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The Himalayan Permaculture Centre (HPC) is a grass roots non-government organisation set up by trained and motivated farmers from Surkhet district in Mid-Western Nepal in 2010 to implement sustainable rural development programs in Nepal. The Farmers' Handbook HPC staff have years of experience working in remote mountainous regions leading to the development of a wide range of appropriate technologies and approaches aimed at increasing domestic farm productivity while reducing costs. Concrete and positive outcomes, such as a measured increase in crop production, vegetable consumption, and reduction in firewood use have been demonstrated. These techniques are published in the “Farmers’ Handbook” which is also used for practical literacy education. It was published in the Nepali language by co-creators Chris Evans and Jakob Jespersen in 2001 (7,500 copies) with reprints in 2012 and 2018 (1,500 copies respectively). In 2002 the handbook was translated into English and in 2009 made available as free PDF downloads . The handbook is 50 chapters in 5 volumes – a total of 792 pages, including 170 pages of colour photos and illustrations. Above: Farmers are taught how to make a hot bed that protects seedlings BACKGROUND In Nepal, According to a Food Security Assessment carried out by the FAO , agriculture provides livelihoods for more than 80% of the population and accounts for some 40% of its Gross Domestic Product. Rising population and inappropriate foreign aid programmes, which often try to replace traditional practices, have combined to undermine the sustainability of traditional agriculture. The result is a disempowered people with unequal access to basic needs, struggling to grow enough food to last the year despite working all hours. The proportion of undernourished population is estimated at 40.7%, in the Terai where on average 17.7% of children under five suffer acute malnutrition. These communities can be seen as "marginal”, lacking access to key resources such as education, health care, food security and credit. At the same time the physical areas where they live can also be described as being marginal due to the high altitude combined with poor infrastructure of roads, power and communications. These are the people and places where HPC has prioritised its work, where small inputs of appropriate technology and appropriate education can make huge differences. Subsistence agricultural practices have developed by HPC to be finely in tune with local climate, landscape and people's needs. HPC practices are intimately interwoven with the forest and other natural resources to provide basic needs of food, fuel, fodder, timber and medicines. HPC has 178 demonstration farmers in 32 villages, known as “Barefoot Consultants” to easily disseminate working agricultural processes. HPC work has resulted in 387 kitchen gardens, planting over 51,000 fruit trees and planting over 50,000 multi-purpose trees and shrubs in agroforestry plots as well as the development of 726 smokeless stoves. Furthermore, 81 farmers have implemented SRI, (System of Rice Intensification.) This method of rice farming aims to increase yield of crop while reducing both labour and water use. The Farmers Handbook has helped in the training of over 7,000 farmers in agro-ecological practices including vegetable growing, composting, pest management, green manures, agroforestry, SRI, water management. The HPC's work centres around 3 main strategies: Training and Education: Assisting farmers and development workers in the process of design and implementation of demonstrated sustainable agriculture systems and agro-ecological approaches. Resources: The seed, seedlings and published information (books, booklets, posters) needed for farmers and development workers to design and implement such systems on their own land and in their communities. Research: This is implemented to identify useful new species and cropping patterns, or combinations of those existing traditionally, which are favoured and can be appropriated by local farmers for their own use. HPC carries out demonstration, training, resource production and research on its own resource centres (working farms) in Kathmandu, Surkhet and Humla districts. It also carries out these activities on farmers own land, though the research needs to be risk-free otherwise they may lose valuable food crops or land if experiments don't work. In addition to its farming-related activities HPC also works in the health, education (schools and adult literacy) and livelihood sectors because of their connection with its agro-ecological strategies. Participants on a farmers training session learn how to plant fruit trees WHAT MAKES THIS REGENERATIVE? IMPACT ON PLANET Increase in biodiversity and soil health. Decrease in pressure on forest areas. Regeneration of degraded areas around and within villages. Planting of over 51,000 fruit trees and over 50,000 multi-purpose trees and shrubs planted in agroforestry plots. 81 Farmers implementing SRI. IMPACT ON PEOPLE Increase in on-farm and domestic productivity. Decrease in labour and resource cost. Recognition of local culture, skills, technology and biodiversity. Increasing awareness of local issues of gender imbalance/women's health, local regenerative economies. Awareness of global issues of trade, climate change and justice As it is published in the Nepali language, the Farmers’ Handbook is used for practical literacy education. COMBINED REGENERATIVE IMPACT Demonstrations and training resources provided so that local people can see techniques and approaches that meet holistic goals and further receive training on how to design and implement in own communities. Using Permaculture design and integrating issues such as food production/agriculture, health, education and livelihoods then settlements are designed that reduce the need to leave communities for work/income elsewhere. Replicability: Following a farmers training session, a farmer from outside HPC's working member villages establishes a root stock nursery at his home, demonstrating the spread of HPC's activities. SCALABILITY AND REPLICABILITY HPC works directly in 32 villages (over 5000 beneficiaries) but as farmer-to-farmer contact spreads it's techniques way beyond this there are many other areas. The Farmers Handbook is a step by step guide in many agriculture processes that although are specifically tailored for Himalayan Conditions, the ideas in this comprehensive document can be adjusted for other agro-ecological environments. WHAT'S NEXT FOR THIS PROJECT? HPC wants to reduce its need for external funding by developing internal/local resilience through processing, marketing and fair trade for local, national and international trade. It will continue to offer increased resources for other organisations/communities through its barefoot consultants program. CONTACT THE HIMALAYAN PERMACULTURE CENTRE The Himalayan Permaculture Centre (HPC) is a grassroots regenerative NGO based in Nepal with a focus on rural development. Website | Facebook | Download The Farmer's Handbook CONTACT US If you would like to join our network of regenerative practitioners, contact us here .

If you’re reading this article, no doubt you already know that humans need to radically transform the way global food systems operate. The climate crisis is accelerating faster than many scientists and activists anticipated. The way that humans grow, source, transport (and waste) food is estimated to contribute to around 25% of all the world’s human-caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions, indeed with animal agriculture being the bulk of that figure (IPCC ‘Climate Change and Land’) . At the same time, conventional agriculture is stripping soils of nutrients, and ecosystem destruction means that it’s harder for landscapes to naturally bounce-back from shocks like extreme weather events. But what’s the alternative? In this article, we’ll explore how perennial food systems can be one antidote to destructive food production practices. We’ll explore some scientific research, while also asking a Permaculture practitioner for some advice for refugee-led community groups - what can we do right now to integrate perennial growing practices? Across increasingly climate-stressed and degraded landscapes, food forests offer a proven way to rebuild soils, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Research is increasingly showing that integrating trees with food production enhances multiple ecosystem services at once: soil carbon, water regulation, pollinator habitat, microclimate buffering, and often farm-level resilience and incomes (Matieu, A. et al. 2025) . Annual plants grown in monoculture often rely on digging and tilling, as well as heavy chemical inputs, massively diminishing soil and biodiversity health. Perennial systems, by contrast, focus on building soil. They cycle carbon through living roots and soil, protecting and feeding soil life. Recent syntheses find agroforestry raises soil organic carbon by around 10% on average compared with other land uses. Biodiversity, nutrient retention and erosion control rises consistently on regenerative farms (Pan, J. et al. 2023) . What could this mean in a displacement context? Historically, refugee communities have been offered staples such as rice or grains as part of their support packages. These are mostly annual crops from cereals and oilseeds. But a transition toward regionally adapted, local and culturally appropriate perennial staples like nuts, starchy fruits, hardy tubers, and protein-rich tree crops can diversify diets, increase nutrition, and reduce (or eliminate) degenerative food growing practices. Academic reviews catalog dozens of perennial staple species with great nutrient density and storability which could offer viable alternatives to annuals (eg. Kreitzman, M et al. 2020) . But we shouldn’t just aim to replicate a conventional farming system, simply with perennials like trees instead of annuals. This transition must be designed in a way that incorporates local and indigenous wisdom, native species of crops, and biodiversity. We need nature-inspired farming practices that integrate a richness of diversity, integrate traditional ecological knowledge, store and sink water in healthy hydrological cycles, and create habitats for wildlife. Imagine this: luscious green forests with layered canopies, year-round ground cover, living mulches, and mixed perennials. This could be our food system, and rich examples of this are emerging across the globe. Indeed, indigenous and land-based communities are stewarding unbroken examples of food forestry. Can food forestry work in displacement settings? In short, yes, especially if designed collaboratively and with maintenance in mind. Perennial planting can take careful maintenance like regular watering in dry climates in the first few years of planting, and there can also be a transition period where there is a lower crop harvest in the first few seasons. Host and refugee communities should be consulted in the process to make these spaces as relevant and useful for all communities, and careful planning and governance needs to be considered. Who will water? Who will prune? Who will make sure wild grazing animals are not eating all the saplings? Currently there are a number of barriers to growing perennials in many displacement contexts. In some countries this includes laws or customs which forbid or limit any kind of planting or building which could imply that refugees are settling permanently. Here and more widely, we need a change in policy away from an emphasis on conventional, degenerative farming, stopping government subsidies toward destructive agricultural practices like chemical inputs, and supporting farmers to transition toward regenerative farming. Edible mushrooms should be integrated, cultivated on prunings, woodchips, or agroforestry by-products, to turn “waste” into nutrient-dense food and income, while contributing to soil structure. Quick-growing crops like mushrooms can also support the transition period where, in the first few years, there may be a small drop in farmland productivity as the system establishes. Managed coppice and fast-growing woodlots can supply some fuel from pruned branches, but clean-cooking transitions are critical for health, safety, and forest protection. Pilots with solar cookers offer a clean and climate-friendly solution where sunlight and cooking practices align (UNHCR 2021) . There’s no need to wait. You can start now! Permaculture teacher and Re-Alliance Correspondent Ansiima Casinga Rolande gives advice to land-based practitioners. Mulch. Never leave the soil bare.  Keep soils covered with ground-cover plants or leaves, prunings, and crop residues to feed microbes, retain moisture, and reduce weeding. Plant ‘chop-and-drop’ plants like legumes that fix nitrogen. Plant in layers and think in guilds.  Combine large canopy trees like nuts or fruit trees, sub-canopy shrubs like berries, vines, herbaceous perennials, ground-covers, and root crops. Making plant ‘guilds’ means choosing plants that work together and contribute to the whole farm system. Plan across time and usage.  Think about when you would harvest the crops so that you always have nutritious foods to eat, or how you might save and preserve heavy-croppers like nuts. If possible, you’ll always want to have a diversity of crops ready to harvest at once: some for eating fresh, some for preserving, and some for trading, sharing or selling. Integrate plants as natural fertilisers.  Some plants are valuable for their fertile-rich composition, meaning that they can be integrated into your farm ecosystem to be used in compost-teas and organic fertiliser liquids. Many of these plants you can also simply ‘chop-and-drop’ to create biodegradable, high-nutrient mulches. Integrate mushrooms.  Inoculate woodchips or logs from pruning and start with reliable oyster or shiitake varieties, but try to find local edible varieties. Consider cash crops.  You may want to integrate plants that you can harvest for their high value, for trading, sharing or selling. For example, integrating coffee into a biodiverse food forest is a great way to have tradable produce, and good chop-and-drop biomass from pruning the branches. Moving from annual monocultures toward biodiversity-rich food forestry will not replace destructive practices overnight. But the evidence is strong that even partial transitions like hedgerows, living fences, alley cropping, small food forests, and communal gardens can deliver measurable climate, soil, and livelihood benefits now, while opening pathways to wider cultural changes in the future. This is regeneration we can start today.

The Role of Youth in Regeneration Across the world, young people are confronting the impacts of climate change, environmental degradation, and displacement. Yet despite being among the most affected, youth are often left out of decisions about the future. At Re-Alliance, we believe young people are not just the future - they are already leading regenerative action today. From restoring water systems and growing food sovereignty to reviving traditional knowledge and organising grassroots movements, youth are at the heart of eco-social regeneration. What’s often missing is support: access to tools, training, networks and opportunities to connect with others doing similar work across regions and cultures. Practical demonstrations at the National PermaYouth Camp, Timor-Leste October 2024 That’s why we’re excited to spotlight the upcoming International PermaYouth Convergence (IPYC–2025) - a global gathering rooted in a powerful youth-led model developed in Timor-Leste by Timorese NGO Permatil (Permaculture Timor-Lorosa’e). Introducing the International PermaYouth Convergence (IPYC–2025) From 20-25 October 2025, youth (aged 17-35) and community leaders from six continents will come together in Ermera, Timor-Leste, for six days of permaculture learning, leadership training, and cultural exchange. The convergence, hosted by Permatil (Timor-Leste) , partner organisation Permatil Global (Australia) , and the newly formed PermaYouth Association of Timor-Leste, will share the successful PermaYouth camp model - which has empowered thousands of youth in Timor-Leste - with the world. The theme of the event, “Planting Water, Growing Communities,” focuses on regenerating ecosystems, applying permaculture approaches and strengthening community resilience through practical, nature-based action. Participants observing an activity at the National PermaYouth Camp, Timor-Leste October 2024    Learn more and register your interest here The PermaYouth Model Since 2008, Permatil has run over 15 regional and national PermaYouth camps, reaching more than 6,500 young people across Timor-Leste. These camps combine permaculture, agroecology, and traditional knowledge with youth empowerment, gender inclusion, and leadership development. Participants learn by doing, gaining skills in: Water harvesting and watershed regeneration Agroforestry and sloping agriculture Community organising and ecological sanitation Cultural preservation and indigenous food systems Camps are inclusive and participatory, prioritising involvement from young women, LGBTQIA+ youth, people with disabilities, and other often-marginalised groups. Many past participants now lead their own projects or play a role in the national PermaYouth Association, which will co-lead the IPYC–2025 and help support future participants as they return home to share what they’ve learned. PermaYouth Camp participants  A Living Laboratory of Regeneration Participants in the convergence will visit Permatil’s demonstration site in Fatuquero, where water management and ecological restoration have transformed degraded land into a thriving community asset. Their “Planting Water” approach has recharged over 20 million litres of groundwater across Timor-Leste, restored springs, improved crop yields, and helped secure year-round food and water access. The site also serves as a platform for innovation, knowledge sharing, and lifelong learning. The convergence will combine this hands-on training with a nightly cultural and music festival, featuring traditional and contemporary performances from Timor-Leste and around the world - a celebration of identity, resilience, and connection. Participants perform at the National PermaYouth Camp evening events  Why It Matters: Relevance to Re-Alliance and the Sector The IPYC–2025 speaks directly to Re-Alliance’s mission: to amplify and scale community-led regenerative approaches in humanitarian and development contexts. It offers a model for how to: Centre youth in resilience-building and regeneration Share knowledge and practices across Global South regions Build long-term capacity rooted in local culture and ecosystems Shift power and resources to grassroots actors The convergence will also launch the International PermaYouth Network (IPYN) - a global alliance of young leaders working to implement permaculture, build eco-social resilience, and support each other across borders. How to Get Involved: Become a Champion Permatil and Permatil Global are inviting Champions from around the world - community organisers, educators, activists, and allies - to help share the opportunity and support local youth to participate. Champions help by: Disseminating event info and encouraging youth participation Supporting delegations with coordination and funding access Acting as local points of contact between communities and organisers You don’t need to attend to be involved. Champion Kits and briefings are available to support your role. More info and Champion sign-up can be found here, or email ipyc-2025@permatilglobal.org Traditional cooking competition at the National PermaYouth Camp  Planting Seeds for a Regenerative Future The International PermaYouth Convergence is an invitation to build a global network of young people leading regenerative action in their own communities. Re-Alliance is proud to support this work, and we invite our members, partners and peers to join. Whether by sending a youth delegation, becoming a Champion, or simply sharing this story, you can help grow this global movement. Because regeneration is about more than restoring ecosystems - it’s about restoring leadership, autonomy, and hope. And engaging youth in this process is essential.

The Treebog, an innovative design, offers a sanitation solution which uses the nutrients from human waste to feed trees. This paper is an invitation to inspire further research and development to adapt this concept to suit displacement contexts. < Back Treebogs: Innovations and Explorations The Treebog, an innovative design, offers a sanitation solution which uses the nutrients from human waste to feed trees. This paper is an invitation to inspire further research and development to adapt this concept to suit displacement contexts. Donate to Re-Alliance Stay updated with our newsletter Download for free: English

How do you grow nutritious, edible mushrooms in reusable containers? This guide explores one method of using upcycled plastic containers to grow mushrooms for food. < Back Growing Mushrooms in Reusable Containers How do you grow nutritious, edible mushrooms in reusable containers? This guide explores one method of using upcycled plastic containers to grow mushrooms for food. Donate to Re-Alliance Stay updated with our newsletter Download for free: English Español Português عربي Swahili Français

This picture-led booklet, made in collaboration with SACOD, explores how community responders can work with people who have experienced trauma in a safe way. < Back First Response to Trauma This picture-led booklet, made in collaboration with SACOD, explores how community responders can work with people who have experienced trauma in a safe way. Donate to Re-Alliance Stay updated with our newsletter Download for free: English Português Français عربي Español Swahili