Permaculture Design Certification Course
The Marda Permaculture Farm provides a two-week Permaculture Design course in the West Bank for interested agricultural professionals and producers, resulting in a PDC certification.
These courses are taught by world-class Permaculture Instructors skilled in dryland permaculture design. Past instructors have included Geoff and Nadia Lawton of the Permaculture Design Institute in Australia, as well as Rhamis Kent and Kaludia Van Gool.
The course, taught in both English and Arabic, provides participants with a broad range of knowledge around integrating sustainable, home scale or larger food production systems.
For information on the next permaculture course, contact us!
Home-Scale Permaculture Gardens
The Marda Farm site demonstrates a high-yielding, diverse, and practical model for small scale farm production, using a wide variety of permaculture principles applicable to local growers from small farmers to homeowners.
The site’s demonstration of a variety of permaculture techniques provides a platform for our projects to design home-scale gardens for families in Marda.
The techniques utilized include zoning, planting in guilds, vertical planting, orchard design, grape trellising, composting, rainwater catchment, natural building, chicken cultivation and use for fertilization of soil, vermiculture (worm farming), and beekeeping, among much else.
Selling our Produce
The Marda Permaculture Farm site oversees a combination of micro-enterprises to contribute to the local economy and provide financial sustainability for the project. These enterprises include:
Chickens: The project will raise and breed chickens, being able to sell eggs, chicks, and compost from the manure.
Organic Produce and Fruit Sales: We will sell organic produce and fruit at costs below those of out-of-town producers.
Seedling sales: Growing and selling seedlings from the Farm’s greenhouse will encourage locals to purchase plants as locally as possible.
Home-Scale Beekeeping
The Marda Farm, equipped with bees, established home-scale beekeeping for 5 of Marda’s lower-income families, and taught them how to maintain beekeeping. The production of honey provides a source of income, and free available honey for Marda families.
Permaculture projects we work and/or network with:
Wael Al Saad, Jenin
PRI branch, Jordan
GVI, Tennessee U.S.