Filmmakers Donna Read and Starhawk will be at the screening of the film Permaculture: The Growing Edge on June 22 at the Crowley Arts Centre, 5325 Crowley Ave. It is a fundraiser to celebrate the NDG Food Depot’s 25th anniversary. Tickets are $20 and available only at the door.

Starhawk is doing a two-week workshop on permaculture called Earth Activist Training in Audet, Que., from June 25 to July 9. For more information, go to www.earthactivisttraining.org

Source: Montreal Gazette

Beyond agriculture, permaculture is also a way of dealing with environmental and social problems, Starhawk said.

The film documents an oil-spill cleanup that used human hair to absorb the oil, which then became a planting medium to grow oyster mushrooms that convert the oil to sugar for their growth – a way to dispose of toxic waste without creating any waste products.

Permaculture can be an answer to problems like climate change, Starhawk said. Farms can sequester excess carbon dioxide in the soil, reducing the amount in the atmosphere, which leads to climate change, while urban agriculture reduces the amount of fossil fuels needed to produce food on a large-scale and transport it to cities, she said.

“Putting solutions in place doesn’t have to be grim and awful, it’s joyful and fun and it actually enriches your life,” she said. “It’s joyful, wonderful work to plant things and tend plants and it builds community at the same time when you’re gardening together.”