i've been talking with this guy at the permaculture
credit union about helping sponsor loans to support
permaculture projects in developing regions. he
says if we can guarantee a loan they can manage
the loan and provide the money. further he said
they would charge their basic rate for providing
and managing the loan and then it was up to me
to negotiate anything additional for the guarantee.
so, im basically talking about providing reinsurance
for permaculture loans in developing areas. which
strikes me as being a pretty cool business as it
doesnt
actually require any capital outflow - so long as no
one defaults, and where the collateral is beautiful
land with a permaculture project started on it.
loren and i have been talking about providing
start-up funding for exceptional graduates of
permaculture programs
as loren says -
> This idea takes care of several big problems: first
> it allows for
> generations of shared ideas and similar people to
> create new farms or
> communities. I have been wondering for a while if
> this were possible
> myself. Second, it connects the right people to the
> resources they
> need to get it going, third, it allows for a kind of
> trial by doing
> before any commitment is made on either the lender
> or the borrower, so
> it solves the problem of personal presence that was
> holding me up from
> thinking generations were possible. I really like
> this idea.
surfing around it looks like there is a very well
established network of permaculture schools, farms,
communities, and retreat centers in costa rica.
http://www.permacultureportal.com/HTML/RL_Johns_CR_Farms.htm
one thought is to set up a costa rica permaculture
credit union, which works with these schools to
provide loans to their exceptional students /
residence to
purchase land and gear for setting up permaculture
farms in relatively close proximity to the initiating
school.
i really believe there's a network effect to having
more communities in a close proximity. i think it
helps
promote a healthy diverse culture and cost
savings on materials - and internet connection
among other things.
this feels fairly doable to me
i'd love to get some feedback locally
and then maybe broach the conversation
with people running permaculture schools
in costa rica.
