It´s almost 30 years ago since I first heard about permaculture. I was in my first year of agronomy studies, and found the permaculture concept interesting but confusing and certainly not profitable enough to be taken as a serious idea for professional food production. I forgot about it. For many years, which took me through a rollercoaster journey of professional and life experience. I mastered in agronomy, added a PhD, only to discover that I am not scientist material, switched career following the call of money, discovering that I don´t fit in a business suit, and returned to my first calling – to restore nature, the reason which had made me study agronomy. I landed my first job as development worker in Ecuador, where I was lucky to meet incredible persons fighting for agroecology against the common practice of indiscriminate use of agrochemicals. I got to know people I would call “guardianes de la tierra – guardians of the earth”, full of wisdom and strength, farmers on a small piece of land turned into a lush garden providing food all year round. This was also the time when I heard about permaculture again and got a copy of Bill Mollison´s Designer Manual. Once I started reading it I couldn´t stop until the last page. Then I read it again, taking notes, starting to make mental designs wherever I went, introducing small bits of permaculture elements into my work and daily life.
After the job in Ecuador projects in different countries followed with international NGOs. I´m quite sure that I was the first person to introduce the Permaculture Designer Manual into North Korea, it went with me to South Sudan, Liberia, and Zambia, leaving small seeds behind. And inside me the Permaculture Seed continued growing, together with my questioning of conventional farming and consulting approaches.
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permajourney.com 