Phase 2 Updates

From L-R: Sherry, Seaver, Jabez, Dada, and Brian

This week has been an eventful week for the team.

Last Monday (August 6) we conducted a special permaculture workshop (with emphasis on agroecosystems and food security) for the  team members at Cafe Antonio, Los Banos. We will have another workshop for other team members next Tuesday (August 14). The workshop covered topics such as: the state of the environment, defining agroecosystems, food security parameters, history of permaculture, ethics and principles, and design methods. Lessons from the workshop will help the team with data gathering on the field.

Last Thursday (August 9), the team's field enumerators got together to pre-test the data gathering methodology on a small permaculture garden. They did an inventory of trees, plants, crops, wildlife, man-made structures, technologies, cultural, and socio-economic system components as part of the ecological profiling method. We also went over the questionnaires for our rapid rural appraisal. We realized there's still a lot to improve on our methodology and we're figuring out how to include soil sampling in the process. Next week we will pre-test again in a 3-hectare farm in Bay, Laguna.

Twelve (12) sites have finally confirmed their participation in the research. The original plan was to study twenty (20) sites, but due to time and budget constraints (we only have 2 months for data gathering), we decided to limit the respondents to just twelve. We can probably sneak in a couple in November, especially if it's just in Luzon (i.e. we have contacts in Cavite and Aurora). Maybe after the National Permaculture Convergence in UPLB. Not to worry though, we have plans to continue the research even after the project ends next year. So hopefully, we can get good partners to support our work for years to come. It's not the end!

Our September to October schedule has been set and we're just finalizing trip details such as transportation and food and accommodation. Thank you once again for your cooperation and patience! We would also like to thank our donors from GoGetFunding.com for providing us with a revolving fund we can use for transportation, food, and meetings. We were also able to order some equipment (drone, soil and water pH meters, measuring tape, tripod) using your online and offline donations.

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Thank you!