Posts Tagged ‘permaculture’
Sugar Palms for Biofuel and Ongoing Community Benefit
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on January 18th, 2012
(L) Masarang’s ‘Village Hub’: a modular processing plant for sugar palm fuel.
Climate Spectator have posted a great article from china dialogue about the work of Willie Smits on the potential of sugar palms for the biofuel industry. The growing environment of the sugar palm means that its cultivation can provide regular local work and that production can stay in the control of small co-operatives. The sugar palm is a highly regarded plant in Indonesia and other areas of South-East Asia, with multiple benefits during its growing cycle and after harvest:
“We met in Hong Kong, where Smits had been talking to potential investors. He opened up his laptop to run one of many PowerPoint presentations that chart a 30-year voyage of discovery. When he married his Indonesian wife in 1980, Smits was surprised to learn that the expected dowry in North Sulawesi was six sugar palms. “I wondered why,” he told chinadialogue, “and I discovered that just six sugar palms could support a young family.”
After years of research, Smits today is a sugar palm evangelist, eager to list the tree’s virtues. “It doesn’t need pesticides or fertiliser, and once it starts producing, it has to be tapped twice a day, which gives employment to local people,” he explained, “so it creates 20 times more permanent jobs per hectare than oil palm. It is highly efficient in converting sunlight to energy and, because it cannot thrive in monoculture, it preserves biodiversity. It has very deep roots, so it never dries out, and it improves the soil by bringing nutrients up. It stores carbon very deep, and it only needs half the water of similar trees because of its waxy leaves. And, it produces 60 useful products, including a wood that is harder than oak.”
As if that were not enough, he continued, it survives fire and volcanic eruption, flood and salt water, can prevent landslides by stabilising slopes, and improves conditions for agriculture downstream. Perhaps most importantly for the global climate: one tree can produce enough ethanol each day to keep a car running year round.”
Read the full article by Isabel Hilton to find out more and check out Willie Smits’ website.
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Planting a Stormwater-Fed Food Forest in the City
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on October 24th, 2011
The site in May 2009.
Two years later.
From “Suburban Dryland Forest Garden” on Permacultureglobal:
I love the forest, but I live in the city. Since I don’t get to the wildlands nearly enough, my goal has been to create an edible forest throughout the city where I live. To me, it only makes sense to grow food where people live, and since a gargantuan number of people live in cities, it’s due time to get urban food systems established. Having worked in large scale annual agriculture I’m much more inclined to grow food in the semblance of a perennial forest. [...]
There were many challenges to contend with for this garden. First was a mature black walnut that succumbed to thousand canker disease. The city required that the tree be taken down as soon as possible to stem the spread of the disease.[...]
We sheet mulched this area heavily, up to 18 inches in places, as adding organic matter is reportedly the best way to lock-up and break down allelopathic chemicals [from the black walnut]. We used cardboard from the local bike shop to smother the bluegrass lawn, cow manure from a local ranch for fertility, leaves the client had collected over the years, and cast-off strawbales. The soil is now a nicely assimilated, dark and crumbly consistency. We harvested the runoff from nearly half of the house roof surface to gravity feed through four infiltration basins as the sole irrigation source. While most landscapes in Boulder are over-irrigated with municipally treated water, this garden harvests almost 10,000 gallons of rainwater annually to passively infiltrate into the soil, requiring zero municipal water post establishment. [...]
We mulched the basins heavily with woodchips from a local tree trimmer to absorb the rainwater, reduce evaporation, and to prevent creating mosquito breeding habitat. Previously the water ran down the driveway and into the street only to evaporate in summer or ice up in winter. After three months of hand irrigation for plant establishment this garden now thrives strictly on harvested rainwater. After first digging the water harvesting earthworks, then planting the trees and shrubs, and following with sheet mulch, we planted various other useful plant species for nitrogen fixation, nutrient accumulation, pest confusion, and beneficial insect attraction. Most of the species have edible or medicinal qualities as well. [...]
The growth in this garden is fantastic, and even better the homeowner has become a sincere advocate for rainwater harvesting and forest gardening. It has been two years since the garden was installed and it is encouraging to see the abundant results of needing no irrigation, producing food, creating wildlife habitat, being a great place to bring students, and simply being beautiful. This garden is an awesome place to eat, observe, and be! The scale of the garden is only 750 sq. ft. and is therefore easily and affordably replicated. With extremely low maintenance and no continuous irrigation cost, this garden has attracted other city dwellers to extend the edible forest ecosystem to other yards and neighborhoods. Perhaps the greatest yield from this garden is the food forest revolution that it has inspired!
Read the full article (including plant details) on Permacultureglobal.com
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Audio files available of Roberto Perez, Cuban permaculturalist
Posted in Models by fedwards on November 28th, 2008
Roberto Perez, Cuban permaculturalist (featured in the documentary The Power of Community), travelled to Australia recently to speak about Cuba, food and fossil fuels – see the post “Event – Organic Cuba: Abandoning Fossil Fuels – Public meeting featuring Roberto Perez – 5 April“. A popular guest, Perez gave an inspiring talk at London Food Link’s Big Autumn Do in September 2008. He focused on how Cuba responded to peak oil and its transition to a more sustainable model of agriculture which included thriving urban agriculture projects throughout Havana.
His presentation was recorded and can be accessed at:
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