Permaculture - A beautiful permaculture centre in Thailand - Page 3
Permaculture - A beautiful permaculture centre in Thailand
Recent developments at Kailash-Akhara, Adi Yoga Retreat Center, Phu Rua, Loei, Thailand
This report provides an overview of many aspects of creating a retreat center and living sustainably using the principles of permaculture. Short updates will be given regularly to keep our wider community informed. See Part I and Part II if you haven’t already.
First phase of building is now complete
After a year and a half of construction in the core area, painting was completed just before an opening ceremony and party to celebrate the annual festival of Guru Purnima on the full moon in July. Four buildings make up the core area: The Temple/Training Hall, Dormitory, Kitchen-Dining Room, and Bath House with composting toilets. We are now practicing, sleeping, cooking, eating, showering, doing laundry, and recycling our poop in shiny new surroundings – a level of relative luxury compared to the stripped-down facilities we began with.
Fruit from grey water
Water from personal bathing, washing dishes, and laundry, is dirty, but it is far from being waste. Our system for treating this ‘grey water’, as it is called, is to feed it to thirsty plants in a feature of the landscape known as a ‘banana circle’. We have 6 circles, each with 6 – 8 banana plants, and 1 or 2 papaya trees. To begin this system, a shallow pit is dug, about 2 meters diameter, which is then filled with food scraps and cut vegetation to provide the extra nutrition needed by these heavy feeders. Then, a shower stall or dishwashing station can be placed directly in the middle of the circle, or greywater is piped from sinks to the circles. The first ones were planted at the beginning of 2008; now, 15-18 months later, they are producing fruit in abundance. We have cut the first few bunches, and I just counted at least 9 more coming along… at this rate we’ll be enjoying fruit and giving away our surplus for many months to come.
Electricity from the sun
This is an off-grid site. We have kept our need for electric power to a minimum by smart design, and currently the extent of our need for electricity is low wattage lighting for 2 buildings, charging laptops and phones, and running the occasional power tool. Photovoltaic panels have been installed on the south-facing roof of the bath house, with the juice being stored in deep-cycle batteries, and supplied around the site through a 700W inverter. It’s a system that is sufficient to meet our needs for now, with potential for future expansion.
“There’s no such place as ‘away’”
It’s a favorite quote of mine, and we have inevitably been forced to answer the problem that it points to: after reducing, re-using and recycling as much as possible, where do we throw stuff away? In a remote rural location like this, how do we responsibly handle the need for waste disposal? The local custom is to use designated spots on the side of the road, as a dumping and burning ground. Not satisfied with adding to that situation, we created our own on-site landfill. 2 pits were dug by excavator, 4 x 3 x 3 meters deep, which swallowed up all the construction debris, leaving some room for future ‘dump runs’. When burning is necessary, a homemade incinerator gives a useful second life to an oil drum, and it helps us burn as hot and clean as possible.
Swales
Staff in kitchen
Banana circle, 9 months after planting
Kitchen/Dining Hall
The dormitory
Azuki bean & Crotalaria provide good vegetation cover on swale berm
Rehabilitation of areas heavily impacted by construction
After 18 months of building, there are some areas that are showing the scars left behind after construction work. Specifically, hard compacted soil where roads where carved by repeated driving. These traffic patterns made sense at the time, but now that major construction is done we don’t need roads between our buildings – we need footpaths and attractive landscaping. The first step in this transition is a kind of permaculture first-aid. Small swales were dug to intercept the excessive runoff from the hard bald ground. A thick mulch of rice straw was applied all over, and footpaths of woodchips were laid. Shrubs that will tolerate these poor conditions are being planted, whose roots will help break up the compaction. A nice touch is that the small swales are now planted with flowers that we’ll use in ritual offerings, thereby keeping a supply of fresh picked flower heads at hand on the way to the temple
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We continue to work on establishing a system of swales for passively harvesting rainwater – not only in tanks and ponds – but also in the soil itself, by means of infiltrating runoff. We now have around 1,100m of swales on the land. The initial excavation work was completed in 12 days in April, and was followed immediately by sowing seeds and planting the pioneer species. The vegetation grew rapidly with the early rains, and is doing its job to stabilize the disturbed soil and minimize erosion. The heaviest rain we’ve had so far was 35mm in 2 hours. That certainly tested the swales, which performed well, filling to about 60% capacity, and infiltrating completely within 24 hours. Rainwater will now more effectively hydrate most of the entire site (about 25 acres/10 hectares) rather than race to the bottom of the hill.
Food forest
Following the guidelines for creating a food forest, we are planting plenty of nitrogen fixing trees and shrubs in amongst the tree crops we want to grow. The crop trees we’ve planted so far include: guava, mango, jackfruit, star fruit, tamarind, pomegranate, and mangosteen. Not forgetting of course, the one tree generally regarded as having the greatest number of uses, the coconut. We are looking into good sources for more crops, namely coffee and macadamia nuts. It’s early days – we still have a lot of planting to do, and it’ll be a while before we taste the rewards, but as the saying goes, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now”.
Leguminous trees, shrubs and plants mingle
with fruit trees in newly planted
food forest near a swale
A Mango tree puts on
new growth in food forest
A swale helps restore the site of a former dirt road
India's Organic Farmers escape Suicide epidemic
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125119426057556421.html
AUGUST 25, 2009
Organic Farmers Seek Healthier Future
By LINDA BLAKE
VIDARBHA, India -- The hills of northeastern Maharashtra are normally green and lush during the
annual monsoon season. But this year's spots of brown are a sign of a trouble.
In this region known as the suicide belt, the combination of poor rains, high production costs for farming,
low crop yields and crippling debt can be fatal. Some 16,000 farmers commit suicide every year in India,
according to India's National Crime Records Bureau. About a quarter of them are in Vidarbha. In July
alone, 36 people died here.
But as laborers pluck weeds from fields of cotton, soybeans and pulses in this part of western India,
Havantro Deshmukh believes he has the answer. Mr. Deshmukh made his farm organic nearly a decade
ago. Since then, a consistent profit has helped him to "escape debt," he says, and possible death.
Valued at $20 million, India's organic farming sector is a sliver of the $26 billion global market. But
with its promise of higher profit margins and lower production costs, organic farming provides an
alternative to this debt spiral by eliminating a farmer's dependence on expensive pesticides.
"No tension," says Mr. Deshmukh with a toothy grin.
Another farmer, Vasant Pohekar, aged 54, made his 25-acre farm chemical-free two decades ago.
As the founder of the Organic Farming Research and Development Association, he has since introduced
5,000 local farmers like Mr. Deshmukh to organic farming.
"The first year was a bit hard but we started seeing profits from the second year onwards. We didn't
get a grip on it until the seventh year," he explains.
Even today, his yield is lower compared to farms that use pesticides. This is primarily due to crop-rotation
which restricts the amount of farmable acreage each season. However, his production costs have shrunk
by a third. He's no longer subjected to high up-front rates for chemical fertilizers and insecticides. In
addition, he draws healthy seeds directly from the previous year's crop rather than invest in genetically
modified ones. Plus, cutting out middle-men and selling his products directly to textile mills across the
country earns him 20% more for his organic cotton, he says. His margins for cotton farming are now
75%, he says, compared to the 40% average in India.
As a result, Mr. Pohekar says, annual profits have gone up.
Mr. Pohekar appears unfazed by this summer's lack of rain that has led to half of India's states being
declared drought-affected. Organic methods, like water conservation, make him resistant to a crop-crash,
he says. This is because organic soil is infused with nutrients which boost water absorption during rainfall
by an estimated 16,000 gallons per acre. Low rainfall still affects all farms, he concedes, but the issue is
how prepared farmers are for it psychologically.
False hopes placed on pesticides as key to high output takes a toll on their psyches. "The main reason
behind farmer suicides are advertisements which encourage him to spend more on pesticides for his
farm," he says.
Mr. Pohekar says that 313 farmers in his collective are certified by Germany's Ecocert, an international
inspection and certification agency for small farmers. This certification is a necessary requirement before
exporting mills even consider purchasing a farmer's product.
Yet, there are still big barriers to entering the market. The certification fee is anywhere from $400 to as
much as $2,000 annually, a fortune for a farming family that earns about $720 in a year. And the years
it can take to get a farm up to organic standards discourages small farmers with no financial cushion to
take such expensive risks.
The Indian government could also be doing more, insists Mr. Pohekar. State subsidies, like those used by
American and European farmers, could help debt-ridden smallholders with less than five acres to turn a
profit, he says.
If farmers are given subsidies to cover profit-loss during their initial shift to organic farming -- instead of
applying for existing government debt-relief schemes that help pay off creditors but don't encourage
production -- this could give them a shot at "a healthier, more profitable future," argues Mr. Pohekar.
The government could also endorse the health benefits of eating organic, he says.
"If the government really promotes this," says Mr. Pohekar "then it is my firm belief that the suicides
will completely stop happening in my district."
