This week’s blog post highlights a beloved agricultural practice, permaculture.
Permaculture is a holistic, eco-friendly agricultural and land management practice that is based on immersing oneself in the surrounding environment in order to understand how to mimic its functions. Practicing permaculture helps to reduce waste, minimize pollution, protect wildlife, and preserve biodiversity. Some examples of permaculture practices include crop rotation, rain water harvesting, and mitigating deforestation. It includes intentional structural designs to best work within and not against the land.
While the term ‘permaculture’ was coined by two Australian academics, David Holgrem and Bill Mollison, the practices of permaculture originate from Indigenous agricultural practices in the 1970s, long before colonization. Mollison attributed Indigenous people in Tasmania for the knowledge he used to formulate the term. At its core, permaculture is based in Indigenous science that creates a symbiotic relationship between the land and farmer. The foundations of permaculture are understanding and accepting the diversity in an ecosystem by observing the land as a complex system. We work with nature in permaculture, not against it. Some people in agriculture avoid using the term permaculture due to the erasure of Indigenous people when Holgrem and Mollison coined it. Indigenous agricultural practices that may have inspired what we see in permaculture today include the utilization of companion planting, crop rotation, and water harvesting. Read more about Indigenous agricultural knowledge here.
In an interview conducted by Sentient Media with a certified permaculture designer, Crystal Forman, provided insights on the ethics and principles of permaculture. A summary of her thoughts are below:
There are three ethics of permaculture:
Care for the Earth
Care for the People
Fair Share and Reinvest in the Surplus
There are twelve principles to permaculture:
Observe and Interact
Take time to observe and be interconnected with the land and space you are using, before you start designing and planning where you will be planting.
Catch and Store Energy
Utilize the energy that the land is providing. Catch the rain that falls and reuse it to water your plants. Plan your garden around the land and use the assets it supplies.
Obtain a Yield
Share what you grow with family, friends, neighbors, or whoever may be in need.
Apply Self-Regulation and Feedback
This principle applies to monitoring your consumption. Do you need these products for your plants? Is it more of a luxury? Observing your space is one way to self-reflect on needs versus wants. Accepting feedback from others can also help hold you accountable to minimal unnecessary consumption.
Use and Value Renewables
The best you can, reuse anything you have multiple times to make the most of its potential.
Produce No Waste
It’s hard to do, but we can try our best to reduce the waste we produce. This principle also applies to your life outside the farm or garden.
Design from Patterns and Details
The intentional observation of how the land is naturally, how it can be managed, and how permaculture can enhance parts of the land.
Integrate Don’t Segregate
This can be a thought of how you do your planting, but also the interactions and connectedness of other organisms and people who also will be interacting with your farm or garden.
Use Small, Slow Solutions
As with life, don’t rush your permaculture practice. There will be some trial and errors, setbacks, and confusion. But also reward in finding sustainable solutions and discovering a new way of doing things.
Use and Value Diversity
Again, not just with plants, but with the perspectives, people, and cultures who all have their own agricultural practices and philosophies should be held at a high value.
Use Edges and Value the Marginal
While doing your practice, take time to self-reflect on your interactions with other people, including those who work in agriculture or are in your community who are marginalized in society. Remember the histories and origins of what you may be practicing.
Creatively Use and Respond to Change
Included when taking things slow to observe, responding to changes we experience in the field and life is the last principle to permaculture. Examples of creative responses to change was the creation of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Booker T. Whatley (pictured below) was an agricultural professor at Tuskegee University who generated the idea for the modern day CSA framework in order to support Black farmers in the 1960s and the 1970s.
Permaculture isn’t just for wide open spaces and large farms in rural areas. You can also practice permaculture in smaller spaces and urban areas. Agricultural and gardening practices that put the Earth first can be applied to window box plants, raised beds (also called mounding), integrating crops in your garden bed, or participating in a community garden.
Farmshed staff member and editor, Cassandra Xiong, observed how mindfulness and community care are intertwined with practices permaculture. She says,
“You have to be mindful of the surrounding environment in order to immerse yourself in it, so that you can then be mindful of how to best mimic the way the environment functions. Being mindful of how to manipulate those functions in order to produce the results you want, without causing an imbalance to the entire ecosystem. Being mindful of how much is necessary to consume, and not over consume. Being mindful to share what you produce with your community. Being mindful of using natural energy, producing no waste. Being mindful of indigenous wisdom and honoring their practices as we are on their land. Overall just being mindful of the health of the environment because the health of the environment is also the health of ourselves as well. Permaculture is a way of life, and that agriculture and land management should not be compartmentalized from other parts of our lives.”
While many local farmers utilize permaculture practices, a farm in California called Apricot Lanes released a film about their journey to creating a 100% regenerative farm. The film, called “The Biggest Little Farm,” showcases multiple innovative practices to work with the land and yield fruitful crops. It’s not all fun and slug eating ducks…the film also depicts the hardships and troubleshooting on the farm. If you are looking for a great introduction to sustainable agriculture, we highly suggest checking out!
Permaculture is a practice inspired by Indigenous agricultural practices and values that emphasizes an intentional relationship with the land to best support the health of soil, organisms, and waterways we all rely on to prosper. Consider incorporating one of the twelve principles into your farming or garden practice.
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