Permaculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of land and breeding of animals and plants to provide food, fiber, medicinal plants and other products to sustain and enhance life. Human life fully depends on Agriculture which is subdivided in distinct specialization, mainly Horticulture, Floriculture, Viticulture, Riziculture, Arboriculture, Silviculture, Pisciculture, Apiculture, Aviculture, Phytopathology, Animal husbandry, Animal Pathology, and son on.

Agriculture encompasses the applied aspects of the following basic sciences Life science, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Economics, Sociology, Meteorology; all these demand a high education and wealth to take on that agriculture of which many of families of the developing countries cannot manage. As we are having many families that cannot afford the cost to establish a garden with the methodology of that Agriculture that requires qualified labor.

FRADI had to introduce another new branch of Agriculture known as Permaculture which is the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient so that even unequipped families may apply the skills that they have to get sufficient food; and necessarily to respond to their economic need.

What is Permaculture?

1. Permaculture is an innovative framework for creating sustainable ways of living.
2. It is a practical method of developing ecologically harmonious, efficient and productive systems that can be used by anyone, anywhere.

These are the three core tenets of Permaculture

• Care for the earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply. This is the first principle, because without a healthy earth, human cannot flourish.
• Care for the people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence
• Fair share: By governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to further the above principles. This includes returning waste back into the system to recycle into usefulness.The third ethic is referred to as Fair Share, which reflects that each of us should take no more than what we need before we reinvest the surplus.

Twelve Permaculture principles

1. Observe and interact: By taking time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation.
2. Catch and store energy: By developing systems that collect resources at peak abundance, we can use them in times of need.
3. Obtain a yield: Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing.
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback: We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well.
5. Use and value renewable resources and services: Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources.
6. Produce no waste: By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.
7. Design from patterns to details: By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go.
8. Integrate rather than segregate: By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between those things and they work together to support each other.
9. Use small and slow solutions: Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes.
10. Use and value diversity: Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides.
11. Use edges and value the marginal: The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.
12. Creatively use and respond to change: We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.