Permaculture course prices suite

I'm still annoyed

The saga so far, I wrote a ‘feeling annoyed about the high price of too many Permaculture courses (PDC) on social networks and got a lot of supportive replies. Then I wrote an article explaining why my courses are ‘pay what you want’.

Why my Permaculture courses are 'pay what you want'

In a follow up article I wrote this:

“This brings up a point that has always annoyed me. People wafting around the planet to teach PDC’s in countries where there are already qualified, experienced Permaculture designer/teachers. Even more annoying is that they don’t contact the local Permaculture networks before rushing in. This wasn’t, isn’t how I decided to do things, I get an invite and then I’ll make sure that the local Permaculture designers, if any, are happy for me to come and see a need for my contribution. If not I stay at home.”

I don’t know if Kharma or something like that has just kicked in but I came across an advert for a PDC that, if they get enough people, will take place not very far from where I live and work in France. Just up the road!

Just after I finished this article I came across an advert for a PDC to be held in Taiwan just before the International Permaculture Convergence chatfest. Frankly I really don’t know what to say so I’ll leave you with the link and you can draw your own conclusions. https://www.ipctaiwan2024.org/registration-guidelines

Please bear in mind that I’m not writing this to promote our courses, I don’t need to they are fully booked! Here is a little comparison between our ones here and the one being proposed up the road.

• The other course is being taught by one person who is flying in from California and another who is travelling up from Spain.

• Our course is being taught by local people who don’t have to travel very far and definately don’t need to take a jet plane.

• The other course is being taught by two people who speak French but not very well.

• Our course is taught by five people who are native speakers or fluent in French.

• The other course teachers have no connection to, nor have they contacted, the local and national Permacultue networks in France.

• Our course is led by people who are active in local and national French Permaculture networks.

• The other course prices (cheapest options)

  • Camping: 150€

  • Meals: 250€ (half-board)

  • Course: 420€

  • TOTAL : 720€

• Our course prices

  • Camping: free

  • Meals: (3 a day included)

  • Course: pay what you want

  • TOTAL: can’t really say as you pay what you want!

Someone might point out that our course is 11 days and the other one is 2 weeks long. Bear in mind that the other course is being translated live as the teachers teach in English. Teacher speaks, pause for the translation, teacher continues speaking. All that takes time.

You could of course opt to go to Taiwan for the IPC and do the PDC there:

• The IPC course prices (cheapest options)

  • Camping: USD 128 (117€)

  • Meals: little information given but looks like you sort yourself out.

  • Course: USD 1,600 (1470€)

  • TOTAL : USD 1,588 plus food and travelling to Taiwan.

So you tell me, should all of this annoy me? Am I wrong to think that travelling across the world to teach a PDC next door to people who are as qualified and who also run PDCs is unethical? I’m not saying that all courses should be ‘pay what you want’ but is it naive of me to think that 720€ is expensive and exclusive?

I sometimes worry that the English speaking Permaculture world doesn’t appreciate the fact that Permaculture is international and has been for decades. This means that there are ten’s of thousands of people designing and teaching in a multitude of languages.

Permaculture is massive in France, there are local groups, national festivals, I’ve lost count of the number of designers here. French language Permaculture is obviously even more massive as the francophone world is pretty wide. The first PDC’s in Europe were taught in France, years before any were offered in the UK.

The good old ‘freedom of choice’ argument gets thrown at me. I do believe in it but the choices offered need to be ethical if not they aren’t Permaculture. Travelling across the world to go where you are not needed isn’t ethical, nor is running courses that most people can’t afford.

"Use all the skills you have in relation to others - and that way we can do anything." ~ Bill Mollison

This is fundamental and something I strive to respect, this is why I don’t fly anymore and why I support Permaculture designers in other countries by not going there to design or teach courses. They are both things that the local people can do perfectly well.

"I gave one permaculture course in Botswana, and now my students are out in the bloody desert in Namibia teaching Bushmen - whose language nobody can speak - to be very good permaculture people." ~ Bill Mollison

Mollison didn’t need to go back to Botswana, I don’t need to go back to Guinea, or Benin or Togo nor a whole bunch of countries where local people are now working as designers and teachers. I’m redundant there and it’s a good thing too. It’s far better to be taught by someone who fully understands the local culture, environmental conditions and all the rest.

I’ve struggled a bit to stay polite whilst writing this article but I feel strongly that:

Permaculture has to be inclusive.

It has to be available to those people who have low incomes.

It has to be popular and not elitist.

It has to be radical, seditionist and directed at fundamentally transforming our societies.

It has to be real, a solid design and engineering system that can feed and house people and look after the biosphere.

It is up to us to guide the evolution of Permaculture and for that it is often a good idea to go back to the founding principles.

"There is one, and only one solution, and we have almost no time to try it. We must turn all our resources to repairing the natural world, and train all our young people to help. They want to; we need to give them this last chance to create forests, soils, clean waters, clean energies, secure communities, stable regions, and to know how to do it from hands-on experience." ~ Bill Mollison

"The tragic reality is that very few sustainable systems are designed or applied by those who hold power, and the reason for this is obvious and simple: to let people arrange their own food, energy and shelter is to lose economic and political control over them. We should cease to look to power structures, hierarchical systems, or governments to help us, and devise ways to help ourselves." ~ Bill Mollison

How are we going to achieve our goal of fundamental social change? This is a profound question and part of the answer is to move away from existing paradigms and move on towards something different. In the same way that, as designers, we tend to question everything we must also ask ourselves some serious questions. One of the most important being “Is the way that Permaculture is currently presented and promoted the most optimal path?”

In some places people have bothered to apply Permaculture design to guide the evolution of Permaculture in their countries. This would seem the logical thing to do, it is certainly what I and others did here in France. We analysed the situation and then designed the way forward. I would encourage those people who travel to other countries to bear this in mind, I would further encourage them to get in touch the the local networks to see if their presence is needed and if so how it can be included in the overall design.

I explained about how we designed the evolution of Permaculture in France in this article.

Collapse? Permaculture

Thanks for reading! I’ll probably drop this subject now. The next article will be about Urban Permaculture, please don’t start reading it thinking I’m going to explain how to set up an urban garden or farm. It’s about strategic, designed urban and rural regeneration, real world stuff. ‘nuf said :-)