Land Assessment for Prospective Agroeducation and Tourism Destination in Solo Central Java pt.1
This post is written for my friend @merahitam which have a brilliant idea to create an agro education/tourism based on permaculture principle. For those of you who doesn't know about permaculture before, don't worry, cause either do I.
But @merahitam explains to me before his departure to get certified in Bali that permaculture is more like a design principle which encompass self sustainability for various agricultural activity. Although it might be a bit of an abstract, but in practice this principle might be the solution to the ever growing issue of land scarcity, global warming, drought and other issues that affects food supply,environment and everything that follows.
Now, I was thinking that perhaps we can implement and spread this knowledge in Indonesia, especially in Solo. That's why I propose to @merahitam one of my family's land to be utilized into permaculture education ground.
In this post I will explain the features of the land and its general situation. This will only serve for referrence, because as a layperson obviously I haven't have the idea on what makes a good permaculture land. So it's more on @merahitam to decide its eligibility. We are also completely open for discussion from the steem community so hopefully together we can formulate the best solution for permaculture insemination in Indonesia.
In this first part, I will elaborate the overview of the land and its condition.
The site is located in desa Gemawang, Karanganyar, Central Java. Although it might seems remote but its very near to the nearest asphalt road toward Tawangmangu.
The site can be accessed in 2 ways :
The first access is via the caretaker's home
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Which leads to a small and narrow path only accessible by foot.
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This small threshold has a chicken coop and goat's pen.
In about 60 metres we arrive at the site
As you can see, there's a wooden fence halfway to the middle of the site. Looking at the right, is the second entry point of the site.
This entry point is connected to the main road, which can be used by vehicle as such :
Now, back to the site, the contour of the land is downright hillside. Although the elevation is still comfortable to be walked upon. The site is quite spacious with overall size of 5000 metre square forming the letter L
Moving trough the upper side of the site, we can see the steepness of the land with a direct view on the forrest in front.
Further downward on the hill, we can see my personal lab for cassava plantation and clover plantation.
Even further downward, we can see ravines that lead straight into a small river, which is quite suitable as a source of water for the upcoming permaculture.
Thus far is the overview of the site that's quite potential for implementation of permaculture. On the next part we shall discuss the site potential and assets surrounding the area.
Hi Judas
I'm a Permaculture designer living in Lombok
Ill be following you're project with interest
From the way it looks you have a good size and location, great soil, and plenty of water
It would be good to see the layout using google earth sattelite imagery, i find that very useful for understanding the land in and around a project site
I see you have a lot of Sengon nearby, that is good for increasing the soil fertility
Also on those red soils you have id urge you to do an experiment : mix rice husk biochar (Arang), red soil and cow manure. It becomes very fertile
Also id urge you to look into building a hydraulic ram pump to access water from the river
it requires no electricity
Thanks a bunch for your input @reville , I'll post more data soon when my friend @merahitam whose know more about permaculture return from his certification training. I'll be following you too, let's discuss this further later.
Im interested where @merahitam is training?inside Indonesia?
@reville He's in Bali right now for the training, he suppose to return to Solo next week to discuss about this matter and talk about execution if its possible.
By the way, I've browse and study your company website as well as your blogs and definitely the scale of your project is way beyond mine. So I'm quite humbled to be discussing this matter with you who are clearly more knowledgable than me. Since you've transformed Lombok for the better, perhaps you can take a look at Java as well, particularly Solo since it's already have an international airport and sufficient infrastructure as well as plenty of natural potential, I'm sure when you see it you know that its a forgoten jewel just like Lombok.