<A.LEE> ------Original Message------
<A.LEE> From: "Andy Lee & Pat Foreman" <goodearth@rockbridge.net>
<A.LEE> To: sanet-mg@cals.ncsu.edu
<A.LEE> Sent: April 18, 2000 9:15:56 PM GMT
<A.LEE> Subject: Permaculture design systems
<old> > Permaculture is most noted as being a
<old> > system designed to sell very-high-priced seminars on how
<old> >to permaculture. Each
<old> > owner of a permaculture course graduatation certificate
<old> > becomes a new sales
<old> > pitchman for permaculture without necessarily ever having
<old> > sold one tomato ever
<old> > to anyone. Agriculture is more than private home subsistance
<old> > gardening. Agriculture
<old> > is the feeding of the population who is not farmer/gardeners.
<old> > Permaculture has made
<old> > no contributions to agriculture which did not already
<old> > previously exist in
<old> > the public
<old> > domain, and which already public property did not require
<old> > expensive seminars or a
<old> > cutesy name to use.
<old> > Signed by Lion Kuntz
<A.LEE> Dear Lion, the above could not be farther from the truth. Indeed,
<A.LEE> Permaculture (and yes I am one who holds a design certificate
<A.LEE> as well as a graduate certificate from the Permaculture Institute)
<A.LEE> is the basis for your so-called micro-farming scheme. The
<A.LEE> difference is, that there are tens of thousands of permaculture
<A.LEE> practitioners around the world, and so far as I can tell, based
<A.LEE> on your bashing of everyone else, you are the only
<A.LEE> micro-farmer. That alone speaks volumes as to which system
<A.LEE> is most sustainable thereby most attractive to
<A.LEE> small-scale agriculturists.
<A.LEE> Your tirades are becoming a bit tiring. We are all willing to
<A.LEE> learn, but your message is getting lost in your spew.
<A.LEE> With all due respect,
<A.LEE> Andy Lee
Thank you for making public a previously undisclosed fiduciary relationship offering a profit-minded
motive for you prior criticisms of my writings. Had you mentioned that you were a "Permaculturist" I
might have realized that you would not have enjoyed my ranking of Permaculture in my
comparisons.html webpage:
http://homepages.msn.com/VolunteerSt/lifesaviors/comparisons.html
My very first microfarm essays had the address to the gateway page, and there near the very top is a
comparisons (from my point of view) of major small-mini-micro farming brand-names. Other systems are
ranked higher than Permaculture from a species salvation viewpoint. There is some justifiable
criticism of "Permaculture" recorded there.
I like Bill Mollison's writings. I have read several of his Permaculture books, and would recommend
them to people. But I do not think this is a species-saving concept, and in fact it is very forward
in it's selfishness. The first book I picked up made a point that one should be self-sufficient
before being a commercial producer.
I don't believe in self-sufficiency, and I have never met the man or woman who can smelt their own
ores and bake their own ceramics to make their own sparkplugs. What "permaculture" graduate can do
their own open-heart surgery? Self-sufficiency is not a requirement for micro-farming, and I have
said I would buy your milk and beef in the stores because it doesn't make sense to me to buy the
land and equipment needed to raise my own beef and milk.
Because there is a profit-motive associated with your attachment to the Permaculture paradigm, which
I have criticised, you do not have clean hands and pure heart when your choices of adjectives
pointed at me are reviewed.
I have made some inventions. Microfarming is not actually one of them. According to two books on the
market by authors of systems of competitors to "Permaculture" (and whom could also be considered to
be competitors to "Ecological Synergy(tm)"), most of the subsystems were developed and perfected by
the Chinese over 3,000 years ago. I will pay homage to the Chinese ancestors ingenuity, as does
Leandre Poisson author of the "American Intensive" growing system, and as does John Jeavon's author
of the "Bio-Intensive" growing system. The "French Intensive" growing system is also mentioned by
both authors, and whom I too will credit with discovering the highest-yield farming system ever
discovered up to that time.
"Permaculture" did not provide the basis for the "so-called microfarming" because I cannot find a
replicable system within "Permaculture". If anything, Permaculture is a do-your-own-thing system. As
such it can (try to) lay claim on anything and everything which has any resemblence or similarity to
the design principles of Permaculture.
However, my record on microfilm in public and university libraries around the country dated 1972 to
1974 show that I was writing essays, reporting news, and reviewing books on alternative energy,
solar orientations, gardening and back to the land. The published record shows I was exposed to
these ideas long before Mollison wrote his first book. Lucky for me I have such microfilm evidence,
so I can survive an attack on my credibility by a financial competitor in the marketplace of ideas.
My record is probably in the Library of Congress, and I will shortly check to see if the microfilm
by Bell & Howell Corporation was ever converted to computer accessable form on the web or ftp
archives. I am more than happy to give credit where credit is due, but Permaculture really did not
bring forth anything new to me.
It also does not have the virtures of some of its competitors, like "Biodynamics", "MOA" and
"Kyusei" Nature Farming, or J.I.Rodale's "organic" systems. All of these have books, videos,
seminars, classes, etc., just like Permaculture. I chose to rank them higher than permaculture based
on the five questions of part 2 of the microfarming essay series partially published on SANET-MG.
Archived at URLs: http://www.efn.org/~lkuntz/microfarm2.txt
http://lifesaviors.nav.to/microfarming/microfarm2.txt
These are my criteria for ranking a system, and they speak more to what preserves the most habitat
for endangered species the quickest, than they speak for personal profit by promoting any
competitive agriculture regime or system.
Sincerely, Lion Kuntz
Currently in Eugene, Oregon, USA.
http://lifesaviors/nav.to/microfarming
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