Agroforestry Accelerator Program with the Permaculture Living Lands Trust
Agroforestry is an ancient, ecologically-based, bioregional food production system that is also a powerful response to our greatest interrelated planetary challenges today: climate chaos, loss of biodiversity, and water insecurity.
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Shifting farmland from annual monocultures to perennial polycultures Builds living soils
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Creates habitat for native plants and wildlife
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Provides cleaner, more plentiful water
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Increases the availability of nutrient-dense local perennial foods
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Sequestering 2 to 5 tons of carbon per acre per year.
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With just 1% of US residents in farming, and 1% of US farmland in agroforestry, this shift will require many more beginning farmers trained in community-based tree crop agriculture, still an emerging field of study and practice.​​​
Permaculture Living Lands Trust is piloting an Agroforestry Accelerator program to serve this need for:
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Beginning tree crop farmers in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast regions.
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Trainees will have over one-year:​
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2 live day long classes, one in the Fall and one in the spring and
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Two online sessions, one in the winter and one in the summer
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Why This Matters: Producing human food in ways that restore natural systems rather than degrade them is an essential response to the confluence of climate change, loss of biodiversity , watershed degradation, and the resulting social upheaval and injustices.
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This paradigm shift calls for training a new generation of skilled and dedicated Community Food Foresters serving communities in the bioregions where we live.
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Where it Happens: ​
There will be three cohorts in three different bioregions:
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Hudson Valley of New York (6 trainees)
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Central New Jersey (3 trainees)
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Triangle region of North Carolina (3 trainees)
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When it Happens:
This is a 1-year program
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4 trainings to be held for each of the cohorts:
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Fall 2024 Harvest and Processing Field Day in each region
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Winter 2025 On-line Agroforestry Opportunities Training via zoom for the whole group
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Spring 2025 Propagation Field Day in each region
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We wrap up in Summer 2025 with an on-line Agroforestry Futures Training for the whole group. ​​​​
Advance economic, ecological, and food system resilience in the communities they serve.
An experienced training team of agroforestry educators and practitioners in each region will offer hands-on training and mentorship in propagation and production of: native and hybrid edible fruit and nut trees and shrubs; raw and value-added tree crop and related products (herbs, fungi, root crops, meat animals); and; seed and nursery stock, and related farm products.
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In addition, Apprentices will be trained to understand equitable land access and land protection strategies, value chain development, and cooperative business models for tree crop producers.
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Do you feel a calling to;
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Planting trees
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Creating legacy landscapes
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Working with Agroforestry
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Starting Nurseries and Community Food Forests?
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Then this is a good time to listen to that calling! You may be a candidate for our Agroforestry Accelerator Program.
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Who are We?
Permaculture Living Lands Trust is a nonprofit land trust co-evolving a new commons with agroforestry and permaculture design in the Eastern Deciduous Forest Biome and beyond.
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What is the Agroforestry Accelerator?
This is a one-year experiential learning program for 12 beginning farmers
Developing the skills they need to establish permaculture farms and agroforestry operations focusing on improved varieties of native fruits and nuts berries and other important perennial food crops.
Trainers will share their extensive experience in propagation, stewardship, harvesting, value-added processing, marketing, cooperative business development, land conservation and permaculture design.
Graduates will earn an Advanced Agroforestry Certificate
You will gain the practical skills to begin transforming annual monoculture fields into perennial polyculture food forests, restoring local ecologies while increasing healthy food access for communities in the densely populated eastern United States. ​​​
"Permaculture Living Lands Trust is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization.
All contributions are tax deductible in the US."
Permaculture Forest Gardening
Creating whole site property plans that include agroforestry, off-grid intern housing, educational campus for permaculture training.
Abundant Chestnuts
We are finding rare and valuable nut tree plantings and working with property owners to protect them. We are connecting experienced nursery people to train new growers.
Organic Crops
The right plant for the right place, we honor prime agricultural soils by using for high value vegetable crops. On site compost and gravity fed water supplies for all of our crops.
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Permaculture is a creative design process based on whole-systems thinking informed by ethics and design principles. This approach seeks to mimic the patterns and relationships we can find in nature and can be applied to all aspects of human habitation, from agriculture to ecological building, from appropriate technology to education and even metropolises.
Andrew Faust is one of the premiere permaculture teachers and designers in North America. In this podcast episode, Andrew talks about his backstory from gaining experience building permaculture sites and off-grid natural buildings to then applying those same principals to a different setting: New York City. It is becoming abundantly apparent that homes and cities have been built upon a faulty foundation.
As progress into the 21st century we are collectively realizing that we need to change the way that we build and change the way that we interact with our outer (and inner) worlds. In other words, we have to redesign how we design. That's where Andrew's teachings step in.
His innovative approach to using permaculture design to rethink urban metropolises is making an impacts large and small. He argues that we need to see cities as "urban metabolisms" and focus on energy nodes, and water and nutrients flows. From his work, thousands of students have gone on to apply this philosophy into their work and communities.
This episode is deeply insightful and one that you'll likely want to listen to several times. To learn more about Andrew Faust's work you can visit his website at the Center for Bioregional Living.
