"It's easy to feel isolated, overwhelmed, and hopeless but permaculture gives me a way to be positive and proactive."

PRI tackles the complex challenges faced by our society today by practical, hands-on, permaculture solutions in our cold climate region.

PRI just wrapped up the second year of the the Urban Farming Certification Program, a groundbreaking, permaculture-based, comprehensive 9 month training program that weaves together classroom work, individual mentoring, and hands-on practical farming experience that help create abundant urban spaces, skilled farmers, and community leaders in the local foods movement. Our approach is both holistic and community-based, encouraging a new generation of urban farmers to gain the knowledge, skills, and community needed to successfully grow and maintain healthy and productive habitats where they live. We graduated 25 farmers in 2012, and are currently accepting applications for a class of 30 for 2013.

In the past year, we also successfully launched Map Your Place: A Permaculture Workbook for Growing Food. It is a hands-on guide for gardeners, farmers and anyone around the world who wants to reclaim their relationship with the land and grow not only their understanding of permaculture, but also food for themselves, their families and their communities. It accomplishes this by asking questions to help you discover connections at your place that you hadn’t realized were there.

OUR STORY

As a global community we are living in a time of immense challenge, confronting issues such as climate change, population growth, loss of biodiversity and peak oil. PRI Cold Climate provides leadership by tackling these problems and designing ways for living sustainably in colder climates. We are a community of learners, designers, and problem-solvers focused on small-scale, low-tech solutions that work in accordance with natural principles and reconnect people with nature in their daily lives. Our organization is guided by permaculture ethics - Care for the Earth, Care for People, and Share the Surplus. We believe that people, by working together and applying permaculture design principles in their lives, can create a culture that restores health to our ecosystems and our communities. For more information, visit our website at www.pricoldclimate.org.

OUR PROGRAMS

The PERMACULTURE COLLABORATIVE engages members and supporters in building a sustainable life by hosting community-building and capacity-building events such as skill shares, film festivals, design charettes, and community celebrations.

The EDUCATION program develops cold climate permaculture curriculum, provides learning opportunities for all ages and learning styles, and mentors new teachers. In 2013 we will be offering 45 workshops on a varity of topics! In addition, our 9 month Urban Farmer Certification is entering its third year and we are launching an Apprenticeship program to meet the increasing demand for high production organic urban agriculture.

The NATURE'S EDGE DESIGNS program brings community spaces - places where we work, gather and play - to life by building relationships between people and nature. We work with communities to design and install projects, host design competitions, and develop products such as Map Your Place: A Permaculture Workbook for Growing Food.

YOU CAN HELP

We need your support now to provide scholarships for low-income farmers working to become certified in our Urban Farmer Certification program and for supporting new community projects. For more information, visit our website - www.pricoldclimate.org.

*A donation of $30 or more provides you an annual membership to PRI Cold Climate that helps us grow our programming and support the needs of our community.