My name is John Douglas, and I am on a mission to share with farmers everywhere the knowledge I have acquired that easily produce abundant yields without the use of insecticides, herbicides, or manufactured fertilizers. That´s why they call me The Lazy Farmer. I came to Panama in 2001 as a Peace Corps volunteer. They trained me to teach farmers how to grow organically, but the techniques were frus
tratingly complex and labor intensive! That frustration was the seed of a journey that ultimately I hope will help transform world agriculture. I want everyone to join the wonderful Permaculture farming revolution to create abundant yields of healthy crops, grown without poisons and without slash and burn practices. And the farmers will earn more money from less work to boot! In the beginning, I started trying to help farmers from a place of wonderful ignorance. Now, ignorance wasn't bliss but it did leave me with an open mind . So when I was told to kill weeds (and the life sustaining microbes, incidentally), I found plants that would naturally shade out the weeds. I also found that I could suffocate the weeds by putting newspaper or cardboard on them. Newspaper and cardboard also turn into nice fertilzer for the crops and they also protect the soil from sun and rain. Multiuse of things is a superpowerful lazy technique. Your crops will be healthy, the weeds die and McDonalds thanks you for getting rid of their cardboard. I was also told that I needed to use chemical fertilizers. Another revelation when my right-hand man Marcelino planted 10 plantains and one grew spectacularly, while the rest produced very little. The larger plantain had bagaso (spent sugarcane) thrown on the ground around it. Whoopee-what does spent sugarcane cost? Farmers consider it "trash" and burn it or throw it in the river. Anyway, along comes a highly paid agricultural engineer and he let me know that, "Bagaso is not fertilizer." I replied “I understand, and you went to university and learned that bagaso does not contain nitrogen, potassium or phosphorus. But I got a problem: the plantain did not go to university. So would you please explain that to my stupid, ignorant plantain? It loves the stuff.”
And so I began inviting other farmers to try these methods and to setup their own lazy gardens. These "more from less" Permaculture techniques are starting to spread nicely throughout Panama. All it takes is an open mind and a willingness to try!
