Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Independent Media
http://www.pcij.org/
http://www.monthlyreview.org/
http://www.infoshop.org/index.php?id=Home
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
http://www.coha.org/
http://info.ibon.org/
Permaculture
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
The word permaculture, coined by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren during the 1970s, is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture as well as permanent culture. Through a series of publications, Mollison, Holmgren and their associates documented an approach to designing human settlements, in particular the development of perennial agricultural systems that mimic the structure and interrelationship found in natural ecologies.
Permaculture design principles extend from the position that "The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children" (Mollison, 1990). The intent was that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals could become designers of their own environments and able to build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying the earth's ecosystems.
While originating as an agro-ecological design theory, permaculture has developed a large international following of individuals who have received training through intensive two week long 'permaculture design courses'. This 'permaculture community' continues to expand on the original teachings of Mollison and his associates, integrating a range of alternative cultural ideas, through a network of training, publications, permaculture gardens, and internet forums. In this way permaculture has become both a design system as well as a loosely defined philosophy or lifestyle ethic.
System of Rice Intensification
Alternative planting method key to rice self-sufficiency
Posted by: Alecks P. Pabico | April 21, 2008 at 4:25 pm
EVEN as the government continues to insist that there is no rice supply shortage but only an abnormal increase in the price of the staple owing to soaring world market prices of commodities, the fact is the country is not 100-percent self-sufficient in rice.
As it is only able to produce 90 percent of the rice it needs, the Philippines has had to import the grain from other rice-exporting countries every year. For this year, the government is importing 2.1 million metric tons to maintain its two-month inventory.
To be sure, the Philippines has been resorting to rice importation over the last half-century. Since 2001, however, rice imports have grown to 1.32 million metric tons every year, making the country the number one rice importer in the world.
But to farmers and NGO advocates who have been propagating a rice planting method developed in Madagascar back in 1983, rice self-sufficiency is not only not impossible to attain, the government need not have to resort to importation to feed almost 90 million Filipinos.
The method they are using is called System of Rice Intensification (SRI), discovered by a French Jesuit agriculturist, Fr. Henri de Laulanie, in the course of his collection of the rice-growing practices of Madagascar’s farmers to increase their yields. Successfully tested in over 25 countries, SRI has been found to increase yields by 20 percent or more, and reduces farmers’ costs from seeds, water and external inputs (use of chemical fertilizers and other toxic chemicals).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_of_Rice_Intensification
"The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a method of increasing the yield of rice produced in farming. It was invented in 1983 by the French Jesuit Father Henri de Laulanie in Madagascar. However full testing of the system did not occur until some years later. The productivity of SRI is under debate between supporters and critics of the system."