"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."  --John Muir

This
quote makes me think of permaculture, which helps us see the
connections between human culture and the earth.  We believe
Permaculture principles can help us innovate around staples,
particularly in developing systems that mix annual staples with
perennials like nuts and nitrogen fixers like the locust. Such a system
would lend itself to stacking functions, which looks to multiple uses
for each action, and minimal disturbance to the soil. Key to
permaculture is looking at native species and resources and creating a
system that mimics the effiency and complexity of what is going on in
our region. In 07 we started a Permaculture Group (somewhat
neighborhood based) to learn and work together on projects that use
Permaculture Principles. We get together monthly to do everything from
mushroom log innoculation to fence building, to planting, etc.

Brandon
and I are connected with Peter Bane and Keith Johnson and Rhonda Baird,
Permaculture instructors from Bloomington, Indiana. We are halfway
through the course that will certify us to do design work and we very
much recommend anyone interested think about taking a course from
Peter. Peter publishes the Permaculture Activist, which we recommend to all who are interested in Permaculture. Keith maintains a good blog there, and Rhonda runs the Bloomington Permaculture Guild on riseup. NCAT has a page on their site about Permaculture as well.

We've
written a few proposals to help fund our permaculture demo site. The
site will demonstrate how we might use permaculture and other growing
methods to reverse some of the trends brought about from land
fragmentation, and to develop intensive systems for food production and
farm income on small plots by integrating small plot intensive methods,
among others.

Michelle & Brandon

The real arsenal of democracy is a fertile soil, the fresh produce of which is the birthright of nations.
--Sir Albert Howard