Guyana Goes Green: Permaculture Certification for Organic Farmers and Gardeners

Guyana is a special presence in South America with its unique devotion to sustainable agriculture and biodiversity. Permaculture techniques are increasingly popular among the environmentally-conscious smallholder farmers in Guyana as they include organic farming, agroforestry, integrated farming, and ecology. F2F Guyana's host, The Permaculture-Sahakari and Organic Gardeners Group, is a network of permaculture and organic gardeners and farmers in Guyana with 82 members.

The Permaculture-Sahakari and Organic Gardeners Group organization began in 2019 as a WhatsApp group where members shared knowledge and marketed organic products; the group has since formalized and seeks to expand the capacity of its members in permaculture. With only two members formally trained in permaculture, the members reached out to F2F Guyana to request volunteer technical assistance. F2F Guyana leveraged its extensive volunteer network to recruit experts to build the permaculture group’s capacity.

Remote F2F volunteer Kelda Lorax arranged for 15 group members to receive scholarships for an online university permaculture course. For several months Kelda virtually mentored the students and supported them with their assignments and permaculture design portfolios. As a result of Kelda’s support, eight students have graduated with Permaculture Design Certificates, four are currently finishing, and three students will participate in the upcoming course through Oregon State University. The permaculture group has vastly increased its capacity with the help of the online course, and attendees can share their knowledge with other group members.  

The Assignment has been a resounding success, and members of the permaculture group are outlining their design portfolios and beginning to implement their plans in their gardens and farms. Moving forward, F2F Guyana anticipates further in-person assistance for the permaculture group at the conclusion of the pandemic. With Miss Lorax’s support, the assignment served to make communities more resilient in the face of economic downturn.

Randinda Kirton, one of the scholarship recipients, shared this message about her experience:

“I would like to express my gratitude to the USAID-funded Farmer-to-farmer program for the continued support and assistance they are affording the Sahakari Permaculture Group in Guyana. As a recipient of a scholarship and successful graduate of the Oregon State University Permaculture Design Certificate Course, I am indeed grateful for your initiatives in support of activities that aim to create communities that work toward a greener and more sustainable manner of existing on the planet.

 By affording individuals like myself educational opportunities like this Permaculture Design Training, USAID’s Farmer-to-Farmer Program is exercising one of the greatest tools at their disposal to combat climate change: educating citizens of the world not only on how to choose differently for themselves but how to become advocates and examples of this cause. Using the techniques and technologies taught in the permaculture course allows us to interact with our planet in a mutualistic relationship where people and the wider environment both benefit, moving us in a direction of slowing the rapid rate of climate change whilst securing food resiliency.

The current food supply chain is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas production. The principles and techniques imparted on the Permaculture Design Course provided us with the knowledge to play our part and make informed, practical decisions to reduce emissions while also working to create a carbon positive footprint by making different life choices that ultimately increase our standard of living whilst reducing our expenditures and our consumption of non-renewable resources.

My biggest takeaways from the course were that by creating a Permanent culture, we build resilient food systems and communities in harmony with our natural ecosystems, which serve to raise the standard of living of rural economies whilst expanding the culture to urban dwellers. This was observed in examples from around the world, like the Laos Plateau, parts of India, and the Middle East, where whole communities used these approaches to regenerate devastated and degraded landscapes. These locations served as very potent examples of what is possible and of the need to sensitize our communities to the fact that earth care equates to people care and that this approach can create abundant and diverse yields to both sustain us and leave a planet intact and productive for future generations to come.

This certification course was a fast-paced, far-reaching learning experience that I am indeed grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in, and I look forward to putting these new skills fully into practice.”