The Village Economy

"How can we be
Self-reliant with our needs
So that we can become
Interdependent with our wants?"
   -Hunter Heaivilin-

Photo: Hunter Heaivilin teaches Village Design on Ifira Island, Vanuatu.

The Village Economy Game was played in order to demonstrate and give a practical experience of how to connect the products & functions of one local enterprise to the needs of another.

1. Students are asked to create an enterprise that could meet a currently un-met need that they would be interested in pursuing.
2. A functional analysis is performed to determine the needs, characteristics, functions and products of each enterprise.
3. Students are asked to find car many connections as they can with other students enterprises (this typically results in much laughter and shenanigans), and then report back to the class about the connections they managed to make.

Here's a summary of the enterpises Vanuatu Villagers came up with, and the beginnings of the many connections that were made between enterprises (see if you can make connections of your own):

Photo: Village Economy Mindmap, 2012 Vanuatu PDC

A simple shift in focus towards making these localized connections, can reduce our reliance upon external inputs while we are contributing to the vibrancy of our community.  We can reduce our waste and cycle energy (in its many forms) within our community many times before it leaves.

Once we have met our needs as a community we find ourselves with a new challenge: what to do with the surplus?  Now we can look to neighboring communities to establish trades with our surplus, enriching our quality of life and that of our neighbors.

If we are smart, we can live within the ecological limits of our lands, creating products & developing  skills shaped by our landscape - these will have enormous value in other communities but will be obsolete in others - we can seek to match these community products with communities where these are in need, and the web grows stronger.

In times of scarcity, we can meet most of our needs within our communities (and reach out to the relationships we have made with other communities if needed), while in times of plenty our collective joy can be multiplied by sharing & trading our surplus: self-reliant, and interdependent.

Photo: 2012 Oahu PDC Village Economy Mindmap Timelapse

 

Your Culture or Your Money

When students were asked, "How has your community changed over the last 10 years?", students came up with the following list:

Photo: Class brainstorm on shifting culture in their communities.

This exchange framed a class discussion around the definition of an 'asset'.  Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books, has said that the difference between the rich & poor is that the poor spend their lives buying assets which are really liabilities because they do not understand the difference, while the rich spend their lives acquiring things which are truly assets.

This is certainly true for the middle class in developing nations.  For example, if your income were to stop, most people would not be able to continue making they mortgage payments (and so would likely lose the house), whilst a positively cash flowing rental unit would keep putting money into your pocket. 

Therefore your primary residence, which the bank tells you is your greatest asset, is actually potentially your biggest liability.

According to Kiyosaki, properly defined: an asset feeds you, a liability eats you.

This simple definition of assets vs. liabilities can be a powerful tool for the consumerist middle class single-mindedly striving towards accumulating enough income and assets to elevate their standards of living, and could also be a powerful tool in helping families, organizations and communities manage their finances better.

However, it is too narrow a definition to be useful in the context of working towards ending poverty.

This definition of assets is framed by and perpetuates the prevailing capitalistic view of the world - one in which gross income (or GDP) is the primary indicator of a person's (or country's) overall well-being, and people are reduced to hedonistic accumulators & consumer.  It does not allow for any other paradigm.

If we limit ourselves to this definition then we deny ourselves the opportunity to account for the many other factors which contribute to healthy, thriving communities.  We deny ourselves the opportunity fully embrace the richness of reciprocal experience that is human culture, where people flourish most when given opportunities to create, contribute, collaborate, and celebrate.

Photo: Ifira Island keiki.  Are we born into this world focused on 'accumulation' and 'consumption'?

Instead, we can take this a step further and expand upon this definition to allow room for culture to evolve (adapted from Rosemary Morrow's 'Earth User's Guide to Permaculture'):

Photo: Reclassify your assets.

 

Degenerative Assets.
The more I use these, the less I have of it / the more I need of it.  Worse yet, the more I use this, the more it harms me / my community / my ennvironment.  Most items ('stuff') prized by consumerist culture falls into this category.

Generative Assets.
I can use these to make / create / modify / enhance me / my community / my environment.  Some of the things which fall into the first category could instead become 'generative' if used differently (ie using fossil-fuel powered equipment to create earthworks which pasively harvest water and rebuld soils).

Regenerative Assets.
I can use these, and they will multiply over time if properly cared for.  Biological resources, and many of our natural resources fall into this category.  If we were to focus on creating / developing / accumulating this type of asset, we take care of future generations while taking care of our own needs.

Knowledge-based Assets.
Ethical knowledge leading to self-reliance is the only asset class which can offer an unlimited yield; we are limited only by our creativity, our imagination, and our ability to apply knowledge.  When knowledge is framed by an ethical structure which values care of the earth, care of people,and stewardship of resources, it can result in actions & practices which are beneficial to all.

 

 

Making fuel briquettes from waste materials

We came across this innovative little piece of appropriate technology developed by Beaverton Rotary during our research prior to the consultancy trip this March which is has been used successfully in other developing nations to start microenterprises:

The device uses a car tire jack to compress locally available organic waste material (such as rice or coffee husks, shredded paper, dried grass or leaves, etc) into a high-density, slower-and-cleaner-burning fuel briquettes.  

This could be adapted to Mongolian conditions, although adjustments would need to be made:

• Briquettes can only be made during warmer months, when rivers are flowing and the briquettes can dry out.
• Water squeezed from the press during the manufacturing process should be caught and used on crops, as this water will contain 'pulp' organic matter that will break down and help build soils. 
• Suitable organic matter needs to be found: paper waste is plentiful in urban areas, and once trees and/or crop systems are established, the plants may drop enough organic waste matter to be used for briquettes.  

Populus laurifoila grow prolifically on the floodplain we crossed en route to Altaitsudz soum.

Once again, we can see how valuable tree-cropping systems can be for creating food security and economic opportunity.  Appropriately selected species of trees can provide:

• Renewable sources of winter fuels (coppiced woodlots).
• Emergency animal fodder (Ulmus and some Salix species).
• Human nutrition (fruit & nut trees).
• Construction materials (Larch and Spruce).
• Bimoass (all of the above species + more), which can be used to protect & build soils (mulches, green manures & biochar) and create an additional fuel supply through biogas (fermentation process).

For more information about the Peterson Press, download this information brochure:

How_to_Make_Fuel_Briquettes_-_web.pdf Download this file

 

Regenerative Business in Bayan Ulgii (Day 17)

 Theme Song for the day: 'Money', by PInk Floyd.

 

Photo:Regenerative Business is...

Today we played a game called: 'Let's Lend Money to Matt. 

But first, the morning was spent in lecture-format, to lay a foundational understanding of the Principles of Regenerative Business:

  1. Only buy Assets which regenerate themselves.

Photo: Petrol pumps are perceived as a high-value asset, however are costly to run and maintain.  A pump powered by renewable energy (such as a solar or RAM pump) would be examples of regenerative assets.

   2. Business is a Team Sport.

Photo:Creating support systems for your business increases your available resources to tackle challenges and capitalize upon opportunities.

  3. Invest Profits into your Community.

Photo: Investing in the community the business operates in cycles energy back into the people who support the business in the first place, creating a positive feedback loop which can increasingly flourish over time.

  

Students were then asked to pretend they were a bank, and I was a customer seeking a small loan from them to start a business.  Their bank (and the loan they would give me, if they decided I was qualified candidate) was based on their pooled savings, and so what kind of questions did they have for me?

•   What kind of business? (I'm gonna sell tour packages of Bayan Ulgii Province)
•   What is your business plan? (I'm gonna sell a lotta tour packages!)
•   Where will your business be located? (Above the pub, of course.  For networking and public relations purposes.  Of course.)
•   Show us your SWOT! (...as in Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats-Analysis).
•   Have you sought permission from the authorities?  (Yes, of course...)  ...Prove it.
•   How much money will you make? (One MILLion Dollarrrrsss!!.....(in your best 'Dr. Evil' voice))
•   How much money are you making right now? (Ummmmm..... not so much?)
•   Well then what can you give us for security? (Well... I have this eagle ring you might like....??)
  

The game was presented farcically, and students had a lot of fun interrogating their poor Instructor (who just wanted a small loan of 1,000,000 MNT (approx $10,000 USD), after all!), coming up with the novel idea of requiring me to marry a local suitor (named Gugan, remember her from the design briefs?) of their choosing in order to ensure i) that profits would be cycled back into the local community, and ii) that she would sort me out if profits were not cycled back into the community (Mongol-Kazakh women are very strong).  Quick learners, and crafty dealmakers too!

The entire exercise was designed to give students an interactive lesson to utilize the principles discussed in the morning sessions, to demonstrate how to teach financial literacy with an engaging experience, and -to see if I could actually get them to lend me the money- to facilitate the process of forming individuals into a Self-Help-Group (SHG), which will form the basis of the project's microfinance initiative.  Studies of sustainable SHGs in India indicate that groups which are savings-based (ie lend their own money) are more likely to succeed and flourish(i).

Beneficiaries will form informal support groups based on needs, proximity to each other, and personalities - especially as so much infrastructure (root cellar + passive solar greenhouse + drip irrigation system) will be built over the summer of the first year.  Learning curves will be steep in the first two years (training will be mostly hands-on, learning by doing, while in winter months theoretical 'debrief' lessons can be facilitated), and beneficiaries can accelerate their learning by sharing information, lessons learned, and resources.

Only when a family's basic needs are met, and a surplus in crop production is achieved can we shift our focus to developing microenterprise; however, the foundation for credit co-operatives and SHGs can be laid as early as Year 1, when informal support groups form to self-organize working bees and information sharing sessions.  Seed-saving groups (which are necessary to ensure the sustainability of any aid & development initiative so that beneficiaries are independent from having to purchase seed each to year to grow a crop) can grow into seed-banks, which can then grow into savings & loans SHGs as the group's needs evolve.

Leadership, membership, and systems (the three key factors in the sustainability of SHGs)(ii) can be nurtured to grow and dvelop from these informal support and seed-saving groups.

The step from saving seeds together is not a huge leap to saving money together; the seeds for regenerative economic development can be sown through permaculture design.

Photo: Words of wisdom from Bill Mollison.

 

____________________________

(i) 'Sustainability of Self-Help Groups in India, part I - Do India's Self-help Groups Provide Value for Money?', by Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), 2007

(Ii) 'Sustainability of Self-Help Groups in India, part II - Designing SHG Programs for the Long Term' , by Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), 2007

 

Chickens in Bayan Ulgii (Day 14)

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[Excerpt from SEAL 2011 Permaculture Design Training Report, by Matthew Lynch]

Mongolian chickens are very cold hardy breed that lay one egg every 1-2 days from March until October.  There are successful breeders currently raising chickens in Ulgii City; ADRA staff brought us to one family hasha during our pre-course resource inventory to meet with a breeder and view her system.

Photo: Heavily insulated chicken house design with warm-weather chicken run attached to entryway.

A small, well-designed and  fully insulated (including the floor) earthen shelter is sufficient to keep the chickens warm throughout the winter without active heating.  The site we visited had a small earthen chicken house (approximately 2 x 1 x 1 meters) nestled in a corner between the outer hasha wall and an earthen block storage shed, with a south-facing aspect.  A small caged chicken house of similar dimensions was built over the entryway for use in warmer months. 

The compact size and strong insulation (layers of felt insulation were also installed over the floor) of the winter shelter helps to conserve the chickens' precious body heat, which was sufficient to heat the chicken house throughout the winter.  Household food scraps and grain bought from the local market provide their feed, and they are let out during the day to forage and scratch in the hasha courtyard.  The children bring the chickens water from the house, and the shelter is cleaned out once every couple of weeks.

 Photo: The Rooster watches over his hens.

Photo: The flock huddles together against the cold.

Photo: The owner demonstrates how she calls the chickens to feed.

This flock of 10-12 chickens has been thriving for the last 10 years in this design, laying 5-10 eggs per day from March - October, providing eggs, meat, and baby chickens when need, as well as an additional family income of 300MNT per egg (360,000 - 720,000MNT annually)(i).  A strong demand for fresh eggs exists, and this family is easily able to sell all their surplus eggs to the neighbours. 

Successfully introducing chickens into a permaculture system for Ulgii City will have multiple benefits: increasing food security, boosting nutrition, building soil fertility, and creating additional income sources from microenterprises based upon chicken products (eggs, meat, baby chickens, perhaps even baking).

The existing design, while effective, could be modified to become more productive, functional, and resilient by integrating the chickens into a permacultural food production system. 

For example, a passive solar greenhouse would make an excellent winter run for the chickens, keeping the birds out of the wind and in the warmth of the sun during the day, while providing fertility and preparing the soils for a jump-start on the short Mongolian growing season.  Locating the heavily insulated winter shelter next to the greenhouse (so that it can be entered from the courtyard or from the greenhouse) could make it easier to clean; a larger door could be installed on the greenhouse side of the shelter (since it opens into a warm still-air chamber), and the dropping simply swept out into the greenhouse to be used as fertilizer.

Fruit trees such as seabuckthorn and blackcurrant could be grown along the hasha walls, to take advantage of the chicken manure during warmer months when the birds can be let out of the greenhouse.  Grasses and 'weeds' such as fat hen and plantain, could be cultivated and encouraged within the hasha walls and fed to the chickens to boost the quality of the eggs (layers who are fed greens will produce eggs with healthy, bright yellow yolks).

Photo: These chickens' hasha courtyard is bare.

Photo: Outer entrance.

Photo: Inner entrance.

Photo: Family watchdog doubles as chickens' bodyguard.

Photo: Chicken's bodyguard warns us off.

____________________

(i) 1,500 MNT per month would be considered a strong salary in Bayan Ulgii.

Regenerative business v1.0 [Bayan Ulgii SEAL Project 2011]

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Draft 1.0, 'Fundamentals of Regenerative Business' learning module for SEAL Project 2011.

This session will be taught to Heads-of-household Beneficiaries and ADRA-Mongolia Field Staff, to lay the foundational understanding of creating and running a business which strengthens its community by cycling energy and money into its local markets.

Concepts are presented and explained via slideshow & lecture, then will explored and discussed during subsequent group activity, in which students will design their own Self-Help Group or Credit Co-operative Enterprises.

The final version will be translated into Russian, as the Kazakh residents of Bayan Ulgii are fluent in this language from 'Socialism Times' (as locals refer to the Soviet regime).

image: Permaculture Principles applied to Business Fundamentals.

SEAL Project, Preparations: Ulaanbaatar

photo: Bok Choy gone to seed in ADRA's office plot

Springtime in Mongolia: minus 10C days, minus 20C nights.

Most crops we know in the West will not yield a quality harvest below minus 9.4C(i).  This is only one of the many challenges facing food security efforts in Monglia.

photo:  hands coated with sooty coal grime after harvesting the seedstalks.

A filmy haze of smog glazes the otherwise clear sky above Ulaanbaatar as the sun stubbornly persists in blazing through; temperatures are noticeably lower in the buildings' shade. 

As I navigate the crowded streets, the massive coal-fired power plants we passed on the way into the city center from the airport relentlessly belch clouds of grey smoke, the smell of which mixes with diesel fumes from car exhausts, and burning plastic waste from the ger stoves of Ulaanbaatar's ever-expanding outer settlements.  The rocky sidewalks, which we so carefully picked out way across during the summer, give me grip in the snow-turned-ice which has been trampled into the streets. 

The lush green hedges and trees now stand bone-white, or grey, buds tightly coiled on their branches awaiting warmer temperatures to burst forth again.  It is easy to talk about minus 40C temperature extremes when you are in the midst of summer, and marvel at people's ability to survive such extremes, but to begin to experience what that actually feels like is quite something else - and locals tell me that it is actually quite warm out today. 

I am out of breath just walking from my hotel to the expat cafe where I type this entry, rugged up in 4 layers + a hardy, Swedish-army-issue jacket that feels like I am wearing a dead animal hide turned inside-out; it's 1,500m above sea level in the capital.  Meanwhile, the locals are enjoying the springtime sunshine, strolling briskly without hats or gloves, squinting and smiling into the sun while kids wrestle and laugh on the steps of their schools, waiting for parents to pick them up.

This is a land full of contrasts: blazing sun / cold temperatures; brand-new Hummers pausing for nomads clad in traditional deels (trenchcoats) crossing the streets; street-hustlers hawking wares to suited businessmen; multi-million-dollar mining deals being negotiated in bars while street kids crawl out of manholes outside to survive another day...

In two days time, we will be headed out to the westernmost settlement of Mongolia, nestled in the valleys of Bayan Ulgii province, home of the ancient Kazakh Eaglehunters.  These are some of the most resilient people on the planet, who have learned to live with the harshest forces of nature around them, and while my employer is confident that I have some information to share which will help them, I am sure that there is more for me to learn here than I could ever hope to teach.

photo: Bek and great Eaglehunter Mr. Saylaukhan, utilizing Bayan Ulgii's Biological Resources...

Bek(ii) and I had long conversations last night about what we hope to accomplish in the next 27 days - 'Sustainable Economic & Agricultural Learning' is quite a mouthful, and quite an ambitious goal to achieve in so short a timeframe - so we wrote our introductory speeches to the class:

" 'To educate' means 'to draw from', which means that we are here to help draw out the knowledge & intelligence that each of you has, so that we can share & support each other in learning & growing together.   

As your Instructors, we will function more like Guides, helping you to understand things from new perspectives, giving new information where necessary and drawing from your own knowledge, to help you build a strong foundation to continue your learning journey.

None of us is smarter than all of us."

If we can leave our students nothing else but the mindset and inspiration to ask themselves, and each other, the right questions: 'What worked?  What didn't work?  How can we improve?', than we will have made a positive impact.  And along the way, if we can equip them with a new baseline of skills, knowledge, and perspective, than we might just spark a regenerative cycle of innovation and self-directed, collaborative learning - which can spread organically, virally... and hopefully infect inspire a movement towards securing personal sovereignty and security, in the face of increasing global adversity.

Changing the world begins at home; wherever your home may be.

Wish us luck.

endnote references:___________________________________
(i) 'The Winter Harvest Handbook', by Elliot Coleman
(iI) Tilyeubek Ye, Food Security Director for ADRA-Mongolia

Pattern literacy: Bayan Ulgii SEAL Project 2011 v1.0

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Photos and imagery of local examples provide discussion points to explore how pattern literacy can be utilized to inform the design process.

View the complete presentation here.