26 December 2007 by riverbird
Let’s work together
toward a more sustainable future.
Local Roots is a network of community minded folks interested in sustainable food production via backyard & community gardening projects throughout the Pudding River Watershed - Willamette Valley, western Oregon.
It’s time to bring the farm home.
Contact us to get involved or for more information.
“As evidence accumulates foretelling the imminent shock of “petrocollapse,” one central concern of communities – including organized neighborhoods and small towns – should be the safety and continuity of their food supply. All but the most self-sustaining communities should start planning now to minimize the impact of diminishing oil supplies on their food security, because, to an astonishing extent, the system of industrial agribusiness that produces the vast majority of available food is addicted to constant streams of cheap fossil fuels. ”
Read the full text: Peak Oil and Community Food Security
“We have trouble visualizing decline as positive, but this simply reflects the dominance of our prior culture of growth,” writes fellow permaculture co-founder David Holmgren in his new book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. With brilliantly pragmatic insight, he analyzes how communities can embrace “energy descent” through permaculture with “whole-hearted adaptation to the ecological realities of decline which are as natural and creative as those of growth.” From an evolutionary outlook, he argues, the steep ride down energy descent can precipitate spiritual and cultural ascent: “When an adolescent sense of immortality and values of speed, novelty and endless growth define a whole civilisation, we are close to its demise and the birth of a new cultural paradigm.”
Questions for local residents:
 |
• |
What varieties of crops are best suited to this area; where are the seeds, how can seeds be selected and stored? |
|
• |
How can abundance in one season be used in another by drying, canning and storing? |
|
• |
Who will make and repair tools, water pumps, fencing, hoses, greenhouses? |
|
• |
What is the most effective, efficient, and least energy intensive means of food production within a diverse landscape? |
|
• |
How can local markets be created so farmers and individuals have a means of exchange that supports productivity? |
|
• |
What renewable energy sources are needed to ensure the continued operation? |
|
• |
How can we produce a diversity of food for adequate nutrition, diet preferences, and ecosystem health? |
|
• |
What is our current food production inventory, knowledge, and capacity? |
further links:
Farming in the Age of Expensive Oil
Leave a Reply
