content and higher tannin content of deciduous and evergreen foliage, in fact, their metabolism requires more mineral than grazing ruminants for their health, especially reproductive health.

 Proposal: To create a North American permaculture convergence that happens every two years. The event rotates around North America and is hosted by already existing regional convergences. The N.A. convergence would bring together people from around the US and Canada and to a lesser extent, Mexico, due to language and border constraints. There have always been a lot of ties between US and Canadian permaculturists. The same is true but to a lesser extent for the ties between US and Mexican permaculturists.

Handout for permaculture workshops - January 25, 2010 version

Michael Pilarski wrote this version of the methodology and the list of recommended websites.

This list of principles is from an internet source.

Permaculture was started by Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the mid-1970s.

Within the next two weeks the workers at the Fukushima plant are going to try to remove spent fuel rods that are suspended on damaged racks. They weigh about 400 tons all together and contain radiation equivalent to 14,0000 times the amount released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. This is very dangerous work, not just for the workers, or Japan, but for the entire world. There's a media blackout about the gravity of the situation (and has been for two years) but right now I believe that prayers are needed more than ever.

[This article was written to inform people about the different kinds of permaculture design courses being offered in the Northwest in 2010. We are putting it on the INPC website to show some of the types of courses being offered. At a later date we will add PC courses being offered in the Inland Northwest in 2012]

This article explores the role of home gardens in world food production. The thesis of the article is that home gardens have the potential to become the dominant food supply for humanity. A case is made that home gardens could grow 50% of humanity’s food supply on less then 10% of the world’s arable farmland. Home gardens are one of the most reliable, efficient and democratic ways of producing food ever invented. Agriculture has repeatedly degraded its natural resource base and collapsed many societies in the past.