A day with Permaculture with Upendra.
Upendra, an engineer started his journey with a dream to build bridges. He grew up with a dream to play cricket. And every time he played, he destroyed something. As an engineer, he built few bridges and destroyed many resources to build that connectivity. Something did not feel good, he quit his job. Started his quest ‘ how to grow food’.
He began his session with taking us to the past. He shared…
The man traveled from forest age to energy age. In forest age, the man needed only a few needs from nature to survive. Then with the invention of the wheel – he started getting more from the forest. In energy age, the man’s “taking” is far more than the needs (for example cut trees).
Something to ponder – When the man started breaking one chain, the whole eco system started getting affected. Every time we buy our food from the market, we are adding to the deforestation. We get farm land by cutting forests. Food in the farm while converts sun’s energy into food, it uses fertilizers (which are made in a factory using fossil fuel), then uses petrol to transport it to us, while in this process a lot of wastage happens. The same food is sent to the market in the cities and the not so good food gets rotten. Every Brinjal we eat, we waste energy for 26 Bringal. Every egg we eat, we waste energy of nine eggs.
But what would happen if we grew our food right there in our house (in kitchen garden or on roof)
Something more to ponder “We need to put nutrition in the farm but the Forest is self-sustaining”.
Spent the day exploring farming with permaculture. So many different aspects of one skill…a lot to know, to explore and do. Education begins every time when we explore anything new which connects us to life and living.