Frequently Asked Questions
permEzone aims to promote the development of sustainable food systems by:-
- sponsoring farmers to access permaculture training,
- providing extended practical support beyond the training period, and
- supporting information sharing using mobile phone technology.
1. Mission Statement:
permEzone’s mission is to inspire, empower and support farming communities in the developing world to build sustainable food systems that will meet the needs of current and future generations, creating self-sufficiency and resiliency for rural economies.
2. Purpose:
PermEzone wants to offer new opportunities to the many small-holder farmers in poorly served communities who struggle to meet their own most basic needs. This means channeling development resources away from the agro-industrial approaches that degrade natural systems, towards agro-ecological approaches that are environmentally regenerative and sustainable for local communities. Resilient food systems depend on keeping small farming communities alive (not just in developing regions). To achieve this, farmers need to know about the alternatives to the chemical/industrial farming methods whose short-term benefits carry heavy longer-term social and environmental costs.
Permaculture applies whole systems thinking to the design of living systems, taking inspiration from the patterns found in nature. One of the founding fathers of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, defined Permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems, which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems”. The more closely that we can work with nature, the more likely we are to establish a balance which will provide us with the things that we need without hurting the environment. (www.neverendingfood.org/b-what-is-permaculture).
This is the unsung success story of agro-ecology, with one estimate suggesting more than 850,000 permaculture projects worldwide.
Our long-term vision is to foster the growth of permaculture communities of practice, creating the possibility of food-security and resilient, thriving local economies that preserve a legacy of natural resources for the future. Faced with the growing crisis of land degradation associated with destruction of essential soil and water resources, we desperately need agriculture that preserves and regenerates the natural systems that all life depends on.
We can focus our resources on constructing an alternative paradigm for sustainable agriculture by using existing infrastructure to the greatest extent possible, and by sharing the successful strategies of permaculture designers, both locally and globally.
3. Primary Goals:
The goals are to work with the worldwide network of permaculture training centers to:
⦁ sponsor farmers to train in permaculture design,
⦁ introduce a training package to prepare sponsored students to share their knowledge of permaculture through farmer-to-farmer extension work,
⦁ create simple processes for using mobile phones to help sponsored students and local famers easily share information and support each other
⦁ support farmers in creating local communities of practice to share practical experience.
4. Strategy for implementing mission and primary goals.
The immediate objective is to run a pilot:
⦁ create simple processes for farmer-to-farmer extension using mobile phones;
⦁ design a supplementary training, additional to the standard PDC (Permaculture Design Course), to equip students to give practical demonstrations and to use their mobiles;
⦁ partner with a small number of training centers to trial the service in different regions;
⦁ sponsor at least ten students for the combined PDC and permEzone training;
⦁ track and support the students over a subsequent 12-month period; and
⦁ work with independent reviewers to monitor, evaluate and report on the pilot’s impact.
5. The unique contribution of permEzone.
i. PermEzone reduces dependency on expensive and potentially dangerous chemicals
Most international development efforts and agricultural extension work is focused on the conventional, chemically-dependent farming methods that predominate in the developed world: mono-cropping, pesticides, herbicides, hybrid and GMO varieties, intensive irrigation, artificial fertilizers. This project aims to divert development funding into projects that require none of these expensive and damaging inputs.
ii. PermEzone is about empowering local agriculture
We recently surveyed 50 permaculture training centers in developing regions. Most of them confirmed that they rarely train local farmers – often because the farmers can’t afford the training. However, all 27 of the centers that responded to the survey said that they would be interested in taking part in a pilot of permEzone. These responses suggest that in most regions the project would be unique in making permaculture training available to poor farmers. (Most, but not all: http://tinyurl.com/kuwtuad)
iii. PermEzone wants to create lasting change for local communities.
All too often, development programs inject resources into a community without creating the conditions for ownership of those resources, which reduces the prospect of lasting change. By giving people the tools to make informed decisions about the best way to use and preserve natural resources we can hope to emulate the remarkable success story of the Chikukwa region in Zimbabwe. (http://tinyurl.com/lhpsf2c)
6. Links with other similar efforts/movements.
The permEzone Advisory Council includes Julious Piti, a founding member of the Chikukwa Ecological Land Trust (CELUCT) in Zimbabwe, and Snehal Trivedi, co-founder of Heal the Soil CSA, who also runs Sapney Farm in Pondicherry, India. The Council also includes a highly experienced international development consultant and a financial advisor with strong connections to the Slow Money Movement. A survey of 50 permaculture training centers in Africa, Asia and Latin America / Caribbean regions resulted in 27 Centers expressing their interest in participating in the proposed pilot. We are fully embedded in the international permaculture movement.
7. Indicative time line.
With the first phase of the pilot in Kenya successfully completed, the second phase in Uganda close to completion, and the third phase now up and running with a community of farmers in Kisa West in W Kenya, we have a fully developed approach to the full two-year program of training and support for the farmers as they implement their new farm designs and build their communities of practice.
⦁ Fundraising: continuing fundraising aims to support the continuing development of the program is now starting to focus on developing new organizational structures on the ground in East Africa, and scaling up to involve ever more centers around East Africa to take full advantage of the lessons learnt from our extended trial of the permEzone program.
⦁ Initiation: Complete - building the teams to design the training and networking materials, and the infrastructure for monitoring and evaluation, working with selected training centers.
⦁ Implementation: the pilot started in 2017, and now due to run through to the end of 2022.
⦁ Review: running throughout program implementation, and continuing beyond the formal monitoring period to document the results of the pilot.
With training spaced out across different regions at different times, each phase of the pilot learns the lessons of the preceding phases. Time will be given for real-world impacts before a comprehensive review of the pilot is finalized. However, with constant feedback about the training outcomes and the students’ success with their workshops and community-building, it has quickly become apparent that people are engaging fully with the program. With the positive feedback we've received from the pilot's participants, we we are confident to start planning for the next phase of rolling out the permEzone program over the coming years.
8. The inspiration for this project.
Hugh Kelly talks about what inspired him to initiate permEzone:
I’m convinced that we have to start designing food systems that work in balance with the rest of the natural world. The realization that the way we feed ourselves today will make it increasingly difficult for future generations to feed themselves has compelled me to act. As we keep polluting and degrading the air, and water and earth, the collapse of food supplies and the collapse of ecosystems go hand-in-hand. PermEzone is a step to build a better, more sustainable future.
Writing in the New York Times in November 2011, Thomas Friedman reported on: “a software program that runs on the cheapest cellphones and offers illiterate farmers a voice or text advisory program that tells them when is the best time to plant their crops, how to mix their fertilizers and pesticides, when to dispense them and how much water to add each day”. My immediate thought on reading this was that the same technology could be used to share practical information about ecologically sound food systems while improving that same farmer’s environment and reducing the need for costly inputs.
As a recently trained permaculture designer with a background as a software engineer, several years’ experience working for the campaigning group Friends of the Earth, and postgraduate research into the biofuels industry (completed in 2008), my problem-solving, project-managing brain started churning ideas for a plan to turn this into a reality.
When permaculture pioneer and future advisory council member, Julious Piti came to our local City College to talk about his astounding work with his community in Zimbabwe, I had the chance to talk to him about my idea of using mobile phones to help spread the word about permaculture within and between communities. His eyes lit up as he said that this would definitely extend the reach of his own work.
In his response to our survey, he wrote:
The proposal is great idea for our community… Cell phone is not too expensive while it can be very useful as a working handbook for permaculture information… The project is viable especially if it also support the farmers in accessing kick start capital to interested farmers to build viable farming business. I support the project with the whole of my heart because I understand communication is important in information sharing.
Thank you Julious Piti!
In studying international development, I learned that development programs seeking to replicate small-scale successes on a large-scale often fail to achieve the same benefits. In studying permaculture I finally realized why. The complex needs of each unique situation cannot be answered in isolation from the unique eco-social realities of that time and place.
There’s plenty of good news to go around if we can get the right information to the people who need it. Rural communities don’t have to be sacrificed to create massive mono-cropped plantations. Small farmers don’t have to run up impossible debts trying to de-nature their fields. It is possible to design food systems that emulate natural systems, and in fact people have been doing that successfully all over the planet for thousands of years.
The components for permEzone are all there: the permaculture training centers, the communities that have demonstrated that permaculture can be used to bring self-sustainability and food security in even the most demanding environments, the mobile phone networks. All we need now is the organization to bring it all together.
9. The intended impact of the project.
For farmers, the decision to change is never simple, but it gets easier if you can see good change happening on neighboring farms. At present, there really is only one option for small farmers who aren’t doing well: borrow money to buy chemicals, inorganic fertilizers and commercial seeds, and accept the attendant dangers – not least, escalating debts.
They need to know that there are other options that won’t put them in debt and won’t harm them or destroy the fertility of their soil. The goal of this program is that local farmers can see the success of a permaculture approach in their local communities, witnessing the success of neighboring farmers and watching the land improve itself. Rural farmers can help each other and through them, the communities will grow to be self sufficient and flourish. Through visible success and simple communication, more farmers around the world will realize they have the same option, and that they will have the support to take it.
10. Overview of the work done to date to research, design, and prepare for delivery of the project.
permEzone won the award for best non-tech project at Startup Weekend Santa Barbara in 2012. There was a long period of research and consultation to define how permEzone can work in practice, and several of the people involved in this extended dialogue have now joined our Advisory Council.
Research: Recognition of the need for this initiative is rooted in Hugh's post-graduate studies in International Development and his work as a biofuels researcher at Friends of the Earth, backed up by further research and extended discussions with practitioners in e.g. development, permaculture, grant-giving, community organizing, and social entrepreneurship.
An important part of our research involved a survey of 50 permaculture training centers around the world, that has resulted in a great resource of information about the status and activities of this network of potential service delivery partners, as well as a clear indication that many of these centers would become partners in implementing this program.
Design: The concept has been refined through a process of extensive critique and user reviews, and discussions with people who have the experience to take it forward (permaculture teachers, developers of mobile services for small farmers), and the development of the program based on many lessons learnt through three pilot projects in Kenya and Uganda.
Delivery: The idea of running a pilot program to prove the concept was a crucial outcome of the teamwork at Startup Weekend SB, further developed through 27 survey responses from permaculture training centers scattered throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America who expressed an interest to engage with permEzone. The Permaculture Research Institute (Kenya) was full involved in planning the pilot and the early stages of getting it up and running.
11. Fiscal Sponsorship.
We decided that a non-profit format would be most appropriate for launching the initiative and implementing the pilot. We are extremely fortunate to have been adopted as a project of California-based non-profit Empowerment WORKS. PermEzone gains significant benefits from working with an experienced and environmentally-focused fiscal sponsor, and in addition to the regulatory and administrative practicalities, we also hope to benefit from their extensive experience with start-ups looking to effect practical programs of change in this sphere.
As an international project of the Permaculture Association (Britain), we have additional options for disseminating information about the program, and the potential to participate fully in their initiatives to scale up permaculture on the international stage, especially their Permaculture International Research Network (PIRN) and associated Knowledge-base.
Our association with both of these organizations provides assurance to funders and supporters that the program is operating on a sound footing, and offers tax-efficient donations for residents of the USA and the UK.
12. Fundraising.
With fiscal sponsorship in place, we are ready to initiate a multi-pronged approach to fundraising:
⦁ Personal Contacts: approaching individuals with an interest in funding initiatives in this sphere.
⦁ Crowdfunding: there have been some successful fundraising initiatives by permaculture projects using fundraising websites such as Indiegogo, and this is being explored as an option to raise funds for training scholarships.
⦁ Foundations: with initial commitments in place, we will approach foundations with an international focus on any of these interrelated areas of need: poverty/education/environment/sustainable agriculture. We’ve already started to build a database of potential funders, but are open to further advice in this area.
13. Organizational Structure.
Hugh Kelly is the founder and director and heads up the volunteer Project Board which shares responsibility for implementing the pilot program, and brings in a wider range of skills and expertise to increase the organization's resilience and effectiveness.
The Advisory Council have been consulted on the concept and implementation plans at all stages, and in addition to the members previously mentioned, include certified permaculture designers working in radio and film media, information technology, architecture, law and financial planning.
permEzone’s mission is to inspire, empower and support farming communities in the developing world to build sustainable food systems that will meet the needs of current and future generations, creating self-sufficiency and resiliency for rural economies.
2. Purpose:
PermEzone wants to offer new opportunities to the many small-holder farmers in poorly served communities who struggle to meet their own most basic needs. This means channeling development resources away from the agro-industrial approaches that degrade natural systems, towards agro-ecological approaches that are environmentally regenerative and sustainable for local communities. Resilient food systems depend on keeping small farming communities alive (not just in developing regions). To achieve this, farmers need to know about the alternatives to the chemical/industrial farming methods whose short-term benefits carry heavy longer-term social and environmental costs.
Permaculture applies whole systems thinking to the design of living systems, taking inspiration from the patterns found in nature. One of the founding fathers of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, defined Permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems, which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems”. The more closely that we can work with nature, the more likely we are to establish a balance which will provide us with the things that we need without hurting the environment. (www.neverendingfood.org/b-what-is-permaculture).
This is the unsung success story of agro-ecology, with one estimate suggesting more than 850,000 permaculture projects worldwide.
Our long-term vision is to foster the growth of permaculture communities of practice, creating the possibility of food-security and resilient, thriving local economies that preserve a legacy of natural resources for the future. Faced with the growing crisis of land degradation associated with destruction of essential soil and water resources, we desperately need agriculture that preserves and regenerates the natural systems that all life depends on.
We can focus our resources on constructing an alternative paradigm for sustainable agriculture by using existing infrastructure to the greatest extent possible, and by sharing the successful strategies of permaculture designers, both locally and globally.
3. Primary Goals:
The goals are to work with the worldwide network of permaculture training centers to:
⦁ sponsor farmers to train in permaculture design,
⦁ introduce a training package to prepare sponsored students to share their knowledge of permaculture through farmer-to-farmer extension work,
⦁ create simple processes for using mobile phones to help sponsored students and local famers easily share information and support each other
⦁ support farmers in creating local communities of practice to share practical experience.
4. Strategy for implementing mission and primary goals.
The immediate objective is to run a pilot:
⦁ create simple processes for farmer-to-farmer extension using mobile phones;
⦁ design a supplementary training, additional to the standard PDC (Permaculture Design Course), to equip students to give practical demonstrations and to use their mobiles;
⦁ partner with a small number of training centers to trial the service in different regions;
⦁ sponsor at least ten students for the combined PDC and permEzone training;
⦁ track and support the students over a subsequent 12-month period; and
⦁ work with independent reviewers to monitor, evaluate and report on the pilot’s impact.
5. The unique contribution of permEzone.
i. PermEzone reduces dependency on expensive and potentially dangerous chemicals
Most international development efforts and agricultural extension work is focused on the conventional, chemically-dependent farming methods that predominate in the developed world: mono-cropping, pesticides, herbicides, hybrid and GMO varieties, intensive irrigation, artificial fertilizers. This project aims to divert development funding into projects that require none of these expensive and damaging inputs.
ii. PermEzone is about empowering local agriculture
We recently surveyed 50 permaculture training centers in developing regions. Most of them confirmed that they rarely train local farmers – often because the farmers can’t afford the training. However, all 27 of the centers that responded to the survey said that they would be interested in taking part in a pilot of permEzone. These responses suggest that in most regions the project would be unique in making permaculture training available to poor farmers. (Most, but not all: http://tinyurl.com/kuwtuad)
iii. PermEzone wants to create lasting change for local communities.
All too often, development programs inject resources into a community without creating the conditions for ownership of those resources, which reduces the prospect of lasting change. By giving people the tools to make informed decisions about the best way to use and preserve natural resources we can hope to emulate the remarkable success story of the Chikukwa region in Zimbabwe. (http://tinyurl.com/lhpsf2c)
6. Links with other similar efforts/movements.
The permEzone Advisory Council includes Julious Piti, a founding member of the Chikukwa Ecological Land Trust (CELUCT) in Zimbabwe, and Snehal Trivedi, co-founder of Heal the Soil CSA, who also runs Sapney Farm in Pondicherry, India. The Council also includes a highly experienced international development consultant and a financial advisor with strong connections to the Slow Money Movement. A survey of 50 permaculture training centers in Africa, Asia and Latin America / Caribbean regions resulted in 27 Centers expressing their interest in participating in the proposed pilot. We are fully embedded in the international permaculture movement.
7. Indicative time line.
With the first phase of the pilot in Kenya successfully completed, the second phase in Uganda close to completion, and the third phase now up and running with a community of farmers in Kisa West in W Kenya, we have a fully developed approach to the full two-year program of training and support for the farmers as they implement their new farm designs and build their communities of practice.
⦁ Fundraising: continuing fundraising aims to support the continuing development of the program is now starting to focus on developing new organizational structures on the ground in East Africa, and scaling up to involve ever more centers around East Africa to take full advantage of the lessons learnt from our extended trial of the permEzone program.
⦁ Initiation: Complete - building the teams to design the training and networking materials, and the infrastructure for monitoring and evaluation, working with selected training centers.
⦁ Implementation: the pilot started in 2017, and now due to run through to the end of 2022.
⦁ Review: running throughout program implementation, and continuing beyond the formal monitoring period to document the results of the pilot.
With training spaced out across different regions at different times, each phase of the pilot learns the lessons of the preceding phases. Time will be given for real-world impacts before a comprehensive review of the pilot is finalized. However, with constant feedback about the training outcomes and the students’ success with their workshops and community-building, it has quickly become apparent that people are engaging fully with the program. With the positive feedback we've received from the pilot's participants, we we are confident to start planning for the next phase of rolling out the permEzone program over the coming years.
8. The inspiration for this project.
Hugh Kelly talks about what inspired him to initiate permEzone:
I’m convinced that we have to start designing food systems that work in balance with the rest of the natural world. The realization that the way we feed ourselves today will make it increasingly difficult for future generations to feed themselves has compelled me to act. As we keep polluting and degrading the air, and water and earth, the collapse of food supplies and the collapse of ecosystems go hand-in-hand. PermEzone is a step to build a better, more sustainable future.
Writing in the New York Times in November 2011, Thomas Friedman reported on: “a software program that runs on the cheapest cellphones and offers illiterate farmers a voice or text advisory program that tells them when is the best time to plant their crops, how to mix their fertilizers and pesticides, when to dispense them and how much water to add each day”. My immediate thought on reading this was that the same technology could be used to share practical information about ecologically sound food systems while improving that same farmer’s environment and reducing the need for costly inputs.
As a recently trained permaculture designer with a background as a software engineer, several years’ experience working for the campaigning group Friends of the Earth, and postgraduate research into the biofuels industry (completed in 2008), my problem-solving, project-managing brain started churning ideas for a plan to turn this into a reality.
When permaculture pioneer and future advisory council member, Julious Piti came to our local City College to talk about his astounding work with his community in Zimbabwe, I had the chance to talk to him about my idea of using mobile phones to help spread the word about permaculture within and between communities. His eyes lit up as he said that this would definitely extend the reach of his own work.
In his response to our survey, he wrote:
The proposal is great idea for our community… Cell phone is not too expensive while it can be very useful as a working handbook for permaculture information… The project is viable especially if it also support the farmers in accessing kick start capital to interested farmers to build viable farming business. I support the project with the whole of my heart because I understand communication is important in information sharing.
Thank you Julious Piti!
In studying international development, I learned that development programs seeking to replicate small-scale successes on a large-scale often fail to achieve the same benefits. In studying permaculture I finally realized why. The complex needs of each unique situation cannot be answered in isolation from the unique eco-social realities of that time and place.
There’s plenty of good news to go around if we can get the right information to the people who need it. Rural communities don’t have to be sacrificed to create massive mono-cropped plantations. Small farmers don’t have to run up impossible debts trying to de-nature their fields. It is possible to design food systems that emulate natural systems, and in fact people have been doing that successfully all over the planet for thousands of years.
The components for permEzone are all there: the permaculture training centers, the communities that have demonstrated that permaculture can be used to bring self-sustainability and food security in even the most demanding environments, the mobile phone networks. All we need now is the organization to bring it all together.
9. The intended impact of the project.
For farmers, the decision to change is never simple, but it gets easier if you can see good change happening on neighboring farms. At present, there really is only one option for small farmers who aren’t doing well: borrow money to buy chemicals, inorganic fertilizers and commercial seeds, and accept the attendant dangers – not least, escalating debts.
They need to know that there are other options that won’t put them in debt and won’t harm them or destroy the fertility of their soil. The goal of this program is that local farmers can see the success of a permaculture approach in their local communities, witnessing the success of neighboring farmers and watching the land improve itself. Rural farmers can help each other and through them, the communities will grow to be self sufficient and flourish. Through visible success and simple communication, more farmers around the world will realize they have the same option, and that they will have the support to take it.
10. Overview of the work done to date to research, design, and prepare for delivery of the project.
permEzone won the award for best non-tech project at Startup Weekend Santa Barbara in 2012. There was a long period of research and consultation to define how permEzone can work in practice, and several of the people involved in this extended dialogue have now joined our Advisory Council.
Research: Recognition of the need for this initiative is rooted in Hugh's post-graduate studies in International Development and his work as a biofuels researcher at Friends of the Earth, backed up by further research and extended discussions with practitioners in e.g. development, permaculture, grant-giving, community organizing, and social entrepreneurship.
An important part of our research involved a survey of 50 permaculture training centers around the world, that has resulted in a great resource of information about the status and activities of this network of potential service delivery partners, as well as a clear indication that many of these centers would become partners in implementing this program.
Design: The concept has been refined through a process of extensive critique and user reviews, and discussions with people who have the experience to take it forward (permaculture teachers, developers of mobile services for small farmers), and the development of the program based on many lessons learnt through three pilot projects in Kenya and Uganda.
Delivery: The idea of running a pilot program to prove the concept was a crucial outcome of the teamwork at Startup Weekend SB, further developed through 27 survey responses from permaculture training centers scattered throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America who expressed an interest to engage with permEzone. The Permaculture Research Institute (Kenya) was full involved in planning the pilot and the early stages of getting it up and running.
11. Fiscal Sponsorship.
We decided that a non-profit format would be most appropriate for launching the initiative and implementing the pilot. We are extremely fortunate to have been adopted as a project of California-based non-profit Empowerment WORKS. PermEzone gains significant benefits from working with an experienced and environmentally-focused fiscal sponsor, and in addition to the regulatory and administrative practicalities, we also hope to benefit from their extensive experience with start-ups looking to effect practical programs of change in this sphere.
As an international project of the Permaculture Association (Britain), we have additional options for disseminating information about the program, and the potential to participate fully in their initiatives to scale up permaculture on the international stage, especially their Permaculture International Research Network (PIRN) and associated Knowledge-base.
Our association with both of these organizations provides assurance to funders and supporters that the program is operating on a sound footing, and offers tax-efficient donations for residents of the USA and the UK.
12. Fundraising.
With fiscal sponsorship in place, we are ready to initiate a multi-pronged approach to fundraising:
⦁ Personal Contacts: approaching individuals with an interest in funding initiatives in this sphere.
⦁ Crowdfunding: there have been some successful fundraising initiatives by permaculture projects using fundraising websites such as Indiegogo, and this is being explored as an option to raise funds for training scholarships.
⦁ Foundations: with initial commitments in place, we will approach foundations with an international focus on any of these interrelated areas of need: poverty/education/environment/sustainable agriculture. We’ve already started to build a database of potential funders, but are open to further advice in this area.
13. Organizational Structure.
Hugh Kelly is the founder and director and heads up the volunteer Project Board which shares responsibility for implementing the pilot program, and brings in a wider range of skills and expertise to increase the organization's resilience and effectiveness.
The Advisory Council have been consulted on the concept and implementation plans at all stages, and in addition to the members previously mentioned, include certified permaculture designers working in radio and film media, information technology, architecture, law and financial planning.