What is Permaculture?

This is an article I recently wrote for Ballena Tales.

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is a term coined by an Australian farmer and scientist named Bill Mollison in the 1970’s and means permanence in agriculture and culture. Permaculture is a philosophy aimed at designing self-sustaining human farms, settlements, and communities. Permaculture farms share many features with organic farms as they are free of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Permaculture differs from organic farming in that a Permaculture farm tries to generate all resources needed directly on site. Both organic farming and Permaculture contrast sharply with modern conventional agriculture which depletes natural resources, pollutes our environment, and produces unhealthy food.

Permaculture is a system of design based on patterns and cycles observed in Nature. In Permaculture designers aim to arrange the elements within a farm or settlement in a way that is logical, energy-efficient, and harmonious with nature. If you would like to become a certified Permaculture designer, you can do so this February and March right here in Costa Ballena. UTSI, the Uvita Tropical Studies Institute, will host a two week Permaculture Design Course and one week Practicum with legendary Permaculture instructor Scott Pittman from February 19^th to March at 5^th at Finca Carolina on La Union de Uvita. For more information please visit http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/chain/ or email Andrew@utsi.org.