permaculture

[Felicity Wright <flickwright@ozemail.com.au>]

> 
> if we truly want to measure the value of forest gardening and permaculture
> we need to change the way that we measure and define yields.
> 
> jerome
> 

Really enjoyed this posting. It seems to me that we are once again
discussing an issue of paradigms (not dissimilar to the discussion about
indigenous people and their ways of handling knowledge). Some people
expressed 'disappointment' that people posting on this list appeared to
be rejecting measuring. We are operating in a world where the
scientific, rationalist paradigm is all and supposedly everything can
ultimately be quantified. But as someone pointed out much earlier, there
are inherent limitations in measuring within scientific frameworks. I am
not anti-evaluation, I believe it's crucial for any type of serious
practice and use it in my life and work.. It just depends what
indicators you want to use, what 'measuring sticks'. 

I spent three years researching, developing and then undertaking a major
research project to gain a better understanding of small, indigenous
community based organisations operating enterprises. Hence my interest
in quantitative and qualitative analysis. We wrestled with this one!!
Discussions were held with the Australian Bureau of Statistics about the
data collection and they threw their hands in the air in horror when
they saw we were collecting both quantitative and qualitative data (and
mobs of it) because they have NO WAY of processing the latter data. It's
now all been published in two volumes and is recognised as the
benchmark. What we were trying to assess, and to a degree 'measure' was
extremely complex and the outcomes or yields needed to be considered and
evaluated (in our case) against different locations, histories,
population and cultural/language bases, staffing, etc. The funding
bodies constantly wanted us to come up with simple answers formulae for
measuring performance. We were able to arrive at some ways of measuring
performance in some areas.

Let's take the challenge of thinking laterally about how permaculture
can be evaluated and what measurements or yields are meaningful. There
have been some wonderful posts in the last couple of weeks and the idea
of collating examples for websites is great. I agree that it is crucial
that material has to be available to support permaculture for funding
bodies etc, but fundamentally PC is a design system (not a science!)
that is heavily reliant upon the skills and commitment of individual
designers and participants. No PC system will work if it is 'set up' by
visiting designers and handed over but not 'owned' by the stakeholders
who are responsible for maintaining and harvesting - this is true for PC
in third and fourth world countries or the middle class hobby farmer
from Melbourne who gets a PC design done. Part of the PC process needs
to be cultivation of stakeholder involvement.

We all know that conventional agricultural yields are horrifically
over-subsidised by fossil fuels and land degredation (and the rest) and
that leaving that out of any equation of yields grossly distorts notions
of productivity and cost. But we also know that statistics are regularly
served up to us with claims of extremely high yields that haven't taken
those factors into account. We also have to accept the limitations of
thinking within the rationalist paradigm and that arguing for
permaculture within that paradigm is always going to be a huge challenge
(and not a level playing field).


flick