permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

Richard Morris at webmaster@pfaf.org wrote:
> Graham asked a simple question: give me some statistics

(Actually, it was me. It's hard to keep these threads straight, though)

> So far I've been very disappointed by the discussion, which basically
> seems to stem round, "We reject the scientific paradime".

Well, there have been several (Andreas, Russ, me, and some others) who
haven't rejected it; but there's no denying that nobody's come up with any
data. As much as I see the benefit of all the intangibles of permaculture,
you make a very good point, Rich. But though there may be some who reject
the scientific paradigm, I think there are more who are saying "designing
experiments and generating data aren't my thing; I just want to work on my
place and end up with a nice example of permaculture." And that seems very
valuable: a functioning (and attractive!) Pc site, even without yield data,
will persuade a lot of (non-farming) people that this is worth doing.

> give me an example of permaculture which is working.

The best ones I've seen are: Flowering Tree in New Mexico, Roxanne
Swentzell's place designed by her and Joel Glanzberg. Rox has taken a 1/2
acre of bare gravel desert and, starting with swaling, mulching, and lots of
N-fixers, now has a nearly closed canopy of walnuts, fruit trees, N-fixing
trees, with fantastic habitat and more food and mulch than she can deal
with. 

Permaculture Institute of Northern California, Penny Livingston's place, an
acre of suburban jungle with chickens, ducks, and again, more food and
biomass production than she can use. It's got a cob office, and two
load-bearing straw-bale buildings, a marsh and pond system that handles all
the greywater and supports the duck and some irrigation. There's a Bed-and
Breakfast attached, so lots of visitors come away inspired. Too bad Penny
just dropped this list, but she's busy with a thriving design business.

The Bullock's property on Orcas Island, north of Seattle. 10 acres that's
the best developed food forest I've seen, plus several acres of wetland that
has chinampas in it (mostly for wildlife). They hold classes for 3 weeks
each summer with 30 students, and there's enough fruit to support grazing
for the whole class the whole time. They're off the grid, and supported by a
nursery business and teaching.

These are all very attractive sites, too. None of these people are measuring
yields, though I think they all have some idea of rough quantities of
certain crops. I'm sure that converting each property into a conventional,
row-crop farm or orchard would generate more total output (ignoring inputs)
than they are currently getting, but at a severe loss of habitat, multiple
function, and education about integrated systems.

And that reminds me of Jerome Osentowski's Central Rocky Mountain
Permaculture Institute in Colorado. The particular interest here is that
Jerome's income source for about a decade was a many-specied salad-growing
operation he ran in raised beds and two large greenhouses (a real feat,
going year-round at 7000 feet elevation). He sold to tony restaurants in
Aspen. He got sick of the huge amount of work, and demoralized by the vast
quantities of organic matter that he was importing, burning up, and
exporting as C02 and salad. Really high inputs. So he shifted to a food
forest, which is just reaching good production now and supported a lot of
heavy grazing during a class I helped teach there last summer. Again, no
hard data, but his decision to shift from intensive row-cropping to food
forest, and his enormous happiness with the result, is a powerful statement.

So that's what I've got. The difficulty is that, though all of those sites
are inspirational to those with open minds or who want to get out of the rat
race, they will never convince the skeptical that permaculture is for people
who have pressing economic or agricultural needs, i.e. for those whose
welfare actually depends on making a living from their land.

But, in the (over)developed world, most people aren't farmers. They have no
pressing need to get "optimum yield" from their land, but might be inspired
by a good Pc site--one that's not a mess--to try, in their own yard, to
harvest rain so they don't draw down aquifers, use greywater to reduce
demand on sewer lines, grow a little food they can trust, and so on. The
beauty of a good, multifunctional design is that there's something to
attract almost everyone. So the point that's been made about the need for
good models to inspire people is spot-on; they can reach the 98.5% of
first-worlders who don't farm. But I still think we need some data (see my
other simultaneous post--this one's getting long--for thoughts about that).

Toby