AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY

Here you can find an extensive list of publications on agricultural practice including this classic from Yeomans.

Percival Alfred Yeomans (P.A.) was born in Harden N.S.W. in 1905, eldest son of a family of four. In 1928 he married Rita Irene May Barnes, also of Harden. They had three children; Neville born in 1928, Allan in 1931 and Ken in 1947. Rita Yeomans died 1964 and the two original Keyline properties at North Richmond N.S.W. were sold to pay death duties.

P. A. Yeomans married Jane Radek in 1966 and they had two daughters, Julie and Wendy. Following this marriage he undertook the design and construction of a different concept in cultivation equipment. He solved the need for better equipment than the chisel plow to deeply loosen soil without bringing up the subsoil. This equipment was the first rigid shanked vibrating sub-soil cultivating ripper for use with farm tractors. It is many times more efficient than a chisel plow, and is able to loosen more soil to a greater depth using less tractor power.

The Prince Philip Design Award officially recognised the breakthrough success of this equipment in 1974 when P. A. Yeomans Pty Ltd received this coveted award for the Bunyip Slipper Imp with Shakaerator.

Manufacture of the Bunyip Slipper Imp eventually passed from P. A. Yeomans Pty Ltd to the Yeomans Plow Company, which is now based at Molendinar in South-east Queensland. This company is owned and directed by Allan J. Yeomans the second son of P. A. Yeomans. The equipment has undergone further developed including some landmark design breakthroughs and has been renamed the Yeomans Keyline Plow.

EL GRANJA FAMILIAR

By Emilia Hazelip

Soil is created by living plants working with microorganisms, and by the plants' residues and the microorganisms' corpses after their death.

Soil is drained of nutrients by cultivation, NOT by plants.

Tilling and cultivation of any sort diminishes the natural fertility of the soil in three ways:

BIENVENIDO AL WIKI DEL MOVIMIENTO DE TRANSICIÓN

La Transición es la evolución de nuestra Sociedad desde un presente que depende de los combustibles fósiles, el consumo desaforado, la destrucción del Planeta y las desigualdades entre los pueblos, a otra realidad deseable basada en la localización de la producción, el uso de la energía y los bienes que se pueden obtener de manera sostenible de nuestro Planeta, la preeminencia de la colectividad,  la recuperación de las habilidades para la vida y la armonía con el resto de la Naturaleza.

FLOWERING DESERT

Recently we had a whirlwind tour of Atacama in the north of chile, the driest place on earth. This was a learning experience rather than teaching, in this hostile and vulnerable landscape that has been occupied for thousands of years we find strategies for building resilience.

PERMACULTURE BY ANOTHER NAME

Willie Smits has devoted his life to saving the forest habitat of orangutans, the "thinkers of the jungle." As towns, farms and wars encroach on native forests,Smits works to save what is left. Full bio and more links.

Willie Smits talked about regenerative design for integrated systems, beyond conservation, towards landscape redesign that meet the needs of ecology and human communities.

ONCE UPON A TIME

The weekend pasado we joined with our Permaculture colleagues in Biobio to catch up after a winter of hibernation and plan for the coming year. After 6 months of conversation through internet since our last meeting we decided it was time to meet face to face. Our last meeting was in the middle of winter where we held the first regional bioregional food cooperative trueke day in June. We agreed to meet at the beach to give us all the opportunity to get away, and to support the efforts of Fabiola and Richi in Cobquequra and Daniel in Rinconada.

A COMMUNITY GETTING ORGANISED IN THE VALLEY OF LIFE

Last friday Ecoescuela attended the second event of social organisations for sustainability in Valley Nonguen. We set up our stand in a small abandoned school in the valley of life, a beautiful setting, buzzing with energy. On a beautiful friday morning in the warm spring sun we laid out our books on the soil, covered our prescious herbs and tomato plants with shade, and made ourselves comfortable to sit and talk permaculture with interested people.  

It has been said that we are the most useless generation that ever walked the earth (Hopkins, 2008). Our cosy western lifestyles have led us to reliance on the supermarket, and food transported thousands of kilometres around the planet. As we have chased economic growth at all costs, we have rejected a lifestyle where we had to take care of our own needs, and many of the basic skills that go along with resilient simple living. We forgot once common knowledge, common sense, like how to cook and preserve, to grow our own food, build our own homes, how to fix things when they break, how to live in community.