Elena Parmiggiani:
native of Reggio Emilia has always been a lover of nature, is active in Permaculture, Synergistic Agriculture and the Transition Town movement.
She collaborates with the Magazine ViviConsapevole and with the Farm Autosufficienza in the Romagna’s Apennines.

She attended the PDC with Permaculture Saviana Parodi, Stefano Soldati and Angelo Tornato in 2009. In 2010 she attended the PDC taught by Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton in Turkey, Istanbul.

She has long collaborated with Anna Bartoli, her business partner, with which she participated in 2011 in the Course for Teachers in Permaculture (Teacher Training) by Rosemary Morrow at the PIA in Austria and participate actively in the European Permaculture Teacher's Partnership.

In 2011 she was in the course of Sepp Holzer at the farm the Krameterhof Austria.

In May 2012 she attended the Forest Gardening Martin Crawford, international expert on edible forest in temperate climate, founder of the Agroforestry Research Trust.

In 2012 she graduated from the Italian Academy of Permaculture with a Diploma in Permaculture.

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I am working as a full round Permaculture professional:
- Designer
- Teacher
- Manager
- Consultant

In Spring 2009 I took a vacation and during my vacation I attended my first PDC with John Barrie Button, from then on I was hooked to permaculture.

My goal then was to undertake the job of understanding design and project management, to gai experience on the field, and to have an opportunity to work on my skills. Having experienced a life as a web designer and programmer I was also eager to do more on the land, the land I belong to: Emilia Romagna.

During that course in 2009 I met the owner of the Farm of Autosufficienza, and in 2010 I started collaborating with him in Bagno di Romagna (FC) (www.autosufficienza.com) designing, implementing and maintaining a permaculture system and demonstration site. To do so I moved to another city: Cesena. At that time the farm was abandoned from roughly 20 years and there was only an old crumbling stable with 1200sq m of asbesto’s roof and an old building that once served as school stable, farm and barn (as it was custom in rural Italy 50 and more years ago). The place is laden with beauty, history, strong people and wonderful culinary tradition. I was in love with the place.
In April 2010 we planted the first orchard. Shortly after, the hedge.

In September 2010, after an initial design led by John Barrie Button, I was appointed as the assistant/manager in the farm. The first job was to coordinate the design consultation and the burocracy of the local municipality. After the approval of the project by the local authority, we dug 45 swales for 2.2 km of length, we had 7000 trees delivered, we excavated 3 ponds. We started the restoration of the first building, the old school/barn. I took the job of managing the implementation of the project and all the needs, wants, and values we had at the time.

In the beginning I was helping with various tasks, from designing the hedge of the first apple orchard (800 linear metres of it, with 1200 trees and shrubs), designing and implementing the new facilities in the farm for the temporary zone 0, doing office jobs like working on the website, writing articles for the Editing Company he owns.
In may 2010 I attended with Francesco a Synergistic Agriculture course that is still a big part of my life today.

My first two projects all by myself were in March 2011. First to go in the farm: the office and the compost toilet (that I designed and constructed with the help of a couple of wonderful people, Gerry and Tina and with a mix of recycled and new materials), these two designs took place just three months after the PDC with Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton I took in Istanbul.

In may 2011, exactly a year after the first move, I moved again, to the nearest village, as in the farm was impossible to live full time.
In Spring 2011 I was not only organizing courses and teaching, but I moved again, this time in the local village and by participating in the process of design and construction of the Farm Autosufficienza together with Francesco, organizing visits and volunteers, maintaining and cultivating synergistic garden of about 1000 square meters, designing and creating permacultural gardens, the food forest 1600 square meters), managing the compost toilets, constructed wetlands, design, build and furnish the kitchen, experimenting with the Yeoman's Plow and the Keyline (with mixed results) and by prepare additional projects, such as the conversion of the first orchard we planted in april 2010, the cultivation of herbs and experimenting with market gardening techniques.
I practiced, designes, learned. It was and it still is a lot of work. And all it’s being a powerful journey into understanding natural processes, people dynamics, and myself.

After the Teaching Training with Rosemary Morrow in 2011 and after my Diploma in Permaculture Design, in 2012 I finally started teaching. Of course the Farm Autosufficienza was my personal apprenticeship CAMP and I started right there to teach and to develop my teaching skills.
The following year, 2013, I was ready to search for my own site to develop.

I am still a computer geek with a vegetable garden, in a small city house. :-)
I like to collect seeds and I experimented with a lot of ancient tubers (oca, yacon, ulluco, etc) and a lot of peculiar varieties of fruit plants.

Too bad I am a bookworm, so I dig dig dig as much info as I can, from books, videos, webpages, courses. And because of this permaculture passion of mine uonce upon a time I changed job and city and approach to things.

Being a permie is wonderful, but also I have great expectations, I ask myself to learn more and do more, even with some challenges.

Arzintela October 2015

A PDC at the Farm

Practicing what I have being taught

The European Permaculture Teacher's Partnership

aka the meeting point/melting pot for all the permaculture teachers in Europe

A teaching experiment

After many small steps, finally an intro to PDC!

Synergistic Agriculture

Permaculture coupled with Natural Farming, thanks to Emilia Hazelip, created a new approach to oldish matter

A day with seedlings and bees

Learning transplanting and beekiping from a special family