Permaculture: An Interview with Joel Fath
Joel Fath serves Pendle Hill as organic garden coordinator, teacher, and cook. A certified permaculture designer and teacher, he will be one of three facilitators of Pendle Hill’s August Permaculture Design Certification course. Here he discusses his work in an interview with Shirley Dodson.
Joel, your family has been involved in farming and physical labor for at least seven generations. How has this background influenced you?
Visiting extended family meant traveling to farms, playing in barns, interacting with rural communities, riding and driving agricultural equipment, and hearing stories about rural living. Agrarian communities share in the joys and hardships of life associated with the work of producing food, responding to weather conditions, raising animals, and the value of a job well done. These friendships are emotionally fulfilling as you are able to trust your neighbors and call upon them for aid when needed. It is this type of community I work to recreate in urban and suburban environments.
In August you, Benjamin Weiss, and Brandon Tennis will teach a permaculture design certification course at Pendle Hill. What is permaculture?
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Permaculture is an integrative design system used to create diverse ecosystems that provide for our needs and provide an answer to the question of how we can live in a world with fossil fuel sources that harm the environment to extract, distribute, and consume.
Pendle Hill seeks to buy as much as possible of what we eat from nearby sources. Why should people try to purchase food that has been produced locally?
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It tastes better. Try it – you may just surprise yourself! The carrots from the farmers market are sweeter than those in a plastic bag. Purchasing locally builds relationships, whereas buying at a supermarket rarely benefits the farmers. Buying local reduces our carbon footprint and demand for oil. National Geographic recently published that food trucked from California has a higher carbon footprint than wine shipped from Europe.
Joel, I understand that Pendle Hill is working toward sourcing more vegetables, fruits, and grains from our own campus. How are we doing this?
We are developing landscapes that offer the visual appeal of managed spaces and plantings that provide a yield Pendle Hill can use.
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What produce do you expect to harvest this year?
This year’s harvest will include figs, strawberries, blueberries, salad and braising greens, tomatoes, green beans, squash, onions, culinary herbs, various roots, and seeds for 2012.
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You have expressed a personal concern about shale gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin. Why would you like to see this proposed drilling prevented, and how does this matter relate to permaculture?
One of the 12 permaculture principles is “create no waste.” Mining natural gas with current hydraulic fracturing practices creates large amounts of toxic waste, in both liquid and gaseous forms, that enter the water cycle, pollute underground wells, contaminate rivers, and degrade air quality. Practicing permaculture means we take into consideration three ethics: earth care, people care, and fair share. In my opinion, fracking fails on all three accounts. It's not worth destroying our supply of clean water for cheap fossil fuel. Other sources of renewable energy exist and are in use throughout the world. I believe we need to educate ourselves on these options and invest in this appropriate technology.
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Joel, what advice would you give to someone who wants to try sustainable gardening in a small home plot?
Start small! A 4ft x 4ft raised bed will provide ample produce throughout the year with minimal care. For more information about raised bed gardening visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_bed_gardening. For an informative video watch The Synergistic Garden by Emilia Hazlip.
*** For more information on gardening and food at Pendle Hill, visit http://pendlehill.org/community/food-and-garden. See http://pendlehill.org/workshops/summer-2011/538-permaculture-design-certification for details on the August Permaculture Design Certification course.