Making Connections: The Story of Design

The Functional Analysis is a tool which is used in permaculture design to map the needs, products and characteristics of resources we have available so that we can start to use them as elements within our system by seeking out functional relationships between each element.

Simply put, it is a tool we use to help answer the question: How can we use what we have to create what we need?

Students split into small teams and begin by listing the Needs (Inputs) / Characteristics / Products (Outputs/Functions) of an available resource - in this (somewhat infamous) example, a chicken:

Photo: Multifunctional-Permaculture-Superchicken.

Once the functional analysis for this resource is completed, another resource is selected and the functional analysis is conducted again.  This is repeated again and again, until students have a list of elements which can be connected to each other to create functional relationships.

By asking, 'How can the needs of one element in our system be met by the products/functions of another element within our system?', we can begin to tell the story of how these elements can work together to create a functioning system: the story of design.

In other words, we are creating the beginning of a fully functional permaculture design.

Photo: Students from Vanuatu 2012 PDC present a simple 'story of design' integrating Coconuts, Cattle, Pigs, a Dog, and Taro.

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 23 – Chickens

RICK RE-INTRODUCES CHICKENS TO MONGOLIA

Special Guest Entry today from Rick, here is an excerpt on the report we are preparing about the Mongolian Permaculture project:

Chickens

Chickens were introduced by the Aid Agency in 2004, and only one person sill has chickens remaining.

The reason for this lack of transfer comes directly back to a lack of skills and knowledge of chicken management.

A class was conducted to skill up participants and prepare them for future delivery of chickens.

It was also clear that after observing the chicken house at Tosontsengel that a contract was needed with co-operative members: if they did not have a well designed and built system, than no chickens will be forthcoming.

Chickens will be particularly useful in an urban and suburban setting, as they can be kept in a small space and maintained close to the house. Fertilizer can be generated for small intensive gardens; far more sustainable than importing it from the countryside.

Chickens can supply protein, fertilizer and waste management. For example, in order to feed chickens cheaply, owners will give chickens any waste food to clean up, keeping pests such as rats to a minimum.

Chickens also create high-value produce in the form of eggs and meat, creating an income source whilst only occupying a small space. Eggs fetch 300MNT at market, and our eggs will have yellow yolks and so may well fetch a higher price.

Other niche markets may open up because of higher quality (eg. Restaurants and Hotels).

Chickens should be selectively bred in a similar manner to seed-saving. Traits to look for are:

• Cold hardiness
• Fast growth rate
• Disease Resistant
• Even temperment
• Non-flightiness (means lower-fences required)
• Mothering skills
• Superior meat
• Superior eggs

-Rick Coleman-

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 11 - Tsergiin Gol Zaygal Co-Operative

RICK AND HIS 'CRAZY' CHICKEN MAN

Sick today!

Woke up early with the sunrise around 5:30am with my stomach doing somersaults. Knew I shouldn't have polished off the last of the Suu Te Tse [Milk w/ Tea] when Bek and I turned in last night. That stuff had been sitting in its thermos all day; not a good decision.

I sleep on the ground in the morning sunlight and do some chi kung exercises to get my blood flowing, which settles my stomach a little. Montezuma's revenge ain't got nothin' on Chinggis' revenge.

Three hours of bouncing along in our 4WD again brings us to a new landscape that I glimpse through sleepy eyes; I am trying to sleep it off while avoiding whiplash from the bumby road. Something we have not seen yet: trees on the flats and bare mountain tops, suggesting lower rainfall in this area because the trees are only able to get enough water along the drainage areas in the low point of the basin.

We pull into Sumiya, the Bayantes Field Officer's hasha [family compound] and I stumble out of the car, give Rick and Kat the thumbs up, then promptly fall asleep on the family couch. No gers here, her salary affords her the nicer things, like a small wooden house, new furnishings, a nice couch [the most comfortable couch in the world when your tummy is twisting laps], and modest entertainment center complete with a very small flatscreen monitor.

It is furnished similarly to how a low-moderate income rental unit in the west may be fitted out, a stark contrast to the excessive, oftimes obnoxious notions of what affluence [affluenza?] looks like in the West.

When I wake a few hours later, a note tells me where the others have gone and the kids and watch Jackie Chan movies dubbed in Mongolian for the afternoon while I wrestle with my stomach and fall in and out of sleep.

Apart from my rotten belly, the day is another success with a visit to Tsergiin Gol Zaygal Co-Operative twenty minutes away. This co-operative is nearly barren, nestled into higher rocky ground above the settlement zones. They wont get much of a crop this year.

Rick suggests they move 50 meters downhill to a dry stone riverbed, where the crops could be able to access underground water more easily and benefit from nutrient deposited when the snows melt and water does start to flow.

He is tickled when they return because he has met his Crazy Man - there is one in every country - the one guy who has got everything right and is succeeding with growing crops, but is outcast because he is doing everything opposite to the rest of the village...

This old man has the last chickens of the entire area, a flock of about twenty, and manages to haggle his way onto the PDC course for a day [Animal Management sessions], and rent us a rooster and some hens for the course... which means I am off the hook for playing the part of 'Lead Chicken' on that day since we've got the real deal now.

He is even cultivating wild onions, brought in from the fields and planted out in his hasha, kind of like a spring onion with a small shallot. Rick is hopeful that the plant will grow better in more fertile soils, and can be cultivated over time to produce a larger bulb.

Belly is still gurgling in knots and I am hopeful that I can sleep it off tonight. Urgh.