By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
I used to write regularly on permaculture at NC; here is the category listing the posts. I stopped the practice, partly because I just didn’t have the time to spend in the garden any more, but also because I’d achieved my goal: I started studying and writing about permaculture around 2012, during Obama’s Jackpot: The Prequel, because I wanted to know if I could grow enough food on a quarter-acre of land to feed myself using permaculture principles. The answer turned out to be yes, but to really lead that life, I would have had not only to grow the vegetables, but to store them for eating over the winter and through the spring, by canning, pickling, drying, or in a root cellar. That was daunting, and so I turned into a mere gardener, itself a great and sadly abandoned pleasure that I highly recommend to anyone, even a project as simple as throwing wildflower seeds along the roadside. (The gateway drug for permaculture is sheet mulch; July may be too late to start, but you could certainly start next spring.)
What, you will have asked, is permaculture? Wikipedia throws down the guantlet here[1]:
Permaculture has been criticised as being poorly defined and unscientific.
All true — at least in the past! — but I think an article in Nature is a good riposte to both points. A quick placeholder definition, just to show that “permaculture” made the OED:
permaculture
/ˈpəːməkʌltʃə/
noun. l20.
[ORIGIN: from perma(nent adjective + culture noun.]
Ecology. The development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be complete and self-sustaining.
(Those who regard agriculture as a terrible mistake may quarrel with that definition, but as I think we will see from Nature, that’s mere semantics.)
In this brief post — brief so I can hit the road, sorry! — I’ll extract the salient points from the Nature article. Then I’ll suggest a few permaculture projects (beyond sheet mulch) and conclude.
Permaculture in Nature
Here is the article from Nature: “Permaculture enhances carbon stocks, soil quality and biodiversity in Central Europe“. To get the definition out of the way, the author’s describe permaculture (and contrast it to a parallel discipline with which I am not familiar, agroecology):
. As a result, it is not possible to establish fixed general guidelines as is the case for organic agriculture. Instead, both agroecology and permaculture are based on sets of principles or elements emphasizing a growing set of favorable agricultural practices. There is a strong overlap in the principles of these two approaches, which include . Hereby, both permaculture and agroecology aim to establish regenerative agriculture in terms of environmental health18,19. Furthermore, agroecology has an additional focus on social values, responsibility governance and solidarity economy, while permaculture shows a strong emphasis on the conscious design of such agroecosystems.
And results (materials and methods here):
The results of this study highlight that permaculture in Central Europe enables higher carbon stocks, soil quality and biodiversity compared to predominant agriculture. Soil carbon stocks in the first 30 cm of topsoil on permaculture sites were comparable to average German grasslands while still producing cereals, vegetables, and fruit…. In contrast, average net carbon losses have been observed for the predominant industrial agriculture in the past and are predicted for the future. ….
We also found higher total nitrogen contents on permaculture sites. On the one hand, higher nitrogen contents promote plant productivity, but on the other hand, this means an increased risk of gaseous losses, e.g., nitrous oxide or ammonia into the atmosphere or nitrate leaching into groundwater. As permaculture farms work with minimal or no tillage, permanent soil cover, and without mineral nitrogen fertilizers, it can be assumed that the risk of nitrogen losses is low….
The plant-extractable concentrations of soil phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, boron, and zinc were higher on permaculture sites than on conventionally fertilized soils of the control fields, which can be explained by a higher input of organic matter….
A high input of organic matter together with minimal or no tillage is probably responsible for lower soil bulk densities48,49 and increased abundances and diversity of earthworms on permaculture sites. Soil bulk density is a key soil quality indicator with respect to plant root penetration, aeration, and infiltration and hereby codetermines erosion potentia;. An increased earthworm abundance facilitates a reduced soil bulk density and vice versa.
(NOTE Sheet mulch makes earthworms happy.) As FDR said: “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.” So let’s not do that! For more on soil at NC, see here, here, here, and here.)
The Conclusion:
In this study, we observed strong increases in soil carbon stocks, soil quality, and biodiversity through the use of permaculture. These results suggest that permaculture could contribute to the urgently needed transformation of agriculture to mitigate negative effects on various Earth system processes such as climate change, biogeochemical nitrogen and phosphorous flows, biosphere integrity, land-system change, and soil degradation. Our results suggest that permaculture is an effective tool to promote sustainable agriculture ([Sustainable Development Goals] SDG 2), ensure sustainable production patterns (SDG 12), combat climate change (SDG 13) and halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss (SDG 15)100. While there are numerous scientific results on more environmentally friendly practices such as agroforestry, crop-livestock integration, or the promotion of semi-natural habitats, the key capability of permaculture is to select, combine, and arrange precise practices for a specific context of land and farmer to create synergistic, regenerative and resilient agroecosystems. We see this as the missing link between scientific knowledge and implementation in practice. Therefore, we propose to foster the education of farmers and specialized consultants in permaculture design and related practices, as well as the redesign of agricultural systems according to permaculture principles.
Phys.org’s summary is more pointed: “Permaculture found to be a sustainable alternative to conventional agriculture“:
In view of the challenges of climate change and species extinction, this type of agriculture proved to be a real alternative to conventional cultivation—and reconcile environmental protection and high yields.
To be hoped! Now let’s turn to permaculture on a much smaller scale: your own patch, whether garden, de-lawned lawn, community garden, or whatever.
Permaculture Projects You Can Do
From Homes and Gardens, “Permaculture gardening projects – 3 simple DIY jobs for the weekend,” their definition:
Permaculture and organic gardening practices focus on working with nature rather than against it, often considered a holistic approach to gardening. Put simply, this includes growing a diverse range of edible and ornamental crops, caring for the soil and encouraging wildlife. Here, we share some simple and quick jobs for the weekend that will help your backyard thrive in the months ahead.
(Rather missing the theoretical aspect of “mimic the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems,” but I suppose that comes under the heading of “working with nature rather than against it.”) They suggest a rain barrel (not legal in all states):
Rainwater harvesting should be a priority for every homeowner. If you are looking for permaculture gardening projects for the weekend and do not have a rain barrel, why not consider installing one? Installation is quick and simple and can conserve water and reduce surface water run-off in your yard.
Rain barrels are a sustainable way to collect rainwater, typically positioned next to a garden shed or greenhouse, whereby water can be diverted from drainpipes and stored. This can then be used during the warmer months of the year, reducing the need to use tap water.
Rainwater harvesting is an important part of permaculture philosophy. This quick and practical solution helps to reduce your water usage through rainwater reuse, thereby promoting sustainability in your backyard.
Again, the, er, “holistic” (woo) aspect is missing. (Here is a permaculture project with a focus on water.) Any serious permaculture project is going to put more thought into water than capturing it in a barrel, but you have to start somewhere! (I really added this because in the papers I’m either reading about floods or drought; and a stock of water seems like a handy buffer to have, especiallly if (say) you can trickle it out to the beds at need.)
From Permaculture Institute Sydney, “Basic Design Techniques and Plant Choices for Growing a Fire Break” (granted, Australian bushfires; perhaps a reader from California will speak up). This is a massive plan, and so I will pick out one or two of the easy bits:
Food forests and vegetable gardens are largely fire retardant. They are usually moister areas and the plant species are not fire prone species. Placement of these elements between you and the likely fire front along with other firebreaks and strategies will greatly protect your home.
And:
Mounds of soil strategically placed near your house enable you to access the roof quickly and safely to fight fire and ember attack. The roof is a hot spot in a fire and climbing ladders is dangerous. Earth mounds also protect your home and other structures and keep them cool.
Conclusion
Permaculture has been growing quietly while I ignored it; there are three million permaculturalists worldwide, placing permaculture as an ethical or spiritual practice between Zorastrianism (2.6 million) and Shinto (4.0 million) in 140 countries. That’s not unimpressive! And permaculture is being normalized, and its concepts being extended beyond agriculture:
[T]he booming “blue economy” is no panacea. Fish farms can pollute the water. Mangroves are often felled to make way for prawn farms. The solutions of today could turn out to be problems of the future. We cannot simply shift from one form of environmental exploitation to another.
as a way to blend farming with healthy ecosystems. What if it could do the same on water?
So perhaps progress is being made, away from the spotlight:
The bottom photo will naturally remind the reader of Monet’s garden at Giverny, where he painted his famous water lilies. Here is one permaculturalist’s view of Giverny (the whole piece is thought-provoking):
An invitation to be a “pop up speaker” at the NGV’s Monet’s Garden Exhibition gave me an opportunity to address this vexed role of aesthetics in permaculture…. [According to founder Bill Mollison, [p]ermaculture was about growing useful plants in contrast the ‘useless plants’ of ornamental horticulture. Monet was not a target of Mollisonian scorn, but I suppose he could have been… Even the roses much reviled by Mollison as useless ornamentals are actually a source of perfume, culinary delights and medicinal rose hips as well as being yummy goat fodder. So maybe there can be an accommodation between aesthetics of Monet’s and ecological rationalism of Permaculture because these apparent polar opposites always carry the seed of the other.
And dialectics with aesthetics having charged onto left field, I will end, if not conclude. Gardening is, of course, one way to “stay safe out there.” Eh?
NOTES
[1] Wikipedia also has an excellent potted history of permaculture, starting with Franklin Hiram King’s Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan..
Gardening is one way to stay safe out there. My backyard has been cleared and the one large and dangerous shade tree has been removed. At the larger scale, The Land Institute of Salina, Kansas (founded by Wes Jackson) is doing the hard work showing that permaculture works ecologically, outside the world of high-input, nonsensical output industrial agriculture.
> I think an article in Nature is a good riposte to both points.
Necessary even, if aiming for policy adoption. Horticulturalists are always suspect from a central authority perspective.
A couple of tests beyond the scope of most:
>> microbial community structure via phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs)
>> a trend towards a higher ratio of Gram-positive to Gram-negative bacteria on permaculture sites
A note:
>> one permaculture site with possibly plant-toxic soil boron levels suggests that organic nutrient inputs should also be handled with caution.
At one time there was concern about boron in cardboard used in sheet-mulching. It may be nothing, but the coatings on cardboard have changed since the 1970’s. PFAS etc mean using cardboard should be an informed decision.
Two practical notes:
: I’ve had two products trucked in: perlite and aglime. The aglime was about half-n-half 500..2000 um, and 250..500 um, fairly fine stuff, non-pelletized. It has been great for weed suppression and landscaping for water control. Ants do not like it. It’s been down long enough the terracing has dropped several inches. The tomatoes next to it were twelve feet high last year and very intimidating.
: Cutting big trees. When we lived in the woods we loved them. When we got neighbors, we didn’t want insurance companies mediating tween us. In our backyard, they turned into lush hugelkultur beds. Last year was five years, and the large logs crumbled to mulch. We cut other places as well, and during the recent 78mph winds, this may have saved up to four houses. Across the street from one, my godson Chris watched a 32-inch walnut go over, football and all, then another tree, then another then another and then heard another and that’s when he re-associated and got everyone to the storm shelter. When I showed the arborist the sea-surface temperature chart, he immediately emailed it to his colleagues. We’re actively coppicing, to reduce ladder use (timbering is the deadliest occupation).
You were one of the evangelists who brought the good news of permaculture to me, a country boy raised on chemical agriculture. Many thanks.
As for production of the permaculture-related practice of food forests, here’s an actual study.
Here’s a Substack blog called Adapt : Survive : Prevail whose author is a permaculture practitioner with lots of interesting info.
Here’s a link to Reddit’s No Lawns subreddit.
And here’s a link to the website for the classic book: Food Not Lawns.
I’ve had an opportunity to get back into my garden after being out of commission for over a year dealing with cancer. What has amazed me, aside from the spread of the invasives, is how natives like the Virginia wildrye I planted a few years ago have spread around the property. The little sparrows sit right on top of the seed head and eat and eat until it’s all be consumed. They love it. And a non-native planting of spearmint that has spread around both side of a fence is full of bumble bees and blue mud wasps along with smaller critters.
As for water retention, I have a rain barrel the grabs the water from one side of the house, and on the other, I’m finally getting the hugel mound/berms finished that direct the water back and forth across the property to slow it down. My son has finally rid his property of an above-ground pool that he inherited so that he can begin slowing down the water on the back side of his property that is fairly steep and leads to an actual creek.
Wendell Berry offers the best guidance on how to steward any property for which we’re responsible:
seconded on the downside of having to let it go for a year or 4…the wilderness comes roaring back..
thats what ive been dealing with this year(and a lil less last year).
from timing of cover crop sowing to just being there when the wild sunflowers are only 3 inches tall….to not pruning all the fruit and nut trees in almost 6 years, now.
and…a novel problem, perhaps…i tried out martinhouse gourds last year, here over the cowboypool, for shade and as a conversation starter.
dried them, etc, and made about 50 lil birdhouses over winter…hung them up everywhere.
how was i to know that the squirrels would like them so much that, not only did they eat every one of them…they planted the damned seeds hither and yon,lol…so ive got them growing literally everywhere.
regardless…ive already picked andd sold or given away 400# of peaches, 50# each of nectarines and plums, prolly 80# of various zukes…and i have right now 100# of grapes in the bar fridge…making jelly and wine.
(all these numbers are top of head and far from accurate.)
and i didnt do anything but pick.
making what i expect to be a gallon or two of pesto here in a minute…and doing rooted cuttings of grape, 2 kinds of peach, figs and apricots later…ifn i dont run out of steam(dern hurricane in me, yesterday and today…until it turns NE and away from me…when i expect the switch to flip…like barbed wire wrapped around all my bones…forced myself to get up and piddle around)
Thank you for this, Lambert. To me there will always be a bit of a resistance/revolutionary aspect to permaculture. Many permaculturists were a prominent part of the Occupy movement as I knew it, and Occupy was my first introduction to permaculture. Various camps started gardens too, most were overtly or surreptitiously destroyed by police or city officials (e.g. “this unauthorized garden was not part of the city gardening plan for that park, did not have required permits”) in a way that reminds me of the Israeli settler movement in Palestine uprooting ancient indigenous olive trees. For many, watching the IDF now destroy the earth will take them back to what happened during Occupy in a way that makes connections obvious. And a guerilla gardening movement, while it didn’t originate with Occupy, was part of the 60’s counterculture, gained a bit more momentum to rewild public spaces. The permaculturists also started free seed libraries and exchanges to counter both Monsanto/GM and the industrial dominance of the seed packet market. And I think Gardeners World (British TV show) has helped to spread permaculture concepts, probably thanks to Monty Don who is popularizing it and very much lives its values even with the clothes he wears.
But perhaps the revolutionary aspects will distract from the prima facie value of the thing. We don’t want to associate the movement with lefties or resistance movements else the naysayers will natter and nabob.
About 20 years ago, a few years after we bought our farm, and before I’d done any major plantings, grading, irrigation, tree-cutting, etc. I fortunately bought and read, and re-read Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Design Manual.
There are a number of reasons to have this book. The ones I found most compelling are:
a. It sets out the forces that operate on a piece of land. Sun, water, wind, animals wild and domestic, soil, temperature, and plants. Those are the major forces to understand, and learn to work with
b. It shows how to build the tools and facilities you’ll need to implement your design. To meet your and your land & its inhabitants’ needs, quite a bit of physical intervention is required
c. It sets out a philosophy – a set of values – that one must gradually understand and embrace over time in order to achieve that balance and maintain it. Some changing of oneself is required
d. It describes the function of several classes of plants, and animals that can be marshaled and integrated. In addition to the physical components, “these are the plants, animals, soil biota, etc. that you’ll need to integrate into your design, and learn to nourish via your operational activities over time”.
e. It talks about operations – e.g. the regularly occurring activities one must perform in order to maintain equilibrium and obtain the human yield from your permaculture system
As Lambert points out, this is a big lifestyle commitment. Not just for design, or installation, but the loads – the labor and thinking required, over time – that is the biggest challenge to we humans. Permaculture is very much _not_ consumerism. It’s not social status, it doesn’t integrate well with – in fact its almost antithetical to – the values, the tools, the systems of a centralized, “efficient” economy. To really do permaculture, you have to decide that it’s OK to “not fit in”. Because you won’t.
Permaculture’s focus is on where you are; it’s not national or regional. It eschews import and export of materials. Think about that for a moment; if you’re selling produce off your farm, you’re exporting nutrients, including water. All of which must be replaced. Imported from somewhere, and usually fairly far away.
Nature generally operates a an extremely local, closed-loop (circular) system. That’s the literal opposite of how our major economic systems work right now.
I’m setting all this out in stark extremes, and as Lambert pointed out – and he’s absolutely correct – you have to start somewhere – and that’s “where you are” and with something – “something you can do (basically) now”. I affirm that concept.
So I suggest that you read Mollison’s book. That sets the big picture, and provides your navigational heading. It implies (actually, “requires”) the creation of a design – a conceptual model – a picture – of where you’re ultimately going.
Once the topology and goal-set of your particular situation is set out, the next activity is to formulate and express a set of stepping stones from where you are now, to where you’re going (your “design”). Then it’s a matter of chip, chip, chip away at that wall of obstacles separating you from your ultimate design. Set expectations accurately; this is a multi-decade endeavor.
Note that I said I read, then re-read … and then re-read Mollison’s book several times in the last two decades. My design changed as my experience and knowledge increased. It’s iterative, so expect accordingly.
There’s one more thing to keep in mind: this doesn’t pay well. Why? Because you’re doing _way_ more work for the same wages. No one will pay you to “fix the environment” – which is what you’re doing. You’re not just producing a tomato, you’re producing a viable habitat for you and “them” – the rest of the natural world.
That means you’ll have to have a supplemental income while you’re doing all this cool stuff. And it is cool. Gradualism and realism are valuable strategy-elements.
I have recently gifted multiple copies of:
: Permaculture Design Manual
: A Pattern Language
: A Darwinian Survival Guide.
These are extraordinary works.
Mollison was my intro to “permaculture”…altho it shares a lot with the original Organic movement.
another couple of must have books: Anna Edy, Solviva….and the grandaddy(from the 30’s): Five Acres and Independence.
add Georgics and Works and Days and yer set.
everybody who comes out here remarks…as if reading a sign on the gate:”wow…i love the vibe”.
from all the verticals…like growing various squashes and cukes and even pumpkins up into trees…to the distributed nature of my “garden”, which is really a series of pocket gardens/raised beds…mostly since my part of the place is long and narrow, with a county road running down the middle.
it aint yer ordinary garden plot by any means.
but i produce much, much more….without hardly trying when its all up and running…than any 1 acre square garden with rows.
Thanks Tom.
I was a but surprised by Lambert thinking Permaculture was in anyway a tiny movement/influence.
I instantly wanted to mention Bill Mollison’s work, then You beat me to it, and some others.
Where I live Permaculture is a very real influence on what people do. Productive growers as well as me in my own little garden.
Far from a niche philosophy by any means.
Good to have another reminder though.
Thanks, Lambert.
Permaculture is the only solution to agriculture not based in ignorance of natural ecological processes. Our current chemical industrial ag model is as stupid and ignorant and wasteful as Las Vegas – unnatural, unsustainable, based on pure borrowing from the future and thereby degrading that future.
We can all do something as families to respect the living processes of our living planet – just buy organic (yes the organic model is imperfect but it’s orders of magnitude better than chemical ag), keep a garden, compost your food waste and put it in your garden – a massive difference in your home ecosystem will result – fruit flies sustain birds, even bats, your soils will be healthier, and you will have the satisfaction of contributing to biomass increase rather than destroying biomass.
Maximize biomass quantity and complexity! This is the first law of living on our living planet. Chem Ag is based on reducing and simplifying biomass by killing the “bad” biomass. It’s evil, satanic even.
A very simple start is to replace your lawn monoculture with perennials – flowers, herbs, berries, fruit trees – you will be amazed at how many birds delight in your garden. Your very own Eden……
Well I’m no gardener at all–that would have been my raised on a farm mother–but I do find this discussion interesting.
But re your comment–isn’t the justification for our industrial agriculture the huge world population increase and the avoidance of starvation which was once a preoccupation of Ag commentary? Is there really a solution for the human footprint on nature problem other than fewer humans?
Eden had two people. We are over 8 billion.
the UN ag department has a lot of stuff on that very question…as do places like The Land Institute, Rodales, and on and on…i dont have it at my fingertips, atm.
also see Cuba’s “Special Period”.
the worries you cite are all Big Ag talking points…like John Stossel back in the day attempting to deride the very idea of organic sustainable ag….i tore him down without breaking a sweat(not that anyone heard me,lol).
the main point…as referenced in the article…is that BAU will lead to utter disaster.
compare my dirt with the dirt on the other side of the fence(conventional ag: peanuts, watermelons and now hay), and its like night and day.
neighbor cant grow anything but sticker burrs without chemical inputs.
and the soil is dead…very obviously so.
first necessary step towards feeding the world with nonchem ag…is to globally outlaw persistent herbicides…because with those still in wide use, manure and hay are all suspect….and its gonna take a whole heapin lot of manure and hay.
Im sure you are right about the soil disaster but not sure it answers my question about the population disaster. And that would be: did the population disaster make the soil disaster inevitable?
We’ve talked here about how overpopulated Europe exhausted its land and had to import guano from S. America and even dig up bones from graves to grind up. Without a doubt Monsanto is not to be trusted since they work for investors rather than the future of the planet. And farmers too have been blamed by concentrating on profitable (or merely farm saving) yields rather than sustainability.
But “carrying capacity” is a valid environmental concept. In nature when food becomes scarce many species instinctively or hormonally reduce their breeding. We big brain humans think we can instead out-think the problem. Can we?
an overview:
https://www.fao.org/organicag/oa-faq/oa-faq7/en/
the hot take is that in overly industrialised systems like here in usa…switching to organic/sustanable will cause an immediate drop in yields…because it’ll take time and effort to make the switch.
if i had a million bucks and free reign, it would still take me 10-30 years to convert my neighbors weed filled pasture to something like whats on my side of the fence.
the damage must be undone before restoration of soil can even commence.
that takes time.
and money and labor.
continuing with neighbors field as an example: its maybe 60 acres…zero trees, save for the margins.
first thing i’d do is bring in around 100 tons of cow manure(free from the various feedlots, save for the dumptruck and driver)…spread it in…and plant poverty grass, like willman love(an african grass thats gone native…deep roots, stabilised soil rapidly, build up biomass)…then run that black plastic pipe for drip irrigation for trees….likely mesquite, because theyre suited to the desert like conditions…at least in every 2-3 “rows” of trees.
to shade ground.
come in in following years with various native grass(short grass prairie, then segueing into tall grass prairie)
run the cows/goats/sheep through there to keep the “bad weeds” down, and curtail the mesquites from taking over.
and then just keep doing all that for the rest of my life,lol.
by the time my boys are my age, one might be able to carve out some raised beds/pocket gardens out of it and produce food(aside from mesquite, of course…makes decent flatbreads and is super nutritious)
the nutshell in all this is that yes…we can feed 8 billion souls with organic/sustainable ag….but we gotta start doing it…because it will take time to make the transition…should have started 50 years ago.
the above delineated example of my neighbors 60 acre field of sand and stickers includes many years of zero yield at all, aside from mesquite beans(no market), and marginal fodder…ergo, zero income from that 60 acres for likely decades.
this incentive deficit could be readily remedied if we would divert some of the trillions spent on blowing things up into building things like soil.
“mesquite beans(no market)”
Mesquite flour makes delicious waffles and pancakes. Here’s an Arizona link to an article:
https://tucson.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/where-you-can-mill-your-mesquite-pods-into-flour/article_1e664cf3-f9ca-5960-92bc-e263767a7f84.html
Here are some mesquite bean grinder links:
https://www.primalsurvivor.net/grain-mills/
yeah…along with tempura fried grasshoppers, i made certain to acclimate my boys to mesquite.
pancakes, even tortillas.
mixed with even dentcorn flour, it makes rather sweet(depending on tree)cornbread.
and it is, trousers down, the absolute best laxative known to mankind.
also diabetic-friendly.
i cook with it quite often.
and thats to say nothing of the regenerative properties of those frelling trees…ie: ideal for coppicing for firewood.
Have you been marking and/or otherwising identifying which particular mesquite trees bear sweet beans for making sweet “skeetmeal” with?
If those trees were known, cuttings and/or seeds could be taken from them and replanted in their own special place keeping eachother company and crosspollinating eachother to help breed up new generations of reliably sweeter mesquite-bean trees.
This would begin the process of creating sweet/sweeter/sweetest mesquite bean-sources ready to meet the market when the market is ready to meet them.
Well, maybe. Its an amateur thought, to be sure.
It would be a lot easier if the population was less, but advocates for permaculture can make the case that permaculture methods can feed the world.
Three changes in the way we operate would make it easier:
1) Reduce food waste. The USDA claims we waste 30-40% of the food we produce. That needs to come down.
2) Eat less meat. More than a third of globally grown calories go to feed animals of which only 12% becomes calories consumed by humans. That 12% figure does not take into account, however, what animals can contribute to maintaining and improving the soil.
3) Commit much more labor to growing food. Permaculture, especially getting it started, is labor intensive. Two hundred years ago, nearly 80% of adults were engaged in growing food. Today, it’s less than 2%. We have substituted energy for human labor. Whereas one calorie of input from human and animal muscles used to produce 10 calories worth of food, today we require 10 calories of mostly fossil fuel produced energy to grow one calorie’s worth of food.
Thanks, Amfortas. Yes soil is a living thing; a fact that escapes chemical Ag proponents, who view it as a mineral substrate to be fed with mineral fertilizer and kept dead with chemicals. An ignorant and short term point of view that results in destruction of the soil.
Carolinian- chemical ag allows massive scaling and reduction of labor input cost. And the yield increase is temporary- as the chemicals destroy the soul’s long-term viability. The human population can be fed easily with existing acreage managed sustainably- tho much of what is now grown to feed animals would go directly to humans for whom meat would become, as in most of human history, a special food item , maybe once a week.
Perhaps a sacrifice, for most, not all, but there would be food available for future generations. Who would be healthier, not eating chemical ag product lacking nutrition. It’s so weird to live in a country where poor people have plenty to eat – look at the obesity! – but lack nutrition.
Fair enough. But getting there from here? And all that labor intensive tilling means more population (farm families including my mom’s traditionally large) and a form of labor that is hard work. How ya gonna keep them down on the farm?
All I’m saying is that there are reasons other than the greed of big ag for the way thing have evolved. And as with the struggle against AGW change will be hard.
“How ya gonna keep them down on the farm?”
lol. we could try paying them….well.
big ag evolved directly due to the incentives built in to public policy…in a perversion of the various New Deal programs.
Conagra, et alia latched on to those enormous teats and have never let go.
thats exactly why we’re in this state.
smaller operators(ie:”farmers”) were either priced out, indebted out, swallowed up, or had to become giants, themselves.
see: Earl Butz.
hell…i give away most of what i produce…to wife’s Familia and to my nearest neighbors(closest is maybe a mile away)…i expect the goodwill thus engendered will “pay” “dividends” down the road.(like i can go cut standing dead trees for firewood, etc).
its simply not worth it to sit on the side of the road….nor to chase my customers down,lol.
because everybody wants to just go to the supermarket(which is not so super, regarding produce…and wont purchase what i produce, anyways)
when the big greenhouse is done….and especially when the Bar extension is finished(kitchen, processing area, storage of produce and value added, etc)…i intend to gin up my own on farm market…but i have to have an incentive structure(!) for those customers to come way out here to get their produce and such.
(also for legal purposes…i can legally sell eggs and even dressed frozen geese on farm…but not off of it)
most of my purpose in doing all this is so i can feed mine….my boys and whatever families they end up having.
i expect a village to spring up out here when the feces hit the fan…in fact that’s an essential part of the “business model”(all these things in quotes point to how inadequate our language is currently for what i’m doing out here…..i make almost no money, but we eat like frelling kings….so whats the value of that?…Mr Market doesnt know, so what good is he?)
The farm my mother grew up on is now mansionettes and as you move closer to North Carolina they turn into even tonier horse properties. Only one of her brothers went into farming and he is long gone. Most of the peach orchards which once covered our back country are gone. My mom met my dad working in a packing shed–typical extra work for young people.
So the real estate monster is also gobbling up the good farm land and raising land prices.
I honor the hard lives of that earlier generation a lot more than I once did, but I wonder if Gen Z is ready to return to that.
“needs must”
and
“cometh the hour, cometh the man”(or woman).
my eldest, especially, understands what im trying to do….and largely succeeding at.
neither of us can tell, really, how much of his doomerism is due to my influence…as opposed to due to his experience in the world.
likely equal parts both.
but he definitely sees the need for him and his brother to learn as much as possible what i know, regarding soil and plants and nutrient flow and so on.
i’m proud that he’s paying attention.
anecdata, fer sho.
but still.
ive got kids that all but grew up out here working for me…now, having started families, etc…calling me up for gardening and graywater advice(how to hide the latter from the city,lol)
and yeah…i honor and repect my long dead grandparents a whole lot more than my actual parents….theres a reason theres a pic of my grandpaws here at the bar…and nary a one of my folks.
those guys got shit done, and took care of their people.
my parents spent my inheritance and essentially wrote me off a long time ago.
loyalty…and forbearance…is earned,lol.
A caution-based thought . . . if your mother feels offended enough by this or that, would she secretly have a new will written to have the land given/sold to someone completely different, and would she have secret instructions ready-to-go for having Law Enforcement force you off the land at gunpoint?
If that is even theoretically possible, would it pay to be nice enough to your mother to where she doesn’t feel driven to secretly do that?
…at first blush going over the crop insurance database, the best returns by far are for organic summerfallow. If added acres are more than 2000, then you are assigned county t-yields. County t-yields for organic are 24bu X 16ac =$384 and this is reflected in the appraisal iirc. A three year rotation of organic cover crop peas as a substitute for SF, organic winter wheat, then organic spring wheat and back to organic cover crop, generates the best returns and offers the best possibility for weed control in any system, organic or not. I’ve used pseudomonas flourescens with good effect on goatgrass and cheatgrass and it is registered organic and not too expensive. Cash costs are low for this system with two to three tillage trips plus seeding plus harvest per year (seed 12, fuel 20, repairs 16, ins 12, labor 5) at $60/ac. This system disallows cover crop grazing as means to terminate the crop, but does give SF crop insurance coverage. This generates (192-60)X2300=$303,600 annually. County T-yields are 39 for SF practice, nonorganic, but crop insurance coverage is half at $8/bu= $312/ac.
There are a lot of permutations from this to consider, but this gets you to where you need to be. Marketing is the greatest opportunity here, crop insurance allows a bushel price coverage level reflecting a higher contract price if you can get it. Organic is what consumers wants. I will suggest that organic SF yields will be closer to conventional SF yields in this 3 year system as the t-yield reductions are arbitrary. We can add 10 months of grazing at $15X 100=$15,000 even though there is not the opportunity to graze out peas.
13. RMA Summerfallow Practice – If a cover crop is planted during the fallow year, the acreage may be insured under the summerfallow practice for the current crop year provided the cover crop was not hayed, grazed, or otherwise harvested, and terminated in accordance with the Guidelines but no later than June 1 preceding the insured crop. RMA summerfallow practice is an insurability requirement and cover crops planted on summerfallow acreage must be terminated in accordance with this definition. Producers should contact their local NRCS office for appropriate cover crops that can be grown in summerfallow regions. Examples of high water use cover crops are alfalfa, sugar beets, cereal rye, corn, mustard, radishes, and turnips. For the 2020 and succeeding crop years, if a cover crop was planted during the fallow year was hayed, grazed, or otherwise harvested, or not terminated by June 1, the acreage may be insured under the “continuous cropping practice” (if available in your county), or by written agreement (if continuous cropping is not available in your county).
Valuable information, farmboy.
So, here’s an article in today’s LATimes (online):
https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2024-07-08/urban-homesteading-experiment.
Permaculture is an academic focus in the Environmental Horticulture department at my local college. There is a local community farm that uses permaculture techniques to attract volunteers interested in learning the practice. Hands-on is always the best teacher.
With only minutes to go till work, I can only briefestly suggest that the difference between permaculture and agroecology is that permaculture is a practice while agroecology is an academic discipline. It can even be a scientific discipline if the study of ecology within agriculture systems is pursued scientifically.
Here is a whole lotta buncha images of Agroecology books, mainly college-type textbooks, so one can get a sense of the scientific aspirations of agroecology as an academic discipline.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrNOiQXPYxmSkwbM3lXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=agroecology+books+image&fr=sfp
Here is a whole lotta buncha images of Permaculture books, many for the deeply interested lay audience and would-be wannabe practitioners. One can get a sense of the difference by noting the difference in the books.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrEmPpvPYxmkesUMydXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=permaculture+books+image&fr=sfp
We have a pretty garden. The lot our house stands on is .14 acres. Flowers and ornamental trees and bushes in back, little bit of lawn in front. We quit growing vegetables because we live in the Pioneer Valley/Connecticut River Valley. We are surrounded by family-run farms. They’re better at it than we are.
Lambert Strether reviewed this book some years ago. It seemed like a good book then and it seems like a good book now. Since it would take hours to find Lambert Strether’s review, here is somebody else’s review of it. The review has a 1 minute video-blurb, but more importantly it has a silent video of someone flipping through the pages of this book just slowly enough that the viewer can get an idea of what is in the book.
The book is RetroSuburbia, by David Holmgren. Here is the link.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-04-26/my-review-of-david-holmgrens-retrosuburbia/
I did review David Fleming’s Lean Logic.
And I’m very grateful you did! I was fascinated by your review of the beautiful book, and it’s become a faithful and much-loved companion in life.
Incidentally, the full contents are now conveniently available for free on a fan-built (and publisher-approved) custom website at leanlogic.online. The online interlinked format really works for the book’s unique format, and I love being able to link people directly to the relevant entry for their thoughts.
Perhaps my memory of your having reviewed RetroSuburbia is a false memory on my part. If I had endless hours, I would look back to see, just as a memory self-check. But I don’t.
So thank you for having reviewed Lean Logic, which certainly also looks like a book well worth studying and allowing to affect the readers’ thoughts and possibly actions.
Here is an offering of books from the Acres USA bookstore under the grouping of “permaculture”. Some of them seem to be about “permaculture” and some seem more tangential. Here is the link.
https://bookstore.acresusa.com/collections/permaculture-1
Here is a link to someone self-styled The Permaculture Student. He sells a set of books which I bought through the Acres USA bookstore. They seem as good in their way as David Holmgren’s book RetroSuburbia seems in its way. Unfortunately, the link between Acres USA and this set of books has become broken. So here is a link to The Permaculture Student his own self . . . specifically to his set of books.
https://www.thepermaculturestudent.com/booksbymatt
Attempts to reform systems like ours won’t work. Just as efforts to reform the Soviet Union merely destabilized it fatally and pushed it over the edge, so too a supposed managed transition of our system will trigger collapse. Elite leadership always understands this. This is why they instinctively resist reform and change. Our system is far more fragile and coupled than the Soviet system. Its far worse. Even well-meaning people are still trapped in the humanist delusion.
>Our system is far more fragile and coupled than the Soviet system. Its far worse.
I don’t know what is meant by the “humanist delusion,” so I’ll focus on our fragile and coupled system:
From “Russian Dacha Gardens,” Small Farms Journal:
So if you’re thinking of “collapsing in place,” Permaculture has some good approaches to doing that.
Here is a whole bunch of images of Russian Dacha Gardens. Every one has an url for those who want to go url-diving.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrihXmP1I5mtAQAq.JXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=dacha+garden+image&fr=sfp
Teodor Shanin coined a word for an academic discipline he set out to invent and hoped would take off.
That word was “peasantology”.
https://www.worldpress.org/Europe/1516.cfm
https://peasantstudies.ru/en/eng/journal/2020-5-3-en/teodor-shanin-peasant-studies-and-russia
I referrence Shanin partly because once at a Shanin-related website I found an article about a study of what is grown and how in Russian Dacha gardens, but I can’t find that article now.
And for DachaGarden-adjacent gardening methods and approaches, here is a book by Nikolay Kurdyumov, translated from Russian and made available by Deep Snow Press. This website connects to about-the-book with some pages reproduced so the reader can get a view of the book.
https://deepsnowpress.com/garden.htm
( For a while this book was also available from the Acres USA Bookstore, but I don’t know if that is still true). It is about how to grow a fairly lot of vegetables without all that much work.
This is wonderful Thank you. I’ve stashed it to pour over.
The garden is taking all my time. No rain, plants not flourishing, and Armstrong Economics blog re
jobs and food supply all heading south of the border is giving me the willis. Not to mention the transfer of farmland to oligarchs, and the destruction of sources. Permaculture since Mollison has evolved until it should be de rigeur IMO. I still remenber reading about a 1000+ year old permaculture garden that had survived the Vietnam war and was still producing lavishly in some place like Saigon ? When Charles lll suggested the unemployed pick berries I was ready until someone pointed out the pesticide exposure, Duh. So many stations of the cross have come and gone since I bagged composted dirt in Berkeley for transport to a fire escape in NYC. I’m rendered mute like the soil of this long round up readied pasture with hardly a leaf in sight. Like a third world country the issue after all that labor is access and ownership of land. Student housing for military age young leaders, yeah right.
Thanks to readers for the numerous and thoughtful comments; I’m pleased to discover that this topic is still of interest.