By Maddy Harland | Wednesday, 13th March 2013 | Reprinted with permission | Original found here

Using biological resources instead of fossil fuels is common sense in a world that is warming, but there is more potential here than first meets the eye. Maddy Harland explains.

Beans instead of blinds shade the passive solar extension at the Harland’s house

Wherever possible permaculture advocates the use of biological resources. The most obvious example is on the farm and in the garden. Instead of buying a bag of chemically produced fertiliser, we can grow nitrogen fixing plants on site, such as Siberian pea tree, gorse or broom. These feed the food plants around them, both from their roots and from being cut and used as mulch around the stems and trunks of the food plants.

We can also grow our green manures like red clover, phacelia and mustard and then turn them back into the soil. We sow red clover once our garlic crop has got away. It acts as a cover crop and reduces weed between the garlic. It also fixed nitrogen and fertlises the garlic. It is a good arrangement!

Other examples are: using chickens in tractors to weed and manure areas; using compost teas on the farm (see ‘Fossil fuel fertilizers v. compost teas on the farm’; using pigs to plough the soil and manure it to prepare it for crops; using ducks to control slugs and snails; using geese for weeding; using pigs to turn the spoilt straw that has had cattle on it in the winter in a barn to help speed up the composting process (see ‘How pigs can compost manure farm on a scale – saving you fuel and money’); using horses to extract timber in steeply slopped woodlands; companion planting for pest control; using plants to shade buildings instead of air conditioning; planting living fences instead of wire; even weaving beautiful and resilient living bridges instead of using wood and rope in India (see this inspiring film)… the examples are endless!

People are biological resources

People are also biological resources. With increasing reliance on technology in industrialised cultures, we have more and more unused or underused people, particularly the young and the elderly. These people can feel like they are a drain on an industrialised culture. The young are often regarded with fear when they gather in groups but with high unemployment in the under 25s and little to do, what other alternatives are there?

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