Education


[mea_culpa] This piece is not fair. I’m critiquing the work of one person, Christine Jones of Amazing Carbon, to illustrate an issue that is much bigger than one person. I’ve been sitting on this piece for over a year now, because I’m not excited about picking on one person in particular, and because I’ve hoped to put this critique in the context of a larger discussion. But that larger work, being outside the scope of things I actually get paid for, continues to elude me. And in the meantime I see my allies continue to cite some pretty questionable materials. So I’m sharing this now. Try and zoom out to the larger questions of how we can all do better, and think of this piece as an abbreviated case study. [/mea_culpa] Grazing advocates and regenerative agriculture folks frequently draw on the work of Christine Jones when addressing the power of […]

Methane, grazing, and our credibility gap


12
The complete list of instructors is finally up, the schedule is nearly finalized… and I’m just getting more excited about this course. As far as I know, this is the first course ever to focus specifically on the permaculture – research connection. (I’d be happy to be proven wrong, let me know if you’ve heard of another.) First, the updated flyer. After that, more about course content and instructors. For more information or to register, please email permacultureresearch2016@gmail.com. One thing I’m excited about is how this course has been influenced by my time with the Climate Change Impacts and Modeling research group here at University of Lisbon. This is the most transdisciplinary and action-research orientated environment I’ve ever been part of. Thanks to my collaborators and colleagues, the course will be as much about applying permaculture thinking to research projects, as it is about using research methods to investigate permaculture […]

Update to Permaculture Research Design Course




1
In his recent article for Jacobin, Cedric Johnson tosses off an eloquent description/demolition of the historical roots and political insufficiency of white liberal self-flagellation: “Unfortunately, the arrival [with James Baldwin] of the black intellectual as gadfly and conscience of the nation in the television era bore a new set of problems. Too many well-meaning whites mistook their guilt and pleasure of self-flagellation for genuine unity with blacks and authentic antiracist political commitment — in other words, solidarity. That problem of replacing politics with public therapy endures to this day, and it flourishes in a context where social media linkages surrogate other historical forms of social interchange and collective action. Antiracist liberalism thrives in a context where the performance of self-loathing, outrage, and concern are easily traded public currency, instead of the more socially costly politics of public sacrifice and the redistribution of societal resources. Like Baldwin, I think Coates fulfills a similar […]

The white confessional gesture isn’t solidarity – and it isn’t ...


So this guy has a canoe for sale. It’s a good thing too, because the river is flooding. The water is rising fast and you’re going to need to navigate it. You need a good boat. You go to check out the canoe, and it’s clear that it’s something special. They spent years refining their design – for speed, weight, stability, practicality, aesthetics. Searched far and wide for the strongest, lightest, wood, to painstakingly mill and shape and sand. Researched the finest adhesives and resins that modern technology has to offer, to bind it together and seal it. This is a boat that could last a lifetime, with proper care. It’s versatile, powerful, and durable. It’s not perfect, but it’s beautiful. Just as you are getting ready to shake hands and seal the deal, the guy says: “And if that’s not enough, buddy, get this – the canoe can fly.” Debates […]

The Parable of the Canoe




In the heart-poundingly dramatic realm of website improvements, I… …finally started consolidating links to interviews and talks I’ve done to a Media page. …updated my Contact page to encourage the kinds of emails I’m really excited about, while steering common questions toward a Resources page. …even fulfilled a minor life-goal of creating a page with helpful suggestions for those who are about to engage in Asking Busy Strangers for Help on the Internet. As my old adviser John Todd liked likes to say, “Onward and upward!”  

Media, Resources, and Contacts


1
Robert Wallace is an evolutionary biologist and social epidemiologist, and co-author of the mindblowing Farming Human Pathogens (2009). I had the pleasure of meeting him at a recent symposium in honor of the great ecologist, systems thinker, and activist, Richard Levins (on the occasion of his 85th birthday). In a recent blog post, Wallace addresses the recent – and ongoing – outbreak of avian influenza in the US. In this short essay he dissects the public discussion and institutional response to the outbreak, and lays bare the economic and ecological issues surrounding them. Wallace make a very compelling case that industry and government are responding in ways that serves industry first – and the public not at all. Originally posted June 10, 2015 on Farming Pathogens: Made in Minnesota Industrial turkey and chicken in Minnesota, and other states Midwest and South, have been hit by a highly pathogenic strain of […]

Avian Influences: The Politics of the Mid-West Bird Flu Outbreak


5
For the last several years, Eric Toensmeier and I have been working (ever so slowly) on a scientific review of global perennial staple crops. Last year we received an invitation to present our work at the annual American Society of Agronomy conference, in a session that was otherwise composed of perennial grains researchers. This was an exciting opportunity (as well as a deadline to light a fire under our slow progress). Eric and I decided that he would attend and present. He had never had a chance to present at a scientific conference – and more importantly, he has done the vast bulk of the work feeding into this project. He’s been painstakingly combing through scientific and technical literature over the past five years, and assembling a formidable database of 100s of perennial crops. My role in the project has been to help frame that tremendous work in terms of contemporary scientific frameworks, act […]

Perennial Agriculture Now! Our presentation at American Society for Agronomy.



          UPDATE: This course has been postponed. With Eric Toensmeier, Rafter Sass Ferguson, and Elizabeth Ü October 18-23, 2014 at Shannon Farm Community In Afton, VA Cost: Sliding Scale $595-$895 to register or for more information visitwww.blueridgepermaculture.net or contact tygerlilley@gmail.com Scaling up ecological agriculture is one of the critical challenges we face in addressing climate change and the global food crisis. Integrated perennial farm businesses are a key part of the solution when planned and managed effectively; join us to learn and practice how! This 6-day course integrates time-tested farm business planning tools with the holistic landscape planning of permaculture and cutting-edge creative financing strategies. Experienced leaders will guide participants through an intensive planning/design process, from initial visioning, through successional enterprise budgeting, to design of the farm landscape. In this dynamic course, participants will design in teams working on a shared project, with structured time for participants to […]

This October in VA: Regenerative Farm Enterprise Planning


1
If I haven’t attended to the website in ages – and I haven’t – it’s because my scarce extracurricular writing time has gone into articles that I couldn’t share until now. I’m very excited to have two articles in the current issue of Permaculture Activist (Autumn 2014, No. 93). The theme of this issue is “Experimentation – Science in Permaculture” and it looks to be a tremendous one all around. Other authors include some dear friends: my long-time co-teacher Steve Gabriel of Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute, and the excellent forest gardener and human being we know as Jonathan Bates. I’m also happy to appear alongside newer friends and colleagues I’ve connected with over the past few years: Abbie Conrad (writing on  her tremendous work on permaculture among smallholder farmers in Malawi), Chris Warburton-Brown from the UK Permaculture Research Brigade, and Christopher Kelly-Bisson (of the new permaculture e-journal The Rhizome). Plus, bonus people I […]

Toward 21st Century Permaculture: new articles


I made minor contributions to this very interesting poster presentation at the Radical Emission Reduction Conference held by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the Royal Society in London on December 10-11 2013. My hat is off to Ed Sears (of the Earth Systems Science Research Group at Exeter), the main mover behind the project, as well as to the other co-authors Chris Warburton-Brown (UK Permaculture Research Initiative) and Tomas Remiarz (UK Permaculture Association).

Permaculture as evolutionary social learning organization