The Farmers' Handbook

HPC staff have years of experience working in remote mountainous
regions which led to the development of a wide range of appropriate technologies and approaches aimed at increasing domestic farm productivity and reducing its 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 Nepali
language “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 (7500 copies). In 2002
the handbook was then translated
into English and in 2009 made
available for free download as
 PDFs (click here) via the
Australian Permaculture Research
Institute’s website. In 2011 it was
released as a free e-book (click here)
by UK-based Permanent Publications,
publishers of the Permaculture Magazine,
via their Green Shopping Guide.
The English version is still in draft
form and the authors seek feedback
for improvement.

The Nepali hard copy finally sold out in 2011, and a project has been started to reprint this with revisions and a few additional techniques added, with a deadline of September 2012.