“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex,
the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.”
- Bill Mollison, Founder of Permaculture


Context:

Change-makers throughout history were often labeled and attacked as utopian and impractical. Yet, those who saw their ideas, saw their necessity, educated others, and it was done. It became mainstream, and the past looked foolish, the present became the new reality. It took faith, love and courage. It certainly did for the history of Jim Gale from Food Forest Abundance, think of this...

Born in Minnesota, from the beginning, as a child, Jim Gale was known as “nature boy” because he spent a lot of time in nature and playing with animals such as frogs and snakes. His favorite show was Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom” and his only magazine subscription ever was “Ranger Rick.” After high-school, Jim had a wrestling coach who wanted him to write his goals. At first reluctant, he listened to Dennis Waitley, author of The Psychology of Winning, which inspired and influenced him to set out to become a 3-time all American wrestler and national champion after individuals doubted him and thought it was impractical. As Jim conceived of winning, and embodied it, he made it his reality. He then moved to Hawaii for 4 years and got into bartending, but he wanted to see the world and do something more with his life. At 29, he started to backpack around the world in 37 countries, which included living with the Maasai tribe in Africa, visiting the Karachi in Pakistan and Chiang Rai in the Jungle. He set his new goals to make money, reading books about vision and inspiration. He read everything he could find regarding human performance, especially during his journey. Jim later met a friend who he worked with in a mortgage company, which 3 years later from scratch, generated about $1.3 billion in gross revenue, leading him to retire when he was 32 or 33 years old as he also got sick of the industry. He then bought a boat and lived on the ocean in the Bahamas for a year, but got bored quickly because there wasn’t the feeling of inspiration he had imagined. He decided to move to Costa Rica and learned about the word “permaculture” which means “permanent culture.” When he studied this, he realized it’s a sustainable agricultural design science which the world does not know about. With this powerful revelation, he saw that we were destroying life on multiple levels, from our air, to our water, to our soil and so on. Jim spent over two years digging into this problem, a never ending rabbit-hole, and it did not feel good to him seeing how badly things have become. He realized how much he loved nature, his family and their future, and he developed optimism with faith, love and courage to focus on the solution rather than the problem, as he innerstood that it is embarrassingly simple in comparison. Jim pondered on creating a business model which can be scalable, serving the whole world based on the solution, forming Food Forest Abundance.

Therefore, throughout all of Jim Gale’s journey, in the end, he found the idea which inspired him, the embarrassingly simple solution whose time has come that is stronger than all the armies of the world, which we can conceive and achieve...

We need to take the poisons out and grow food instead of lawns. Mass adoption through Permaculture Food Forests would catalyze a shift in awareness.
Then, we bring all the best ideas together with this idea, through initiatives and outreach. We reach out to the influencers around the world. We engage and strengthen the structure of this idea through councils and platforms.

Emma Goldman said “Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian”
 
Alan Watts said “I am trying to make the deadly serious point that, as of today, an economic utopia is not wishful thinking but, in some substantial degree, the necessary alternative to self-destruction.”
 
Oscar Wilde said “A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”
 

Permaculture:

Permaculture is a revolutionary and holistic design system aimed at creating sustainable and self-sufficient human environments by mimicking the patterns and relationships found in natural ecosystems. Coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s, the term combines “permanent agriculture” and “permanent culture,” reflecting its focus on long-term ecological health and cultural resilience. Permaculture integrates traditional and modern principles from ecology, energy conservation, landscape design, and environmental science to create systems that are multifunctional, bio-diverse, ecologically sound, economically viable, and capable of meeting their own needs without destroying or polluting the environment. By emphasizing thoughtful observation and working with nature rather than against it, permaculture seeks to maximize productivity and minimize waste, providing sustainable systems that benefit both humans and the planet. It is cooperation over competition, and long-term sustainability over short-term exploitation. Permaculture is therefore not just the solution, it is our very survival and optimal condition, it is the inevitable future. 

Permaculture, as defined with principles, ethics and design techniques, can be explored in “Introduction to Permaculture” by Bill Mollison and Reny Mia Slay.
Expanding on the concepts, may be found in “Gaia’s Garden” by Toby Hemenway

In 1971, the U.S. was taken off the gold standard by the government, ending the Bretton Woods system, leading to the “Nixon Shock.” In 1973, there became significant economic turmoil, a stock market collapse occurs. In the 1970s, farmers dealt with rising costs, falling commodity prices and high interest rates. In response, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other technologies were promoted and used.

We don’t need to be stuck any longer on the old systems which don’t truly serve us, when we can conceive the new system which proves itself. We don’t need to fight existing reality, if we work from where we are, accepting the challenge. Only from accepting things as they are, can we move on for the better, just as we may learn from history for the future betterment of humanity. If we know people’s current concerns, we may consider for instance, what they will yield, literally, from the solution whose time has come. How about this for return on investment...

A seed or stick can produce millions and millions of meals over the next ten years. The one simple sweet potato vine with 2 leaves at the end, can produce 100 pounds in the next 18 months. You take 10 minutes to use your hands to dig a hole and put that vine in the ground. You add irrigation as needed, which can be as simple as a push of a button once, and then never having to push the button again. 

This is just one example of how an embarrassingly simple solution can solve the big problem of poverty and malnutrition. Stack in additional functions, such as having a whole community planting food together, or strategically placing plants to filter and clean the air. In prisons, the recidivism rate in one study where the inmates were working in the gardens for a few years, went from over 60% to under 10%. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Our world can build stronger communities, we can solve problems of loneliness and we can prevent mass extinction. The possibilities from this idea is limitless in it’s mere nature. It is nature!

Landscaping in Lockup: The Effects of Gardening Programs on Prison Inmates, Arcadia University. Also details “eco-therapy” https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005

Notice the following pictures, 13 months ago on this land there was nothing but sand. Very little if any butterflies or bees, and not many birds. Now, this can provide food for many many families, and most people would call it “paradise.” Delicious, nutritious, absolutely incredible food and it's wondrously beautiful. Every month, every year, there is an exponential growth in life. This location is called Galt’s Landing, which can be found in St. Cloud Florida, and it is fully off-grid. In Florida there was a 90 billion budget in 2001, and it's likely more than that now. 5% of $90 billion is $4.5 billion. Over four years that's $18 billion. This demonstration took about $100,000 to $150,000. If we took $18 billion, imagine the amount of food forests in the State of Florida. In addition, every food forest becomes a nursery because you can count the seeds in a papaya but you cannot count the papayas in a single seed. Nature's system is infinite in its ability to create abundance. Florida would quickly become the healthiest, most abundant, most free state in the country. It would be a demonstration model for the rest of the world. However, a demonstration could be done by a church, a hospital, a gym, a school or even at your own house, and it will inspire many people, creating the ripple effect that will change the world!


BEFORE:











AFTER:















A “Food Forest” is an edible landscape which mimics the natural patterns of forests and ecosystems for low maintenance and chemical free food production. A food forest protects the soil, recycles nutrients, conserves water, providing year-round food security, wildlife habitat, seeds and nurseries, inspiring and bringing together the community and for home-schools or school-trips and workshops, health and wellness, etc. This is stacking functions!

Creating a food forest starts with design, as by far the most important step. Much like building a house, you can't start building a house unless you have a blueprint. To be successful, we must mimic nature, which means that we want a community of plants that supports each other. In permaculture food forests, it is said that there are 7 layers, including canopy, understory, bushes and shrubs, herbaceous, roots, ground cover and climbers. We must take into account factors such as the sun path, where the shaded areas of your yard are relative to trees and your house, and where the water paths are. If there's erosion issues, we may inquire upon the condition of the soil and how to build soil. If we worry about any plants freezing off, then we can create micro-climates, as there's all sorts of ways to do it. Most American yards which have a successful lawn can easily be amended to grow food. You can have a neat little backyard loaded with food, including 20 or 30 different types of perennials growing, and spend perhaps 30 minutes every day only if you want to. At Galt’s Landing, there has been practically no maintenance for the last 10 months right in the middle of where the deer, bears, pigs and different animals are. It is absolutely thriving with 55 different plants and about 15 different fruit trees, with all sorts of citrus, avocados, lychee, mango, Barbados cherry, sugar cane, banana, ashitaba, longevity spinach and moringa. For each location, there are zones which determines the various plants that can be grown, however there are always native edible perennials. Perennial fruit trees, berry bushes and grapevines will produce for two years up to 2000 years! You can trim a prune, which is a fruit tree, maybe twice a year and you can increase your yield but if you just let it go you're still going to have food in 30 years. In contrast, annuals require more maintenance in order to remain.

The most important element is the soil, as living soil is the foundation of life on earth.
We are killing the soil with poisons and the ignorance of that is off the charts. Dr. Elaine Ingham, a professor of soil bacteria microorganism ecology, shares with us that we won’t have any problems with disease or nutrition when we innerstand soil health. She tells us that we can increase yields “by at least 20-50%” but “typically by 300%,” and as the knowledge has been growing, they have consistently seen yields upwards of 3000%! We also know that over 70% of our immune system is our gut bacteria, which is influenced by the bacteria in our food, and our soil bacteria. With 890 million acres of farmland which has been laden with chemicals, regenerative farmer Joel Salatin tells us that 10% of that farmland can be used to feed the entire Americas using permaculture. Farms don’t need to be dependent on any facility, government, or even any seed, since we can work with nature’s already made systems. We are able to use permaculture in every environment. If it is said that we can’t do this in Gaza, in Israel, or in other locations, perhaps you may want to think again, as the “Greening The Desert Project” shows how it’s possible! Should this not inspire us to do better?

“If your soil isn’t healthy, your plants won’t be healthy. And if your plants aren’t healthy, they can’t pass on any health to you. Your health depends on the health of your soil.” “Soils in America are disappearing at a rate 10 times faster than they are naturally replenished. By growing your own food, you can help reverse this trend. Not only are you preserving soil, you’re also helping replenish it hundreds of times faster than if nature was acting alone.” “A teaspoon of rich garden soil can contain a billion microbes. A healthy human intestinal tract can contain 100 trillion bacterial cells, or around 277 billion per inch.” The value of soil and compost, as well as how to use these effectively, is detailed in Chapter 5 of “The Grow System” by Marjory Wildcraft.

Bacteria in food may be destroyed through Pasteurization or applying heat, and individuals may not be consuming enough fermented foods or Probiotics. There are 10x more microbe cells living in you than there are of your own cells. Epigenetics is the study of changes and expressions regarding our genetics by diet, environment, etc. providing insight into our ability to change, without feeling doomed to fate out of our control.

The “Greening The Desert Project” in Jordan. https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org

On a tenth of an acre, there are parents feeding their whole family. To get more specific, on a 20-foot diameter circle in Central Florida USA, we can have three larger fruit trees, 40 or 50 understory plants including all of your berries, several sections of perennial spinaches such as Okinawa and longevity spinach, you can have sweet potatoes and potatoes, many different types of medicinals such as turmeric and ginger, and all of your herbs and spices. You could do a meal a day for your family on just that area, and if you add some chicken coops, and you stack functions to ensure you are getting what your body needs, this will provide a great amount of nourishment.

There are many plants that people are unaware of, which can be grown to their benefit. Permaculture inspires us to think about the whole environment. Every fence could and should be a food fence because it's already there, it's an element of the system that can have multiple functions and it's more beautiful, it also contributes to further privacy. When you turn a chain-link fence into a green food fence with grapes or passion flower, the simple fence now becomes an attraction which will continue to awe and inspire others. The idea which proves itself, Galt’s Landing is a demonstration every day to the world that living this way is the idea whose time has come.

If not this idea, we allow lawns to waste our resources and destroy our world. A lawn has basically one or two functions, it's good for soil erosion and people might like the looks of it, but when you add in permaculture, you stack functions. The lawn is the greatest “conspiracy.” There are 44 million acres of lawn in the United States. There is more acreage in lawns than the eight largest irrigated crops put together, in the modern world. The lawn is the most destructive monoculture on our planet, taking more resources and more pesticides than any other crop and yet it doesn’t provide a yield. This is not natural. Additionally, our average food from farm to table is 1500 miles in the United States. The food is transported from four or five different vehicles and it's touched by five, six or seven different people. It is a radically unsustainable use of resources, when we can turn your lawn into a food forest. When we inspire and empower people to grow food, we let thy food be thy medicine. It’ll bring in the birds and the butterflies, it’ll be a near paradise. When we realize it can be less maintenance than a lawn, this adds another piece to the puzzle. 

 “According to the EPA, we use 580 million gallons of gas each year, in lawnmowers that emit as much pollution in one hour as 40 automobiles driving— accounting for roughly 10 to 18 percent of non-road gasoline emissions... We also dump roughly 10 times more fertilizer on our lawns than on crops, notes Columbia’s Earth Institute. These fertilizers and the 67 million pounds of pesticides with which we drench our lawns ever year degrade, releasing compounds like nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 298 times more potent than CO2...  All America’s farmland consumes 88.5 million acre feet of water a year. Lawns, with a fraction of the land, drink an estimated two-thirds as much... $47.8 billion to $82 billion we spend annually on overcutting and landscaping (FYI: we spend $49.47 billion in foreign aid)... Thirty-five thousand people, 4,800 of which are children, are treated annually for mower-related injuries—resulting in 600 youth amputations. The Royal Statistical Society even awarded the fact that nearly eight times more Americans are killed by lawnmowers than Islamic terrorists International Statistic Of The Year.” https://gizmodo.com/lawns-are-an-ecological-disaster-1826070720

4x more lawn than corn. Around 50-75% of residential water use is also put into watering lawns, 4x more water than hay. https://scienceline.org/2011/07/lawns-vs-crops-in-the-continental-u-s/ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Lawn/lawn2.php

The new eras of enlightenment are upon this shift in mental and physical reality, growing food instead of lawns. It is unifying and all-encompassing. We do not need to remain talking about the topics of the world that only continue to divide us. We can recognize permaculture transcends all cultures, no matter the time or location, no matter the country or race, no matter the ideology or philosophy. Nobody can live without food, nobody can thrive without good health and nutrition, nobody can adapt well to an unhealthy or toxic environment, nobody can remain content in a troubled economy. If we are concerned about animal rights and factory farming, the solution is replacing lawns with food forests to reduce the harm of all living things in the aggregate. If we are concerned about EMF pollution and our environmental impact, the solution is replacing lawns with food forests to have nature’s intelligence regulating our actions. If we see that we could use frequencies, sound-tables, med-beds or special technologies in order to heal, the solution is replacing lawns with food forests to not need or have to depend on such technologies to begin with. Most of our industries, products or services, will not need to persist in treating symptoms, as we will have attained a localized, sustainable and preventive model. Nature resonates frequencies and contains medicine everywhere. There does not need to be a singular “cure” for cancer, as the cure is nature itself. Within a single plant, there are hundreds of compounds, many of which may work with each other or help against a whole array of different diseases. Looking at nature and many plants together as a whole, this appears to us as exponential abundance, indefinitely serving us in more ways than one, an intelligent system that will forever be studied and used to our benefit. Doctor Strange in his movie, while meditating and going through all of the possible scenarios to overcome the death that's destroying galaxies and universes, one of the other superheroes asked him how many scenarios are there and he responds stating there is one strategy. This is that one strategy, it's elevation, it's Ascension, it's Consciousness, it's wisdom, it's Enlightenment, it's the Garden of Eden. Simply put, if you want life on earth, then this is a good idea; and if you don’t, then it's not a good idea.

You can count the seeds in a single papaya, but you can’t count the papayas in a single seed. Talk about abundance... How about that for free energy? 

What would result in the US population if 20% of the 50 million acres of lawns, and 10% of our 900 million acres of farmland were converted into poison free edible landscapes (food forests, including with animal integration)? 20% of 50 million is 10 million and 10% of 900 million acres is 100 million. With 100 million acres of Permaculture designed land, we could feed >400 million people. The food supply chain would go from a 1,500 mile average, to less than a 15 mile average. The cost of food would go down 50% within 2 years and continue to go down as local food harvesting (treasure hunting), and preparation becomes home based again. From the schools, to the prisons, to the churches, a ripple effect will occur quickly. As a result of this logical, ethical and joyful use of resources, we reverse cancer, diabetes and heart disease, we end and reverse deforestation, we end and reverse mass extinction, we end tyranny by taking control back of our food supply chain and health!

We are visionaries. We actively engage with the idea whose time has come and we strive to make it a reality, showing by example. We experience daily, the countless people in awe, the countless people ending up in tears and astonished to see what is possible. We welcome you to learn about it, and “be the change you wish to see in the world.” You won’t need to wish once you see, and you will be the change when you help others see it too.

Key works to learn more:
Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison and Reny Mia Slay
Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway