Permaculture in Phang Nha Ke Bang We travel to learn, work and grow with positive projects; we also travel because we love to discover new landscapes, cultures, foods… Vietnam brings it all in one. If you follow us, you might have noticed that we are enjoying Vietnamese food a lot, that we have great opportunities to discover beautiful cities, amazing temples and astounding pristine Nature. When it comes to projects, we are also very lucky. During Mathieu’s Permaculture Design Course (PDC) at Aranya Agricultural Alternatives in India, Mathieu met Chon Chon and Chris, a lovely couple that travelled a lot to work with ethnic minorities, especially in South-East Asia. Chris told Mathieu about the beautiful projects they worked on. He especially recommended visiting Human Ecology Practice Area (HEPA) in Vietnam and invited us to contact Thi Tran Lanh for more information and volunteering opportunities. Visiting HEPA was not possible due to VISA limitations. Nevertheless, Lanh recommended two projects: visit a 20-year old permaculture farm in the heart of the amazing jungle grottos landscapes of Phang Nha Ke Bang and stay with the Red Dzao community in Ta Phin, near Sa Pa, north Vietnam . This article is about our visit of the 20-year old permaculture farm near Phang Nha. We invite our reader to discover and appreciate the wisdom of the family that takes care of it. Abstract I tend to write (too) long articles. This abstract gives you an overview of the content and the key messages from this blog post. Feel free to read the complete post 😊
We spent several hours with the Phuoc family. The son came directly at our homestay and guided us to the farm. As we arrived we met Mr. Phuoc and his wife, two very smiley and charismatic persons. We had the chance to get an interview with them. Mr. Phuoc told us about how they turned a minefield into a model eco-farm through permaculture practices. In twenty years Mr. Phuoc rehabilitated the soil by employing permaculture methods and principles and this article relates the history of the farm. We also explain what we acknowledged from the visit of the gardens. Finally, we relate the more intimate conversation we had with Mr. Phuoc regarding how people migrate from land to cities and how society is influencing us and breaks our connection to the earth. We make the parallel with many projects we have met. The story of Mr. Phuoc’s farm is a successful rehabilitation of a land after the destruction by the war and the people exodus with society shift from rural to urban model. This meeting with the Phuoc’s family was full of wisdom and good values that we want to share with you. Have a good read.
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A journey from conventional to regenerative agriculture to feed the City of DawnIf you check Auroville’s website, you will read that “Auro-Orchard is the oldest and the second largest farm of Auroville, that grows most of the fruits and vegetables produced in the community. It also serves as the main poultry farm of Auroville. Since its inception, Auro-Orchard’s main vision was to provide food for the Auroville community. For many years, to meet the immediate needs of the Auroville community in food, conventional farming practices were used, but since 2012, Auro-Orchard is being converted into an organic farm. (…) Regenerative organic farming (agro-ecology) is now the motto of the farm.”. This article is about the recent and successful transition from “conventional” agriculture to regenerative organic agriculture. You will read about our visit of Auro-Orchard as well as Mathieu’s two-week volunteering session there. Abstract I tend to write (too) long articles. This abstract gives you an overview of the content and the key messages from this blog post. Feel free to read the complete post 😊
I volunteered for two weeks at Auro Orchard with a great team of locals, volunteers and Aurovillians. I take the time to thank everyone of them at the end of the article because it was an amazing human experience. However, the focus of the article is to share with you the successful move of Auro-Orchard from traditional agriculture methods that killed the land to respectful methods that regenerate the land. As a volunteer I could see the direct results of the transition. This ongoing success has been possible through an intransigent and straightforward strategy:
On top of that I want to salute the effort for human and social respect as well as for animals’ respect at the farm. In this regard, another part of the article relates on how the present manager is addressing human and animals’ issues at the farm. As a broader attempt to describe the farm, Laura and I have listed a few areas of development which are task management, communication and other opportunities that can clearly help the farm optimize its work and grow in the future. As usual (you can find it in most of our articles), we tend to be as objective as possible in our report on projects, which means we also provide readers with subjective remarks. Feel free to comment and give your opinion too! Enjoy the read. |
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