Reflections on Permaculture

I was first introduced to permaculture about 20 years ago when I was working at a small orchard in the Hudson Valley. Though I can’t remember my exact introduction to the concept of permaculture, I will say that I didn’t think much of it at the time as I was mired in the day-to-day activities of running an orchard the “Cornell Way.” But I’ve had a career-long interest in and passion for sustainable agriculture, so it stuck with me and we crossed paths many times over the years.

I should start by saying that I’ve been farming – mostly fruit – since 1984. I got started at a time when there were many more extremely toxic pesticides being used, IPM was still in its infancy (I’ll argue it still is, even today – but that’s another story), there were no worker protection laws, and the public was still pretty oblivious to how their food was grown. But, I was there when orchard IPM began to take flight. And it was IPM that captured my interest and gave me hope that conventional agriculture could be reformed into something – anything – more sustainable than what it was I saw even with my naïve eyes. Even at the early stage of my career, I saw conventional farming for what it was – destructive. So, I worked that path – change from the inside out – for nearly a long time before only recently (within in the last 5 years) realizing that IPM wasn’t the leverage point I thought it was. At least not with conventional growers or large-scale ag, because growers aren’t ready or receptive to change, yet. They had been sold a bill of goods by Monsanto et al., and by god they loved their chemicals. Nothing has really changed since I started farming in 1984.

Regardless, my personal beliefs and value system didn’t wane in the face of watching conventional ag march endlessly on in its destruction of the planet. I’ve been a lifelong environmentalist and lover of nature, just hoping that I had the fortitude to keep the proverbial Titanic from hitting the iceberg. Not surprisingly, I haven’t and so I now choose a different path. A path that embodies the spirit of biodynamics, the passion of organic farming, the creativity of landscape design, the reflectiveness of Fukuoka, the focus of Goethe, and the fight of Earth First. This in a nutshell is what permaculture speaks to me.

Before last fall I knew enough about permaculture to, as I say, be dangerous. So I took a PCD Fundamentals course because I wanted a better foundation and to understand the details of how permaculture can be used to bridge the gap – if possible – between destructive industrial scale agriculture and small-scale backyard horticultural gardens and orchards.

In the early 2000s, nearly 10 years after the USDA co-opted the organic farming movement, I became much more involved in organic and biodynamic farming than I had been. I say this because growing tree fruit organically – and I don’t care what anyone says – had been and still is very difficult, if not nearly impossible in the eastern US. Organic orcharding wasn’t anything a wise farmer aspired to supposedly, and so I didn’t really try. Climate change isn’t helping its prospects these days, yet myself and many others soldier on with a hope that the tools (aka appropriate technology) required by the innovative, primarily in the fields of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), will finally carry us over the threshold. In some ways these tools, coupled with increasing demand by consumers for more organic produce, has led some very large US growers to dramatically increase the amount of organic produce being grown for the voracious public appetite. We couldn’t yet – and still can’t – replicate here on the east coast what can be accomplished in the west or arid environments. And we shouldn’t aim to either. Large-scale organic agriculture is very destructive to the planet and violates a core principle of permaculture of being a compassionate being towards the earth and other beings.

Is sustainable agriculture an oxymoron? Of course, it is! Jared Diamond, Bill Mollison, Edward Abbey, and many others are spot on when they’ve made this acute though very obvious observation. Humanity isn’t sustainable in general, and that quite honestly is the part of the problem we choose to avoid – that somehow we can fit in and be good “stewards.” Farming in general, as we practice it today, is a disaster.

Yet, here we are – all 7 billion of us – struggling to make sense out of an ever-violent planet where we have the know-how and the resources to grow enough food for everyone and still live peacefully together. But, we are on a trajectory that will likely result in planetary destruction as a result of and probably in spite of what we do. There are still things we can aspire to from this day forward that may alter this collision course, and permaculture is at the center of a planetary survival strategy.

So what does this all have to do with my feelings about permaculture?

1.   Sustainable agriculture is an oxymoron. We need a new way to grow and provide food to an ever-expanding population around the world. Permaculture provides that nexus in an interdependent, conscious way. Let’s quit fiddling while Rome burns and get down to business.

2.   How we grow our food needs to not only fulfill the basic principles of permaculture of caring for the earth, caring for people, and equitable distribution of resources, but also to provide people with a connection (spiritual and otherwise) to the land, water, air, people, and energy required to grow that food, that is all around us every day. We need interdependent and participatory farming systems!

3.   Our food systems need to be productive and profitable. Unfortunately, until we develop a Star Trek style economy, no one can do this for free; at least not for very long. But we can grow food better and with fewer outside inputs, reducing overall costs, increasing nutritional value of food, and supporting an equitable economy by sustainably leveraging the resources the earth has put right in front of us. We just need to not screw it up – and permaculture provides that way. The Tao of Permaculture, I say!

4.   Unfortunately, there isn’t an expressed spiritual component to permaculture that I can find, but there should be. Farming is spiritual (sorry, Bill!). Not in a religious way necessarily, but in a way that provides that energetic connection, that common grounding, for people to their farms and food. Food is energy – everything is energy – and so becoming energetically one with your farms and food is critical to creating a truly sustainable food system. Just as we’ve lost our connection to wild nature – we’ve subdued and beaten it into submission – we need to reestablish that connection with the planet and what better way than through permaculture. Again, interdependence. How and when did we lose that connection to our farms?

5.   One primary issue I disagreed with [during the course] was the premise that permaculture should be data driven and replicable. I agree that good notes are invaluable and that this wisdom should be passed on to our neighbors and fellow farmers. But not everything needs to or should be driven by numbers. In fact, I would say we need to work more with our powers of observation and less with numbers and statistics. Of course, this is true of all science. There is qualitative data, the most valuable kind, so perhaps a distinction needs to be made between numerical and qualitative data, and how the powers of observation can be better used to expand the practice of permaculture without getting mired in data collection.

While I believe that the best future for humanity is for more people to grow more food on small (<10 acre) plots of land in way that reduces inputs, increases resiliency, and provides an economic modality for true sustainability, Permaculture has much to offer large-scale agriculture. Yet, there is a leap that conventional farmers must make in order to wrap their heads around what permaculture really is.

Conventional farming is failing. It is reductionist, wasteful, and unforgiving. Large scale organic production is not sustainable. Organic farming, for all intents and purposes, is basically just input substitution (organic for synthetic materials) that relies on huge amounts of off-farm input and fossil fuels. And as this economic model of (and that’s what it really is) “bigger is better” starts to fall apart, I think more farmers will look to what permaculture has to offer, in part or in whole. Meanwhile, we must rebuild the earth one small farm at a time.

Permaculture’s base principles say it all:

•   Care for the Earth
•   Care for the People
•   Equitable distribution of Food and Resources

Coupled with a strong spiritual component, and good observational skills, there is no better way to rebuild the food systems of Earth than permaculture. I encourage everyone to consider what permaculture has to offer them, their farms, or how they buy food. There really is something for everyone.