Joe Polaischer, well known, highly respected and dearly loved permaculture teacher, farmer and pioneer past away, February 14, 2008, in New Zealand.
Joe leaves the global permaculture community an incredible legacy of commitment and dedication to healing the earth. Over the past 18-plus years Joe has empowered and inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of people through his teaching in New Zealand, Europe and Japan, and through the living example of sustainability in action he created with his partner, Trish Allen, at Rainbow Valley Farm in New Zealand.
Joe Polaischer was born in Austria and grew up on a peasant farm in the Austrian Alps. He spent many years in Africa and South America in his twenties. Passionate about sustainability, self-sufficiency, appropriate technology and bioregional community development, in 1988 he and Trish purchased the property known now as Rainbow Valley Farm on the North Island of New Zealand
The farm has been featured in magazines around the world, and from my personal experience and travels it is a global permaculture treasure. Joe’s exceptional knowledge and skills, wonderful sense of humour, commitment to excellence, and knack for making the most mundane elements of life a work of art and beauty are ledgendary.
Today those 20 acres are now some of the most fertile in the surrounding area and Rainbow Valley Farm has become a worldwide example of what can be achieved by farming with Permaculture principles. Joe is asked to travel all over the world to give lectures and workshops on the subject, but what he loves most is to stay at home and work on his garden.
He died in 2008
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