Harvesting Water the Permaculture Way

L'Amour vache

Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.

Permaculture expert Geoff Lawton describes how he and a team of volunteers grew an oasis in arid, salty lowland, despite extremely high temperatures and minimal irrigation. The site is the lowest dryland expanse on Earth: a plain in Jordan, two kilometres northeast of the Dead Sea, and 400 metres below sea level.

Hometown Habitat features renowned entomologist Dr. Douglas Tallamy, whose research, books and lectures on the use of non-native plants in landscaping, sound the alarm about habitat and species loss. Tallamy provides the narrative thread that challenges the notion that humans are here and nature is someplace else. “It doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t be that way.” Inspiring stories of community commitment to conservation landscaping illustrate Tallamy’s vision by showing how humans and nature can co-exist with mutual benefits.

In this introductory video to permaculture, Bill Mollison, the movement’s co-founder, takes the viewer through the history and developments of the movement. With startlingly laconic humor and insight he deconstructs the modern agribusiness and the “modern plague” : manicured ornamental lawns. In this video he offers an antidote, which is an antidote to both our currently unsustainable practices and our unsustainable culture. Both of these have to change and adapt. Permanently.

An exploration of a new paradigm of health, science, and medicine, based on the interconnections between us and nature.

Documentary on water usage, money, politics, the transformation of nature, and the growth of the American west, shown on PBS as a four-part miniseries.

Most people were first exposed to Michael C. Ruppert through the 2009 documentary, Collapse, directed by Chris Smith. Apocalypse, Man is an intimate portrait of a man convinced of the imminent collapse of the world, but with answers to how the human spirit can survive the impending apocalypse.

Farm families in Lestock, Saskatchewan, have pooled their resources so that rising operating costs will not drive them off their land. By pooling their land, their equipment, their livestock, and farming as a cooperative, they are able to live as they choose, to maintain their standard of living, and even to have some spare time left over to enjoy. An engaging look at a novel approach to big-scale farming.

"Voice of the wind" (La Voz del Viento) describes a journey made by Carlos and Jean-Luc from Marseille to Granada visiting different projects related to permaculture, thought and action, all focused on a vision of life respect and love. In each of those places, they delivered or exchanged seeds (Jean-Luc has more than 300 varieties) and interviewed some key project people. This film is open source and can be watched/downloaded for free (English/French/Spanish) in the official website. Donations are more than welcome.

This project started with video from a three day workshop. The workshop covered the earthworks for building a pond without a liner, a swale, and a hugelkultur bed on a terrace. Then we added more footage by doing the same workshop over again in a colder climate. A year later, we returned to the first workshop site and added even more footage! We even had an evaluation by the Crown Prince of Permaculture, Geoff Lawton.

Sous les pavés, la Terre !

Documentary about Lule Bib Luka a sheep farmer and one of Albania's last Burneshas, women who swear chastity for life in order to be given the rights and privileges of men.

The average age of the U.S. farmer has reached 60. Half of America's farmland will change ownership in the next 15 years. Our nation faces a little-known agricultural crisis on an unprecedented scale. Against all odds, this is the story of an eclectic mix of young people- military veterans, bright-eyed idealists, and multi-generational farmers who are accepting the virtuous challenge of feeding us all. The documentary is narrated by Mike Rowe, Dirty Jobs, Returning the Favor and stars farmers from every region of the United States including national agricultural leaders like Joel Salatin, Eliot Coleman, Blake Hurst and Lindsey Lusher-Shute.

A farmer struggles to make a living on his land near the coast of the Dead Sea.

King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.

Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.

Set in a small farming community in mid Wales, a place where Koppel's parents - both refugees - found a home. This is a landscape and population that is changing rapidly as small scale agriculture is disappearing and the generation who inhabited a pre-mechanised world is dying out. Much influenced by his conversations with the writer Peter Handke, the film maker leads us on a poetic and profound journey into a world of endings and beginnings; a world of stuffed owls, sheep and fire.

Paul and Phyllis van Amburgh, believing that a small, family farm is the best place to raise their children, take their life savings and buy a defunct dairy. With three children and a fourth on the way and armed only with their principles and determination, they fight to defy the odds as they become full time farmers. THE FIRST SEASON, through an intimate, cinema verite style, bears witness to the Van Amburgh's struggle as they fight against relentless toil, financial ruin and the harsh reality of diary farming to achieve their version of the American dream.

Summer unveils a new blueberry season in northern Canada. The fields are covered in blue and workers from all over scramble before the frost puts an end to the harvest. And yet this time of year is much more than just picking: it's a time of music and connection.