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Rod Everett Interview
(interviewd by Amanda Griffin on 16th July 2006)

Rod Everett was the course leader for the 2006 Full Permaculture Design course, he has been teaching permaculture design for 18 years. He runs a 100 hectare farm in Lancashire called Middle Wood. The farm is also home to a small community and a charitable trust which runs a variety of courses on sustainable living. He teaches in a dynamic, hands-on often rather unconventional way capturing people's imaginations and allowing them to think outside the box.

"I've been involved in permaculture since 1980. I had been doing research in ecology and trying to work out how to manage a farm in an environmentally friendly way. The ideas made sense to me and fitted in with what I was doing."

Middle Wood is a farm of 100 hectares, half woodland and a river valley with fields running up onto the fells. There is a forest garden, a community fruit tree project which propagates apple trees, mostly Lancashire's rarer varieties. At the moment we have between three and four hundred trees. We also farm sheep and grow vegetables for self sufficiency and to feed people coming to the courses that we run."

"We have a study centre and a camping barn and are planning straw bale buildings to increasing learning space and to act as examples of sustainable building."

"Permaculture is about creating sustainable systems that largely base themselves on systems found in the natural world, systems that include humans, animals and buildings."

Why teach permaculture?

"Partly because it encourages people to change their lives to more sustainable lifestyles; it helps you understand where you're going and how to get there."

What 1st steps could people take to begin permaculture?

"The simplest is to start by growing some of your own food. That could be sprouting beans in a jar in your kitchen or growing a few lettuces in a window box. By taking that step we start to recognise that food is not something that comes in a plastic bag from a supermarket."

How is the Isle of Man suited to permaculture and more sustainable ways of living?

"Because it's an island it helps a lot to implement permaculture. It is easy to make contact with other permaculture people. The climate is useful, it's a good growing climate and not only that but the people have good fertile imaginations."

What Rod learnt on this course:

"How great it is to create a community from a group of people who come together; bringing out the knowledge of each person brings out the ability of the whole group to learn together."

Newspaper Article