Prepping and permaculture

Prepping, or being prepared for disaster, is a big topic now. 

 

 

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Depending on where you live, you might prep for a variety of natural disasters, like hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, tsunamis, floods, or volcanic eruption. 

 Then there are manmade disasters, like the nuclear leak at Three Mile Island or the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Many of us prepare for smaller disasters, however, like enduring a power outage or being trapped in a highway drift during a snowstorm.

At the high end of the prepping movement, there are individuals preparing for the breakdown of society.  Some are moving to remote locations and setting up mini farms to ensure a steady food supply.  These people would certainly benefit from the agricultural principles of permaculture.  But, how might they benefit from adopting the broader scope of permaculture?

They would have to form a community (zone 2) of like minded people to leverage their position.

The nucleus of this community needs to be set in place before the disaster. 

 Microcurrencies might provide a small community of people with a medium of exchange, to facilitate bartering of goods and skills.  This should be developed before hand in order to build up trust in the system.

 A community first aid station could handle small emergencies or provide ambulance service to a city hospital.  By addressing this need in advance, a building could be converted and powered by solar, with battery backup. Arrangements could be made to train people to staff the facility and a system established to compensate them from the farm produce or by microcurrency. 

Shared educational responsibilities would provide children with a larger pool of knowledge than just home schooling.  This might entail a rotating schedule, much like a Cub Scout Den Meeting.

Ideally, each homestead should have solar power and battery backup.  For those who don’t or can’t have a personal solar power system,  community solar or wind installations could be set up to provide a charging station for batteries used to power electric tools, tractors and rototillers.

So preppers have a lot to learn from permaculture, but do permaculturists have anything to learn from preppers?

There are well over 100 prepper blogs on a variety of subjects.  Here you can learn to store and preserve food, manage your water supply, treat human and animal illnesses, and a host of other things that everyone might need at some time.

 At one extreme are people who are prepared to live as hermits to escape the ills of a dysfunctional society.  At the other people are thinking of ways to form communities after a social breakdown.  There is a wide range of thought in between.

 I think both would benefit from reading the thoughts of each other.

Microcurrencies

When thinking about zones and economic, there is usually a big hurdle.  Our currency is national.  Several groups have tried to create a local currency and associated business loan programs.  This is a tough sell for me.  I’ve read of local currencies, or microcurrencies, but feel that they are mostly feel good efforts, rather than meaningful projects.

 This is is a concept of issuing a local microcurrency to be used in place of the almighty dollar for local business transactions.  The problem that I have with the concept is that they seem tied to the dollar as valuation.  The only useful aspect that I’ve seen is that the issuing agency can make microloans to environmentally sensitive entrepreneurs.  

 

The most nle example that I have found is Berkshares, Inc., a Massachusetts based microcurrency.  www.berkshares.org.  Once again, this operation is not pure, as it relies on local banks to handle the money for them. 

 

Here is how it operates, as I understand it.  An individual can exchange US dollars for Berkshares at the rate of $9.50 US for $10.00 BS.  If they cash out, they get the reciprocal rate.  Merchants who sign on, will take the Berkshare dollars as US dollars.  There is no coinage, so fractions of a dollar are paid is US coinage.

I see this as a 5% loyalty discount being offered by the merchants.  In my area several non-profit organization have arranged for 10% discounts for their members at selected retailers, whenever they show their membership cards.  These include art associations and sewing guilds.  How are Berkshares different?

A proposal has been made that Berkshares be pegged to a basket of local goods in order to insulate the local economy against volatility in the US dollar. This might make Berkshares a truly independent currency, otherwise I don’t get the point. Still, how is the basket of goods valued?  If it is in US dollars, we are back to square one.

I’ve read of barter societies, groups of people that exchange goods and services through an electronic credit system.  Perhaps a microcurrency could be used as a medium of exchange in this type of barter system.  The system would have to be closed and operate in parallel to the US dollar system. 

An advantage to this type of system is that it discourages growth for the sake of growth.  It makes no sense to produce more that your market can consume.  It would also encourage product differentiation, thus reducing direct competition for market share.

In researching this topic I found Creating Sustainable Societies, by John Boik.  This book is available in print from Barnes and Nobel or Amazon $16 or in Kindle format for $7.  You can also download a free PDF version (donation requested) from www.principledsocietiesproject.org.   When I work my way through this book, I will have more to say about this topic.  Expect this several months from now.

I’m asking all readers for input on this or any aspect of economics that follows the permaculture model.