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Why this Course?

Permaculture Design Meets Soil Science | Never before has a PDC convened over 70 instructors from 22 countries, from permaculture elders to soil food web consultants, prepared for an international cohort of learners. The Soil Food Web PDC is the only program that integrates permaculture alongside Dr. Elaine Ingham’s Soil Food Web approach.

  • 70+ Expert Instructors

    72 hours of self paced learning & interactive instruction from over 70 permaculture practitioners and Soil Food Web mentors.

  • 22 Countries Represented

    Inclusive and diverse flipped classroom model featuring content developed from 22 countries, covering climates around the world!

  • April 12 - June 30, 2026

    This 12-week permaculture Design Certification experience will run weekly from April 12th - June 30th with two live session options: Sundays 12pm ET or Tuesdays 9pm ET.

  • Internationally Recognized Certificate

    This course is presented in collaboration with the Permaculture Association meaning graduation from our course earns you a certificate from their organization & access to their community for one year.

  • Legacy Course Honoring Graham Bell & Dr. Elaine Ingham

    This program was co-created by Graham Bell - a beloved permaculture elder and the first diploma holder in the UK - in collaboration with Delvin Solkinson and Dr. Elaine Ingham. Completing this course was among Graham's final wishes. His memory is a blessing and his legacy lives on in every lesson.

  • Access to SFW Community

    Students enrolled in this course will receive premiere access to private SFW community & course discussion forums. Be the first to know about exclusive webinars, promotions, and in-person events. Share information, interact, and learn with fellow SFW peers from all over the globe.

Learn from Nature

If you're looking for a robust overview of permaculture & renegerative design, this course is perfect for you!

Discover practical ways to understand and apply nature’s wisdom in your daily life. By combining scientific observation with time-tested traditions of regenerative living, this course reveals powerful new possibilities for creating healthier lives, thriving landscapes, and meaningful livelihoods.

Permaculture principles offer a practical framework for designing systems that work in harmony with nature. Through these methods, you’ll build the skills and confidence to become a more capable designer in everyday life—whether you’re planning a garden, organizing a project, or shaping a long-term vision for your home or community.

Permaculture provides accessible, affordable, and achievable solutions that can be applied anywhere—from homes and gardens to farms, businesses, and community initiatives. Learn how to meet more of your own needs while cultivating resilience, productivity, and abundance in a rapidly changing world.

Permaculture is a comprehensive design science for building resilient landscapes, livelihoods, and communities rooted in the principles of living systems. This course brings that science to life through the lens of the Soil Food Web.

Developed in partnership with the Permaculture Association (UK), this certificate covers 72 hours of instruction across 12 weeks of self-paced content, weekly live sessions, hands-on design projects, and a global peer community you'll carry with you long after graduation

Curriculum Overview

72 Educators | 12 Chapters | 3 Sections | 2 Live Instructors | Weekly Live Sessions | Average 6 hours of self-paced lessons each week | One living system.

  • Permaculture Essentials

    Part 1 | Week 1 - 4 | April 12 - May 5

    Think like nature. Upgrade your ability to make effective, efficient, and ethical decisions using the permaculture design toolkit. Recognize nature’s pattern language. Soak up the Soil Food Web science of ecology and biology. Map a meaningful place in your home, garden, farm, or project.

    [ Chapter 1 Permaculture Foundations | Chapter 2 Design Tools & Frameworks | Chapter 3 Designing with Patterns | Chapter 4 Design with Soil |

  • Ecological Essentials

    Part 2 | Week 5 - 8 | May 10 - June 2

    Work with nature. Level up your ecological literacy with regenerative methods, strategies, and techniques for gardening and farming. Learn permaculture approaches for working with animals, trees and wild spaces. Understand how nature is designed for water and apply these principles in different scales and climates.

    [ Chapter 5 Design with Plants | Chapter 6 Design with Plants & Animals | Chapter 7 Design with Water | Chapter 8 Design with Climate |

  • Design Essentials

    Part 3 | Week 9 - 12 | June 7 - June 30

    Apply nature’s lessons. Study new approaches to resource use for resilience and adaptability to changing climatic conditions. Meet the needs, opportunities, and challenges of cool climates, topics and drylands. Bring permaculture into life and livelihood. Design a meaningful place in your home, garden, farm, or project.

    [ Chapter 9 Cool Climate Design | Chapter 10 Dryland Design | Chapter 11 Tropical Design | Chapter 12 Social Permaculture |

~ Live Session Instructors ~

Delvin Solkinson

Lead Permaculture Instructor

Community gardener, student and teacher from British Columbia, Canada, Delvin has done a Permaculture Design Certificate, Diploma and Masters Degree with Bill Mollison, the co-originator of Permaculture. He has taken many in-person programs including 13 advanced courses and 14 teacher trainings with Permaculture elders like David Holmgren, Rosemary Morrow, Larry Santoyo, Robin Clayfield, Geoff Lawton, Scott Pittman, Starhawk, Toby Hemenway, Looby Macnamara, Michael Becker, Jude Hobbs, Doug and Sam Bullock. Ongoing training included three additional Permaculture Education Diplomas, numerous Permaculture Design Certificate Courses, and an experimental Doctoral Degree with the Permaculture Academy. He is currently a Diploma Tutor with the Permaculture Association and Senior Diploma Tutor with Permakultur Danmark. Delvin has co-taught 27 permaculture design courses over the last 20 years. He is an accredited teacher with Permaculture Institute, Permaculture Association, Permaculture Institute North America and Permaculture Research Institute.

Kavi Reddy

Permaculture Instructor

Kavi Reddy is a permaculture educator and community organizer who constantly actualizes solutions for the benefit of Earth today and in the future. She stumbled upon Permaculture in 2013, earned her PDC in 2017, and has advanced permaculture certifications in landscape mapping, passive rainwater harvesting design, and soil fertility building. Kavi has learned from and taught alongside many Permaculture elders in the U.S. and India including Jude Hobbs, Narsanna Koppula, Clea Chandmal, Robyn Francis, Rico Zook, and Kelda Lorax. Academically, Kavi holds three degrees from UC Berkeley, focusing on the history of agriculture, colonialism, and food systems transformations. Her career spans social entrepreneurship, regenerative agriculture, climate technology innovation, and non-profit management. In her role as Director of Operations at the Soil Food Web School, Kavi builds programs and partnerships that further access to regenerative ecology & soil fertility education around the world. In her personal life, Kavi loves teaching Permaculture & Regenerative Thinking to middle & high school students at her alma mater The Athenian School in the Bay Area, CA.

PDC Guest Lecturers

Participants will have the opportunity to learn from many notable permaculture elders, soil food web experts, and community practitioners doing hands on work around the world!

  • Graham Bell
  • Dr Elaine Ingham
  • Looby Macnamara
  • Aranya Austin
  • Dr. Vandana Shiva
  • Larry Santoyo
  • Rosemary Morrow
  • Skye Jin
  • Mothin Ali
  • Ângela Gonçalves
  • Gerald Kasiita
  • Mark Lakeman
  • Starhawk
  • Mary Reynolds
  • David Holmgren
  • Ruth Akinyi
  • Andrew Millison
  • Robin Clayfield
  • Geoff Lawton
  • Robyn Francis

Questions Are Welcome Here

Look below for the answers to some of our most frequently asked questions.

Teaching Team 


Permaculture Association Educators

Graham Bell, Looby Macnamara, Chris Evans, Aranya Austin, Rakesh Rootsman Rak, Delvin Solkinson, Skye Jin, Tomas Remiarz, Charlotte Lou Langdon, James Atherton, Ângela Gonçalves, Jemma Findley, Kathryn Baker, Andy Goldring, Jo Barker, Aimee Fenech, Carole Egner, Katie Shepherd 


Permaculture Elders


David Holmgren, Rosemary Morrow, Robin Clayfield, Geoff Lawton, Robyn Francis, Starhawk, Jude Hobbs, Larry Santoyo, Andrew Millison, Mark Lakeman, Christopher Nesbitt, Michael Becker, Mike Kaplin


Soil Food Web Mentors


Dr. Elaine Ingham, Dr. Adam Cobb, Dr. Carla Ribeiro Machado e Portugal, Dr. Caterina Capri, Adriana Rodriguez, Brian Vagg, Daniel Bolanos, Eric Feiler, Fernando Lacayo, Gerald Ramírez, Kavi Reddy, Laura Campos, Loida Vasquez, María José Monge Salazar, Tanja Dekker & Wesley Sander 


International Permaculture Teachers

 

Aimee Fenech, Ampera Alexander, Bridget O'Brien, Câlin Radulescu, Charlie Brennan, Charlie Mgee, Charlies Williams, Cristina Colis, Erin Wiedmer, George Christofis, Gerald Kasiita, Grace Solkinson, JanieB, Jörn Müller, Julie Parrell, Juliet Pennina Zalwango, Kate Everett, Kyle Franks, Lukowe Ketra, Maurice Aliddeki Bayinze, Michael Mugume, Mike Hoag, Mohammed al Kulaib, Mothin Ali, Ruth Akinyi, Sabine Klee, Samantha Lyth, Tess Lehrich, Victor Atujjukire, Colin Andrews, Monica Wilde, Mary Reynolds


It is a 12-week course. Each week will have approximately 6.5 hours of active time between self-paced learning from pre-recorded videos, live virtual meetings, and assigned activities. 

Yes! Our two amazing live instructors, Delvin and Kavi, will be leading your cohort. They will be present at the weekly meetups and in the Soil Food Web community that all the students gain access to for the course.

Both! The Permaculture Association is the gold standard for Permaculture certification. They collaborate with entities that provide Permaculture Design Certifications, such as us here at the Soil Food Web School, and verify that the course meets or exceeds their standards before providing their world-recognized certification to graduates of that course. 

So if you graduate from this course, you will be both a Soil Food Web Permaculture certificate holder and a Permaculture Association Certificate holder

None at all. Come as you are! 

You will, however, need to have access to the internet and a device that can connect to Zoom calls for the weekly meet-ups. 

Given the time requirements for the course - both self-paced and live - we teach this course in cohorts. This means that if you can't enroll this time, you will not be able to enroll halfway through. 

But we intend to offer more cohorts later that you can keep an eye out for!

You sure can! This extended PDC course will expand on the formerly offered Soil Food Web Introduction to Permaculture course and the Soil Food Web Essentials course.

Fill out this form to apply for an alumni discount: https://forms.gle/bWo2mHVENmQyQx9WA

Yes, scholarships are available on a needs basis for folks that identify as Black, Indigenous, or under-resourced from the Global South. Folks who are otherwise under-resourced and are able to tie their attendance in the course to community impact back home are also encouraged to apply.

Scholarship form: https://forms.gle/tixpazpY5fpp5TMF9

Can't wait to see you in the course!

“Though the problems of the world are becoming increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” - Bill Mollison

To earn the PDC certificate, you must attend at least 80% of the 1 ½ hr weekly live sessions, complete a small-scale permaculture design project, and complete 4 ½ hrs a week of self-paced learning. The course also includes an annual membership in the Permaculture Association.