permaculture

[Pacific Edge Permaculture + Media <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

Title: Re: Pc slammed in Whole Earth Review

> From: "keller" <ak.and.ak@on-line.de>
> Reply-To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 20:08:24 +0100
> To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject: Re: Pc slammed in Whole Earth Review
>
> Thanky you, Russ!
>
> that is exactly the problem I am facing.
>  
> I am convinced that pc has something to offer, but if I want to approach a donor to give me money for a development project, they want evidence that the money spent will have a positive effect and that the approach I am suggesting is better than the approaches of other people who have also applied for money with them.
>  
> I want to convince some donors that it is a good idea to finance a permaculture design course in Cameroon. What can I tell them to support the idea?
>
> One thing that you can do is to make the course address the needs of the people it is designed to assist. I suggest - and I know this may annoy the permaculture purist - that you be prepared to adapt the permaculture design course to do this. Some things in the course are not relevant to people living in village situations in developing countries.
>
> I assume you are familiar with the people who would benefit from the course and have analysed their needs, so I would address whatever their areas of need are - food security, land access, health, income generation or whatever, to discover solutions that are within their capacity (knowledge, skills, financial resources, training etc).
>
> ILIEA in the Netherlands publish a magazine (LEISA - Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture) that is full of case studies and ideas if the people you will deal with are an agricultural community.
>  
> Then they will want to see evidence of success. I would have to write reports about the reports. If nothing came out, I will not get money again, and that agency will not support any pc project in the future. They want verification. I must be successfull, and I must be able to prove somehow the success.
>  
> If pc develops a reputation among donor agencies of unverified claims, should I better ommit the lable of permaculture and try to sell agroforestry and aquaculture instead to them and better not mention that I am sympathizing with pc (even if I use some methods borrowed from pc?). In the end it is the content that counts for me, not the label.
>
> This can be a realistic strategy if donors are likely to get stuck on the word  'permaculture'. 
>
> I don't think that permaculture has developed a 'reputation' for 'unverified claims' among development professionals, it's just that a few of them have pointed out that there is little by  way of supporting evidence. I know that, were skeptics to visit the projects, they might come away thinking differently.
>  
> Question 1: does pc actually work.
>
> Because permaculture is a design system synthesised from ideas, techniques and practices drawn from many  disciplines, it works at least as well as any of the things drawn from those disciplines.
>
> Because permaculture integrates these things, you could expect higher performance that from a design where the components were not integrated to make best use of the potential benefits coming from utilising the outputs of some components as the inputs of other processes.
>
> In permaculture, I think that it is optimal performance, rather than maximum productivity, that we look for.
>
> For me, permaculture serves as an overall framework through which I think about the design of a project - it's a thinking tool feeding design.  
>
> In the Solomon Islands project in which have been involved, permaculture design was used in this way. The need identified was to boost food security. When a wholistic approach is taken you look at the inputs, processes and outputs of the food production system, its effectiveness and its sustainability.  
>
> This led to a program of activities encompassing training in new agricultural techniques that incorporate the most effective from traditional systems blended with new ideas (in the West we would call this organic gardening - in development jargon it becomes LEISA), Participatory Technology Development with farmers (see the book 'Developing Technology With Farmers - a Trainer's Guide to Participatory Learning'; 1997, van Veldhuizen et al; ETC Netherlands (Zed Books, London)), community food security assessment (a process), Participatory Rural Appraisal (for decision making and direction setting), primary health care (training in nutritional health and gardening in association with a hospital), establishment of a seed bank and exchange - the Solomon Islands Planting Material Network (in operations since 1995 and recently funded through the European Union), training activities and project design and management/ administrative activities.
>
>
> Question 2: if the answere is yes, where is the evidence?
>
> You will have to search for evidence. In the West, there are sometimes centres where permaculture is demonstrated.  
>
> You will  have to search the relevant literature too. The March-April 1997 edition of 'International Agricultural Development' (19 Woodford Close, Caversham, Reading, Berks, UK RG4 7HN; ph: 44 (0) 1734 476 063; 101620.3145@Compuserve.com)carried a special on permaculture - an interview with Mike Feingold (billed as a permaculture specialist), Chris Evans' Jajakot permaculture project in Nepal (I heard that Chris returned to the UK because the fighting in the unfolding civil war in Nepal had created trouble for the project), a permaculture project in the Peruvian Amazon and permaculture in Zimbabwe (I don't  know how the present land grabs and political turmoil have affected the Zimbabwe project) and Uganda. 
>
> Question 3: does a permaculture design course enable people to do work that makes a difference? (I don't expect a 72 hour course to teach everything, it is enough if it can provide a basis from which these people start working _successfully_).
>
> Yes, in the sense that it inspires people to take action. It can, however, produce the 'eureka'  effect where people become enthused to take action but enthusiasm declines quickly in the absence of a program, organisation or other initiative to feed them into.
>
> A course has perhaps greater chance of being used when the student already has, or is acquiring, other relevant skills for which permaculture would provide a direction. The course would provide insight and design knowledge but actually implementing that would call upon the existing skills.
>
> A Permaculture Design Course (PDC) is insufficient by itself for work in development assistance or in the community because the time spent in the PDC - characteristically 72 hours as stipulated by the Permaculture Institute - is insufficient for anything but an introduction to the areas covered.
>
> In development aid, a PDC is useful in the project management role because it can stimulate the integration of specialists into the overall project workflow.
>
> In working with developing country peoples, the PDC should be adapted to address their needs - that's why a 'needs analysis' might be best completed before project or course design, perhaps as the first part of project design or part of the feasibility study, if there is one.
>
> Question 4: What is the added value pc has to offer compared with other approaches. What makes it better?
>
> In theory, integrated design should produce optimal outcomes, higher and diversified productivity and meet client group needs in a way that produces as many inputs locally as is practical, reduces and reuses/ recycles waste, is low-cost, utilised local skills, stimulates local innovation and is achievable within their financial, skills, training and resource limitations.
>
> The 'value added' might come through: cost savings from utilisation of local materials, skills and other inputs; preservation of useful local skills and knowledge; stimulation of regional market demand for local production/ skills/ materials; greater security in the face of changing weather and markets  through a diversified production; increased food/medical/ resource security during times of conflict or natural disaster; provision of a 'subsistence' food base for local security and as a basis from which extra production is traded in local and regional markets. There would be more value-added components dependent upon the type of project.
>
> ...Russ Grayson
>
>  
> Andreas
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: Pacific Edge Permaculture + Media <mailto:pacedge@magna.com.au>  
> > To: permaculture <mailto:permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>  
> > Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 7:52 AM
> > Subject: Re: Pc slammed in Whole Earth Review
> > > When I worked in overseas aid  with its continued monitoring and evaluation of projects, production of regular reports and accountability to donors, government and other stakeholders, it occurred to me that, in comparison, permaculture was largely unmonitored and was seldom evaluated to identify results such as what worked and why and what could be done better.
> > >
> > > Then, midway through last  year, a permaculture aid consultant - Rick Coleman from Southern Cross Permaculture Institute in Victoria, Australia - visited the same territory when he called for evidence proving permaculture was a workable technology so he could present it to decision makers in the aid industry who wanted evidence of its usefullness. Why, they asked, should they support an approach which could provide no evidence of its effectiveness?
> > >
> > > And that's  a fair question and one I've heard from others in that industry (a consultant to the Australian government's AusAID - from the CGIAR - once described permaculture to a meeting as 'a technology with no role in development assistance').
> > >
> > > At issue here is hard evidence - and by 'hard' I mean verifiable facts and figures - not undocumented observations and personal experience  - of how well permaculture is at doing its job. 
> > >
> > > That would call for studies and the problem here is that such studies call for funding, and that is something in short supply when it comes to monitoring, measuring and evaluating permaculture projects and claims. Unless it is done, however, permaculture is likely to be increasingly disregarded by  decision makers and, as the writer suggests, is likely to become discredited.
> > >
> > > ...Russ Grayson
> ---
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