<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>Right then,<br></div><div><br>If you're planning on coming, and haven't told us yet, then kindly send an email to: <a href="mailto:eat@feedavalon.org.uk">eat@feedavalon.org.uk</a><br><br></div><div>Also, do help us promote the event if you haven't already.<br></div><div><br></div>Full details (including flyer) are here: <a href="http://www.feedavalon.org.uk/soilhack2017/">http://www.feedavalon.org.uk/soilhack2017/</a><br><br>Facespook event page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1835948839977901/">https://www.facebook.com/events/1835948839977901/</a><br><br>And finally, below is the latest iteration of our vision, which gives more context of what we're trying to do than anything else we've ever put into text(!), so I do recommend reading it (800 words).<br><br></div><div>Looking forward to seeing you...<br></div><br></div>Best,<br><br></div>Adam<br><br><div><div>***<br>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm;line-height:100%">Following the launch
of SoilHack at the <a href="https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/farmhack/">first
UK Farm Hack event</a> in 2015, the first SoilHack gathering will be
held on the 27th-28th May in Somerset, England. Details <a href="http://www.feedavalon.org.uk/soilhack2017/">here</a>.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm;line-height:100%">Farm Hack is a
worldwide community of farmers and growers who build and modify their
own tools, sharing their hacks online and at meet ups - improving
their practices through open-source collaboration. SoilHack was set
as a subdivision of Farm Hack to provide a space for people to share
their understanding of soils and help each other get a clearer
understanding of how to improve their health. We have a <a href="http://farmhack.org/wiki/soilhack-wiki">wiki
page</a> on <a href="http://farmhack.org">farmhack.org</a>, to which anyone can contribute. So far,
we've been collating good resources, running a soil events email
list, a Twitter account, and giving presentations at events
(including the <a href="http://www.commongoodfood.org/blog/farm-hack-scotland-film">Scottish
FH</a> last year).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm;line-height:100%">We’ve been
motivated to do this by hearing an increasing number of people
sharing stories about how they've transformed their soils (and
sometimes also yields, financial overheads, and/or workloads) through
applying novel methods such as no-till/no-dig, cover cropping,
biochar, agroforestry, etc. - all of which seems highly significant
given the current horrendous rates of soil depletion and the
game-changing role that soil carbon has to play in regenerating the
biosphere. The question, especially for those of us who aren't
full-time soil scientists, is how to gain an overview of the ever
growing body of soil research which helps in understanding why these
practices work; as well as, more importantly, seeing how they'd be
relevant to our own situations. Our response to this has been to
attempt to catalyse a self-organising network for sharing such
knowledge, since we felt that it needs to become much more accessible
if we’re going to be able to transform our relationship with soil
into a symbiotic, rather than an extractive one.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm;line-height:100%">We feel that this
calls for the harnessing of the enormous potential of
<a href="http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Education">peer-to-peer/P2P
learning</a> to this end. With the concept of peer-to-peer, computer
technology has provided us with a template for the powerful sharing
of knowledge; the time is ripe for the spread of new ways of
learning. The challenge is in figuring out how to across to people
used to interacting with top-down learning structures that for a
horizontal P2P network to work, they need to be involved in
supporting it. Instead of working to earn the money to attend a
course or workshop, P2P learning needs people to put efforts into
creating and maintaining the means to share knowledge, as well as
seeking out and sharing information. Within permaculture cirlces,
most people are already familiar with the idea of skillshares and
permablitzes, both examples of P2P learning. What we're trying to
create is a more integrated effort based on these principles, where
everyone comes together to share knowledge and make SoilHack into a
valuable resource.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm;line-height:100%">The evolution of the
internet has made knowledge sharing increasingly easier to do over
time (and simultaneously more overwhelming with all of the available
options). With the development of newsgroups, email discussion lists,
forums, social media, online videos, and the now ubiquitous MOOCs
(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course">massive
open online courses</a>), there is now a large and growing body of
information available online, of varying quality. We feel that there
is great value in having a curator to guide you through these
resources; hence, the idea of SoilHack is to have collective, open
curation of knowledge around soil; nobody knows everything (soil
scientists have only identified a small fraction of soil life), and
there is always much to be gained from the input of different
perspectives. The image of mycelium, being a 'fungal internet'
through which both nutrients and chemical signals (ie information)
are transferred between plants, seems particularly appropriate to
what SoilHack is all about - both creating and nourishing real-life
networks of people, and supplementing the real-life relationships
with useful information.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm;line-height:100%">And so, to the
SoilHack gathering. While we’ve not yet finalised the schedule (and
a number of spaces will be left free in the programme to allow for
spontaneous sessions), at this point we have people booked in to run
sessions on: soil evaluation, biochar, building soil with fungi,
aerobic composting, the politics of soil carbon, indigenous and youth
oriented ways of relating to the soil, microscope soil analysis,
cover crops, soil education, and aerobic compost teas. Some sessions
will be practical hands-on demonstrations, others theory and debate.
There will be parallel streams running to give a choice of
activities. We warmly invite you to come to the gathering or, if you
can’t, to get involved online. Please contribute your experience,
insight and curiosity to this effort, so that we can begin to rapidly
grow our collective intelligence, and in turn all be able to benefit
from it. This knowledge needs spreading and putting into action fast.</p>
<br><br><br><br><div><div><div><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><span title="qreply">--<br></span><i>In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model /</i>
<i>You create a new model and make the old one obsolete /</i>
<i>That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called. //</i> Buckminster Fuller<span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</div></div></div></div></div></div>