Wildlife filmmaker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon, UK into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature and permaculture holds the key.

The magic of this film is abundant. First, Rebecca is not a died-in-the-wool sustainability activist. Her earnestness in asking questions and genuine learning evolve through the film. Rebecca was raised in a traditional farming family in Devon. The magic also comes from her experience as a wildlife cinematographer. The footage of the wildlife and landscape is beautiful.

The film begins with Rebecca returning to her family's farm in Devon to become the next generation to farm and her quest to find a more sustainable farming practice in view of rising fuel prices. She learns how dependent food production is on cheap fossil fuel and how insecure oil production will be in the future.

The film documents Rebecca’s exploration of ways to farm without fossil fuels. One of the most touching momementcs of A Farm for the Future is when Rebecca asks pioneering farmer Charlotte Hollis, “Are you telling us not to plow?” Rebecca is starting to get it when when Charlotte responds, “Yes.”

The enjoyable balance of the documentary follows Rebecca through her visits to beautifully captured woodland forest garden permacultureists in the UK and Ireland where design is inspired by nature.

Initially dismissing permaculture as, “not proper farming, Rebecca learns from leading permacultureists such as Patrick Whitefield and Chris Dickson, that polyculture yields per acre can exceed those of industrial farming practices and how low maintenance the permaculture food forest model is. After touring these permaculture sites, it is wonderful to see how Rebecca looks at her family farm in a whole new way.

I highly recommend this film to any and everyone who wants to see what real sustainability looks like. Follow this film up with some of the other permaculture resources below.

To inspire you to become the change you want to see, I am going to leave with you with a quote from Joanna Macy, teacher of the “The Council of All Beings” and other deep ecology practices

The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world-we've actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other —Joanna Macy.

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Visit www.culturequake.org to read the most updated version of this essay and to read the blog as a whole work, visit the Culturequake amazon.com book store, and learn more about the book Culturequake: The Fall of Modern Culture and the Rise of Earth Culture. Visit www.restorationfarm.org to learn what we are doing to grow new stories and cultures. ©2009 Chuck Burr LLC.

Notes:

Rebecca Hosking
A Farm for the Future

Joanna Macy
www.joannamacy.net

The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia
www.permaculture.org.au

Permaculture Activist magazine
www.permacultureactivist.net

Permaculture Magazine
www.permaculture-magazine.co.uk

David Jacke with Eric Toensmeier
Edible Forest Gardens

Toby Hemenway
Gaia’s Garden