• Home
  • Design
  • Educate
  • Interviews
  • About
Agrifutures
  • Home
  • Design
  • Educate
  • Interviews
  • About
Picture
​​In this design task you are to create three concept sketches for each of the zones of production on your property. Take your time to consider three different production types that would be suitable for you site. Doing this will unlock possibilities not previously considered. It may also reveal previously not thought of ways to make beneficial connections between the different types of production by incorporating this diversity.

You can email your concept sketches for zones 0-5 separately to richard@agrifutures.co.nz or all combined. It would also be great to share your concepts with the FB group for mutual inspiration of others.

Please note not all zones may apply to your site:

Zone 0 = Concepts for house design or production associated with house or attached glasshouse etc.
Zone 1 = Intensive productivity surrounding house site, that may include a wide variety of systems such as glasshouses, aquaponics, chicken tractors, ponds, bio-intensive garden beds, herb gardens, herb spirals, keyhole garden beds etc.
Zone 2 = Orchards, aquaculture, larger scale vegetable beds, small animal areas etc. Often areas fenced off separately from house site and require less frequent care than areas of higher intensity surrounding house. These systems often represent an ecosystem held at a particular stage of succession by active management practices and ideally incorporating the beneficial function of grazes to maintain that balance. For example: an orchard system with some level of functional diversity in layers of perennial plants with the growth of under story plants and trees by pruning, mulching, training and bringing in grazers to eat back foliage, add nutrients via manure and help control insect pests.
Zone 3 = Broadacre pastoral farming, open woodland with grazers, coppiced woodland with grazers, silver pasture, large scale aquaculture. These systems tends to be more closely modeled upon the form and function of a natural system with the aim of functioning in closed loop systems that recycle resources and as much as possible are self sustaining.
Zone 4 = Forestry zone or other that represents a transition between the artificially created ecosystems of the farm and the naturally occurring ecosystems of that region. These areas represent a useful harvest (wood from sustainable managed forest) and a buffer for the benefit of wildlife and farmers between the two different landscape types (farm and wilderness).
Zone 5 = Wilderness area, which may require some active involvement to control the spread of weeds from farmland into natural areas and pest control of animals not native to that region that disrupt natural ecologies and may also represent a useful (if sustainable) harvest of some resources (mushrooms, game, berries, seedlings).

Powered by
  • Home
  • Design
  • Educate
  • Interviews
  • About
  • ✕