Open Source Ecology - User contributions [en]

Seed saving

2009-03-19T03:53:16Z

Bizarro:

"Until Recent times all gardeners and farmers were stewards of the plant heritage that sustained us. Over the centuries it was seed saving that enabled people to domesticate wild plants, and this allowed communities to settle." ~ ''The Seed Savers' Handbook''

Seed saving has long been recognized as an important component of ensuring food security and locally productive varieties. Kent Whealy, founder of 'Seed Savers' Exchange', is considered the first 'Westerner' to start a public collection of home-bred garden varieties. Whealy's work, consequently, inspired Michel and Jude Fanton's founding of the 'Australia Seed Savers' Network' in the mid 1980's (as well as vocal support from permaculture co-founder, Bill Mollision, and American naturalist, David Cavagnaro). Regardless, in the coming years of global weirding this long-tenured practice will become even more important as we seek to understand the shifting extremes of our local climates. With the advent of [http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/26/norway.seeds/index.html/ 'doomsday' seed banks], we must recognize that first we must rely on ourselves.

Below is a list of seed-saving resources:

'''Books''':

''The Seed Savers' Handbook'' ~ Michel & Jude Fanton (illustrated by Alfredo Bonanno - great pointillated illustrations). A Seed Saver's Book. 1993. 176 pgs.

''Breed You Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's and Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving'' ~ Carol Deppe. Chelsea Green Publishing. 1993. 367 pgs.

''The Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation: From Seed to Tissue Culture''. Michael Dirr and Charles Heuser. Varsity Press, Athens, GA. 1987. 239 pgs. (largely considered THE book on this topic.)

''Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener's Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History''. William Woys Weaver. Henry Holt and Company.1997. 439 pgs. (Obviously, a large volume that goes into cultural and culinary histories...the anthropologist in all of us should enjoy)

''Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners'' ~ Susan Ashworth. Chelsea Green.

'''Websites''':

[http://www.seedsave.org/ International Seed Saving Institute]

[http://www.savingourseed.org/ Saving our Seed - A seed saving project for the southeast U.S.]
[[Category:OSA]]

WWOOF

2009-02-27T09:30:31Z

Bizarro:

[http://www.wwoofusa.org/farms/1307 See our WWOOF page.]

=old text=

Open Source Ecology (OSE)
Maysville, MO

This is an invitation to adventurous people to join our creative community of two. OSE is in the humble beginnings of our experiments, so be ready with initiative and an open mind. We are located in Maysville MO. Our greater mission is right livelihood and economic transformation via open source economic development. Food: *Fruit tree nursery *Year-round hydroponic greenhouse *Market garden *Collaboration with an organic bakery *Animal husbandry *Forestry Energy: *Vegetable oil-powered electricity generation *Combined heat and electrical power with wood and oil heat *Solar concentrator heat Transportation: *Biodiesel production *Fuel alcohol production from onsite crops *OSCar collaboration (theoscarproject.org) Housing:*Compressed Earth Block Press (3-5 bricks/minute) *Portable sawmill *Yurt and earthbag construction Tools/Technology: *Appropriate farm equipment *Open source product development *Open source computing Living conditions are almost impossible to describe as they are always improving from the bare-bone basics of the beginning to the more convient and comfortable accommodations. Although still considered a rustic lifestyle by modern standards, we do have high-speed wireless internet and off-grid electricity. We are located one hour north of Kansas City, and we are one mile from a town of 1000. We have a vegetable-oil powered Suburban. We are currently developing products and connections with area markets and we invite participants to help. You may earn what you produce from your initiative. Accomadations and home grown food will be supplied as part of a working exchange. We want participants to spend most of their time in experimenting with what really works, economically speaking, to create a new society based on land stewardship and open source economic development.

=new text=

(''this text was submitted in a word.doc to WWOOF in late February 2009. The document has accomanying hyperlinks - these did not show up in the copy and paste. If one desires the word.doc, ask Marcin, Jeremy, or Joseph - all possess copies. WWOOF has yet to enact the changes.''

Open Source Ecology’s ‘mothership’, if you will, is the Factor E Farm site situated approximately one hour north of Kansas City, Missouri. Our 30-acre farm is situated on a former monocropped soybean field – the soil is compacted, clay-sandy, and erosion problems still exist. However, many solutions are ‘waiting in the wings’ as we revitalize and remedy previous destructive farming practices. At the same time, these current limiting conditions are mere temporary obstacles as well as metaphorical reminders: we aim to create regenerative pathways deviating from current human-made large-scale destructive practices - akin to the destructive monocropping that has destroyed our farm’s one-time self-contained and symbiotic synergies. We aim to restore a semblance of previous dynamic equilibriums, while improving our individual and collective capacities. This is our pursuit of a human-centric post-industrial, permaculture, open source eco-village.

We are much more than an organic agriculture program - though our Open Source Agroecology program (OSA) is definitely an integral part of our farm. Open Source Agroecology (OSA) is integrated permaculture and the technology needed to make it realistically efficient, integrated, manageable, and replicable. We are looking for persons who can contribute to this greater vision, at least through OSA program participation – either as volunteers or long-term resident co-developers of the world’s first, replicable, open source Global Village. We are a post-industrial eco-village in the making. We seek to change the world.

Currently, we are in full development of our “Global Village Construction Set” (GVCS). In 2008, we completed the first prototype of our multi-purpose, open source, hybrid tractor device (LifeTrac), We aim to modify this lovely machine of ours in the coming year - though it currently remains in complete operational condition. We have also completed the first prototype of our CEB Press (Compressed Earth Brick Press), aptly named “The Liberator”, and we remain in the late developmental stages of our open source sawmill design. These projects, among others (see above GVCS set), are ongoing.

The 2009 season, specifically, offers the following agricultural opportunities:

• Design of hybrid/permacultural food-production systems to optimize our village layout. These designs should focus on the following: building of organic matter; keyline water, swale, and pond systems; and improvement of soil fertility (previous permaculture design experience beneficial, but not necessary)
• Design and install site-specific ‘Chinampas’ bed with accompanying chicken and fish communities. This will be situated atop the rich soil at the base of our property.
• Perform on-site analysis, documentation, improvements etc. of pre-existing nursery stock and orchard.
• Develop beginnings of our regionally specific heirloom/open-pollinated seed saving program
• Whatever your initiative and ingenuity develops, designs, and puts into action…

For more in-depth, site-specific, ‘living conditions’ and work expectations visit our volunteer page. Like all components of our village design, the OSA program is open source. WWOOF individuals will be asked to maintain detailed and publicly-accessible log notes for personal, professional, and community growth and development.

Please: only motivated, disciplined, hard-working, open-minded, spiritually-evolved persons apply.

Phone Number: 206.202.3387

Skype: marcin_ose

Email: opensourceecology@gmail.com

Address: SW Willow & SW Lakesite
Maysville Missouri 64469

[[Category:Volunteers]]

Water Management

2009-02-24T21:11:59Z

Bizarro:

=About=

=Videos=

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</html>

=How To=

=Resources=

[http://www.keyline.com.au/form03.htm Free download] of Yeomans' ''Water for Every Farm - Yeomans Keyline Plan'' : A must read for regenerative design installations strategically covering contour mapping and water flow.

[[Category:OSA]]

True Fans

2009-02-24T17:25:08Z

Bizarro: /* True Fans */

=Introduction=

True Fans are supporters of the [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 1000 True Fans - 1000 Global Villages campaign ]. Here you can read why people have joined the campaign, as a motivation for you to join if you're not already signed up.

=True Fans=

[[Category:1000 Squared]]

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Benjamin Kaplin'''
I'm a mechanical engineering student, and I support the OSE because a completed Open Source Village kit would represent several orders of magnitude of improvement over existing projects to improve living conditions around the globe with technology. I grew up reading Stephenson, and one of the most powerful images in his book Diamond Age is The Seed, a nanotechnology McGuffin that one of the main characters devotes his life to that would take the control of production and self-determination out of the hands of the McCorporations and put it into the hands of revolutionaries and the impoverished.
Needless to say, nanotech is still several decades away from that dream, and contributing to the True Fans campaign helps a realistic Seed program without pulling me away from my studies.
|[[Image:0213090948.jpg|thumb|Benjamin Kaplin]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Marcin Jakubowski''', opensourceecology at gmail dot com, marcin_ose on Skype
I started the campaign because I have observed how little of humanity's true potential has been tapped. Everyone slaves their life away to a system that is crumbling at the seams. I believe that we can all reach absolute prosperity and evolve to freedom - by becoming skilled and productive [[Integrated Humans]], and by helping anyyone else to do the same. History has shown that this is a general formula for lasting prosperity. As long as we're wise, it should be trivial to get beyond the economics of scarcity. We need to show the world how to build the world's first, replicable, open source global village - so anyone who wants to can evolve to freedom.
|[[Image:marcin.jpg|thumb|Marcin Jakubowski]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Jeremy Mason''', jeremymaso at gmail dot com
On-site at Factor e.
|[[image:jeremy.jpg|thumb|Jeremy Mason]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Scott Akridge'''
As I get older I'm more and more interested in helping people. A couple weeks back I enlisted the help of a friend to help in developing a CEB press when I began doing research and found www.openfarmtech.org with the open source CEB press. I continued looking for more information but kept coming back to this site for more info and learned more about the project and found I wanted to get involved. I started by becoming a member and donating $10 a month with plans to build the CEB press and build a couple structures then make the effort a cooperative. After reading more I've decided to also build a sawmill, assuming I can recruit some help. I think this is a great project and am excited to be a part of it in a small way.
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Toby Martin'''
I support OSE because...
* It's an intelligent and direct effort to address some of the most serious problems we face as individuals and as a society.
* It's one of the most interesting and creative projects I've ever heard of.
* I see no reason in principle that it can't improve people's lives.
* It's actually happening.
|[[Image:TF2.jpg|thumb|Toby Martin]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Lucas González''', imagina (dot) canarias at gmail dot com
I support OSE because both the model and the elements add some important missing pieces to what I perceive is going on.
* I think it's important to have local possibilities for water, food and energy everywhere. Not just at the household level but more importantly at the village or more aggregated levels. Even if you end up buying stuff from elsewhere, it's best if that happens by choice, not by necessity. It was not by choice when things were local by default and it's not by choice now that things are global by default.
* The whole process of open sharing of ideas, processes, know-how is intriguing and, at the very least, extremely fun to watch. (I really wish I had more time to join in myself, but I'm doing things that need doing. So I translate, tell others, and chip in with a little cash, less than what others spend in smoking. My choice.)
* I'm particularly interested in some items for specific locations. Energy for water in sunny places is a must. Shelter and water collection systems. You name it.
* Do we really know how far and how fast this can go? I think there's bound to be a catalitic process so that more and more technologies will come out openly, in an exciting incarnation of the Stone Soup story. So I want to help keep the fire going.
* It really looks like this can be done, should be done, will be done in 2 years. Less than 2 years now. The whole world now has a sense of urgency, I feel. I'd like to see what we can do after this. But the time is ripe for this, now.
* It's interesting to note how open content gives us a sense of ownership. Many have felt that with software. I want to see that with hardware.
|no image yet
|}

'''Joseph Zarr''', joseph.zarr@gmail.com [[Image:DSC_0169.JPG|thumb|Joseph Zarr]]

I am an anthropologist, a farmer, and a permaculturist by training. I support OSE because, well, let's be frank: This is arguably the coolest project on the planet. I am most attracted to Factor E Farm and OSE because of the overall themes of personal improvement (via daily spiritual and physical discipline - in whatever forms a person deems appropriate), human production, and an intertwined personal and community growth. We must collaboratively market the ownership of our futures.

"For less than the price of one coffee per week, for less than the price of one first class stamp per day, you can help change the world. Subscribe!"

As our resource pool dwindles globally, largely due to corporate theft and errant industrial practices, we will have to produce locally and 'in-source'. With a dwindling petroleum base, our dream of cheap energy will disappear. These are simple facts. We must invest human energies in locally-based solutions. We must ignore our propagandized 'reality' and create a meaningful existence together.
With drastically increasing populations (estimated 70 million per year), we must teach ourselves the merits of collaboration, co-housing, and SHARING. My opinion is the era of individualized ownership is archaic and ill-advised. Only by sharing and producing what we actually need, and sharing what we already have (be it skills, books, resources etc.), will we experience the next stage of cultural progress. Hopefully, in the not so distant future our children's hands will not deform due to excessive playing of video games but, rather, they will callous, strengthen and scar due to meaningful labor and a 'hands-on' reality; i.e. literacy, numeracy, production = freedom. The only debts we owe are to ourselves and our community. Let's pay up.

True Fans

2009-02-24T17:24:19Z

Bizarro: /* True Fans */

=Introduction=

True Fans are supporters of the [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 1000 True Fans - 1000 Global Villages campaign ]. Here you can read why people have joined the campaign, as a motivation for you to join if you're not already signed up.

=True Fans=

[[Category:1000 Squared]]

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Benjamin Kaplin'''
I'm a mechanical engineering student, and I support the OSE because a completed Open Source Village kit would represent several orders of magnitude of improvement over existing projects to improve living conditions around the globe with technology. I grew up reading Stephenson, and one of the most powerful images in his book Diamond Age is The Seed, a nanotechnology McGuffin that one of the main characters devotes his life to that would take the control of production and self-determination out of the hands of the McCorporations and put it into the hands of revolutionaries and the impoverished.
Needless to say, nanotech is still several decades away from that dream, and contributing to the True Fans campaign helps a realistic Seed program without pulling me away from my studies.
|[[Image:0213090948.jpg|thumb|Benjamin Kaplin]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Marcin Jakubowski''', opensourceecology at gmail dot com, marcin_ose on Skype
I started the campaign because I have observed how little of humanity's true potential has been tapped. Everyone slaves their life away to a system that is crumbling at the seams. I believe that we can all reach absolute prosperity and evolve to freedom - by becoming skilled and productive [[Integrated Humans]], and by helping anyyone else to do the same. History has shown that this is a general formula for lasting prosperity. As long as we're wise, it should be trivial to get beyond the economics of scarcity. We need to show the world how to build the world's first, replicable, open source global village - so anyone who wants to can evolve to freedom.
|[[Image:marcin.jpg|thumb|Marcin Jakubowski]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Jeremy Mason''', jeremymaso at gmail dot com
On-site at Factor e.
|[[image:jeremy.jpg|thumb|Jeremy Mason]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Scott Akridge'''
As I get older I'm more and more interested in helping people. A couple weeks back I enlisted the help of a friend to help in developing a CEB press when I began doing research and found www.openfarmtech.org with the open source CEB press. I continued looking for more information but kept coming back to this site for more info and learned more about the project and found I wanted to get involved. I started by becoming a member and donating $10 a month with plans to build the CEB press and build a couple structures then make the effort a cooperative. After reading more I've decided to also build a sawmill, assuming I can recruit some help. I think this is a great project and am excited to be a part of it in a small way.
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Toby Martin'''
I support OSE because...
* It's an intelligent and direct effort to address some of the most serious problems we face as individuals and as a society.
* It's one of the most interesting and creative projects I've ever heard of.
* I see no reason in principle that it can't improve people's lives.
* It's actually happening.
|[[Image:TF2.jpg|thumb|Toby Martin]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Lucas González''', imagina (dot) canarias at gmail dot com
I support OSE because both the model and the elements add some important missing pieces to what I perceive is going on.
* I think it's important to have local possibilities for water, food and energy everywhere. Not just at the household level but more importantly at the village or more aggregated levels. Even if you end up buying stuff from elsewhere, it's best if that happens by choice, not by necessity. It was not by choice when things were local by default and it's not by choice now that things are global by default.
* The whole process of open sharing of ideas, processes, know-how is intriguing and, at the very least, extremely fun to watch. (I really wish I had more time to join in myself, but I'm doing things that need doing. So I translate, tell others, and chip in with a little cash, less than what others spend in smoking. My choice.)
* I'm particularly interested in some items for specific locations. Energy for water in sunny places is a must. Shelter and water collection systems. You name it.
* Do we really know how far and how fast this can go? I think there's bound to be a catalitic process so that more and more technologies will come out openly, in an exciting incarnation of the Stone Soup story. So I want to help keep the fire going.
* It really looks like this can be done, should be done, will be done in 2 years. Less than 2 years now. The whole world now has a sense of urgency, I feel. I'd like to see what we can do after this. But the time is ripe for this, now.
* It's interesting to note how open content gives us a sense of ownership. Many have felt that with software. I want to see that with hardware.
|no image yet
|}

'''Joseph Zarr''', joseph.zarr@gmail.com [[Image:DSC_0169.JPG|thumb|Joseph Zarr]]

I am an anthropologist, a farmer, and a permaculturist by training. I support OSE because, well, let's be frank: This is arguably the coolest project on the planet. I am most attracted to Factor E Farm and OSE because of the overall themes of personal improvement (via daily spiritual and physical discipline - in whatever forms a person deems appropriate), human production, and an intertwined personal and community growth. We must collaboratively market the ownership of our futures.

"For less than the price of one coffee per week, for less than the price of one first class stamp per day, I can help change the world. Subscribe!"

As our resource pool dwindles globally, largely due to corporate theft and errant industrial practices, we will have to produce locally and 'in-source'. With a dwindling petroleum base, our dream of cheap energy will disappear. These are simple facts. We must invest human energies in locally-based solutions. We must ignore our propagandized 'reality' and create a meaningful existence together.
With drastically increasing populations (estimated 70 million per year), we must teach ourselves the merits of collaboration, co-housing, and SHARING. My opinion is the era of individualized ownership is archaic and ill-advised. Only by sharing and producing what we actually need, and sharing what we already have (be it skills, books, resources etc.), will we experience the next stage of cultural progress. Hopefully, in the not so distant future our children's hands will not deform due to excessive playing of video games but, rather, they will callous, strengthen and scar due to meaningful labor and a 'hands-on' reality; i.e. literacy, numeracy, production = freedom. The only debts we owe are to ourselves and our community. Let's pay up.

True Fans

2009-02-24T17:22:14Z

Bizarro:

=Introduction=

True Fans are supporters of the [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 1000 True Fans - 1000 Global Villages campaign ]. Here you can read why people have joined the campaign, as a motivation for you to join if you're not already signed up.

=True Fans=

[[Category:1000 Squared]]

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Benjamin Kaplin'''
I'm a mechanical engineering student, and I support the OSE because a completed Open Source Village kit would represent several orders of magnitude of improvement over existing projects to improve living conditions around the globe with technology. I grew up reading Stephenson, and one of the most powerful images in his book Diamond Age is The Seed, a nanotechnology McGuffin that one of the main characters devotes his life to that would take the control of production and self-determination out of the hands of the McCorporations and put it into the hands of revolutionaries and the impoverished.
Needless to say, nanotech is still several decades away from that dream, and contributing to the True Fans campaign helps a realistic Seed program without pulling me away from my studies.
|[[Image:0213090948.jpg|thumb|Benjamin Kaplin]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Marcin Jakubowski''', opensourceecology at gmail dot com, marcin_ose on Skype
I started the campaign because I have observed how little of humanity's true potential has been tapped. Everyone slaves their life away to a system that is crumbling at the seams. I believe that we can all reach absolute prosperity and evolve to freedom - by becoming skilled and productive [[Integrated Humans]], and by helping anyyone else to do the same. History has shown that this is a general formula for lasting prosperity. As long as we're wise, it should be trivial to get beyond the economics of scarcity. We need to show the world how to build the world's first, replicable, open source global village - so anyone who wants to can evolve to freedom.
|[[Image:marcin.jpg|thumb|Marcin Jakubowski]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Jeremy Mason''', jeremymaso at gmail dot com
On-site at Factor e.
|[[image:jeremy.jpg|thumb|Jeremy Mason]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Scott Akridge'''
As I get older I'm more and more interested in helping people. A couple weeks back I enlisted the help of a friend to help in developing a CEB press when I began doing research and found www.openfarmtech.org with the open source CEB press. I continued looking for more information but kept coming back to this site for more info and learned more about the project and found I wanted to get involved. I started by becoming a member and donating $10 a month with plans to build the CEB press and build a couple structures then make the effort a cooperative. After reading more I've decided to also build a sawmill, assuming I can recruit some help. I think this is a great project and am excited to be a part of it in a small way.
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Toby Martin'''
I support OSE because...
* It's an intelligent and direct effort to address some of the most serious problems we face as individuals and as a society.
* It's one of the most interesting and creative projects I've ever heard of.
* I see no reason in principle that it can't improve people's lives.
* It's actually happening.
|[[Image:TF2.jpg|thumb|Toby Martin]]
|}

{| style="width:100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Lucas González''', imagina (dot) canarias at gmail dot com
I support OSE because both the model and the elements add some important missing pieces to what I perceive is going on.
* I think it's important to have local possibilities for water, food and energy everywhere. Not just at the household level but more importantly at the village or more aggregated levels. Even if you end up buying stuff from elsewhere, it's best if that happens by choice, not by necessity. It was not by choice when things were local by default and it's not by choice now that things are global by default.
* The whole process of open sharing of ideas, processes, know-how is intriguing and, at the very least, extremely fun to watch. (I really wish I had more time to join in myself, but I'm doing things that need doing. So I translate, tell others, and chip in with a little cash, less than what others spend in smoking. My choice.)
* I'm particularly interested in some items for specific locations. Energy for water in sunny places is a must. Shelter and water collection systems. You name it.
* Do we really know how far and how fast this can go? I think there's bound to be a catalitic process so that more and more technologies will come out openly, in an exciting incarnation of the Stone Soup story. So I want to help keep the fire going.
* It really looks like this can be done, should be done, will be done in 2 years. Less than 2 years now. The whole world now has a sense of urgency, I feel. I'd like to see what we can do after this. But the time is ripe for this, now.
* It's interesting to note how open content gives us a sense of ownership. Many have felt that with software. I want to see that with hardware.
|no image yet
|}

'''Joseph Zarr''', joseph.zarr@gmail.com [[Image:DSC_0169.JPG|thumb|Joseph Zarr]]

I am an anthropologist, a farmer, and a permaculturist by training. I support OSE because, well, let's be frank: This is arguably the coolest project on the planet. I am most attracted to Factor E Farm and OSE because of the overall themes of personal improvement (via daily spiritual and physical discipline - in whatever forms a person deems appropriate), human production, and an intertwined personal and community growth. We must collaboratively market the ownership of our futures.

"For less than the price of one coffee per week, for less than the price of one first class stamp per day, I can help change the world. Subscribe!" ~ ''some famous person''. And, this could be you too!!

As our resource pool dwindles globally, largely due to corporate theft and errant industrial practices, we will have to produce locally and 'in-source'. With a dwindling petroleum base, our dream of cheap energy will disappear. These are simple facts. We must invest human energies in locally-based solutions. We must ignore our propagandized 'reality' and create a meaningful existence together.
With drastically increasing populations (estimated 70 million per year), we must teach ourselves the merits of collaboration, co-housing, and SHARING. My opinion is the era of individualized ownership is archaic and ill-advised. Only by sharing and producing what we actually need, and sharing what we already have (be it skills, books, resources etc.), will we experience the next stage of cultural progress. Hopefully, in the not so distant future our children's hands will not deform due to excessive playing of video games but, rather, they will callous, strengthen and scar due to meaningful labor and a 'hands-on' reality; i.e. literacy, numeracy, production = freedom. The only debts we owe are to ourselves and our community. Let's pay up.

File:DSC 0169.JPG

2009-02-24T16:41:15Z

Bizarro:

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-22T20:24:39Z

Bizarro: /* Brief Description */

[[Category:OSA]]

=Brief Description=

In 2005, Dave Jacke, with Eric Toensmeier (and, as Dave admits, the helping hand of numerous people 'behind the scenes'), provided a new framework from which to consider forest gardening. Their two volume seminal work, ''Edible Forest Gardens - Ecological Design and Practice for Temperate Climate Permaculture'', has both offered a body of in-depth analysis for temperate climate forest gardening while setting the stage for future studies and advancements in this largely unexplored field.

Briefly, forest gardening is an ecologically-based design practice intended to mimic the patterns of forest systems by incorporating perennial-based, annual-mixed, sequences of plant communities. In this manner, one must imagine the full breadth of a forest - from the canopy level, to the understory of ephemerals and medicinals, to the interactions at the micro-organismic level of the soils. However, there is a clear distinction between gardening ''like'' the forest as opposed to gardening ''as'' the forest. Because one is designing for human-accessible and abundant yields, one is mimicking forest patterns for human good (though, as one finds, this often has indirect beneficial impacts beyond the human level - i.e., animal and insect habitat, revitalized soil beds, water capture etc.).

Forest gardening is modeled after what ecologists have learned from succesional studies:

"Succession studies show that patches are fundamental organizational units in natural ecosystems...to create structural diversity, we should respond to and mimic this patchy reality"
~''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2'' (p. 10)

With this in mind, the forest gardener is urged to imagine an ever-changing forest garden. This often entails a 'whole-istic' design process projecting successional stages of a forest garden. Consequently, one can begin their design process by modeling an 'end' stage of succession; tracking backward through a mid-successional stage; and installing (or planting out) their first trees, shrubs, and plants mimicking the pioneer stage of early succession.

=Videos=

=How to=

=Concepts=
(''in no particular order'' - these concepts are adapted from Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2'' and my own experiences.)

'''site preparation :''' Particularly in areas with 'poor' or compacted soil - often the results of previous agricultural monocropping. This will include anything you aim to accomplish prior to planting out your forest garden BUT should also be considered seriously if the healthy establishement of a young forest garden is in question. This practice can greatly improve the health of your forest garden as well as its inherent yield capacities. It will also minimize future work - if you simply plant your forest garden without attention to its soil quality you are creating unnecessary competition...both for scarce nutrients and with a pre-existing 'weed' seed bank.

Most poor soils can be improved by adding organic materials and/or breaking up hard-panned and compacted soils with deep-reaching perennial root systems. However, it is also beneficial to work with beneficial annuals. For example, Yellow Sweet Clover (''Melilotus officinalis'') is an introduced annual or biennial whose root system extends as far down as 20 feet . In this manner, the plant can serve as both a soil stabilizer and a dynamic accumulator during the early years of a young forest garden. This plant is often used in organic agriculture rotations as a cover crop. It can also be used in combination with a fast-growing grain crop for livestock feed over winter months. This past season, at Mark Shepard's ''New Forest Farm'' we covered an acre with millet and yellow sweet clover. The results: the livestock (3 holstein bull calves) received a healthy 3-5 round bales of millet/clover and the yellow sweet clover will grow back in spring adding continued soil stability during southwest Wisconsin's rainiest months. Ideally, one could feed 3-5 heads of livestock by performing this strategy on 2 to 3 acres. Back to the forest garden...

It should be noted that to correctly determine a given site's desired dynamic accumulators a series of soil tests and subsoil tests should be considered. Regardless, one ought to consider growing swaths of 'mulch plants'. i.e.,stinging nettle, comfrey, sorrels and docks, vetches etc that will uptake trace elements. These patches can be harvested and mulched or composted - either in a compost pile or in a fermented compost tea.

An interesting idea I have considered lately is the dual combination of composted 'weeds' in tea form (i.e. nettle, comfrey et al) with coppice-able dynamic accumulator trees (basswoods, birches, hickories, black walnut et al). In this manner one could create a fermented and slightly aged mulch material - a layer of organic materials providing many functions in a forest garden.

For detailed analysis on species lists applicable to this concept see Appendices 2 and 3 in Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2, Design and Practice'' pp. 524-536

=Resources=
'''Dynamic Accumulators :'''

Martin Crawford's 1995 series "Fertility in Agroforestry & Forest Gardens" in ''Agroforestry News''.

Robert Kourik - ''Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally''. 1986.

Lawrence Hill - ''Comfrey: Past, Present, Future''. 1976.

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-22T20:05:23Z

Bizarro:

[[Category:OSA]]

=Brief Description=

In 2005, Dave Jacke, with Eric Toensmeier (and, as Dave admits, the helping hand of numerous people 'behind the scenes'), provided a new framework from which to consider forest gardening. Their two volume seminal work, ''Edible Forest Gardens - Ecological Design and Practice for Temperate Climate Permaculture'', has both offered a body of in-depth analysis for temperate climate forest gardening while setting the stage for future studies and advancements for a largely unexplored field.

Briefly, forest gardening is an ecologically-based design practice intended to mimic the patterns of forest systems. In this manner, one must imagine the full breadth of a forest - from the canopy level, to the understory of ephemerals and medicianals, to the interactions at the micro-organismic level of the soils. However, there is a clear distinction between gardening ''like'' the forest as opposed to gardening ''as'' the forest. Because one is designing for human-accessible and abundant yields, one must mimic forest patterns for human good. Forest gardening is modeled after what ecologists have learned from succesional studies:

"Succession studies show that patches are fundamental organizational units in natural ecosystems...to create structural diversity, we should respond to and mimic this patchy reality"
~''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2'' (p. 10)

=Videos=

=How to=

=Concepts=
(''in no particular order'' - these concepts are adapted from Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2'' and my own experiences.)

'''site preparation :''' Particularly in areas with 'poor' or compacted soil - often the results of previous agricultural monocropping. This will include anything you aim to accomplish prior to planting out your forest garden BUT should also be considered seriously if the healthy establishement of a young forest garden is in question. This practice can greatly improve the health of your forest garden as well as its inherent yield capacities. It will also minimize future work - if you simply plant your forest garden without attention to its soil quality you are creating unnecessary competition...both for scarce nutrients and with a pre-existing 'weed' seed bank.

Most poor soils can be improved by adding organic materials and/or breaking up hard-panned and compacted soils with deep-reaching perennial root systems. However, it is also beneficial to work with beneficial annuals. For example, Yellow Sweet Clover (''Melilotus officinalis'') is an introduced annual or biennial whose root system extends as far down as 20 feet . In this manner, the plant can serve as both a soil stabilizer and a dynamic accumulator during the early years of a young forest garden. This plant is often used in organic agriculture rotations as a cover crop. It can also be used in combination with a fast-growing grain crop for livestock feed over winter months. This past season, at Mark Shepard's ''New Forest Farm'' we covered an acre with millet and yellow sweet clover. The results: the livestock (3 holstein bull calves) received a healthy 3-5 round bales of millet/clover and the yellow sweet clover will grow back in spring adding continued soil stability during southwest Wisconsin's rainiest months. Ideally, one could feed 3-5 heads of livestock by performing this strategy on 2 to 3 acres. Back to the forest garden...

It should be noted that to correctly determine a given site's desired dynamic accumulators a series of soil tests and subsoil tests should be considered. Regardless, one ought to consider growing swaths of 'mulch plants'. i.e.,stinging nettle, comfrey, sorrels and docks, vetches etc that will uptake trace elements. These patches can be harvested and mulched or composted - either in a compost pile or in a fermented compost tea.

An interesting idea I have considered lately is the dual combination of composted 'weeds' in tea form (i.e. nettle, comfrey et al) with coppice-able dynamic accumulator trees (basswoods, birches, hickories, black walnut et al). In this manner one could create a fermented and slightly aged mulch material - a layer of organic materials providing many functions in a forest garden.

For detailed analysis on species lists applicable to this concept see Appendices 2 and 3 in Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2, Design and Practice'' pp. 524-536

=Resources=
'''Dynamic Accumulators :'''

Martin Crawford's 1995 series "Fertility in Agroforestry & Forest Gardens" in ''Agroforestry News''.

Robert Kourik - ''Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally''. 1986.

Lawrence Hill - ''Comfrey: Past, Present, Future''. 1976.

Permaculture

2009-02-22T19:50:59Z

Bizarro:

This Mollison/Holmgren term has evolved into the hybrid ideas of "Permanent agriculture and Permanent Culture". Permaculture is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_thinking systems thinking] design system for sustainable and regenerative systems that considers ecological theory amid previous intelligently designed lifeways of indigenous cultures alongside modern technological advancement and thought. Permaculture ranges a diverse field of design methods - from perennial-based agricultural systems, to the homestead, to an individual or community structure.

The majority of permaculture design work is considered within the framework of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zones_(Permaculture) zones]'. Holmgren has also theorized a series of 'meta-zones' in which he describes a sphere of influences. In this meta-zone system, Zone 0 represents a person's core, their self, whereby energy inputed for change has a high likelihood of impact or result. This series of meta-zones ends at the global level, such that, at Zone 5, or the global level, one is less likely to experience any form of direct impact. I particularly appreciate this analysis as it is a beneficial reminder to individuals that we must first improve and impact ourselves before we can imagine impacting a world in chaos.

Permaculture is thought of as a unique design system because of its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Core_values core ethics] and [http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php principles]. Regardless, once considered a fringe movement of alternative culture, permaculture is now seen as an intelligent, informed, and truly importan body of study:

"What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any
group is doing on the planet. We don't know what details of a truly
sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need
people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of
the critical gangs that are doing that."

~Dr David Suzuki geneticist, broadcaster, and international environmental advocate
'''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#References References et al]'''

Permaculture

2009-02-22T19:48:05Z

Bizarro:

Permaculture

2009-02-22T19:47:04Z

Bizarro:

This Mollison/Holmgren term has evolved into the hybrid ideas of "Permanent agriculture and Permanent Culture". Permaculture is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_thinking systems thinking] design system for sustainable and regenerative systems that considers ecological theory amid previous intelligently designed lifeways of indigenous cultures alongside modern technological advancement and thought. Permaculture ranges a diverse field of design methods - from perennial-based agricultural systems, to the homestead, to an individual or community structure.

The majority of permaculture design work is considered within the framework of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zones_(Permaculture) zones]'. Holmgren has also theorized a series of 'meta-zones' in which he describes a sphere of influences. In this meta-zone system, Zone 0 represents a person's core, their self, whereby energy inputed for change has a high likelihood of impact or result. This series of meta-zones ends at the global level, such that, at Zone 5, or the global level, one is less likely to experience any form of direct impact. I particularly appreciate this analysis as it is a beneficial reminder to individuals that we must first improve and impact ourselves before we can imagine impacting a world in chaos.

Permaculture is thought of as a unique design system because of its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Core_values core ethics] and [http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php principles]. Regardless, once considered a fringe movement of alternative culture, permaculture is now seen as an informed, intelligent, informed, and important body of study:

"What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any
group is doing on the planet. We don't know what details of a truly
sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need
people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of
the critical gangs that are doing that."

~Dr David Suzuki geneticist, broadcaster, and international environmental advocate

Permaculture

2009-02-22T19:46:35Z

Bizarro:

This Mollison/Holmgren term has evolved into the hybrid ideas of "Permanent agriculture and Permanent Culture". Permaculture is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_thinking systems thinking] design system for sustainable and regenerative systems that considers ecological theory amid previous intelligently designed lifeways of indigenous cultures alongside modern technological advancement and thought. Permaculture ranges a diverse field of design methods - from perennial-based agricultural systems, to the homestead, to an individual or community structure.

The majority of permaculture design work is considered within the framework of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zones_(Permaculture) zones]'. Holmgren has also theorized a series of 'meta-zones' in which he describes a sphere of influences. In this meta-zone system Zone 0 represents a person's core, their self, whereby energy inputed for change has a high likelihood of impact or result. This series of meta-zones ends at the global level, such that, at Zone 5, or the global level, one is less likely to experience any form of direct impact. I particularly appreciate this analysis as it is a beneficial reminder to individuals that we must first improve and impact ourselves before we can imagine impacting a world in chaos.

Permaculture is thought of as a unique design system because of its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Core_values core ethics] and [http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php principles]. Regardless, once considered a fringe movement of alternative culture, permaculture is now seen as an informed, intelligent, informed, and important body of study:

"What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any
group is doing on the planet. We don't know what details of a truly
sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need
people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of
the critical gangs that are doing that."

~Dr David Suzuki geneticist, broadcaster, and international environmental advocate

Permaculture

2009-02-22T19:46:05Z

Bizarro:

This Mollison/Holmgren term has evolved into the hybrid ideas of "Permanent agriculture and Permanent Culture". Permaculture is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_thinking systems thinking] design system for sustainable and regenerative systems that considers ecological theory amid previous intelligently designed lifeways of indigenous cultures alongside modern technological advancement and thought. Permaculture is also one Permaculture ranges a diverse field of design methods - from perennial-based agricultural systems, to the homestead, to an individual or community structure.

The majority of permaculture design work is considered within the framework of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zones_(Permaculture) zones]'. Holmgren has also theorized a series of 'meta-zones' in which he describes a sphere of influences. In this meta-zone system Zone 0 represents a person's core, their self, whereby energy inputed for change has a high likelihood of impact or result. This series of meta-zones ends at the global level, such that, at Zone 5, or the global level, one is less likely to experience any form of direct impact. I particularly appreciate this analysis as it is a beneficial reminder to individuals that we must first improve and impact ourselves before we can imagine impacting a world in chaos.

Permaculture is thought of as a unique design system because of its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Core_values core ethics] and [http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php principles]. Regardless, once considered a fringe movement of alternative culture, permaculture is now seen as an informed, intelligent, informed, and important body of study:

"What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any
group is doing on the planet. We don't know what details of a truly
sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need
people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of
the critical gangs that are doing that."

~Dr David Suzuki geneticist, broadcaster, and international environmental advocate

Permaculture

2009-02-22T19:45:28Z

Bizarro:

This Mollison/Holmgren term has evolved into the hybrid ideas of "Permanent agriculture and Permanent Culture". Permaculture is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_thinking systems thinking] design system for sustainable and regenerative systems that considers previous intelligently designed lifeways of indigenous cultures alongside modern technological advancement and thought. Permaculture is also one Permaculture ranges a diverse field of design methods - from perennial-based agricultural systems, to the homestead, to an individual or community structure.

The majority of permaculture design work is considered within the framework of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zones_(Permaculture) zones]'. Holmgren has also theorized a series of 'meta-zones' in which he describes a sphere of influences. In this meta-zone system Zone 0 represents a person's core, their self, whereby energy inputed for change has a high likelihood of impact or result. This series of meta-zones ends at the global level, such that, at Zone 5, or the global level, one is less likely to experience any form of direct impact. I particularly appreciate this analysis as it is a beneficial reminder to individuals that we must first improve and impact ourselves before we can imagine impacting a world in chaos.

Permaculture is thought of as a unique design system because of its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Core_values core ethics] and [http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php principles]. Regardless, once considered a fringe movement of alternative culture, permaculture is now seen as an informed, intelligent, informed, and important body of study:

"What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any
group is doing on the planet. We don't know what details of a truly
sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need
people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of
the critical gangs that are doing that."

~Dr David Suzuki geneticist, broadcaster, and international environmental advocate

Permaculture

2009-02-22T19:45:07Z

Bizarro:

This Mollison/Holmgren term has evolved into the hybrid ideas of "Permanent agriculture and Permanent Culture". Permaculutre is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_thinking systems thinking] design system for sustainable and regenerative systems that considers previous intelligently designed lifeways of indigenous cultures alongside modern technological advancement and thought. Permaculture is also one Permaculture ranges a diverse field of design methods - from perennial-based agricultural systems, to the homestead, to an individual or community structure.

The majority of permaculture design work is considered within the framework of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zones_(Permaculture) zones]'. Holmgren has also theorized a series of 'meta-zones' in which he describes a sphere of influences. In this meta-zone system Zone 0 represents a person's core, their self, whereby energy inputed for change has a high likelihood of impact or result. This series of meta-zones ends at the global level, such that, at Zone 5, or the global level, one is less likely to experience any form of direct impact. I particularly appreciate this analysis as it is a beneficial reminder to individuals that we must first improve and impact ourselves before we can imagine impacting a world in chaos.

Permaculture is thought of as a unique design system because of its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Core_values core ethics] and [http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php principles]. Regardless, once considered a fringe movement of alternative culture, permaculture is now seen as an informed, intelligent, informed, and important body of study:

"What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any
group is doing on the planet. We don't know what details of a truly
sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need
people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of
the critical gangs that are doing that."

~Dr David Suzuki geneticist, broadcaster, and international environmental advocate

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-22T01:58:37Z

Bizarro: /* Resources */

[[Category:OSA]]

=Videos=

=How to=

=Concepts=
(''in no particular order'' - these concepts are adapted from Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2'' and my own experiences.)

'''site preparation :''' Particularly in areas with 'poor' or compacted soil - often the results of previous agricultural monocropping. This will include anything you aim to accomplish prior to planting out your forest garden BUT should also be considered seriously if the healthy establishement of a young forest garden is in question. This practice can greatly improve the health of your forest garden as well as its inherent yield capacities. It will also minimize future work - if you simply plant your forest garden without attention to its soil quality you are creating unnecessary competition...both for scarce nutrients and with a pre-existing 'weed' seed bank.

Most poor soils can be improved by adding organic materials and/or breaking up hard-panned and compacted soils with deep-reaching perennial root systems. However, it is also beneficial to work with beneficial annuals. For example, Yellow Sweet Clover (''Melilotus officinalis'') is an introduced annual or biennial whose root system extends as far down as 20 feet . In this manner, the plant can serve as both a soil stabilizer and a dynamic accumulator during the early years of a young forest garden. This plant is often used in organic agriculture rotations as a cover crop. It can also be used in combination with a fast-growing grain crop for livestock feed over winter months. This past season, at Mark Shepard's ''New Forest Farm'' we covered an acre with millet and yellow sweet clover. The results: the livestock (3 holstein bull calves) received a healthy 3-5 round bales of millet/clover and the yellow sweet clover will grow back in spring adding continued soil stability during southwest Wisconsin's rainiest months. Ideally, one could feed 3-5 heads of livestock by performing this strategy on 2 to 3 acres. Back to the forest garden...

It should be noted that to correctly determine a given site's desired dynamic accumulators a series of soil tests and subsoil tests should be considered. Regardless, one ought to consider growing swaths of 'mulch plants'. i.e.,stinging nettle, comfrey, sorrels and docks, vetches etc that will uptake trace elements. These patches can be harvested and mulched or composted - either in a compost pile or in a fermented compost tea.

An interesting idea I have considered lately is the dual combination of composted 'weeds' in tea form (i.e. nettle, comfrey et al) with coppice-able dynamic accumulator trees (basswoods, birches, hickories, black walnut et al). In this manner one could create a fermented and slightly aged mulch material - a layer of organic materials providing many functions in a forest garden.

For detailed analysis on species lists applicable to this concept see Appendices 2 and 3 in Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2, Design and Practice'' pp. 524-536

=Resources=
'''Dynamic Accumulators :'''

Martin Crawford's 1995 series "Fertility in Agroforestry & Forest Gardens" in ''Agroforestry News''.

Robert Kourik - ''Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally''. 1986.

Lawrence Hill - ''Comfrey: Past, Present, Future''. 1976.

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-22T01:55:38Z

Bizarro: /* Concepts */

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-22T01:52:57Z

Bizarro: /* Concepts */

[[Category:OSA]]

=Videos=

=How to=

=Concepts=
(''in no particular order'')

'''site preparation :''' Particularly in areas with 'poor' or compacted soil - often the results of previous agricultural monocropping. This will include anything you aim to accomplish prior to planting out your forest garden BUT should also be considered seriously if the healthy establishement of a young forest garden is in question. This practice can greatly improve the health of your forest garden as well as its inherent yield capacities. It will also minimize future work - if you simply plant your forest garden without attention to its soil quality you are creating unnecessary competition...both for scarce nutrients and with a pre-existing 'weed' seed bank.

Most poor soils can be improved by adding organic materials and/or breaking up hard-panned and compacted soils with deep-reaching perennial root systems. However, it is also beneficial to work with beneficial annuals. For example, Yellow Sweet Clover (''Melilotus officinalis'') is an introduced annual or biennial whose root system extends as far down as 20 feet . In this manner, the plant can serve as both a soil stabilizer and a dynamic accumulator during the early years of a young forest garden. This plant is often used in organic agriculture rotations as a cover crop. It can also be used in combination with a fast-growing grain crop for livestock feed over winter months. This past season, at Mark Shepard's ''New Forest Farm'' we covered an acre with millet and yellow sweet clover. The results: the livestock (3 holstein bull calves) received a healthy 3-5 round bales of millet/clover and the yellow sweet clover will grow back in spring adding continued soil stability during southwest Wisconsin's rainiest months. Ideally, one could feed 3-5 heads of livestock by performing this strategy on 2 to 3 acres. Back to the forest garden...

It should be noted that to correctly determine a given site's desired dynamic accumulators a series of soil tests and subsoil tests should be considered. Regardless, one ought to consider growing swaths of 'mulch plants'. i.e.,stinging nettle, comfrey, sorrels and docks, vetches etc that will uptake trace elements. These patches can be harvested and mulched or composted - either in a compost pile or in a fermented compost tea.

An interesting idea I have considered lately is the dual combination of composted 'weeds' in tea form (i.e. nettle, comfrey et al) with coppice-able dynamic accumulator trees (basswoods, birches, hickories, black walnut et al). In this manner one could create a fermented and slightly aged mulch material - a layer of organic materials providing many functions in a forest garden.

For detailed analysis on species lists applicable to this concept see Appendices 2 and 3 in Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2, Design and Practice'' pp. 524-536

=Resources=

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-22T01:51:38Z

Bizarro:

[[Category:OSA]]

=Videos=

=How to=

=Concepts=
(''in no particular order'')

'''site preparation :''' Particularly in areas with 'poor' or compacted soil - often the results of previous agricultural monocropping. This will include anything you aim to accomplish prior to planting out your forest garden BUT should also be considered seriously if the healthy establishement of a young forest garden is in question. This practice can greatly improve the health of your forest garden as well as its inherent yield capacities. It will also minimize future work - if you simply plant your forest garden without attention to its soil quality you are creating unnecessary competition...both for scarce nutrients and with a pre-existing 'weed' seed bank.

Most poor soils can be improved by adding organic materials and/or breaking up hard-panned and compacted soils with deep-reaching perennial root systems. However, it is also beneficial to work with beneficial annuals. For example, Yellow Sweet Clover (''Melilotus officinalis'') is an introduced annual or biennial whose root system extends as far down as 20 feet . In this manner, the plant can serve as both a soil stabilizer and a dynamic accumulator during the early years of a young forest garden. This plant is often used in organic agriculture rotations as a cover crop. It can also be used in combination with a fast-growing grain crop for livestock feed over winter months. This past season, at Mark Shepard's ''New Forest Farm'' we covered an acre with millet and yellow sweet clover. The results: the livestock (3 holstein bull calves) received a healthy 3-5 round bales of millet/clover and the yellow sweet clover will grow back in spring adding soil stability during southwest Wisconsin's rainy springs. Ideally, one could feed 3-5 heads of livestock by performing this strategy on 2 to 3 acres. Back to the forest garden...

It should be noted that to correctly determine a given site's desired dynamic accumulators a series of soil tests and subsoil tests should be considered. Regardless, one ought to consider growing swaths of 'mulch plants'. i.e.,stinging nettle, comfrey, sorrels and docks, vetches etc that will uptake trace elements. These patches can be harvested and mulched or composted - either in a compost pile or in a fermented compost tea.

An interesting idea I have considered lately is the dual combination of composted 'weeds' in tea form (i.e. nettle, comfrey et al) with coppice-able dynamic accumulator trees (basswoods, birches, hickories, black walnut et al). In this manner one could create a fermented and slightly aged mulch material - a layer of organic materials providing many functions in a forest garden.

For detailed analysis on species lists applicable to this concept see Appendices 2 and 3 in Dave Jacke's ''Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2, Design and Practice'' pp. 524-536

=Resources=

Seed saving

2009-02-17T03:52:16Z

Bizarro:

"Until Recent times all gardeners and farmers were stewards of the plant heritage that sustained us. Over the centuries it was seed saving that enabled people to domesticate wild plants, and this allowed communities to settle." ~ ''The Seed Savers' Handbook''

Seed saving has long been recognized as an important component of ensuring food security and locally productive varieties. Kent Whealy, founder of 'Seed Savers' Exchange', is considered the first 'Westerner' to start a public collection of home-bred garden varieties. Whealy's work, consequently, inspired Michel and Jude Fanton's founding of the 'Australia Seed Savers' Network' in the mid 1980's (as well as vocal support from permaculture co-founder, Bill Mollision, and American naturalist, David Cavagnaro). Regardless, in the coming years of global weirding this long-tenured practice will become even more important as we seek to understand the shifting extremes of our local climates. With the advent of [http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/26/norway.seeds/index.html/ 'doomsday' seed banks], we must recognize that first we must rely on ourselves.

Below is a list of seed-saving resources:

'''Books''':

''The Seed Savers' Handbook'' ~ Michel & Jude Fanton (illustrated by Alfredo Bonanno - great pointillated illustrations). A Seed Saver's Book. 1993. 176 pgs.

''Breed You Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's and Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving'' ~ Carol Deppe. Chelsea Green Publishing. 1993. 367 pgs.

''The Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation: From Seed to Tissue Culture''. Michael Dirr and Charles Heuser. Varsity Press, Athens, GA. 1987. 239 pgs. (largely considered THE book on this topic.)

''Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener's Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History''. William Woys Weaver. Henry Holt and Company.1997. 439 pgs. (Obviously, a large volume that goes into cultural and culinary histories...the anthropologist in all of us should enjoy)

'''Websites''':

[http://www.seedsave.org/ International Seed Saving Institute]

[http://www.savingourseed.org/ Saving our Seed - A seed saving project for the southeast U.S.]
[[Category:OSA]]

Seed saving

2009-02-17T02:34:45Z

Bizarro: New page: Category:OSA

[[Category:OSA]]

Category:Seed Saving

2009-02-17T02:34:00Z

Bizarro: Removing all content from page

Category:Seed Saving

2009-02-17T02:32:26Z

Bizarro: New page: Category:OSA

[[Category:OSA]]

Main Page Old

2009-02-13T01:37:22Z

Bizarro: /* Collaborative Development Process */

'''<center> <big>Open Source Ecology Wiki (OSEWiki)</big></center>'''
----

Please see [http://www.openfarmtech.org/weblog/ our weblog] for an online journal of theory in practice at our land-based facility: [[Factor e Farm]].

Feel free to [[Special:Userlogin|sign up]] and add research and content to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki Wiki] to help [[Open Source Ecology]] develop the [[Global Village Construction Set]]!

If you like what you read here please consider [[Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support|supporting Open Source Ecology]] through [[volunteer|volunteering]], [[marketing|spreading the word]], or donations.

----

'' '''Introduction''' ''

The [[Open Source Ecology]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki Wiki] is dedicated to the open, [[collaborative development]] of a basic and robust high appropriate tech infrastructure for a local economy based 'Global Village', as embodied in the list of the products and services of the [[Global Village Construction Set]]. This 'village' is ''inherently:''
*one which promotes the highest autonomy and freedom
*grounded in self-sufficiency
*dedicated to voluntary pursuits, right livelihood, and quality of life
The basic assumption for a 'Global Village' is that humans are capable of transcending the struggle for survival and resource conflicts, where this preoccupation is replaced by higher pursuits of personal and societal evolution. [[OSE Brochure|Read more]].

'' '''[[Distillations|Factor E Distillations]]''' ''

The [[Distillations|Factor E Distillations]] videos help explain the concept of [[Open Source Ecology]], the [[Main Page#Global Village Construction Set|Global Village Construction Set]], and the development at [[Factor e Farm]]. See the [[Distillations|Factor E Distillations]] page to watch the videos and check the [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/ blog] for the latest updates.

You can also see the entire overview of OSE in the [[Proposal_2008|OSE Proposal]].

Send email to [mailto:OpenSourceEcology@gmail.com OpenSourceEcology@gmail.com] for further information.

----

The rest of this page is about the [[Global Village Construction Set]] and the plan for how it will be implemented by Open Source Ecology.

<center>The [[Global Village Construction Set]]</center>

{{site header}}

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=Global Village Construction Set=

In effect, the 28 products serve as a sufficient, but incomplete, basis for a Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). We are talking about resettling land to become its stewards - whether in locations already settled or on frontiers.

Economy creates culture and culture creates politics. Politics sought are ones of freedom, voluntary contract, and human evolution in harmony with life support systems. Note that resource conflicts and overpopulation are eliminated by design. We are after the creation of new society, one which has learned from the past and moves forward with ancient wisdom and modern technology.

Furthermore, it should be noted that this is a real experiment, and product selection is based on us living with the given technologies. First, it is the development of real, economically significant hardware, product, and engineering. Second, this entire set is being compiled into one setting, and land is being populated with the respective productive agents. The aim is to define a new form of social organization where it is possible to create advanced culture, thriving in abundance and largely autonomous, on the scale of a village, not nation or state.

See a video presentation on [[Factor e Farm]] and the GVCS below, or the part on the GVCS [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-710075551990473235#20m24s here].

<html>
<center><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-710075551990473235&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed>
</center></html>

You can also view the GVCS [[UM_Presentation|slide show presentation]] for more information.

{| border="1"
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|[[Image:products.jpg]] || {{site header}}
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=Product Selection Criteria=

The selection of 28 products is based on
*Availability of a land or facility base
*Essential contribution to an infrastructure for living and working
*Essential goods and services of wide use and large markets
*Provision of a robust village economy and sufficient surplus for further developments
*Generative nature of the product, thus promoting self-replication of the village
*Selection of a widely applicable and sufficient, but not complete, range of economic activity to support a community
*Viability of a community on a village scale, perhaps 100 people, but as few as 2 or as many as sustained by the land base

=Collaborative Development Process=

The open development process involves global contributions of content to a rigorously defined process for developing, deploying, and improving the Global Village Construction Set. The rigor lies in a template that guides the development through all the necessary theoretical and practical aspects of deploying a given product. The same template, or process, is adapted to deliver all the products of the Construction Set. The template starts with product definition and ends with economically significant models of production.

If you are interested in contributing to this wiki, your first step is a quick debriefing on the issues we are trying to solve. Please bring yourself up to speed with the background, project status, and action items as described in the "Development Template" below. Once you read up on the current work and key issues being considered, you are in a position to make meaningful contributions consistent with the goals and progress of the overall project.

With a sufficient pool of technically-skilled collaborators, we aim to deploy the complete Global Village Construction Set in 3 years, starting at the latter part of 2007. The result is a formula for building your own village - whether you pursue our open source designs and business models yourself or with a group, or buy infrastructure components from providers, or buy an entire turnkey village infrastructure according to proven specifications. From that point, all you need is land and people to populate your village, and you are on your way to freedom.

=Enterprise Community Contract=

We are proposing the formation of Global Villages in the form of productive enterprise communities that strive for unprecedented quality of life:
*material abundance
*freedom from bureacracy and unnecessary activity
*total focus on one's true interests
For our particular OSE prototype implementation, we are interested in the following general essence of an ''Enterprise Community Contract'':
*2 hours of productive activity daily, such that 100% of the community's food, energy, housing, transportation, and technology essentials are produced for subsistence, with surplus production for market
**Agriculture base follows permaculture design, and includes production of water soluble organic fertilizer, orchard, nursery, and crops, as well as certain food processing and value added propositions
**Flexible fabrication produces advanced technologies ''at the cost of materials''
**Cost of living is reduced dramatically, from $20,000/year in the industrialized world, to negligible income requirements, under the assumption of high-tech self-providing
*Each participant undertakes a study program of full stewardship of the community, including:
**Agricultural production capacity
**Technological literacy to operate and maintain flex fab equipment and other machinery
**Numeracy to facilitate design
**Study of the mind and body to expand one's consciousness, skills, and abilities, and to disseminate such human augmentation widely towards eliminating mind control of the masses
*Entry of new people can be negotiated by the new participants providing skills and productive contribution to the community
*Beyond the 2 hour requirement, participants follow a research lifestyle to promote further development of the community or of the greater world

=Enabling Technology - Salient Features of Technology Base=

Without going into details, the main features for the comprehensive technology base are:
*''Hybridization of power devices'' - decoupling of power source from the working unit in order to produce electrical drive is a formula for increasing integrated efficiency of electromechanical devices such as electric [[vehicle]]s, tools, heavy equipment, etc. For example, the hybrid car decouples the engine from its wheels by using an electrical generator to feed electric wheel motors. Note that this eliminates the clutch, transmission, crank case and its oil, differential, drive train, and other parts, and replaces these items with electric wire from the generator to electric motor. This is a huge efficiency leap, one in fuel efficiency, and two, in eliminating billions of dollars of industry which is outdated today due to the hybridization option. As such, we can talk of complex machines with huge simplification, assuming easy access to infinitely scaleable and controllable, low cost electric motors (these do not exist today). For example, we can envision an agricultural combine where each moving part is powered by its own electric motor - producing a leap in simplification and maintenance of the overall machine - as all belts, pulleys, gears, and other power transmission components driven by a single engine - are all replaced by electric wire. One can point to many examples where such strategy would provide leapfrog advance in device simplicity and maintenance.

*''Solar turbine power generation including heat storage - look at [[Solar Turbine CHP System]]

*''Open source fab lab'' - combine and expand the [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multimachine/Multimachine] with xyz table as in RepRap (http://reprap.org/), and you can envision a robust fabrication device that integrates open source computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM). This device would perform a large variety of machining and fabrication operations, and would be producible at the cost of materials if metal casting is available. When deployed, we are talking of '''''producing any advanced object or device at the cost of materials'''''. ''Would you like to fabricate an electric motor for your personal transport vehicle? Here, I'll email you a file to make on your local village fabber''. In practice, one could conceptualize a single or several Multimachines, with their milling-drilling-lathing functions, surrounding an xyz motion platform with interchangeable heads. These heads could include acetylene torch attachment, plasma cutter, CO2 laser, router, hot wire, or additive heads such as a plastic extruder found in RepRap. This overall fab lab concept could start with a basic machine such as the Multimachine, with computer controls and table added in time. As such, this is a realistic proposition - with supporting open source knowhow with significant advancement already available. This propels civilization to new levels of decentralized material prosperity, and implies significant reduction of resource conflicts, especially if material feedstocks are sourced locally - as in the next point.

Here is an initial Fab Lab design:
[[Image:Fab_Lab.jpg]]

Here is a sample Product Matrix that falls right out of Fab Lab capacities:

[[Image:Product_Matrix.jpg]]

*''Production of local feedstocks''-
**Wood and structural masonry compressed earth block (CEB) for construction - produced from on-site trees and soils
**[[Compressed Fuel Gas]] for cooking or melting metal - gas produced from trees
**[[Bioplastics]] - such as cellophane from trees
**Biofuels - [[Fuel Alcohol]] in temperate zones, palm oil in tropical zones
**Industrial detritus (waste materials) processing - includes [[Metal Casting and Extrusion]] or [[Plastic Extrusion & Molding]]
**[[Aluminum Extraction From Clays]]

=Sample Scenario=

Imagine a village with buildings of dirt (CEB) with year-round greenhouses (sawmill, CEB, bioplastics from local trees), with all facility energy produced by a solar turbine, where people drive hybrid cars with car bodies (bioplastics) made from local weeds, with critical motors and metal structures (aluminum) extracted from on-site clay, which are fueled by alcohol produced on-site, on a wireless network linked to the greater world. That's just a sampling of the technology base. Food, energy, housing sufficiency. There are no poor among us - because we are all evolving human beings and farmer scientists.

=Development Template=

An Index for the Open Source Technology Template is shown here, including explanation of each heading. This template, properly adapted, shall be the famework seen when you go into any of the 28 products in the links on top of this page.

#'''Product Definition'''
##'''General''' - What is the product, what needs does it meet, why is it relevant to a village economy, and how is it relevant to making a better world
##'''General Scope''' - Options, variations in implementation, spinoffs, phases, and evolutions that the product is aimed to include. This section reveals the deployment strategy - in terms of the desirable steps to be taken towards product deployment.
##'''Product Ecology''' - Relationship to other products in a village, as well as ecological qualities of the product, including environmental, human, and technological aspects.
###Localization - how the product may be produced and sourced locally, and what global resource flows it can displace
###Scaleability - exploration of how the product may be designed to scale in production or output
###Analysis of Scale - Exploration of the appropriate scale for carrying out this enterprise, based on the notion that human orgnization works most effectively up to a certain size, after which organization begins to break down. The effective scale may change depending on the scenario.
###Lifecycle Analysis - material flows analysis, 'from crust to dust'
##'''Enterprise Options''' - Possible enterprises that may be undertaken, as related to the given product, in the sense of [[neosubsistence]] - or providing both for the needs of the community and for outside markets. Note that village design favors neosubsistence in order to integrate participants' lifestyles for increased self-sufficiency. Enterprise may involve production of the product itself, fabrication of devices that build the product itself, production of other items using the product, education, training, certification, consulting, further R&D activities, and others
##'''Development Approach'''
###Timeline
###Development budget - This is a highly flexible item, since the core development team labor has been donated until project completion, and a research facility is available. Costs incur for materials, outsourcing, and hiring of independent contractors. All costs may be eliminated by collaborative contributions, and resources come in as they are needed in a bootstrapping fashion. In case larger contributions become available for top-down funding, it is useful to do general accounting, and to specify a required budget in terms of those allocations that would propel the project forward significantly. Thus project financial accounting should include:
####Value spent - total value of monetary and in-kind contributions utilized specifically by the project, and provided by voluntary contributions; summed in US dollars; voluntary labor is not counted
####Value available - resources that are available but have not yet been utilized
####Value needed - This is what's needed in labor and materials to complete the project under two scenarios: normal and accelerated. The normal scenario assumes voluntary labor and materials at cost. The accelerated scenario refers to spending money to outsource the necessary developments. Outsourcing means spending the money on independent contractors who would otherwise not contribute their services in a volunteer fashion. For this, labor is accounted in hours. In the industrialized world, typical professional services may be $50 per hour.
##'''Deliverables and Product Specifications''' - Specific, robust implementations of products taken from the ''General Scope'' upon which development will focus in this wiki. Forks to different implementations or spinoffs may occur, but should initially be limited to the 28 products that may be administered by a core development team, unless the core team has a sufficient number of administrators who can retain clear direction based on purity of conception, and who can provide quality control of the content.
##'''Industry Standards''' - This is a brief summary of techniques and product specifications that are found currently in mainstream market competition. This is provided to show a frame of reference that reveals how our developments relate to the status quo, and at what point they differentiate or evolve from accepted practice.
##'''Market and Market Segmentation'''
##'''Salient Features and Keys to Success''' - Explanation of the critical features of the '''Deliverables''', and how they can produce breakthrough developments, such as those of ecological features, durability, cost reduction, ergonomics of production, and so forth.
#'''Technical Design''' Ã¢ÂÂ The general assumptions for product design are, wherever possible: (1), lifetime design, (2), design for disassembly (DfD), (3), modularity, and (4), scaleability. Technical design progress will be visible in real-time, as updates are posted on an ongoing basis.
##''' Product System Design''' Ã¢ÂÂ This parts starts to define the technical aspects of products beyond Product Definition. This includes the product itself and framework of other products within which the product is used or fabricated. Product system design includes components of the Scope as defined in Product Definition. Different options, variations, or implementations of a product are included. Product system design is an iterative definition, such that the best approach will be pursued as additional information becomes available. Particular product development forks may be selected. Product system design includes:
###Diagrams and Conceptual Drawings - these may include:
####pattern language icons that help simplify technological discussion, see [[technology pattern language icons]]
####Structural diagram of the technology
####Funcional or process diagram
####Workflow for productive activities
###Technical Issues Ã¢ÂÂ main technical issues to be addressed and resolved
###Deployment Strategy Ã¢ÂÂ Prioritization of steps to be taken, such as design Ã¢ÂÂ prototyping Ã¢ÂÂ fabrication iterations. The goal is to build on past work, involve additional developers, obtain peer review, identify prototyping collaborations, and follow import substitution to build capacity locally, until an integrated technology base, including provision of feedstocks, is under control of a community.
###Performance specifications
###Calculations: design calculations, yields, rates, structural calculations, power requirements, ergonomics of production - labor and fatigue, time requirements for production, economic breakeven analysis, scaleability calculations, growth calculations
###Technical drawings and CAD
###CAM files whenever available
##''' Component Design''' Ã¢ÂÂ Design of components related to the product system. This will be the main thrust of the wiki, as product ecologies are based on individual components. These components are likely to be located on their own subpage, because each component design has a number of subsections:
###Diagrams
###Conceptual drawings
###Performance specifications
###Performance calculations
###Technical drawings and CAD
###CAM files whenever available
##'''Subcomponents'''Ã¢ÂÂ breakdown of components into subcomponents will be provided as needed.
#'''Deployment''' - Deployment prograss is visible by the documentation provided in the sections above, but tangible results of substance can be documented by pictures, video, data, and so forth. Progress is designed to be transparent to the observer.
##'''Production steps''' - fabrication, assembly, and any strategic insights of the production process
##'''Flexible fabrication or production''' - describes infrastructure requirements (equipment, utilities, etc.), tool requirements, techniques, processes used
##'''Bill of materials''' - materials, sourcing, and prices of required materials or feedstocks
##'''Pictures and Video''' - of materials, parts, prototypes, working models
##'''Data'''- any results that are measured
#'''Documentation and Education'''- this section is dedicated to preparing and disseminating results, in the form of publications and technical reports.
##'''Documentation''' - reports on results, or more comprehensive reports educating interested individuals in mastering techniques under consideration.
##'''Enterprise Plans''' - The bottom line to this entire project is whether economically significant goods and services can be produced in a replicable fashion. Are people able to use the presented information for entrepreneurial, right livelihood goals? The best mark of a complete development process is the number of ''independent'' replications. That is, is the information sufficiently complete and clear, such that people can egage in an entrepreneurial, subsistence, or neosubsistence opportunity? To facilitate this process, we are publishing ''enterprise plans'' that help to clarify and deploy enterprise opportunities related to the products in this wiki. Since the authors will be either directly or indirectly engaged in many or all of the projects- in an economically significan way- it is natural for working business models to be developed and shared. It may be claimed that enterprise plans, coupled with thorough background information - is the essence of a true education. A true education is one in which rapid learning enables one to be a self-sufficient, productive, and constructive steward of their community and of the greater world.
#'''Collaboration''' - this section is a clear definition of work that needs to be done and how in particular the development and deployment process can be shared with the greater community. The basic procedure is for the collaborator to learn about the background and status, and to begin addressing the issues that need to be addressed. The list of ''Developments needed'' is the basic call for contributions.
##'''Review of project status'''
##'''Current Steps''' - lists current development work that is being done
##'''''Developments needed''''' -
###General - wiki markup, supporting links, relevant background, soliciting peer reviewers, and other details at 'Identifying stakeholders' below - are always welcome.
###Specific - This is the essential part of the wiki, as it lists the specific tasks to be done for project deployment. Collaborators should view this list and pursue addressing issues.
####Background - this motivates why a particular approach or implementation was chosen, and why others have been eliminated, and, possibly, under what conditions the eliminated options could be revisited.
####Information - This is a list of information-level tasks to be done, such as collecting background information, producing designs, performing engineering calculation, doing feasibility studies
####Implementation - This is a list of hardware-level tasks, such as fabricating prototypes, procuring materials, and so forth.
##'''Sign-in''' - Please sign in with your name and contact information if you are contributing information. Name, email, and Skype are preferable. This is to facilitate communication.
#'''Resource Development''' - This section is aimed to organize resource development or funding for project deployment. This includes:
##'''Identifying stakeholders''' - this is a list and description of individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions that may be particularly interested in the product under development, at any of these levels:
###Information collaboration
####Wiki structuring, markup
####Addition of supporting references
####Production of diagrams, flowcharts, 3D computer models, and other qualitative information architecture
####Technical calculations, drawings, CAD, CAM, other technical designs
###Prototyping - collaborators with access to fabrication capacity
###Funding
###Preordering working products - see ''Soliciting stakeholders'' below ###Grantwriting - see below
###Publicity - help in getting the word out on developments, and recruiting new collaborators
###User/fabricator training and accreditation - New skills will be required to operate the economy proposed here. Training and accreditation is a natural part of product dissemination.
###Standards and certification development - Independent review will be solicited as a means to verify and control quality of products and services.
###Other
##'''Grantwriting''' - The development process is designed to have sufficient background, motivation, definition of issues, breakthrough potential, technical content, and integrated comprehensivity; such that grants and various proposals for support should fall out as a direct byproduct of the information content. This is a mechanism for outsourcing some of the fundraising function of this deployment effort. We encourage codevelopers to study any or all of the products to understand them sufficiently well to be capable of writing grants related to product deployment.
###Volunteer grantwriters - One avenue is grantwriters who volunteer to write grants at no cost grantwriters.
###Professional, outcome-based grantwriters - These grantwriters collaborate in grantwriting by adding value to the proposal effort, and get paid a percentage upon success of bringing in resources
##'''Collaborative Stakeholder Funding''' - Once products are demonstrated, we will solicit stakeholders to fund production capacity. This is a highly innovative social enterprise model, where stakeholders contribute a small amount, say $50, to the actual building of a facility for producing a specific item under the model of flexible fabrication. Funding will go towards: (1), building the flexible fabrication facility with the appropriate equipment, (2), bringing in and training a person who will operate the flexible fabrication facility. The motivation for the stakeholders is an absolutely lowest cost product - at near the price of materials - if the design is sufficiently simple and flex fab capacity is sufficiently advanced, to minimize the cost of production. The trick here is to be able to fund a facility collaboratively, such that the price reduction in the cost of production can be realized. This is essentially a question of distributing the development and production cost via a collaborative enterprise model.
##'''Tool and Material Donations'''
##'''Charitable Contributions'''

=Open Engineering Strategy=
Here is a diagram of the engineering development strategy:

[[Image:Engineering_Strategy.jpg]]

=Definition of Open Source Hardware and OSE Specifications=

See the updated entry for OSE Spec [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=OSE_Specifications here].

We like to be clear about the meaning of ''open,'' or ''open source,''' as used in this work for items of physical production. By ''open source,'' we mean documented to the point where one may replicate a given item, ''without even consulting with the developers.'' To us, this embodies the most complete form of documentation possible, where sufficient detail is provided to enable independent replication. This is ''open source'' embodied in ''OSE Specifications''. Other features of OSE Specificationsare:

#Freely downloadable documentation
#DfD, lifetime design
#Simplicity and low cost are of prime importance
#Replaceable components
#Modular Design
#Scaleability
#Localization
##Level 1 - product fabrication or production is local
##Level 2 - material sourcing is local
#Product evolution - phases and versions are pursued
#Concrete Flexible Fabrication mechanism exists for others to purchase the product at reasonable cost
#Open franchising - replicable enterprise design is available, and training exists for entrepreneurs

Thus, these features are meant to promote ''[http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/dn/vol4/fotopoulos_technology.htm#_ftn2 liberatory technology]'' - open, replicable, essential, optimal, and ecological goods and services for humankind living in harmony with natural life support systems.

=Working Assumptions=

Here is a partial list of assumptions that we are making as we go about the development work of this wiki. These assumptions help one to understand our motivations and approach.
# Underlying dynamics of human civilizations are related to peoples' resource base. The resource base, and its control through the control of other humans, is the feedstock for power and its accumulation. Resource conflicts occur because people have not yet learned to manage the global resource base without stealing from others. In other words, society dynamics have not transcended the brute struggle for survival. As a society, we remain on the bottom steps of Maslow's pyramid. Transcending resource conflicts by creation of abundance, on the unit scales of few hundreds to few thousands of humans, is a present possibility under the assumption of open source knowledge flows and advanced technical capacities for material production.
# Today, most humans are controlled not by a commercial force (armies) but by information and social engineering that feeds the commerce itself. Understanding means of social control; understanding the mechanics of one's mind, body, and spirit; learning to discern mechanics of mind control and propaganda as they are used in New World Order agendas; and applying learnings to meditation, expansion of consciousness, and evolution of one's awareness and powers are all crucial if civilization is to escape the control of commercialism and is to give up its dependence on a centralized, planned economy.
# Said propaganda and conditioning has successfully removed the notion of self-sufficiency as a viable means of livelihood. Most people are afraid of self-sufficiency and consider it a return to the stone age. Most people cannot envision that advanced civilization can be created in small (100-1000 person), self-sufficient, highly skilled communities. Furthermore, most people do not realize that it is possible to educate, skill, and evolve human beings such that an integrated, self-sufficient lifestyle option that promotes advanced civilization on a small scale of human organization is created. It it possible to achieve this level of excellence if people are taught real knowledge and wisdom, as opposed to undergoing global workforce training.
# Education curricula have typically deleted practical applications deliberately, to produce subjects of the global workforce. If education is reinstated Ã¢ÂÂ then self-sufficiency will emerge as a natural option.
# Self-sufficiency is not an antisocial behavior, but a means to full individual and community accountability for resource conflicts, foul politics, and other corruptions of large-scale endeavors. (review works of Gandhi, Schumacher, Fuller) Self-sufficiency is a means to highest quality life Ã¢ÂÂ by definition, one is in control of one's destiny when one is self-sufficient. The assumption of self-sufficiency is that its practitioners must be highly skilled, and not products of centralist education.
# By self-sufficient, we mean in full control of providing one's needs. Note that self-sufficiency refers to needs - those things that allow one to survive in absolute health - and not wants. Self-sufficiency does not imply a solo, isolationist endeavor. Self-sufficiency may be accomplished with the help of as many people as it is possible to maintain full accountability, transparency, and sound ethics within that group. This group may be dispersed globally. Historically, sociology of human settlements has shown that this scale of self-sufficiency is a few hundred people. (see E.F. Schumacher; other references)
# The State promotes well-paid incompetence, largely through specialization, such that subjects produce sufficient surplus to pay for their own oppression.
# Education, media, and social engineering programs have subjugated human integrity to passive consumerism, with its related problems (resource conflicts, loss of freedom such as wage slavery). The only way out of this is creating a framework within which humans can prosper: provision of true education, learning of practical skills, stewardship of land, advanced technology for the people, and open access to economically significant knowhow.
# Import substitution is reducing dependence on external feedstocks and replacing them with local ones. People in control of their resources control their own destiny. Thus, to localize the essential parts of an economy completely is the prime formula for social stability. Localization should not be considered a struggle, but merely a possibility. It is a possibility that is not recognized because most people, as specialists, lack integrated technical literacy and skills that make a local economy feasible.

=Deployment=

'''The Rubber Hits the Road: OSE Product Cycle'''

To deploy the technological items of interest, we pursue a series of 15 steps known as the ''OSE Product Cycle''. We develop the technologies of interest one by one, and as the components become available, we add them to the infrastructure of our facility, [http://www.example.com Factor e Farm].

It is a great challenge to design a collaborative development program for creating a world-class facility for open source economic development. The first natural challenge is that we are asking remote co-developers to take interest in the project, without enjoying the full benefit of seeing the integrated fruits of the effort – namely, the building of the facility itself. We address this point by motivating the development of each of the 28 key technologies for infrastructure building as products in their own right. We divide and conquer, and propose the development of the 28 technologies through the avenue of explicit products that utilize these technologies. As such, we can attract stakeholders interested in particular products, and develop the key generative technologies as part of that process. We already mentioned that our endpoint is optimized production facilities for products.

The above paragraph begins to address the issue of gathering stakeholders for the development process. However, it does not addressed the various challenges that lie in the path of deploying the 28 technologies- the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS)- via a distributed, open source pathway. The key challenges and some solutions are proposed in Figure 14.

[[Image:cycle.jpg]]

Figure 14. Challenges and solutions for deploying Global Village Construction Set component production for internal and outside markets.

The points of Fig. 14 are several:

#Synthesizing the entire Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is an ambitious endeavor.
#If we are talking about 28 technologies, and perhaps a 6 month development period until optimized production for each, then there is no way that we could deploy the GVCS, and build a world-class open source research and development facility, within our proposed time frame of 3 years (2008-2010).
#The only way to meet the timeline goal is to proceed with parallel development of the technologies.
#In order to pursue parallel development, funding must be available to accelerate progress.
#We will pursue a bounty funding mechanism based on attractive product packages and clear definitions of deliverables.

A detailed, step-by-step process, or deployment strategy, emerges out of Fig. 14. for rapid deployment of essential technologies for Global Village construction. It relies on distributed stakeholder co-funding cycles of approximately 1 month in duration, utilizing a social enterprise internet platform.

=OSE Product Cycle=

This OSE Product Development Cycle is:

#'''Core Team:''' Assemble a core development team for each product. This team must serve the functions of: (1), social enterprise website development and fundraising management; (2), technical development; (3), strategic development; (4), review team.
#'''Ecological Review:''' Publish Ecological Review on website. This review introduces the product of interest and all its attributes, and requests feedback on product choice for meeting a particular service. For example, for renewable energy production, the boundary layer turbine with solar concentrators is considered. In this technology choice, we propose a certain set of deliverables, and challenge the audience to come up with a better solution based on ecological design and localization agendas. We provide the Ecological Review as a motivation for certain products, which is our marketing effort to attract stakeholders to our technology choice. After considerable review, we believe that our product choices represent the best available technology for meeting certain needs, as supported by the Product Selection Metric in this proposal, and as motivated by ecological features, ease of replicability, and localization potential.
#'''Product Definition:''' Beyond the Ecological Review we define the Product Specifications of the Deliverable. This fills the clear deliverables requirement of Fig. 14. This includes a timeline and budget for product delivery.
#'''Design Phase:''' Next, we produce a Design, BOM, Sourcing Information, and Fabrication Procedure. This is published on the enterprise website.
#'''Review:''' We then send the information from step 4 out for review. The first level of review is a technical review team. This team of about 5 qualified people reviews the (1) technological aspects, (2), social merit, (3), P2P economy effects, (4) Quality of Life merit, (5), merit from the standpoint of liberatory technology if production time is counted , (6) ecological and regenerative merit, (7), dissemination and replication potential. The results of this review process are then sent out to an external, distributed review team, to verify whether the technical expert opinion holds merit with non-experts in any of the fields.
#'''Bids:''' Three bids are requested from prospective fabricators for prototype fabrication after the design has been agreed upon.
#'''Fundraiser Recruitment:''' Now the fundraising cycle proper begins. The first step is to recruit a fundraising team. This team of 10 or so individuals who will lead a publicity effort to direct others to our social enterprise site to request funding. We are looking for a large number of stakeholders to share the development risk, with small donations, and a possible funding collection tool such as Fundable.org.
#'''Fundraising:''' The role of the fundraising team is to identify potential stakeholders, contact them, and direct them to the website. We propose a week of conscientious fundraising by this team to collect the necessary funding. After 1 week, progress will be evaluated to update fundraising strategy. Details of disbursement upon successful funding are determined on a project-by-project basis, and are to be documented in the deliverable definition (step 3).
#'''Product Delivery:''' After a successful funding cycle of approximately 1 month, the building of a prototype (or other deliverable) is funded and product is delivered to Factor e Farm.
#'''Product Testing:''' The funding cycle is repeated for every step of the product development process. The step after an initial prototype is product testing. This may require certain infrastructure or outsourced testing procedures, and if costs are associated, this step will cover them.
#'''Prototype Optimization:''' The next funding iteration is to deploy an optimized prototype. This includes any redesign, and involves the fabrication of an entire device, from gound-up if needed, to document the ergonomics of optimized production.
#'''Fabrication Development:''' The next iteration is to deploy an optimized fabrication facility. This is probably the major cost step for all the technologies, unless the infrastructure and machining requirements are already satisfied by the existing flexible fabrication capacity at Factor e Farm. The goal is to have optimal production capacity for several or all of the products being fabricated at the same time.
#'''Fabricator Recruiting:''' Factor e Farm will provide an in-house fabricator (person) at the outset of a particular production effort. New people will be absorbed into the operation as soon as possible so that the Factor e Team could proceed to other products. This requires preparation of training materials and training time for the new participants.
#'''Fabrication Optimization:''' After a fabrication facility is tested, production results are replicable, and quality control requirements are met, optimizations are made to the production facility itself. This may include installation of additional equipment or reorganization of the work space.
#'''Production:''' Once step 14 is complete, production can begin in full. Orders may be accepted and filled at this point.
#'''Enterprise Replication:''' Once full production is in place, we will teach prospective producers via freely-downloadable documentation, on-site training internships, and workshops.

We will test the above 15-step strategy immediately by applying it to:

#The CEB machine fabrication facility development, with XYZ table developed as part of the program (components: CEB, XYZ table)
#Solar Turbine electrical generator prototype fabrication (components: Babington burner, steam generator, turbine, solar concentrators, Multimachine, electronics fabrication)
#Swing-blade circular sawmill prototype fabrication

The above projects are prioritized to meet our building (CEB and Sawmill) and energy needs.

=Products=

Here is a brief description of the technologies that we are developing.

==CEB Press==

CEB - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block Compresssed Earth Block press] - regarded as the highest quality natural building method; also used in upscale housing; does not require curing - so may be built continuously; lends itself to 100% onsite building material sourcing; excellent thermal, acoustic, and strength; aka structural masonry. Also usable in fences, cisterns, road paving, Usable for ovens in a bakery, pond dams, thermal storage cisterns, silos. Used for barns, dairy plant, bakery building, additinal housing, greenhouses, etc. I would go so far as that could be the secret weapon of the entire operation. Other connections in diagram: requires soil to be pulverized, which may be done with the agricultural spader. May be used for building raised beds, modular building and greenhouse units. High value flex fab enterprise opportunity for any entrepreneur interested in fabrication of machine- huge profits are possible, because other CEBs are expensive ($25k for one of 3-5 brick/minute performance). Livelihood opportunity for independent builders. Requires as little as 1 person to operate. OSE design is based on power from tractor hydraulics - where the tractor is a general tool that can supply power to a large number of devices. Output with 2 people - a 6 foot high round wall, 20 feet in diameter, 1 foot thick, can be built in one 8 hour day. Fabrication is simple - after metal is cut - a drill press is required for drilling holes for [[design-for-disassembly]] structure. Welding is required in a few places where bolting is not practical, such as the hopper box. Summary: a high performance, rapid, semi-skilled building technique, which lends itself as a building method for creating advanced civilizations. Lifetime design.

[[Category:Main]]

Solar cubicle

2009-02-12T23:41:25Z

Bizarro: /* Introduction */

=Introduction=

Created Feb. 12, 2009

The solar cubicle is the cheapest, fastest, easiest way to build housing for new people at Factor e Farm. Read our [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Community_Portal#Social_Technology_Approach Social Technology Approach] to understand why we need to build now (Feb., 2009). As 'unecological' and as pedestrian as this may look, this is the best option we can come up with at present. Campers are much more expensive, and tents are a backup option that only a few people are willing to take.

The basic structure is made from an OSB-clad stick frame which makes a cube of 8x8x8' dimensions. A small stove is placed in the cubicle for 4-season living, and R11 fiberglass insulation is used on all 4 sides of the cube. All sides are an OSB-2x4-OSB sandwich, and the floor lays on cinder blocks or other temporary foundation. The south side has a large window for solar gain. The bill of materials (BOM) for an insulated and heated cubicle is:

[[Image:solarcube_winter.jpg]]

The BOM for the 3-season cubicle is:

[[Image:solarcube_summer.jpg]]

[[Category:Build a Village Program]]

Greg Landua of Gaia University and The Farm, ETC

2009-02-10T16:49:22Z

Bizarro: New page: '''Joseph''': An open source permaculture design. Implemented by, you guessed it, Open Source equipment. No strings attached. No thousands of dollars needed to support having persons fly ...

'''Joseph''':

An open source permaculture design. Implemented by, you guessed it, Open Source equipment. No strings attached. No thousands of dollars needed to support having persons fly in and around etc. No fees for 'big name' instructors...rather, a completely transparent design process from beginning to finish. In my opinion, this could be an entirely new way of performing designs in an entirely new economy.

Thoughts?

~Joseph

(Particularly considering how busy this Fall is going to be...)

'''Greg''':

How about next spring?

that would be a good time scale to get our duck in a row and solidify alliances.

then we can bring a development group down to Nicaragua and other places, and also run some stuff out of the ETC...put together a whole curriculum.

that would be my two cents plus a little.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Category:Greg Landua

2009-02-10T15:56:46Z

Bizarro: New page: Category: Outreach_and_Development Greg Landua of Gaia University and The Farm, ETC

[[Category: Outreach_and_Development]]
[[Greg Landua of Gaia University and The Farm, ETC]]

Collaboration Platforms

2009-02-09T03:37:19Z

Bizarro: /* Strategy towards applying existing platforms to the Global Village Construction Set */

=Introduction=

Please list all known collaboration platforms relevant to physical product development here. After we compile a list, we will analyze it and determine a strategy for using these platforms towards creating the [[Global Village Construction Set]] in conjunction with this wiki, the factorefarm.org Drupal site, factorefarm.org/weblog blog, and the Factor e Farm physical facility and collaboratory.

=List=
*http://www.gaiau.org/
*http://open-innovation-projects.org/project-list/
*Science for Humanity - As you will see from the website there is a tab called 'Seekers'. If you click on one of the sub sections under this tab you will be able to start a discussion in the relevant area. - http://www.scienceforhumanity.net/challenge-process.html
*http://osengineering.org/sitemap.html
*Network for Open Scientific Innovation - http://freedomofscience.org/
*Thinkcycle.org - now defunct?
*http://globalswadeshi.net
*Global Villages google group
*Minciu Sodas' http://www.worknets.org/

=Suggestions=

=Strategy towards applying existing platforms to the [[Global Village Construction Set]]=
*'''Gaia University''':Develop credible degree pathways in collaboration with Gaia's pre-existing network of experts and advisers. Contemporaneously, Factor E and its [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 True Fans] can develop a peer group of experts and advisers to facilitate the advancement of the Global Village Construction Set. The students attracted to this program will be accredited through Gaia University, in collaboration with Open Source Ecology and the many component projects of the [[Global Village Construction Set]]. These developments can lead to the future establishment of a Midwest-based Gaia University/Open Source Ecology union; surely, amid other productive sets of symbiotic relationships.

'''Degree Programs under Consideration :'''
--to be recorded in near future--

[[Category:Collaboration]]

Collaboration Platforms

2009-02-09T03:36:56Z

Bizarro: /* Strategy towards applying existing platforms to the Global Village Construction Set */

=Introduction=

Please list all known collaboration platforms relevant to physical product development here. After we compile a list, we will analyze it and determine a strategy for using these platforms towards creating the [[Global Village Construction Set]] in conjunction with this wiki, the factorefarm.org Drupal site, factorefarm.org/weblog blog, and the Factor e Farm physical facility and collaboratory.

=List=
*http://www.gaiau.org/
*http://open-innovation-projects.org/project-list/
*Science for Humanity - As you will see from the website there is a tab called 'Seekers'. If you click on one of the sub sections under this tab you will be able to start a discussion in the relevant area. - http://www.scienceforhumanity.net/challenge-process.html
*http://osengineering.org/sitemap.html
*Network for Open Scientific Innovation - http://freedomofscience.org/
*Thinkcycle.org - now defunct?
*http://globalswadeshi.net
*Global Villages google group
*Minciu Sodas' http://www.worknets.org/

=Suggestions=

=Strategy towards applying existing platforms to the [[Global Village Construction Set]]=
*'''Gaia University''':Develop credible degree pathways in collaboration with Gaia's pre-existing network of experts and advisers. Contemporaneously, Factor E and its [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 True Fans] can develop a peer group of experts and advisers to facilitate the advancement of the Global Village Construction Set. The students attracted to this program will be accredited through Gaia University, in collaboration with Open Source Ecology and the many component projects of the [[Global Village Construction Set]]. These developments can lead to the future establishment of a Midwest-based Gaia University/Open Source Ecology union; surely, amid other productive sets of symbiotic relationships.

'''Degrees Programs under Consideration :'''
--to be recorded in near future--

[[Category:Collaboration]]

CEB Press

2009-02-09T01:08:44Z

Bizarro:

{{site header}}

----

=Introduction=

This page is an introduction to the collaborative development of a high performance Compressed Earth Block (CEB) press,'' The Liberator.'' We aim to provide a low-cost, ecological, ergonomical, and economically-significant press. The design process and final plans will be "Open Source"-- part of the public domain, with free access to anyone. The press is designed through voluntary efforts. Funding for parts, labor, testing, and development are procured via donations from interested parties (ie. builders, buyers, producers of CEB presses; community developers; general supporters of our work). At the same time, we are developing an open source enterprise, according to the principles of [http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Neocommercialization neocommercialization] If you are interested in helping the development process in any way, please feel free to [mailto:joseph.dolittle@gmail.com contact us].

As detailed in the outline above, below is an overview of the CEB, our work on ''The Liberator'' including timeline and budget goals, and resources. For more details, please also see our weblog which we update with CEB information frequently. [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?cat=13# This link] will send you directly to CEB-relevant posts.

=OSE Product Development Cycle - CEB Overview=

The key to a low cost product is to utilize open source development and co-funding. The essence of the fundraising mechanism is that a large pool of stakeholders are invited to make small, voluntary contributions by using an online funding basket with PayPal (currently under development by collaborator Sam Rose). When a designated sum is collected, the project moves forward. When the sum is not collected, then none of the PayPal commitments are charged.

Potential stakeholders for "The Liberator" include those interested in:

#Buying a CEB press at a predicted cost of $3-5k (dependant on fabrication abilities), for a machine that produces 3-5 bricks per minute (ie. contractors, owner-builders, brick-producing enterpriser, natural builders, community developers)
#Building a CEB press (DIY or low-budget individuals, organizations, and companies)
#Starting an enterprise for producing CEB presses (distributed production reduces shipping costs and increases local control)
#Our overall goals at Open Source Ecology (appropriate technology development; sustainable and just living and livelihoods; localized production)

Our general strategy and organizational process for developing products, including the CEB is described [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Deployment here].

On this page, we go through the actual process, from concepts (see 2.2 eco-review) to design (2.4) to prototype to fabrication facility (2.4.3) to production for market.

The timeline for 2008 is:

[[Image:CEB_timelin.jpg]]

This timeline shows the ''development cycles'' on top, along with the corresponding ''funding cycles'' and ''deliverables'' in green and red. For each development cycle, we adapt a 10-step procedure, whose steps are shown at the bottom of the diagram.

In short, the development process cycles through two prototypes of the CEB machine itself, and two prototypes of an XYZ, computer controlled torch table (see [http://www.torchmate.com/industrial/index.htm professional version] and [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Torch_Table open source version]). The torch table will be used to automate the fabrication of the CEB machine, reducing fabrication time by an estimated 20 hours, and thus, also reducing the cost of the final product.

The development timeline also includes building actual structures to test the quality of the blocks and durability and ease of use of the press. Moreover, we will build a production facility for the CEB machines, and develop an open source business model to disseminate production of these machines to other areas of the world.

==[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#OSE_Product_Cycle '''Step 1. Core Team''']==

Technical Development: [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/ Factor e Team]

Social Enterprise Development: [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Sam_Rose Sam Rose]

We are looking for peer reviewers, strategic developers, and a fundraising team.

==[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#OSE_Product_Cycle '''Step 2. Ecological Review''']==

last updated January 27, 2008

We ask a basic question at the outset: is the CEB press worth developing? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block Wikipedia] provides a neutral overview of the CEB construction method. We do not have a neutral evaluation of this building technique because we conclude that no other building method comes close when an integrated evaluation is considered, especially in the USA.

Consider these main building options for North America. You have a choice of wood: stick-frame, timber frame, post and beam; structural masonry: brick, concrete block, rock, CEB (note that CEB falls into the class of structural masonry); earth-mix: adobe, rammed earth, stabilized earth blocks, cob, earthbag; and other natural building methods: strawbale, cordwood, papercrete, earthships and variations of all types. Here are some considerations.

'''Suitability of building technique for economic localization'''

A Compressed Earth Block Press has a three fold potential to influence local economies in a positive way: by creating a building medium, as part of a "CEB brickworks", and through local press manufacturing.

Our personal experience with earthbag and cordwood construction has demonstrated that natural building methods may be cheap, but they take time. (We estimated $400 and 400 people hours went into the walls and roof of a ~200 square foot room.) A commerical, pre-built 200 sq ft [http://www.philssheds.com/sheds.htm#Deluxe "deluxe shed"] costs $4,400. Missouri minimum wage is $6.50, but if we gave the workers a nice $10/hour, the price is equivalent. ([http://www.postwoodworking.com/shed_pricing.asp Another company] quoted their shed at $4,009 and I found a two-year old aluminum one on craigslist for $1500, which was originally bought at $2500.)

Compressed Earth Blocks open the possibility for a building method that is both natural and easy to construct. What makes them unique from other natural building methods? Uniformity. Wayne Nelson of Habitat for Humanity in his piece entitled [http://www.networkearth.org/naturalbuilding/ceb.html "Compressed Earth Blocks"] says, "Uniformly sized building components can result in less waste, faster construction and the possibility of using other pre-made components or modular manufactured building elements." High uniformity gives CEB a competitive advantage over other natural building methods, allowing the CEB to influence local economies as a building medium.

A CEB press also can also enhance the local economy through a brickworks facitility. Bricks can be made competitively at a local scale. In "Compressed Earth Block Volume 1: Manual of Production" by CRA Terre, Vincent Rigassi ([http://80.237.211.43/basin/publications/index.asp?A=1 see D.10)], CEB is pronounced as "one of those rare 'modern materials' which has sufficient production flexibiltiy to enable it to be integrated into both formal and informal sectors of activity, from 'cottage' industry to full-scale industrial plants" (pg 5). In other words, a Compressed Earth Block Press is just as likely to succeed as a localized enterprise as it would at a grander scale.

The third method of influence on a local economy is via CEB press manufacturing. ''The Liberator'' is designed to be built with simple tools and off-the-shelf parts. The design has minimum welds, using only bolts to secure the frame together. Since no specialized tools or advanced skill level is needed, a local machine shop or adventurous entrepreneur could easily manufacture it, contributing to regional employment and localized economics.

'''Ecological qualities'''

CEB exemplifies the meaning "locally-made". The required clay-sand subsoil is locally available nearly everywhere. Even the mortar is made from this mix with additional water. (See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block Wikipedia]) Humus-rich top-soil can be preserved for agriculture and the resulting hole may become a basement, root-cellar, pond or smoothed out to blend with the landscape. If onsite soil is insufficient (ie. not enough, or unbalanced), than near-by off-site soil or ammendments might be an appropriate option. Miles traveled: near Zero.

Compare this to the stick-frame house. According to "Gate-to-Gate Life-Cycle Inventory of Softwood Lumber Production" by Michael R. Milota, Cynthia D. West, and Ian D. Hartley, lumber travels 65 miles on average, just to get to the mill. Numerous unnatural materials are often used (ie vinyl siding and insulation) that have their own set of negative ecological consequences.

Other natural building methods have variably high scores on local, ecological use of materials, provided the materials are locally abundant.

The CEB does fall short of perfection in a couple respects. The press and other needed equipment (ie. rototiller and tractor) are not made from locally harvested materials. However, almost all building methods require use of some heavy machinery, and to its advantage, the press is designed to be locally manufactured. Also, ''The Liberator'' is not designed to make roofing shingles (although these can be made from compressed earth). So, the ecological qualities of the roof cannot be addressed.

'''Durability'''

''A. Strength''

Strength of CEBs depends on the machine (especially automated versus manual) and the quality of the soil (poorly mixed soil can lead to a weaker brick). According to Wikipedia, "CEB can have a compressive strength as high as 2,000 pounds per square inch. Blocks with compressive strengths of 1,200 to 1,400 p.s.i. are common." We have not yet strength-tested blocks from ''The Liberator".

The compressive strength of CEB sounds impressive, but according to Fred Webster, Ph.D. seismic Engineer in his paper [http://www.deatech.com/natural/cobinfo/adobe.html "Some Thoughts on'Adobe Codes'], it is neither the only nor the most important variable in determining the ability of CEB's to withstand loads. "In actuality, high compressive strength is and should not be the greatest concern related to pressed block quality. If the block has a compressive strength of 1000 psi rather than 300 psi, it is quite superfluous to the performance of the building subjected to ordinary service loads or even earthquake loads. It is not requisite that earthen blocks be up to the standard of concrete in order to perform well during severe earthquake shaking." Webster suggests that soil quality may be more important than compressive strength in determining the bricks overall durability. "Standards for appropriate soil selection need to be aggressively and rationally developed and tested by the pressed block industry. Currently, the best standards and research are being performed by [http://80.237.211.43/basin/basin/index.asp?A=1 BASIN], a combined appropriate technology effort made up of Germany, England, Switzerland, and France" (Webster).

''B. Water Resistance''

Although high quality blocks display water-resistant qualities, they are not waterproof and commercial builders, such as [http://www.midwestearthbuilders.com/ Midwest Earth Builders] use a stucco to protect the exterior walls. Other design features, such as a large overhang can also provide some protection against weathering.

''C. Fire and Mold-proof''

'''Economics: The press, initial building cost, maintenance'''

''A. The Press''

''The Liberator'' is a hydraulic powered press with an estimated output of 3-5 blocks per minute. A power source is required. See Specifications section below for more details.

Two comparable machines are available on the market today: [http://www.adobemachine.com/ Powell and Sons] has one at 2-3 blocks per minute ~$10,400 (call for exact pricing)
[http://pages.sbcglobal.net/fwehman/index.html AECT] has a 3-5 block per minute version at ~$25,000. Again call for exact pricing.
Numerous "slow-speed" machines can be found at various price ranges.

Each has slightly different features and advantages and both of the above machines come with a power source. However, we believe including a power source is superfluous, as most people or companies who work with a high-speed machine, will also have access to a tractor or other source of hydraulic power. Those who do not, will have to invest in a seperate motor. We believe that when possible one motor should do the work of many machines. This reduces the number of machines and parts that require maintenance.

Parts for ''The Liberator'' as detailed below, are approximately $1000. The machine will cost an estimated $3-5K, depending on manufacturing abilities.

A tractor with loader and rototiller are required to prepare the soil. These are additional costs. Other equipment and their related costs are detailed in the pdf CEB manual [http://80.237.211.43/basin/publications/index.asp?A=1 D.10] found on the BASIN website.

''B. Building Costs''

CEB press maker [http://pages.sbcglobal.net/fwehman/AECTOverview.html AECT] claims, "the cost of the structural compressed earth block construction using the AECT structural compressed earth block machines to produce the structural masonry blocks is between 25-40% less expensive than the next closest construction approach for quality, long lasting and energy efficient structures. Some other cheaper construction techniques are inexpensive, but the resulting housing or commercial buildings are cheap, structurally deficient, noisy, and wasteful in energy use and not appealing to homeowners or commercial tenants."

But when compared strictly on economic terms to a conventional home, natural building methods save surprisingly little. Most natural building methods use convential roofs and foundations. Only the walls are constructed from alternative materials.

From their experience, [http://www.midwestearthbuilders.com/BuildingInfo.html Midwest Earth Builders (MEB)] claim "Because CEBs are used entirely as a wall system, the remaining costs, which can represent 80-90% of the total cost of the home, will be the same as conventional building. For example, the cost of the roof, windows, cabinets, etc. are the same for a framed and CEB home.

Building the wall of a home typically represents 10-20% of the total cost of a home. A CEB wall will average 15% more then a conventionally built wall. In other words if the wall of a conventional home cost $15,000 for a $100,000 home, it will cost $2,250 more for a CEB wall."

A similar summary of straw bale housing is given from [http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/strawbale.htm Green Home Building]. "Erecting bale walls can go amazingly quickly, and does not take a lot of skill, but then the rest of the creation of the building is similar to any other wood framed house. In fact strawbale houses typically only save about 15% of the wood used in a conventionally framed house. The cost of finishing a strawbale house can often exceed that of standard construction, because of the specialized work that goes into plastering both sides of the walls. The result is often worth it though, because of the superior insulation and wall depth that is achieved."

Many claim that the qualities unique to natural homes (especially heating and cooling properties) more than makes up for the initial cost difference. This may be true for one who can afford the added up-front expense. But what about the rest of the world? Is CEB a technique that is affordable to the average American or even the urban or rural poor of the "Majority Countries" (Also referred to as developing, third world, or underdeveloped countries)?

Since [http://www.habitat.org/how/whatlikeintl.aspx Habitat for Humanity], among other development-working agencies (see [[http://80.237.211.43/basin/partner/index.asp?A=1 BASIN] partners) use CEBs for home building, the obvious answer is yes. Just as stick-frame homes can be made cheaply (ie. mobile homes), so can CEB structures. Except, the quality of "cheap" CEB homes will far out-way the quality of mobiles.

Other points to consider:
#Can the technique be learned quickly by unskilled labor or are paid, skilled professionals needed to do the work? As we saw above, stuccoing straw bale buildings ''may'' be better left to a professional. CEB requires little skill and is therefore, a good forthe owner-builder. While normal masonary work requires skilled professionals to apply a thick (1/4-1/2") layer of motor between layers of bricks, "[b]ecause earth blocks do not require thick mortar joints, walls can be built quickly by workers unskilled in masonry" [http://www.midwestearthbuilders.com/BuildingInfo.html (MEB)]. Furthermore [http://www.midwestearthbuilders.com/BuildingInfo.html MEB] claims, "[c]ost on a per block basis average approximately $1.10 per block. A 1000 square foot home will need approximately 5,500 blocks. So, $6,050 would be the block costs. Once again, we have worked with customers who have provided their own labor and tractor for loading, and have brought this cost down to $.50 to $.60/block." Please note, that somewhere in this figure is the price of the use of their machine, which they got from Powell and Sons.
#Can other parts of the building be made more economically? CEB can be made into roofing shingles with a roof-tile mold [http://80.237.211.43/basin/publications/index.asp?A=1 D.10]. Conventional roofs are easily held by CEB: "If the block has a compressive strength of 1000 psi rather than 300 psi, it is quite superfluous to the performance of the building subjected to ordinary service loads or even earthquake loads" [http://www.deatech.com/natural/cobinfo/adobe.html (Webster)]. Thus, it seems safe to assume that a CEB wall, appropriately constructed, could hold up the weight of a living roof. Although again, with current technologies, it is more expensive up-front, with long-term savings in maintenance and heating.
#Because CEB is an on-site material and because all parts of the process can be done by hand or machine, it lends itself to great variability of final product prices. [http://www.networkearth.org/naturalbuilding/ceb.html Habitat for Humanity] uses CEB in some of their projects. And [http://80.237.211.43/basin/partner/index.asp?A=1 BASIN] is comprised of organizations which do development work. So, obviously, CEB homes do NOT need to cost as much as conventionally-built ones.

''C. Maintenance Costs''

''The Liberator'' was designed with reduced maintenance in mind. Durability testing has not taken place yet, but the main part that may need replacement is a rubber sheet from McMaster-Carr. The press is Designed for Disassembly (DfD), so if repairs are needed, the cost should be minimal.

CEB buildings may need to be re-finished (stucco) coating, just like a house would need new paint. If a conventional roof is used, maintenance repairs would be identical to a traditional house. More research is needed on maintenance costs of a CEB building.

Furthermore, CEB can be used in other applications besides housing.

'''Building ergonomics'''

3-5 bricks per minute (bricks are 6x12x4 inches) means enough blocks for a 6 foot high wall for a 300 square foot round building can made in one workday.

The ease of the entire process will depend on
#Set-up (Is the workspace well arranged?)
#Equipment (Tractor, front end loader, rototiller, mixer, etc... will make the work easier and faster, assuming no breakdowns. Less tools will require more manual labor, which may or may not be appropriate depending on the situation.)
#Soil quality (If the mixing ingredients are friable and at a good moisture content, the process will be easier and faster.)

Once the blocks are made, high-quality blocks without stablizers can be layed directly. Low-compression and stabalized blocks should be set to cure for varying amounts of time.

The bigger the block size, the faster a wall is errected. And obviously, the bigger the block size, the heavier the block. Blocks from ''The Liberator'' will average 25 pounds.

Even if the workers are unskilled, building with CEB can be relatively quick.
[http://www.midwestearthbuilders.com/AboutUs.html MEB] explains, "One does not have to be an experienced mason to build with CEBs. Homeowners, contractors, and builders can quickly be taught how to stack a wall and begin construction immediately. Because only a thin mortar/slurry joint is used between blocks, walls go up quickly and there is no need to wait for the mortar to set up after a few rows like with typical brick masonry."

Our experience with Cordwood and Earthbag building did not mimic the experience described here of building with CEB. Although these natural building techniques are also learned quickly by the novice, actual construction time and ease of construction seem more difficult. Earthbag construction requires filling, stacking and tamping bags of earth. As the walls get higher, the bags must be lifted accordingly. Barbed wire is strung between layers of bags. The process is not easily mechanized. And the walls require stuccoing afterwords. Cordwood was also difficult. Wood has to be cut, stacked, restacked and stacked again. We were surprised at how much wood was required for a small addition. Furthermore, both cordwood and earthbags have the distinct disadvantage of being irregular.

'''Thermal properties'''

Have you heard of Thermal Flywheel? CEB exemplifies this property as heat and cool is stored and released from the walls. Summer is cooler (as we have already experienced in our earthbag room with the same property) and winter is warmer. However, thermal flywheel is different than insulation. The heat you generate from the stove in winter is stored in the walls, but is eventually released back into the cold outside. A double layer of bricks with an insulative infill can resolve this effect. In colder climates this is wise. In warmer climates it is unnecessary.

Insulation can be standard styrofoam or an unconventional sawdust/lime mixutre or perlite. Other materials should be experiemented with.

'''Aesthetics'''

[http://www.midwestearthbuilders.com/photogallery.html MEB photo gallery]
[http://cebtex.com/?page_id=6 CebTex]
[http://cebtex.com/?page_id=7 CebTex2]
[http://pages.sbcglobal.net/fwehman/Exterior.html exterior images AECT]
[http://pages.sbcglobal.net/fwehman/Interior.html interior images AECT]
[http://www.adobemachine.com/midland_project_construction_pic.htm Midland Project Construction Pictures by Earthblock Texas Homes]

Stick frame construction is the main building method in North America. It is a weak but fast building method, which makes money for developers but returns little value to the homeowner, if one considers lifecycle cost of buildings. (note the lifecycle use of materials in Greenforms at CMPBS) Procuring lumber drains money out of local economies. This is not to mention clear-cutting and vast lumber monocultures that supply the lumber. We are interested in raising the standard of building, away from stick frame. We believe that with all these considerations, the CEB is the only building technique that even remotely has a chance of substituting for stick frame constuction, and that with our machine, priced $3-5k and designed for fabrication replication, will fill in a great need. CEB construction has the potential for mainstreamability in home construction.

We have heard one recurring critique of CEB construction. [http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/stories/2003/04/09/theMythAndPromiseOfDirtChe.html It has been said ] that CEB building is either for the idle rich, who can afford the high cost of construction, or the idle poor, who can afford to take the time to build the house. Both cases imply outrageous time requirements, and this appears inconsistent with claim 5 above. Based on our experience we find that to be untrue. We believe that the truth is that poor people do not have access to high performance machines, and rich people are charged a lot because the quality of the finished product is high, regardless of how many hours went into construction. The answer to this seeming inconsistency is the availability of a high-performance, low-cost Liberator.

Our experience has shown $30/square foot costs for the cordwood house, and similar rates for the earthbag house, if $10/hour labor is considered. We estimate time requirements to be at least 5 times shorter for CEB construction, we are expecting $5/sq ft total building costs including $10/hour labor. That is dirt cheap for top quality housing. Direct data, gathered from our building program beginning in April, will prove or disprove our claims.

For these reasons, we conclude that anyone who is interested in building a new house, or making a house addition, should consider the CEB press seriously because of its ecological, economic, durability, replicability, and localization merits. While other building techniques may be superior on one of these qualities, CEB construction is the only technique that scores well on all these criteria.

==[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#OSE_Product_Cycle '''Step 3. Product Definition''']==

===Deliverable===
Here are the specifications for the OSE CEB machine: '''''The Liberator'''''. Lifetime specifications will be verified in field testing.

#Bricks per minute output: 3-5
#Brick size: 12x6x6 inches (30.5x15.3x10.2 cm)
#People operating machine: 1-2
#Machine power source: tractor hydraulics or any hydraulic power source with 6 gallon per minute capacity
#Machine mounting: tractor 3 point hitch or stand-alone foot
#Hydraulic pressure: 2000psi
#Hydraulic cylinder: 5 inch diameter, 19.6 inch area; 2.5 inch rod
#Pressing cylinder pressure: 39,250 lb pushing force (~18 tons)
#Controls: 2 spool, manual, hydraulic valve; automatic version forthcoming.
#Compressive strength of bricks: to be measured
#Structural cold rolled steel construction throughout
#Design-for disassembly: full bolt-together construction for frame, compression chamber, table, tractor mount, and feet; welded hopper assembly and press plate; cylinders readily removable with pins
#Wearable components: 1/8" Nylon 6/6 liner on compression chamber and table surface, each piece held by 2 bolts
#Machine lifetime goals: 1 million bricks before repairs; liner may be replaced every 100,000 bricks
#Material costs: $1000-1350
#Fabrication time requirement for optimized production: 3-5 days, about 20 hours of direct fabrication
#Manual fabrication tooling requirements: drill press, welder, acetylene torch
#Optimal fabrication tooling: XYZ table with torch, MIG welder, hoist
#Cost for machine: $3-5k

Future phases for CEB evolution that we are considering beyond the present funding cycle are:
#Fully automated CEB machine, like The Liberator, where manual controls are replaced with automoatic valves and a control circuit. The only control required is turning the machine on, and from that point one simply loads soil and unloads bricks. Added material costs in this version are approximately $500.
#More powerful machines. More speed may be achieved by
##A dual machine, which features 2 compression chambers operating in parallel
##Faster machine by virtue of redesign to allow faster cycling through the steps

The automated machine is a clear and desirable upgrade, which essentially frees up one person to load soil, unload bricks, and build with the bricks right after they are produced. The other machines, such as dual or faster versions, will be reevaluated after significant experience has been reached by the Factor e Team and collaborators.

We would like to emphasize our approach and cost predictions: we're open source, lean, mean, and optimal. This effort is funded by voluntary contributions, so our development costs are zero. We have low overhead costs of $107 per person per month because we have donated facilities and lifetime tenure. We are working on a thorough process for a quality product. Indeed, we aim to create a new model for the way products are developed. We aim for full transparency in our development process, so you can see how your money is being spent. And, we are giving the business model away for others to replicate. No strings attached. You can read details of our 3-year plan [http://openfarmtech.org/OSE_Proposal.doc here].

Our pricing policy is to cover labor and fabrication costs, and to capture value from optimized fabrication. This means that both sides win: we are able to fund further developments by putting all proceeds back into the operation, and you get a low-cost product. We are able to consider special payment arrangements for collaborators or others interested in development for the common good. We do not want cost to stand in the way of access to liberatory technology.

===Budget===
====Bill of Materials====
Here we present an economic analysis for the CEB machine to explain costs involved.

Here is the Bill of Materials (BOM) for the CEB prototype:

[[Image:CEB_BOM.jpg]]

References:
#http://surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID=2008010512293756&item=9-1143-08&catname=hydraulic
#Gotten from surplus.
#http://surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID=2008010512293756&item=9-7156&catname=hydraulic
#http://surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID=2008010512293756&item=9-6702&catname=hydraulic for $156
#Gotten from surplus.
#Item # 905-12120 and 905-1236 at http://surpluscenter.com/
#Item 8609K13 at http://www.mcmaster.com/

The main cylinder and control valve used were from surplus, so this price may rise by about $250 for the cylinder and $100 for the valve, for a total of about $1350 in readily-accessible parts. The total number of hours spent building this protoptype was about 140 hours. The time expected for fabricating the second prototype is 40 hours. Production runs are expected to take about 20 hours per machine, using an XYZ torch table for fabrication assist.

====Fabrication Facility====
Here are the capitalization requirements for fabrication capacity. The ''Cost'' column reflects the price structure if off-the-shelf tools and materials - and proprietary development procedures - are utilized. This cost is conservative, as intellectual property costs are probably higher than the $10k that was specified. The alternative route, or the ''Open Source Cost'', is that which utilizes open source know-how and is built on a land-based facility. The open source option means that certain equipment may be fabricated readily from available components when a design and bill of materials is available.

[[Image:CEB Fab Facility.jpg]]

References:
9. www.torchmate.com ;
10. Does not include the control computer;
11. Torchmate 3, http://www.torchmate.com/overview/index2.htm ;
12. http://bluumax.com/ ;
13. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=43550 ;
14. http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200306001_200306001 ;
15. http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_18544_18544 ;
16. Not including land costs;
17. Cheapest barn kit: http://diypolebarns.com/pb_kits.php , more expensive: http://www.shelter-kit.com/b_prices.html ;
18. Using CEB construction with on-site soils, plus site-milled lumber leaves only doors, windows, foundation, and electrical costs of building;
19. This is difficult to estimate, but here we will include 200 hours of development work at $50 per hour- for producing 2 prototypes and testing prior to production runs.

In particular, the great cost reducer in the open source route is the availability of: (1) a low-cost XYZ table, (2), low cost workshop building, and (3), absence of intellectual property costs. In total, the price of putting together a fabrication facility is only $3700 if one has access to land, some kind of tractor or skid loader for material handling, and utilizes onsite building materials (CEBs and milled lumber) to construct the workshop space. It should be added that more labor will go into building an XYZ table than buying one, but not much more, if a transparent bill of materials and fabrication procedure is available. Workshop building time may also increase over the off-shelf option.

The XY table is a pricey solution if obtained off-the-shelf. New kits cost $8k at the low end for an industrial duty, 4x8 foot table. We should note that, as expected from the open source development method, ridiculously low costs are feasible for the CNC table. For example, a [http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-to-Build-Desk-Top-3-Axis-CNC-Milling-Machine/ small CNC mill] is under $200. The electronics of a CNC XY table are inexpensive. Three stepper motors plus controller and power supply cost $45. (http://bluumax.com/ - Note - these stepper motors are half the required size, so we expect the real price to scale accordingly.) Rails may be the expensive part, and other than that, it’s mostly a structure that can be fabricated via xyz bolt-together design. The CNC table should be accessible at <$500 plus structural steel at approximately [http://torchmate.com/overview/index2.htm $400]. That is a Factor 10 reduction over the competition.

The cost structure for building a physical production facility for the CEB will be documented fully with forthcoming experience in 2008. We will be building this facility at Factor E Farm. Part of the development will be deploying an open source XYZ table, which we expect to cost <$900 in parts. There may be additional costs involved in finalizing a simple design for the XYZ table. The goal is a facility that can produce 1 CEB machine every 3 days with 1 fabricator working full time.

We will set up a social enterprise website to raise between $3700-5000 for deploying CEB machine fabrication. This site will designed to motivate the minimal funding of the facility, by directing as many potential stakeholders to the site as possible. Stakeholders include owner-builders interested in natural building, building organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, disaster relief organizations, building contractors, and a wide range of others. We are asking for collaboration in directing potential stakeholders to the funding website.

In summary, this is our first experiment of co-funding a significant production facility. Deployment funds will be used to build the facility, procure some tools, and build an open source version of the XYZ table. Utilizing existing collaboration, we will use up to $3k from the budget to design, build, and deploy the XYZ table. Together with Factor e Farm contribution of facility space, a fabricator who has already been recruited, and utilization of onsite materials for facility construction – we believe that we have an attractive package that can be funded. Costs and risk are distributed, and low overhead makes the entire project dirt cheap for the significance of the promised deliverable. It is a pressing issue (no pun intended) for us to deploy CEB machine production with 3-5 day delivery time – for proving a novel, state-of-art peer production mechanism.

====Heavy Equipment====
The balance of the budget for the open source CEB development is in materials handling and testing: a tractor with front end loader and rototiller. The tractor is required for soil preparation: digging soil and rototilling the soil to prepare it for use in the CEB machine. The tractor is also used to power the CEB machine for testing, and for material handling of raw steel that is used in the CEB machine. Moreover, we are presently utilizing a tractor to generate 20 kW of electricity by using a power take-off (PTO) generator. This powers the welder and other equipment, but we aim to replace this with a renewable power system as soon as we can. We currently run smaller electrical tools with a 3 kW inverter and a battery bank. These costs summarized are:

[[Image:heavey_equipment.jpg]]

Notes: 1. We are considering an Allis Chalmers D17 Series IV Diesel tractor as a robust, all purpose tractor with good hydraulics

===Timeline===
The goals are to produce a hydraulically-driven, manually operated CEB press ready for sale by October, 2008. By November, we aim to produce a fully automated hydraulic machine. By December, we aim to develop a training program for builders of the CEB machine.

Given the budget explanations above, here are the funding cycles that we are proposing for this project. Delivery date for optimized production is November 1, 2008, when we will begin filling orders.

The funding cycle overview is:

[[Image:Funding_cycle_CEB.jpg]]

The table above shows the deployment costs with 7% overhead for fiduciary duties of funding collection management. The cycles in detail are:

The first funding cycle starts Feb 1, and continues for 4 weeks. We hope to collect the necessary funding via a concerted 2 week effort with our volunteer fundraising team. The funding cycle carries on for 4 weeks, but the actual developments with the proceeds collected last longer.

'''Cycle 1: Feb. 1 – Feb. 28 Collection Cycle, $5190''' - XYZ table, and 2nd Prototype

#Recruiting core team
#Recruiting reviewers
#Documenting all past design and fabrication work
#Distributing present effort out for review
#Designing XYZ table by Feb. 1
#Reviewing XYZ table by Feb. 7
#Procuring fabrication bids for table by Feb. 14
#Fabricating XYZ table, by Mar. 8
#Procuring MIG welder by Mar. 8
#Producing prototype 2 by Mar. 31

'''Cycle 2: March 1-March 31 Collection Cycle, $5350''' - Demo Buildings

#Procure tractor with front-end loader by April 7
#We will build our first significant demonstration structures with the 2 CEB prototypes. Construction will continue for 1 month to document experience with the ergonomics and economics of this method, and to verify field performance of the 2 CEB prototypes.

'''Cycle 3: April 1-April 30 Collection Cycle, $2675''' - Fabrication Facility
#NOte: this covers the foundation, doors, water, and electrical hookup, as well as extra battery power to run the facility.
#Procure battery bank
#Build facility for fabricating CEB machines

'''Cycle 4: May 1-May 30 Collection Cycle, $3210''' - Optimize Production for Replicability
#Production facility optimization
#Produce replicable design for XYZ table
#Build second XYZ table prototype to prove the economics of fabrication of the XYZ table
#Make any rearrangements in fabrication facility to facilitate workfow
#Build additional accommodations for additional fabricators. We are planning on 4 new fabricator positions.

==[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#OSE_Product_Cycle '''Step 4. Design and Fabrication''']==

We have already built a prototype, which we discussed at our blog [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=91 here]. We posted the fabrication procedure pictures - [[CEB_Prototype_1_Fab]]. The design evolution for the prototype is documented [http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?OpenSourceEcology/CompressedEarthBlock at Worknets]. The relevant technical drawings that we have to date are [http://openfarmtech.org/CEB_design.pdf here]. These drawings are not complete, so please contact us if you can help us with the drawings.

Design has 5 major components:
#Documentation of Prototype 1 (shown above)
#XYZ table for automating fabrication - present work, Jan-Feb 2008
#Documentation of Prototype 2
#Facility Design
#Final CEB design

At this point, we move into [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=CEB_Press_Cycle_1 CEB Funding Cycle 1] to deliver the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Torch_Table XYZ Torch Table] for producing the CEB machine more effectively.

=Reviews=

We welcome reviews of all the above content and concepts by stakeholders and interested individuals. Please send comments to joseph.dolittle@gmail.com.

==Technical Reviews==

==Social Enterprise Reviews==
#[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowskis-open-farm-the-most-important-social-experiment-in-the-world/2008/01/22 Review of the social enterprise experiment by P2P Foundation]
#[http://groups.google.com/group/CooperationCommons/msg/8a8fb3953cce3588 Review by Samuel Rose of Social Synergy]
#[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/steve-bosserman-on-economic-sustainability-in-a-world-of-open-design/2008/02/19 P2P Foundation review of the economic model]

==Strategic Review==

==Economic Review==

==EcoTechnology Review==

==Replicability and Transformative Potential Review==

=Further Resources=

Our program is unique in that we are producing both an open source product, and also developing an open source model for the enterprise itself. You may read a review of this novel organizational model at the P2P Foundation website by clicking [http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowskis-open-farm-the-most-important-social-experiment-in-the-world/2008/01/22 here].

A good article on the CEB may be found at Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block Compresssed Earth Block]. There are several good online books: click Earth at the left hand bar [http://80.237.211.43/basin/publications/index.asp?A=1 on this website].

*Galvanized wire reinforced, earthquake resistant earth construction techniques publication - [http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:B4kC74pYADcJ:www.sheltercenter.org/shelterlibrary/items/pdf/GalvanisedWireReinforcement.pdf+compressed+earth+block+peru+ladder+mesh&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us]
*Ronald Rael is an Architect, Author and Assistant Professor of Architecture at The University of California, Berkeley. He is the founder of EarthArchitecture.org, a clearing house of information on the subject. May be interested in our work.
*Compressed Earth Block Guide - [http://nzdl.sadl.uleth.ca/cgi-bin/library?e=d-00000-00---off-0cdl--00-0--0-10-0---0---0prompt-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-about---00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=cdl&cl=CL2.3&d=HASH01979938ef89e979ddfb736b.9.2]
*CEB, Manual of Production - [http://nzdl.sadl.uleth.ca/cgi-bin/library?e=d-00000-00---off-0cdl--00-0--0-10-0---0---0prompt-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-about---00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=cdl&cl=CL2.3&d=HASH01f9770e7e0598ae89a96508]
**Volume II - [http://nzdl.sadl.uleth.ca/cgi-bin/library?e=d-00000-00---off-0cdl--00-0--0-10-0---0---0prompt-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-about---00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=cdl&cl=CL2.3&d=HASHeb33e9cace97886accda49]
*What can happen in earthquakes - [http://205.147.11.244/Tutorials/AdobeTutorial/AdobeTutorial.asp] , [http://www.eeri.org/lfe/pdf/peru_pisco_adobe.pdf] , [http://www.kenken.go.jp/english/contents/activities/other/disaster/jishin/2007pisco/20070903/3.pdf]
*Other information - [http://www.grisb.org/publications/pub34.htm] , [http://www.earthblockinc.com/faq.htm]

How about through-tie with rebar? We are considering this for double brick thickness walls. We could use technical help on this.

*Rebar can get very expensive in the developing world. The galvinized wire reinforcing is much lighter, (aka a shipping container from these guys as an examle - [http://post-trade-leads.com/54/sell%20Masonry%20Accessories-ladder%20reinforcement%20mesh.php] , **probably could provide better resistance to earthquake, simular pricing to rebar per pound, and probably 5 times the support per pound of material) as well as not needing double thickness which cuts down on labor.

=Bill of Materials=

*Wear-resistant liner - MDS-Filled Nylon 6/6 from McMaster Carr

[[Image:Nylon_Specs.jpg]]
[[Category:CEB]]

CEB Press

2009-02-09T01:07:33Z

Bizarro: /* [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#OSE_Product_Cycle '''Step 2. Ecological Review'''] */

Collaboration Platforms

2009-02-09T00:28:37Z

Bizarro: /* Strategy towards applying existing platforms to the Global Village Construction Set */

=Introduction=

Please list all known collaboration platforms relevant to physical product development here. After we compile a list, we will analyze it and determine a strategy for using these platforms towards creating the [[Global Village Construction Set]] in conjunction with this wiki, the factorefarm.org Drupal site, factorefarm.org/weblog blog, and the Factor e Farm physical facility and collaboratory.

=List=
*http://www.gaiau.org/
*http://open-innovation-projects.org/project-list/
*Science for Humanity - As you will see from the website there is a tab called 'Seekers'. If you click on one of the sub sections under this tab you will be able to start a discussion in the relevant area. - http://www.scienceforhumanity.net/challenge-process.html
*http://osengineering.org/sitemap.html
*Network for Open Scientific Innovation - http://freedomofscience.org/
*Thinkcycle.org - now defunct?
*http://globalswadeshi.net
*Global Villages google group
*Minciu Sodas' http://www.worknets.org/

=Suggestions=

=Strategy towards applying existing platforms to the [[Global Village Construction Set]]=
*'''Gaia University''':Develop credible degree pathways in collaboration with Gaia's pre-existing network of experts and advisers. Contemporaneously, Factor E and its [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 True Fans] will develop a peer group of experts and advisers to facilitate the advancement of the Global Village Construction Set. The students attracted to this program will be accredited through Gaia University, in collaboration with Open Source Ecology and the many component projects of the [[Global Village Construction Set]], for the future establishment of a Midwest-based Gaia University/Open Source Ecology union. This will lead to a productive set of symbiotic relationships.

[[Category:Collaboration]]

Open Source Ecology

2009-02-09T00:21:01Z

Bizarro: /* Open Source Ecology (OSE) International */

See the Appropedia entry for an overview of Open Source Ecology:

http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology

=Open Source Ecology (OSE) International=
Taken literally, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source open source] means that the goods and knowledge for reproducing the complete product (the "source") is freely accessible (open), and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology ecology] is the study of
organisms and their natural environment. From a human perspective, we seek to push our vision of ecology beyond [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_crisis ecological crisis] and into ecological harmony and human productivity. Open Source Ecology is a global movement and collaboratory. Our goal and current engagement is building the world's first replicable, open source, post-industrial village. The name refers to an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology ecology], or ecosystem, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source open source] hardware that works as an ecological whole. However, the name implies much more than technology - for technology is merely a basis upon which social organization can happen, in harmony with its natural life support systems. The real issue then emerges - the possibility of unprecedented quality of life for all.

To build a post-industrial village, we are developing and testing the set of tools required to build such a village - the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=UM_Presentation Global Village Construction Set]. Land stewardship and local production via open source design and digital fabrication - founded on open sharing of information - are the key features of this adventure. Right livelihood and resolution of pressing world issues is the intended byproduct.

See an overview of progress in our ongoing social experiment - [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Distillations the Distillations video series] - which covers progress up to the end of 2008.

=Inventing a New Civilization on a Shoestring Budget=
Say you want to build a village, enterprise, or for that matter - an entire civilization – because civilization is just a compilation of productive enterprises. Say you have only $10k in your pocket. You can begin to build your habitat with a CEB press of 3000 bricks per day production, and a sawmill with 3000 board feet per day of production – easily. You will need a tractor for earth moving and power. These 3 tools total $6500 for materials to build these tools from open source plans. You can then build the entire technological infrastructure with a personal fabrication open source Fab Lab – with metal melting furnace, 3D printer, CNC machines, and circuit fabrication, for another $3500 in materials, for a total of $10k. You’ll have to learn the skill to build and operate the production machinery. We can teach you, and you can even propagate a 5-kingdom gene bank for an entire agricultural infrastructure – it’s on the house. You’ll just have to find yourself some land, sun, water, and scrap steel. What if this package could be self-replicating? Fab Lab and gene bank make it so. Now we’re talking.

An imaginary situation? Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but we’re taking the development of the above very seriously at Factor e Farm. See the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Distillations Distillations videos]. And if you are compelled to help - we started a request for proposals for the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_World_Conference_on_Open_Source_Ecology First World Conference on Open Source Ecology]. Please consider applying.

If you can’t make it to the Conference, but would like to support this as a True Fan of this work, then subscribe to our campaign by [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 going to our blog].

=Factor e Farm=
*Our main open source collaboratory and land-based development facility, since 2007, is [[Factor e Farm]], in the Kansas City area, central USA. See [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/ our weblog] for ongoing updates.
**Ongoing events and workshops are posted at the [http://groups.google.com/group/factorefarm Factor e Farm mailing list]
**Our Drupal website is [http://factorefarm.org/ here]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_Year_at_Factor_e_Farm First year of Factor e Farm]

*Wiki development site for the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=UM_Presentation Global Village Construction Set]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support Donate to the project]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support [[Image:donate button.jpg]]]
*The first [http://osemidmo.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page university chapter of OSE] started in 2008 at the U. Missouri, Columbia

*See our legacy webpage [http://web.archive.org/web/20040122063720/http://sourceopen.org/ here.]

*Archives of some of our theory and history are [http://ose.noblogs.org/ here].

=External Links=
*P2P Foundation called us, arguably, [http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowskis-open-farm-the-most-important-social-experiment-in-the-world/2008/01/22 ''the most important social experiment in the world'']
*[http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/25/open-source-compress.html BoingBoing article] on the open source, CEB press - [The Liberator]
*[http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2008/02/the-liberator-a.html Wired magazine blog] on The Liberator
*Discussion of the [http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/steve_bosserman/2008/02/09/giving_it_away_making_money.htm economic model for open source production] - with The Liberator as a case in point
**[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/steve-bosserman-on-economic-sustainability-in-a-world-of-open-design/2008/02/19 Followup discussion on economic sustainability of open production] by P2P Foundation
*Discussion on [http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowski-on-a-policy-to-expand-material-peer-production-through-land/2008/06/25 land stewardship basis of distributive economies]
*Open source design and manufacturing resource at the P2P Foundation - [http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Design]
*[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/proposed-ose-specifications-aim-to-guarantee-truly-open-physical-peer-production/2008/02/12 OSE Specifications for Distributive Production] and [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=OSE_Specifications internal link]
*Review of sustainability movements - [http://kevflanagan.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/permaculture-appropriate-technology-and-open-source-ecology/]
*Greenr - Accelerate the Change - [http://www.greenr.com/blog/2008/05/04/open-source-ecology blog post on Open Source Ecology]
*German blog discussing the [http://nachhaltigbeobachtet.ch/blog/archive/2008/07/10/besser-als-die-siedler-von-catan.html wealth of resources that come from land]

=Videos=
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Factor_e_Live Factor e Live series] - chronicles of Global Village construction
*Video Interview on [http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/hexayurt/global-swadeshi-dialogs-667 Global Swadeshi Dialogues]
*Video of Presentation on the Global Village Construction Set, [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-710075551990473235 U. Missouri, Columbia, 2008]
*[http://agroinnovations.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,182/p,39/lang,en/ Audio interview with Agroinnovations]

=Highlights of our Work=
*Advanced Compressed Earth Block [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=91 (CEB) press prototype] done
*[http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=311 Open source tractor prototype in action]
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Overview Product ecology overview]
*OSE [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Deployment Product Development Cycle]
*[http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Neocommercialization Neocommercialization] of open source technology
*[http://openfarmtech.org/OSE_Proposal.doc Technical proposal] for the Global Village Construction Set

=Collaboration=
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Core_Team Core Development Team application] - for the Global Village Construction Set
*[http://groups.google.com/group/solar-turbine Solar Turbine development] email group
*Student internships and research - see [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Category:Research_Projects Research Projects]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=OSEMidMO OSE Mid-MO]
*We are accepting organic farming internships through [http://attrainternships.ncat.org/internDetail2.asp?id=1559 ATTRA], [http://www.organicvolunteers.org/farm_finder.asp?Mode=1&S=17 Organic Volunteers], and [http://www.wwoof.org/ WWOOF]
*Find out why you should donate [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support here.]
[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support [[Image:donate button.jpg]]]
{{OSN Member}}

Open Source Ecology

2009-02-09T00:16:23Z

Bizarro: /* Open Source Ecology (OSE) International */

See the Appropedia entry for an overview of Open Source Ecology:

http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology

=Open Source Ecology (OSE) International=
Taken literally, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source open source] means that the goods and knowledge for reproducing the complete product (the "source") is freely accessible (open), and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology ecology] is the study of how this means of living affects organisms and their natural environment. From a human perspective, we seek to push our vision of ecology beyond ecological crisis and into ecological harmony and human productivity. Open Source Ecology is a global movement and collaboratory. Our goal and current engagement is building the world's first replicable, open source, post-industrial village. The name refers to an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology ecology], or ecosystem, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source open source] hardware that works as an ecological whole. However, the name implies much more than technology - for technology is merely a basis upon which social organization can happen, in harmony with its natural life support systems. The real issue then emerges - the possibility of unprecedented quality of life for all.

To build a post-industrial village, we are developing and testing the set of tools required to build such a village - the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=UM_Presentation Global Village Construction Set]. Land stewardship and local production via open source design and digital fabrication - founded on open sharing of information - are the key features of this adventure. Right livelihood and resolution of pressing world issues is the intended byproduct.

See an overview of progress in our ongoing social experiment - [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Distillations the Distillations video series] - which covers progress up to the end of 2008.

=Inventing a New Civilization on a Shoestring Budget=
Say you want to build a village, enterprise, or for that matter - an entire civilization – because civilization is just a compilation of productive enterprises. Say you have only $10k in your pocket. You can begin to build your habitat with a CEB press of 3000 bricks per day production, and a sawmill with 3000 board feet per day of production – easily. You will need a tractor for earth moving and power. These 3 tools total $6500 for materials to build these tools from open source plans. You can then build the entire technological infrastructure with a personal fabrication open source Fab Lab – with metal melting furnace, 3D printer, CNC machines, and circuit fabrication, for another $3500 in materials, for a total of $10k. You’ll have to learn the skill to build and operate the production machinery. We can teach you, and you can even propagate a 5-kingdom gene bank for an entire agricultural infrastructure – it’s on the house. You’ll just have to find yourself some land, sun, water, and scrap steel. What if this package could be self-replicating? Fab Lab and gene bank make it so. Now we’re talking.

An imaginary situation? Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but we’re taking the development of the above very seriously at Factor e Farm. See the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Distillations Distillations videos]. And if you are compelled to help - we started a request for proposals for the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_World_Conference_on_Open_Source_Ecology First World Conference on Open Source Ecology]. Please consider applying.

If you can’t make it to the Conference, but would like to support this as a True Fan of this work, then subscribe to our campaign by [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 going to our blog].

=Factor e Farm=
*Our main open source collaboratory and land-based development facility, since 2007, is [[Factor e Farm]], in the Kansas City area, central USA. See [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/ our weblog] for ongoing updates.
**Ongoing events and workshops are posted at the [http://groups.google.com/group/factorefarm Factor e Farm mailing list]
**Our Drupal website is [http://factorefarm.org/ here]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_Year_at_Factor_e_Farm First year of Factor e Farm]

*Wiki development site for the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=UM_Presentation Global Village Construction Set]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support Donate to the project]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support [[Image:donate button.jpg]]]
*The first [http://osemidmo.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page university chapter of OSE] started in 2008 at the U. Missouri, Columbia

*See our legacy webpage [http://web.archive.org/web/20040122063720/http://sourceopen.org/ here.]

*Archives of some of our theory and history are [http://ose.noblogs.org/ here].

=External Links=
*P2P Foundation called us, arguably, [http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowskis-open-farm-the-most-important-social-experiment-in-the-world/2008/01/22 ''the most important social experiment in the world'']
*[http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/25/open-source-compress.html BoingBoing article] on the open source, CEB press - [The Liberator]
*[http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2008/02/the-liberator-a.html Wired magazine blog] on The Liberator
*Discussion of the [http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/steve_bosserman/2008/02/09/giving_it_away_making_money.htm economic model for open source production] - with The Liberator as a case in point
**[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/steve-bosserman-on-economic-sustainability-in-a-world-of-open-design/2008/02/19 Followup discussion on economic sustainability of open production] by P2P Foundation
*Discussion on [http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowski-on-a-policy-to-expand-material-peer-production-through-land/2008/06/25 land stewardship basis of distributive economies]
*Open source design and manufacturing resource at the P2P Foundation - [http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Design]
*[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/proposed-ose-specifications-aim-to-guarantee-truly-open-physical-peer-production/2008/02/12 OSE Specifications for Distributive Production] and [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=OSE_Specifications internal link]
*Review of sustainability movements - [http://kevflanagan.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/permaculture-appropriate-technology-and-open-source-ecology/]
*Greenr - Accelerate the Change - [http://www.greenr.com/blog/2008/05/04/open-source-ecology blog post on Open Source Ecology]
*German blog discussing the [http://nachhaltigbeobachtet.ch/blog/archive/2008/07/10/besser-als-die-siedler-von-catan.html wealth of resources that come from land]

=Videos=
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Factor_e_Live Factor e Live series] - chronicles of Global Village construction
*Video Interview on [http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/hexayurt/global-swadeshi-dialogs-667 Global Swadeshi Dialogues]
*Video of Presentation on the Global Village Construction Set, [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-710075551990473235 U. Missouri, Columbia, 2008]
*[http://agroinnovations.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,182/p,39/lang,en/ Audio interview with Agroinnovations]

=Highlights of our Work=
*Advanced Compressed Earth Block [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=91 (CEB) press prototype] done
*[http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=311 Open source tractor prototype in action]
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Overview Product ecology overview]
*OSE [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Deployment Product Development Cycle]
*[http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Neocommercialization Neocommercialization] of open source technology
*[http://openfarmtech.org/OSE_Proposal.doc Technical proposal] for the Global Village Construction Set

=Collaboration=
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Core_Team Core Development Team application] - for the Global Village Construction Set
*[http://groups.google.com/group/solar-turbine Solar Turbine development] email group
*Student internships and research - see [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Category:Research_Projects Research Projects]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=OSEMidMO OSE Mid-MO]
*We are accepting organic farming internships through [http://attrainternships.ncat.org/internDetail2.asp?id=1559 ATTRA], [http://www.organicvolunteers.org/farm_finder.asp?Mode=1&S=17 Organic Volunteers], and [http://www.wwoof.org/ WWOOF]
*Find out why you should donate [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support here.]
[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support [[Image:donate button.jpg]]]
{{OSN Member}}

Open Source Ecology

2009-02-09T00:07:29Z

Bizarro: /* Inventing a New Civilization on a Shoestring Budget */

See the Appropedia entry for an overview of Open Source Ecology:

http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology

=Open Source Ecology (OSE) International=
OSE is a global movement and collaboratory. Our goal and current engagement is building the world's first replicable, open source, post-industrial village. The name refers to an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology ecology], or ecosystem, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source open source] hardware that works as an ecological whole. Taken literally, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source open source] means that the goods and knowledge for reproducing the complete product (the "source") is freely accessible (open), and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology ecology] is the study of everything that is needed to live harmoniously. However, the name implies much more than technology - for technology is merely a basis upon which social organization can happen, in harmony with its natural life support systems. The real issue then emerges - the possibility of unprecedented quality of life for all.

To build a post-industrial village, we are developing and testing the set of tools required to build such a village - the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=UM_Presentation Global Village Construction Set]. Land stewardship and local production via open source design and digital fabrication - founded on open sharing of information - are the key features of this adventure. Right livelihood and resolution of pressing world issues is the intended byproduct.

See an overview of progress in our ongoing social experiment - [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Distillations the Distillations video series] - which covers progress up to the end of 2008.

=Inventing a New Civilization on a Shoestring Budget=
Say you want to build a village, enterprise, or for that matter - an entire civilization – because civilization is just a compilation of productive enterprises. Say you have only $10k in your pocket. You can begin to build your habitat with a CEB press of 3000 bricks per day production, and a sawmill with 3000 board feet per day of production – easily. You will need a tractor for earth moving and power. These 3 tools total $6500 for materials to build these tools from open source plans. You can then build the entire technological infrastructure with a personal fabrication open source Fab Lab – with metal melting furnace, 3D printer, CNC machines, and circuit fabrication, for another $3500 in materials, for a total of $10k. You’ll have to learn the skill to build and operate the production machinery. We can teach you, and you can even propagate a 5-kingdom gene bank for an entire agricultural infrastructure – it’s on the house. You’ll just have to find yourself some land, sun, water, and scrap steel. What if this package could be self-replicating? Fab Lab and gene bank make it so. Now we’re talking.

An imaginary situation? Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but we’re taking the development of the above very seriously at Factor e Farm. See the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Distillations Distillations videos]. And if you are compelled to help - we started a request for proposals for the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_World_Conference_on_Open_Source_Ecology First World Conference on Open Source Ecology]. Please consider applying.

If you can’t make it to the Conference, but would like to support this as a True Fan of this work, then subscribe to our campaign by [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=458 going to our blog].

=Factor e Farm=
*Our main open source collaboratory and land-based development facility, since 2007, is [[Factor e Farm]], in the Kansas City area, central USA. See [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/ our weblog] for ongoing updates.
**Ongoing events and workshops are posted at the [http://groups.google.com/group/factorefarm Factor e Farm mailing list]
**Our Drupal website is [http://factorefarm.org/ here]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_Year_at_Factor_e_Farm First year of Factor e Farm]

*Wiki development site for the [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=UM_Presentation Global Village Construction Set]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support Donate to the project]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support [[Image:donate button.jpg]]]
*The first [http://osemidmo.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page university chapter of OSE] started in 2008 at the U. Missouri, Columbia

*See our legacy webpage [http://web.archive.org/web/20040122063720/http://sourceopen.org/ here.]

*Archives of some of our theory and history are [http://ose.noblogs.org/ here].

=External Links=
*P2P Foundation called us, arguably, [http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowskis-open-farm-the-most-important-social-experiment-in-the-world/2008/01/22 ''the most important social experiment in the world'']
*[http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/25/open-source-compress.html BoingBoing article] on the open source, CEB press - [The Liberator]
*[http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2008/02/the-liberator-a.html Wired magazine blog] on The Liberator
*Discussion of the [http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/steve_bosserman/2008/02/09/giving_it_away_making_money.htm economic model for open source production] - with The Liberator as a case in point
**[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/steve-bosserman-on-economic-sustainability-in-a-world-of-open-design/2008/02/19 Followup discussion on economic sustainability of open production] by P2P Foundation
*Discussion on [http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowski-on-a-policy-to-expand-material-peer-production-through-land/2008/06/25 land stewardship basis of distributive economies]
*Open source design and manufacturing resource at the P2P Foundation - [http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Design]
*[http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/proposed-ose-specifications-aim-to-guarantee-truly-open-physical-peer-production/2008/02/12 OSE Specifications for Distributive Production] and [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=OSE_Specifications internal link]
*Review of sustainability movements - [http://kevflanagan.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/permaculture-appropriate-technology-and-open-source-ecology/]
*Greenr - Accelerate the Change - [http://www.greenr.com/blog/2008/05/04/open-source-ecology blog post on Open Source Ecology]
*German blog discussing the [http://nachhaltigbeobachtet.ch/blog/archive/2008/07/10/besser-als-die-siedler-von-catan.html wealth of resources that come from land]

=Videos=
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Factor_e_Live Factor e Live series] - chronicles of Global Village construction
*Video Interview on [http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/hexayurt/global-swadeshi-dialogs-667 Global Swadeshi Dialogues]
*Video of Presentation on the Global Village Construction Set, [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-710075551990473235 U. Missouri, Columbia, 2008]
*[http://agroinnovations.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,182/p,39/lang,en/ Audio interview with Agroinnovations]

=Highlights of our Work=
*Advanced Compressed Earth Block [http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=91 (CEB) press prototype] done
*[http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=311 Open source tractor prototype in action]
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Overview Product ecology overview]
*OSE [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Deployment Product Development Cycle]
*[http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Neocommercialization Neocommercialization] of open source technology
*[http://openfarmtech.org/OSE_Proposal.doc Technical proposal] for the Global Village Construction Set

=Collaboration=
*[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Core_Team Core Development Team application] - for the Global Village Construction Set
*[http://groups.google.com/group/solar-turbine Solar Turbine development] email group
*Student internships and research - see [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Category:Research_Projects Research Projects]
**[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=OSEMidMO OSE Mid-MO]
*We are accepting organic farming internships through [http://attrainternships.ncat.org/internDetail2.asp?id=1559 ATTRA], [http://www.organicvolunteers.org/farm_finder.asp?Mode=1&S=17 Organic Volunteers], and [http://www.wwoof.org/ WWOOF]
*Find out why you should donate [http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support here.]
[http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Ecology:Site_support [[Image:donate button.jpg]]]
{{OSN Member}}

Collaboration Platforms

2009-02-08T21:55:18Z

Bizarro:

Water Management

2009-02-08T21:39:41Z

Bizarro:

Water Management

2009-02-08T21:38:28Z

Bizarro:

[[Category:OSA]]

Water Management Videos

2009-02-08T21:34:54Z

Bizarro: Removing all content from page

Water Management Videos

2009-02-08T21:34:14Z

Bizarro:

Category:Water Management

2009-02-08T21:33:10Z

Bizarro: Removing all content from page

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-08T21:32:16Z

Bizarro: Replacing page with 'Category:OSA =Videos= =How to='

[[Category:OSA]]

=Videos=

=How to=

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-08T21:31:19Z

Bizarro:

[[Category:OSA]]

=Videos=

<html><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kPrfNVzDNME&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kPrfNVzDNME&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

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<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OCVCJ7mU-fw&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OCVCJ7mU-fw&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
</html>

=How to=

Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-08T21:29:25Z

Bizarro: New page: Category:OSA

[[Category:OSA]]

Category:Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-08T21:27:45Z

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Category:Edible Forest Gardening

2009-02-08T21:26:44Z

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[[OSA]]

Edible Forest Gardening Videos

2009-02-08T21:24:38Z

Bizarro:

'''Ethan Roland discusses Oak, Currant, Raspberry, Sedum polyculture''':

<html><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RTS1vDv3CCc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RTS1vDv3CCc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
</html>

'''Ethan Roland updates forest garden progress at Epworth Permaculture Center'''

<html><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8b5xH3fY3GM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8b5xH3fY3GM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></html>

[[Category:Edible Forest Gardens]]

Edible Forest Gardening Videos

2009-02-08T21:23:24Z

Bizarro:

Water Management

2009-02-08T21:21:44Z

Bizarro: Water Management moved to Water Management Videos

#REDIRECT [[Water Management Videos]]