permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

souscayrous at souscayrous@wanadoo.fr wrote:

> Why do we rush to adopt the reductive numerism of scientific agriculture?
[snip]
> Must we really counter every accusation levelled at us?

Some accusations can be safely ignored. But only rich people can afford not
to bother seeing whether their own labor and methods can feed them; I can
always go to the store if my little garden experiment doesn't yield enough.
But it's inexcusable for me to prescribe permaculture to a Ghanaian
farmer--or my orchardist neighbor--unless I can offer some evidence that it
will yield enough for their family. Guesswork, enthusiasm, and theory won't
do it. Here, numbers offer more hope.

I hate to see permaculture reduced to the false dichotomy between science
and spirit. I see no battle. Some people will describe a garden as a place
of tranquility and inspiration, others as a place offering 120 pounds of
peppers using only 2 pounds of fertilizer. And some will see both. I think
we're broad-based enough to speak several languages, included the numerical
one spoken by schools, NGOs, local and national governments, and the farmer
across the way, who won't adopt permaculture unless it's described in terms
they comprehend. With 4000 Pc sites in 120 countries (so I hear), there's
room for more than one way of describing what we do. We've been doing lots
of dreaming and making the dreams real. It will only broaden our reach if,
in addition to all else we've done, a few of us begin measuring what we've
created. If we know another's language, while they don't know ours, we are
more powerful.

> I look at our newly discovered desire to quantify yield as a
> failure of nerve.

I can understand being too busy to bother getting any numbers. But outright
refusing to quantify yield strikes me as a rebelliously adolescent "I won't
do what you want me to" attitude that hands authority to others, a reactive
and fearful stance. Getting numbers doesn't mean we've abandoned the search
for sustainability; it projects permaculture's power into other domains.
There's enough diversity among us for multiple approaches, and one approach
that we lack is the numerical one.

Toby