85701 Research Based Design WEEK 10 REDEMPTION THROUGH PERMACULTURE

Tuesday’s lecture was given by guest speaker Nick Ritar, of Milkwood Permaculture. Before the lecture, I had only a vague idea of what Permaculture was, so it was great to be given an in-depth introduction to the topic and it’s impact on Sydney city.

PERMACULTURE
Permaculture basically means what it says – it is a goal to create a permanent culture, a sustainable human civilization that can continue and exist indefinitely, sustainably providing for human needs. Obviously, this is a huge goal, but the principles of Permaculture work well on any scale, stressing care of the earth, care for each other and setting limits on consumption and population.

Sunflower (2010, Milkwood)

THE CITY
Nick presented a view of the contemporary city, specifically Sydney, as a giant vacuum; sucking up resources and dumping it as waste somewhere else. The city is an intensified area of consumption and waste production.

THE STATS
•    Sydney has an area of 12,144 km2 and a population of 4.5 million people
•    The average world wide ecological footprint is 2.5 hectares, Australian average ecological footprint is 7.5 hectares

Australia striding out (2010, Keith)

•    Sydney consumes 15 million kilograms of food every day
•    7 % of our food goes over the pesticide limit, according to the World Health Authority
•    Sydney produces 1.386 billion litres of sewage every day

CLOSING THE LOOP
The most important elements needed for agricultural purposes are  phosphate and nitrogen, elements which sewage is rich in, but are wasted in disposal. Nick suggests a radical change of the linear system through a utilization of our own waste for agricultural uses. Obviously, on a large scale this would be problematic, but problems aside, I find this to be a sound theory. However, I am still put off – as I am sure most people are, by the thought of using our own sewage to generate our food.

CAN PERMACULTURE FEED THE WORLD?
5m2 of home garden can offset 1500m2 of conventional agriculture. Gardening is more than 300 times more efficient than conventional agriculture. Even urban agriculture is more than 12 times more efficient than agriculture in rural NSW, for example: Western Sydney uses 1% of total agriculture land, but produces 12% of our food.

MILKWOOD PERMACULTURE

Nick and Kirsten at Milkwood Farm (2010, Milkwood)

Milkwood Farm is Nick Ritar’s family run Permaculture farm in Mudgee, Western NSW. From Milkwood, Nick and his partner Kirsten run Milkwood Permaculture, a permaculture education, design and consulting business. ‘Milkwood is being developed using best-practice approaches to system design, natural building, land regeneration and food production to create an abundant, stable system that will provide for both our family and for the community beyond.’ (2009, Milkwood Permaculture)

While perusing the Milkwood blog, I also came across some great examples of urban gardening, ideas we could utilize in our own project Grassroots.

Home agriculture (2010, Milkwood)

Urban gardening system in North Sydney (2010, Milkwood)

REFERENCES

3/3/2010, Keith, Picture the Future: Australia, AcKnowledge Consulting, viewed on 15/10/2010, http://delarue.net/blog/2010/03/picture-the-future-australia/

2009, Milkwood Permaculture, Welcome to Milkwood Permaculture, Milkwood Permaculture, viewed on 15/10/2010, http://www.milkwoodpermaculture.com.au/courses?gclid=CNe2-Nu88aQCFQjPbgodblTI1A

2010, Milkwood, Blog, WordPress.com, viewed on 15/10/2010, http://milkwood.net/