A Conversation with Diego Footer

January 30, 2017

Recently I had a chance to chat with Diego Footer from Creative Destruction, formally known as Permaculture Voices, on a podcast series featuring “honest, hard conversations about farming, business, and life with those trying to make a living doing something that they love and dealing with life in the process.” We spoke in depth about how permaculture can be an incredible design tool and how it has transformed my own engineering practice. With Diego’s permission, I’m pleased to feature the entire talk below:

An excerpt:

“…Like me Rob comes from an engineering background, and he came to permaculture after having been an engineer.

For him, permaculture gave him another tool to use and way to re-purpose his engineering career. Permaculture gave him a way to richen and deepen his design work and engineering versus diluting it.

And it was in one of our conversations where he said something that stopped me in my tracks, and changed my paradigm on the spot.

He said, ‘Diego, it doesn’t matter what anyone is saying or doing with permaculture, no matter how irrelevant it may seem. Permaculture is simply another tool in the toolbox, and if it makes my job easier, then I will use it. Like a hammer, it doesn’t matter what people are saying or claiming about a hammer, when you need to drive a nail you use a hammer, and when you don’t, you don’t pay attention.’

It was that simple idea of permaculture being a tool, regardless of what claims people make, it’s still a tool, that really reset my perspective on permaculture….”

For more insight, check out the extensive archive of Creative Destruction podcasts here.

Rob Avis

Rob Avis is a petroleum engineer turned permaculture teacher, designer and public speaker. He graduated from the University of Alberta and also have international training and certifications in renewable energy and regenerative design. He and his wife Michelle have been running Verge Permaculture in Calgary for the past 5 years.

Tags: building resilient food systems, permaculture