Agro-Perma-Lab Foundation (APLab)

Agro-Perma-Lab (APLab) is a women-led training foundation based in Poland. It was formed in 2019 as a branch of the Polish Food Sovereignty Network (Nyeleni Polska) in response to a need to build leadership capacity within its organisations. The Foundation brings together practitioners, educators and garden designers, leaders of ecological organizations and creative people working at the intersection of art, activism and social animation.

APLab is working towards transformation of the food system using the synergy of agroecology and permaculture: it supports the implementation of ecological and social education projects in the areas of community and ecology, mitigating climate change, transforming local food systems and designing edible urban gardens. The Foundation’s “Lab” approach draws on social movement pedagogical methods- community action research, participatory and peer learning and pilot innovations. APLab trainings nurture leadership skills, bonds of reciprocity, intergenerational collaboration, regenerative activism, design thinking and dialogue of diverse knowledges. Numerous educational resources in multiple forms include podcasts, video tutorials, guidebooks, web-docs and workshop scripts. Projects have included:

• 10-module open source online training in community seed-saving.
• Piloting the first regional Community Seed Home in Poland.
• Co-organising regenerative cultural garden events for Ukrainian migrants in Warsaw in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• Co-creating international web-docs: Supermarket Museum & Garden in Your Hands.

APLab is aiming to develop learning progression pathways and permaculture design services that are at once inspiring, educational, economically viable and team-based as a way to scale up and scale out local food system strategies.