With the conversation in western NSW constantly turning to drought, The Hungry Spirit Centre for Semi-Arid Sustainability at Lightning Ridge is attempting a new strategy – re-inspiring food producers through permaculture.
The Centre has engaged the services of world-leading expert, Nick Huggins, to travel to Lightning Ridge on 27/28 June to host a 2 day Grow Your Life – Introduction to Permaculture course with full scholarships available to farmers that want to come along to regain their inspiration and learn easily applicable holistic strategies for growing food.
Nick Huggins understands the issues facing the western region of NSW in regards to the scarcity of water and the issues of drought.
“There is a great need for people to reconnect with food and food security and take back the reigns of how we produce our own food,” he said.
“There has been so much wisdom lost and permaculture helps us get this back and the good thing is that it’s scalable – the principles can used in a square metre growing space to farms the size of small states and it works in any climate.”
Nick says people are successfully applying the principles of permaculture in landscapes like the Dead Sea area in Jordon, so it makes sense that the principles, techniques and ethics can also be applied in this semi-arid zone.
“There are four primary points in permaculture design and the first and most important element is water,” he said.
“What we focus on is putting water back where it belongs in the landscape, permaculture draws on a large number of techniques for harvesting water.”
Nick says this weekend will be the opportunity for drought impacted farmers to reconnect; to exchange ideas, to connect with themselves and with other like minded people.
“My role is to offer the facilitation of this process and invite the question and offer ideas about how we can apply permaculture in our lives to reconnect, provide for ourselves and live a great life.”
Grow Your Life – 27/28 June 2015
Email rebel@thehungryspirit.com to apply for a scholarship
To listen to a full audio press the arrow below
