Who is Efferus?
Robin Efferus Leeber
Robin has been venturing into diverse agricultural pursuits since a young age. In a range of climates from cold Norway to ultra-tropical Thailand, he has invested time in the fields of the farming investments of his family. For 14 years he owned and ran the most diverse privately-owned fruit-farm in Hawaii that previously belonged to the Master Orchardist and Rare Fruit Council-engine, Phillip Monet. Robin named the property KUMU AINA, “the land that teaches”.
Robin started teaching Permaculture and orchard care on his farm and at Laákea Gardens. In 1994 Robin was recognized as “Farmer of the Year” by USDA for his success with the introduction of nitrogen-fixing trees in the fruit orchard. When Robin sold the farm in 2004 it contained over 200 varieties of fruit.
Back in Norway he settled at Holt Gård, built his strawbale house and permaculture-homestead including demonstration-gardens to exemplify diverse approaches to Permaculture design. These gardens now serve as the genetic pool for propagating forest-garden plants that are suitable for cold climates (H1 to H8).
Robin is dedicated to environmental work to save the Oslofjord from nitrogen pollution through the development of agricultural practices.
Our mission
"Through evolution, not revolution, are all improvements made, with permanency."
- Francis Bacon
At Efferus, we are dedicated to creating a genepool of edible forest-garden plants and plant guilds that are non-invasive, beautiful, tasty, robust for organic growing, and well-suited to the Nordic climates. Our mission extends to offering and distributing these plants to home growers, farmers, and land developers, ensuring that these beneficial species are accessible to all who wish to cultivate them.
We are also committed to designing and maintaining gardens that demonstrate various approaches to sustainably growing these plants on both home and commercial scales. Through these gardens, we aim to exemplify Permaculture design in a comprehensive and inspiring way, integrating it into our everyday lives. Our broader goal is to promote lifestyle changes that move away from heavy materialistic consumerism toward a joyous, locally-based exchange of true riches.
Living out this lifestyle ourselves, we strive to meet our needs for nourishment, learning, meaning, sustainability, creativity, financial security, and overall well-being—physical, emotional, and mental. Additionally, we focus on developing effective strategies to gradually shift conventional farming practices in Norway. We seek to demonstrate that it is possible to produce significantly higher yields while simultaneously contributing to increased biodiversity, carbon sequestration, flood reduction, erosion control, and the prevention of harmful nutrient runoff. These efforts are aimed at restoring a normal level of aquatic life in our waters and creating forest gardens that are havens for soil biota, including mycorrhiza and mycelium, ensuring healthy soil and highly nutritious produce.
Moreover, we are deeply committed to helping save the Oslo Fjord from nitrogen contamination. We recognize that current farming systems are detrimental to biodiversity and contribute to environmental contamination from glyphosate in groundwater and nitrogen in streams, rivers, and fjords. Through our work, we aim to develop and promote farming practices that mitigate these harmful impacts and contribute to the long-term health of our environment.
Our mission
"Through evolution, not revolution, are all improvements made, with permanency."
Francis Bacon
At Efferus, we are dedicated to creating a genepool of edible forest-garden plants and plant guilds that are non-invasive, beautiful, tasty, robust for organic growing, and well-suited to the Nordic climates. Our mission extends to offering and distributing these plants to home growers, farmers, and land developers, ensuring that these beneficial species are accessible to all who wish to cultivate them.
We are also committed to designing and maintaining gardens that demonstrate various approaches to sustainably growing these plants on both home and commercial scales. Through these gardens, we aim to exemplify Permaculture design in a comprehensive and inspiring way, integrating it into our everyday lives. Our broader goal is to promote lifestyle changes that move away from heavy materialistic consumerism toward a joyous, locally-based exchange of true riches.
Living out this lifestyle ourselves, we strive to meet our needs for nourishment, learning, meaning, sustainability, creativity, financial security, and overall well-being—physical, emotional, and mental. Additionally, we focus on developing effective strategies to gradually shift conventional farming practices in Norway. We seek to demonstrate that it is possible to produce significantly higher yields while simultaneously contributing to increased biodiversity, carbon sequestration, flood reduction, erosion control, and the prevention of harmful nutrient runoff. These efforts are aimed at restoring a normal level of aquatic life in our waters and creating forest gardens that are havens for soil biota, including mycorrhiza and mycelium, ensuring healthy soil and highly nutritious produce.
Moreover, we are deeply committed to helping save the Oslo Fjord from nitrogen contamination. We recognize that current farming systems are detrimental to biodiversity and contribute to environmental contamination from glyphosate in groundwater and nitrogen in streams, rivers, and fjords. Through our work, we aim to develop and promote farming practices that mitigate these harmful impacts and contribute to the long-term health of our environment.
Our history
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Our values
In our everyday pursuits, we are committed to caring for nature in all its native complexity and recognizing the universal needs of humanity as a unified group.
We strive to navigate our transition into a sustainable lifestyle with empathy, both for ourselves and for all those affected during these times of change. We avoid hasty conclusions that could lead to strategies that overlook or undervalue essential needs.
Our approach includes sharing or reinvesting surplus into living cyclical systems, designing in accordance with Permaculture Principles, and exploring opportunities to evolve democratic systems towards Sociocratic models, applying them only where they will bring realistic and meaningful benefits.
