Permaculture Course Inspires Transformation of Community

[MENA] Suzanne Snow, Secretary of the Polk County Farmer’s Market, is one of 14 students who completed a two-week Permaculture Design Course, offered in July at Weber Retreat and Conference Center in Adrian, Michigan.

“The course was a real eye-opener,” Suzanne said.  “I hope to bring what I learned to Mena by getting the community involved in healing the land.  We need to focus on local, healthy, food production and help connect to nature through community gardens.  We can work together toward a more sustainable and food-secure future for Mena.”

The course was directed by Peter Bane, author of Permaculture Handbook and Garden Farming for Town and Country and the editor of Permaculture Activist magazine.  Peter and the faculty are specialists in permaculture, a contraction of “permanent agriculture” and “permanent culture.”  Permaculture focuses on “designing ecological human habitats and food production systems,” according to the Permaculture Activist website (http://www.permacultureactivist.net/intro/PcIntro.htm).  Permaculture is a “land use and community building movement which strives for the harmonious integration of human dwellings, microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soil, and water, into stable, productive communities.”

“The students have had time to learn and then apply permaculture values and design principles on a specific site,” the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse campus, explained Sister Carol Coston, OP, in the Permaculture Office for the Adrian Dominican Congregation, which hosted the course.

Sister Carol said the students learned to consider such factors as the “ecological and social context of the major building elements of the campus, emergence of the water system, the shaping of the land into major subdivisions, the movement and use of water and winds through the system and its effects, solar influences and outdoor living spaces, the food handling and campus recycling, major and minor opportunities for cultivation, current and possible harvesting from the environment.”  These factors can also be considered in the design of permaculture for future community garden spaces in Mena.

The three overall values of permaculture work are Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share.

For information on permaculture and how to get involved, please contact Suzanne Snow at suzannesnow@gardener.com or 804-245-6890.

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Jeri Pearson

Jeri is the News Director for Pulse Multi-Media and Editor of The Polk County Pulse. She has 10 years of experience in community focused journalism and has won multiple press association awards.

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