Fri, 27 September 2013
Darren Doherty of Heenan Doherty and Regrarians joins me from Australia to talk about the regrarian philosophy that he has put together and how it can be used to regenerate landscapes and farming enterprises. Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/13 |
Thu, 19 September 2013
Building Soil, Healing the Land and Raising High Quality Food with Rotational Grazing f. Doniga Markegard (PVP012)
Doniga Markegard of Markegard Family Grass-Fed comes on the show to talk about ranching, permaculture, and the regenerative power of rotational livestock grazing.She is a real life rancher, who is out there successfully doing things the right way. On her ranch she is using cattle, sheep, and pigs to build the soil and supply the San Fransisco Bay area with high quality food.Doniga discusses why traditional ranching methods often fail and lead to degenerative cycles with the soil; and how a more holistic, permaculture approach can actually repair landscapes. She talks about how they use permaculture on their ranch to increase species diversity and to increase the water holding capacity of the soil. She touches on how to get into ranching, the advantages of small herd dairy, and the importance of leasing land.
-The healing power of using proper livestock rotational management on a landscape is tremendous. Doniga often sees the benefits after just one or two rotations. The disturbance created by the livestock starts to build organic matter in the soil, sequester carbon, increase water infiltration, and that then leads to increased species diversity. Visit www.permaculturevoices.com/12 for show notes. |
Wed, 11 September 2013
011 - Permaculture Based Business. Growing Mushrooms, Building Soil, and Shooting to Gross $100,000 Per Acre.
What if you could gross $100,000 per acre in a small sustainable agriculture operation? You could make a good living and/or you could afford to pay someone a decent wage. If you can gross roughly $2.50 per square foot, per year, then that translates into a gross revenue of $100,000 per acre, per year. How can permaculture techniques be used to accomplish that goal? Chris Young of SoCal Shrooms and Closing the Loop joins me to talk about just that. His goal is to show that you can gross that $100k so you can hire one person to work an acre of land and pay them a good wage to work it. He aims to achieve this by reducing input costs and stacking revenue generators, all while improving the quality of the land and producing a high quality product. Key Takeaways from this Episode: -If possible tap into an existing distribution network. This gets you contacts right out of the gate. -Get more out of the same amount of land. Property taxes will go up the future, water costs will go up in the future, and more and more land is being developed away from farmland. So try to be more productive on the same amount of land while improving the quality of that land. -Consider the cost of your own time in the business. And pay yourself. -You have to do the real numbers for you business.Don't fudge them. The numbers won't lie. If something isn't working, then look at the numbers and see where you can start making changes to make the numbers work. When you have exhausted all possibilities, then it is time to move on. -Start broad and control your risk at the beginning. Then look at the numbers and refine down overtime to optimize each system or business. -Celebrate the small victories. There is a lot of drudgery that goes along with business and farming, so enjoy the good times. Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/11 |
Tue, 3 September 2013
Cathy Payne of Broad River Pastures joins me to talk about heritage breed livestock and her journey into farming that began in her mid-50's.
Show Notes: http://www.permaculturevoices.com/10
Direct download: PVP010-09032013.mp3
Category:permaculture,agriculture,farming -- posted at: 9:03am PDT |