Making Permaculture Stronger

This interview will show you what working on a holistic context looks like and how you could do this for yourself, your family, or your permaculture project or enterprise. Scott Gallant and Sam Kenworthy from Porvenir Design in Central America have recently created a holistic context for their business. In this episode I review it with them and support them to evolve it further. Here you'll get a better feel for applying what we learned from Allan Savory in the previous episode on Permaculture and Holistic Management. The whole Holistic Context idea comes from Allan. If you are interested in this topic you might want to listen to my introduction to Holistic Decision Making in episode 40. You can also catch up on my prior conversation with Scott on the practical and professional realities of a more living design process in episode 41 and episode 42. In conjunction with this episode, I have also created an online course on Holistic Decision Making starting September 4th, 2020. This course will educate and resource participants to develop their own holistic contexts and start making decisions aligned with that context. Scott Gallant and Sam Kenworthy Setting a Focus for the conversation: The Task Cycle Framework After hearing a little something of Sam's backstory, I started by introducing the Task Cycle Framework to clarify our focus for the episode. I learned about this framework from Carol Sanford and the Regenesis folk. Among other things, this framework invites you think through: The taskThe purpose of the taskThe products that need to be produced to pursue that purposeThe processes that will generate those products In this case, the task was reviewing Porvenir Design's Holistic Context as a podcast episode. As for the task's purpose, what came up for me (and resonated for Scott and Sam) was: We are recording this interview to review your holistic context and potentially help you increase its depth, clarity and decision making power...…in a way that supports Porvenir design’s vitality, viability, and capacity to evolve…..so that you and your business are becoming an increasing potent agent of regeneration in Costa Rica and beyond. The main product was a tight, focused podcast episode that adds value to Porvenir design and to our listeners in terms of resourcing them to do this kind of work for themselves. Then the process we used was, after some scene setting, slowly working our way through the Porvenir context, reflecting on each bit for as long as we need. In addition to going through the task cycle, Dan brought a personal aim to the conversation of evoking reflection and sharing experience more than providing answers. Porvenir Design's Holistic Context Thanks to Scott and Sam for letting me reproduce the version of their context they have shared publicly in this blog post. A Holistic Context for an entity (such as a business) created for a specific reason comprises: a statement of purposequality of life statementswhat Savory calls forms of production and Dan calls enabling actionsa future resource base Porvenir Design's Statement of Purpose: Why was this entity created? Porvenir Design exists to help clients achieve their goals within the context of tropical land planning and management and to provide meaningful livelihood for its employees. Some snippets from our conversation about Porvenir Design's Statement of Purpose On a meaningful livelihood..."One of the things I sometimes struggle with, with the holistic context, in the (purpose) statement and everything that flows from it, is when are we making decisions to regenerate landscapes and all these things that get us super excited and that we love doing everyday. We also formed it to buy a little piece of land ourselves and have the highest quality of life that we can live, and so I always see those two things and wonder how the rest of our statements flow from there and if there is any tension.

In this very special episode, I enjoy an in-depth conversation with Allan Savory, originator of Holistic Management, President of the Savory Institute and Director of the Africa Centre for Holistic Management. While Allan is best known for his work on holistic planned grazing, I was especially excited to dive into the decision making framework at holistic management's core and its implications for permaculture. This is our conversation at a glance. How we start the process of managing holistically when commencing new projectsMoving from reductionist to holistic management is moving from a reactive to a proactive orientationThe process of defining what important isThe relationship between holistic management and permacultureAddressing complexity with a holistic frameworkBeyond thinking holistically to managing holisticallyThe challenge with making holistic management stickThe paradigm shifts required to manage complexityThe individual leadership to inspire and the institutional scale of holistic management we need for meaningful changeHolistic management and regenerative agriculture and businessHope for the future Dan Palmer & Allan Savory - with thanks to the Savory Institute for creating this image. Here's a link to a recent episode on how I've been practicing holistic decision making, here's an article I wrote about it (back in 2014), and below is the full transcript of our conversation (my questions italicised). How we start the process of managing holistically when commencing new projects Allan thanks so much for this conversation. I’d love to start with the deep relevance of managing holistically for permaculture designers, and in particular, how we start the process of managing holistically when commencing new projects. Where us permaculture designers regularly encounter clients who, as soon as we ask them what they'd like our help toward, bombard us with a long list of goals or objectives. "We want a pond and ducks and an orchard and a vegetable garden and a campsite and a meditation platform and and and." Could you please explain what it means to engage clients on a deeper level than the goals they present us with, how we might go about this in practice, and how important this is if we aspire to be managing holistically?    Sure, let’s see if I can help Dan. You could either start by explaining what the reductionist management of humans is and how essential it is to manage holistically.  That is what is needed if Permaculture (or any agriculture) is to be regenerative. And that is essential if civilization is to survive now facing global desertification and climate change, in which agriculture is playing as large (maybe larger) role than coal and oil.  That gets boring in today’s short attention span and people’s eyes glaze over. So the best way if there has been no training in how to manage holistically is to simply do it. Everyone just wants to be told what to do and how to do it – it is almost impossible I find to stop farmers just wanting to know what to do and to help them decide how to make those decisions, that they don’t want to hear about.  Allan just tell me what to do!  I don’t want to hear about reductionist management and how it is the single cause of almost all that ails us, including desertification and climate change! So the best way if there has been no training in how to manage holistically is to simply do it.  Think trying to explain how to ride a bike vs having a bike and just starting to ride it.  The more you explain how to ride a bike, the more confusing it gets, but a person simply riding a bike gets it in a day.  So, assume I am advising or helping you Dan the farmer.  I would simply say, Dan let’s not talk about your crops, orchard, ducks, cattle or whatever until we can both understand the context in which you are deciding what to do.  What are you managing here? I gather you Dan are making all decisions. Does anyone else make any management decisions?

In this episode I catch up with Simon Marshall after our prior conversation about where he wanted to take his permaculture design practice back in Episodes 37 and 38. It is quite amazing how much of what he was aspiring toward then has manifested itself in the meantime, and along the way we discuss: The complexities of permaculture process and project facilitation when many stakeholders are involvedThe challenge of breaking the centre of gravity of design projects out of an arrest disorder paradigm towards regenerating lifeThe idea of mental energies at the vital, automatic, sensitive and conscious levels (ah la Carol Sanford)Using inner aims to become conscious and transform process outcomesMuch else! I also reflect a little on the wild times we're in at the start and share a project update at the end. To summarise the update: Allan Savory will be our next guest, followed in the subsequent episode by a review of Scott and Sam from Porvenir design's holistic contextSeveral interviews with David Holmgren sharing his permaculture design process journey are the plan after that which will feed right into Phase Two's conversation about regenerating permaculture by going back to its originating impulseI'm in discussions with David Holmgren about the taking our course on Advanced Permaculture Design Process onlineThe first MPS book creation process is gathering momentum I share some flavours of the recent poll resultsThe regular gathering of project supporters is going strong as we all depend our design process literacy in theory and practice together. Learn more on the project patreon page.

In this episode my good friend Javan Kerby Bernakevitch from All Points Design in Canada interviews me about the various projects I am and have been part of, including permablitz, Very Edible Gardens, Holistic Decision Making, Living Design Process, and of course this one - Making Permaculture Stronger. Initially recorded for Javan's youtube channel, thanks Javan for permission to share it here too.

This episode is a conversation with Emma Morris from Aotearoa New Zealand who fills us in on the last several chapters of her learning journey around regenerative education practices. It's a great chat and I can't wait to hear how the learning centre project Emma is involved in unfolds from here. You can find the project here, and sign up for the project newsletter here. The Learning Framework Emma and colleagues have arrived at. Close-up of the middle section Another awesome project graphic I found - love it!

The idea for this this episode came to me about 20 minutes before I hit record. I share a second pass on a reflection process I'd just finished applying to Making Permaculture Stronger. It is all based on stuff from Carol Sanford's The Regenerative Life book, a series of free morning meetings she recently ran, and stuff I've learned by being part of one of her Seed Communities. I'd be tickled if you'd drop me a line letting me know how this episode landed for you. Oh yes, if you're curious how I got started with Carol Sanford's stuff, it all started with this unforgettably disruptive experience right here.

Photo from http://lierlouandthevillage.org/ With thanks to Anna Lenna for a second great chat - check out our first chat here. Here is Anna Lena's summary of our exchange from here: Dan, founder of Living Design Process from Australia and I are speaking about empty houses in the countryside and how performance art speaks to spontaneous design processes.In our conversation we are strolling through the landscapes of our recent experiences and touch on the conundrum of empty yet unavailable houses in Balaguier and the question how to enliven rural abandoned areas. Could some of these empty places host young people who are drawn to bring life and land-based experiments to the countryside? Especially in times of confinement, many summer house owners cannot come – how to begin a dialogue with house owners that could host other activities in their empty places?Dan shares how many of the people he works with are asking deep fundamental questions as part of the Covid time. Questions rise anew, like: “What am I doing with my life or/and with my land?”. In one of his projects Dan works on this question with two performance artists and found that the spirit of alive improvisation is something that deeply resembles his design processes. In the conversation we explore how the process of creating place and dance are resembling each other in their open-ended, responsive nature. Performance arts as well as living design are practices of “being present and alive and in the moment, listening deeply and letting each next move emerge in real time”, as Dan says. Here's a link to Lierlou and the Village – the name of the project Anna-Lena is part of. And here's the actual village: Photo from http://lierlouandthevillage.org/ Finally, here's is a link to that exchange with Han that Dan mentions regarding the dance and design process connection.

Scott Gallant The second half of my initial conversation with Scott Gallant from Porvenir Design where Scott asks me questions about my facilitatory approach to professional design consultancy work. Enjoy and if you missed episode 41 I'd recommend checking that out first. Also a heads up that in my next chat with Scott we'll be reviewing Porvenir Design's Holistic Context you can check out in advance here.

I was delighted when Scott Gallant from Porvenir Design emailed me earlier in the year: Hi Dan,I wanted to reach out and introduce myself after having (finally!) stumbled upon the MPS project. I just wrapped up listening to the Phase 2 podcast and I am all in!A quick jot about myself, my name is Scott Gallant and I am a permaculture designer and educator based in Costa Rica. I've been deep in this field for 10 years, 8 of which were spent managing a farm and building out my curriculum at a well regarded site called Rancho Mastatal. In the last few years I've been full time in the design/install business here in Latin America with my firm, Porvenir Design. Tropical agroforestry and permaculture education are really my burgeoning areas of expertise. I've had the chance to lead or co-teach 14 PDCs and countless short courses, and have been fortunate enough to be interviewed for a number of podcasts over the last few years. I set this scene to let you know that I am all in, although I resonate deeply with your message of approaching permaculture from a skeptics background.For the last few years I've been obsessed with the pedagogy of teaching PDCs and the process of design in my client based work. Incrementally, and sometimes abruptly, I tweak these process. I've also felt quite surprised by the lack of conversations around these topics and have constantly been pulled toward constructive critiques of permaculture. Clearly, the bubble of permaculture in Central America and perhaps to some degree North America has not been invaded by the MPS project.So, first, thank you for your work. It is essential to, well, making permaculture stronger. Second, I'm interested in getting more involved. I'm slowly making my way through some past posts and will continue to do so over the weeks ahead. If you have any suggestions for involvement they are much appreciated. And third, I am quite interested in mentorship in the field of professional design and education. At the full peak age of 33, I find myself seeking mentorship in order to continue helping students and clients truly dive into the permaculture domain with confidence. In this community that you've formed, are there any obvious routes for some form of mentorhsip?Apologies for the long message. Love the work and looking forward to dipping in.Scott Gallant In his second email Scott continued: As I've been listening I am really quite curious to learn more about how folks actually implement these ideas with clients, how this changes the teaching within a PDC for inspired instructors, etc. I have a client visit in Puerto Rico soon; outcome will be a concept plan for bringing back to life the family farm and converting an old church on the property into some public facing bar/restaurant/distillery.  The outcome is far from a detailed master plan, but rather will involve a day of visioning/goal setting with stakeholders, two days on the site, and then creating a planning document that provides broad patterns for access, land use suitability, water/soil/plant systems, and recommendations on phasing, species, further resources, etc. I give you this context, because I am most interested in using this project to trial out some of these new ideas from MPS, BUT the actual action of, say, "unfolding the potential of a site's essence" or "starting from a whole" alludes me a bit. Part of me believe this deeper ability can only be brought forth through years of practice/mentorship and such. Part of me wonders if this is more or less what I already do with clients.I would love to brainstorm how to take what others and myself do now as professional designers/installers and apply these ideas to go from good to great. When I read the comments I don't see too much where others are saying, "Wow, I've been doing this upside down and need to completely change my practice." It seems like folks are on the same page theoretically, but for professional permaculture designers and educators,

VEG's context Hey all so today I share a little bit about holistic decision making - the whole-oriented decision making practice I have adapted and evolved from Allan Savory's Holistic Management decision making framework. I've had a bunch of folk requesting more info about this lately and I'm feeling it very relevant to this historical moment when many of us are making big decisions about the shape of our lives and enterprises moving out of the first wave of coronavirus. Hope is helpful - You can listen to my incredible subsequent interview with Allan Savory here, find more info here and there is a series of articles a bunch of people have found helpful here. Here's our family context which I refer to along with VEG's context above. Here's an old vid where Adam and I talk about the impact of this stuff on our business (during a workshop we had Darren Doherty come and run for us): https://vimeo.com/86850657 I mention and thanks Allan Savory during the chat and share how he is currently in crisis (holistic) management mode of the African Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe. Visit the website here to learn more and donate. Here's what's up for him from his facebook page: I would like to thank those of you who have donated to support Africa Centre for Holistic Management, which we deeply appreciate. Due to the pandemic crisis Jody and I have had to assume the management role of ACHM. All income has stopped, and Victoria Falls hotels lie empty. We have done the best of holistic financial planning to survive at least 18 months till income might start flowing. Priorities are to save the people managing the land and wildlife and stopping the poaching that is ramping up as hungry people try to feed their families. We are feeding staff and paying monthly what little we can in very tight plan. And as usual things happen! Last night the elephants tore up our water pipes so replan!!Because we operate under a government rated as one of the most corrupt in the world and 600% inflation of the local virtual currency, we have had to install a new donate button to stop government and banks raiding donations. Now 100% donated gets to us to save the people, wildlife and all we hold dear. If you can support please go to front page at https://www.africacentreforholisticmanagement.org and every dollar will I assure you go a long way in this broken failed economy and help a lot of wildlife and poor people. https://youtu.be/kQGy0vxeL_k Allan Savory laying out aspects of the approach