Organic and sustainable life
The Earth lives. Give back to the earth and she gives it again, in a multitude. On the Golden Sun, we consciously focus on sustainable living and we try to set up and maintain a permaculture culture. We are a biological care farm and offer place to WOOFFERS.
Without healthy nature no healthy food.
Without healthy food no healthy people and animals.
Working community (Care Farm) The Golden Sun in Borger (Drenthe) works with conviction to set up a permaculture.
In our view permaculture is an opportunity for the future of Dutch agriculture.
Permaculture: Equilibrium and resilience
Permanent agriculture and horticulture (in short: permaculture) respects man and the Earth, maintains itself and has resilience, just like an ecosystem. The difference with organic farming is that in a permaculture the three main factors sun, water and wind are cleverly designed around man. We try to implement this on our biological care farm in Borger.
Permaculture: How does it work?
Where in dry countries water care plays a leading role in the permaculture, in the Netherlands mainly catching sunlight and redirecting strong winds is important. A concept within the permaculture, which we apply to our care farm in Borger, is mulching. Mulching is the organic material covering the Earth. As a result, weeds grow less quickly and the earth can retain the moisture better, because the organic material protects the earth from bright sunlight. In winter, the layer protects the roots from freezing. Finally, the organic layer is also digested by microorganisms and transformed into nutrients for the crops. Why efficient?
Permaculture = Smart
The permaculture embraces many more clever techniques, such as putting together crops that have a positive effect on each other. For example, it is smart to put beans and corn together. The roots of beans bind the nitrogen from the air. That nitrogen serves as manure for the corn. In turn, the beans use this corn again as a climbing stick. Nature is great, why shouldn't we use it? So we do so also at the Golden Sun in Borger, in beautiful Drenthe!
Monoculture: A sinking ship
Permaculture originated in the years ' 70, when one sought a solution for a large number of problems that the monoculture entails. In the long term, monoculture farming systems cannot be maintained. Why not actually?
- Fossil fuels hit
Every yield of monoculture agriculture requires a tremendous input to fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. But fossil fuels are becoming scarcer and more expensive. They hit on.
- Susceptible to diseases/pests
In a monoculture system, only one type of crop is cultivated, or one type of livestock is kept. Natural diversity is lacking. That is why this system is extremely susceptible to diseases. Think of the fungi which endanger potato cultivation and diseases in animals such as swine fever and BSE.
Pesticides and the unnecessary administration of antibiotics ensure that the resistance (resistance) of humans, animals and plants is becoming weaker. On the other hand, viruses, bacteria, fungi and insects are becoming stronger, because they arm themselves against the antibiotics. But there are still more problems caused by monoculture: