The global food crisis is escalating at an alarming rate. When millions of people are already hungry, we must all look for solutions urgently.

I live in Australia, and about 20 years ago 2 Australian men came up with the idea of having small, no-dig, ecologically friendly and self-sufficient organic gardens, which could be made virtually anywhere. They called this idea "Permaculture".

When the USA blockaded food to Cuba, and after the crash of the Soviet Union which resulted in the loss of oil, these two men travelled to Cuba. When the Australian permaculturists came to Cuba they set up the first permaculture demonstration project with a $26,000 grant from the Cuban government.

This is how bad things became: "Try to image an airplane suddenly losing its engines. It was really a crash," Jorge Mario, a Cuban economist, told the documentary crew. A crash that put Cuba into a state of shock. There were frequent blackouts in its oil-fed electric power grid, up to 16 hours per day. The average daily caloric intake in Cuba dropped by a third.

According to a report on Cuba from Oxfam, an international development and relief agency, "In the cities, buses stopped running, generators stopped producing electricity, factories became silent as graveyards. Obtaining enough food for the day became the primary activity for many, if not most, Cubans." (Quoted from the linked article).

Here is a link to this information: The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil http://globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657

The results in Cuba have been spectacular. Everything in this article outlines what we will need to do in order to survive in the future, not just about food, but about the peak oil crisis the practicalities of daily living.

Cuba should serve as a model for the rest of us in the troubling times ahead. We should start now, before millions more people die.

I have only just found out that there was a Permaculture Course completed in Liberia, by Warren Brush, and here is a link to the Blog: http://web.mac.com/warrenbrush/iWeb/Site/African%20Journeys/African%20Journ eys.html

May we learn in time...