Open Source Permaculture

What is Open Source Permaculture?

From a Chat with Lucas Gonzalez:

I think we should start raising awareness for the concept of Open Source Permaculture. Let's define what that mean and start spreading that around. This would be a crucial upgrade to what Permaculture today is about.

To me, open source permaculture (OSPC) is:

1. Info on plant choice. Data on what explicit varieties work where - with a visual, global map - if we make this a worldwide project. This point - combined with basic theory, such as Mollison's work - leads to permacultural designs that anyone can implement where they are.

2. Propagation - how you would get the living materials on the cheap. This includes both industry standard techniques for propagation, and bioregional facilities where this plant material can be obtained. It should be obtained along OS lines - DIY option where you could, for example, do sweat equity at a propagation facility to get low cost or free materials. Or, it could be that you buy the materials outright. The requirement is that the bioregional facilities have EVERYTHING - diversity, quantities, and prices that allow easy access to producing an integrated permaculture implementation.

3. Machinery - open source equipment for processing; energy production; field equipment. Other supporting equipment for complete permaculture startup and maintenance, from neosubsistence to economically significant market production capacity.

4. Economic analyses of productive operations. Both on the subsistence and market levels. This allows for replicability, either along the lines of neosubsistence or enterprise.