permaculture

["jamie nicol" <jamie@tiscali.fr>]

Hello Kirby and anyone else following this thread. I can imagine how
subsidies for a more nature friendly, farm-integrated approach might
encourage larger farms down the Pc road, the growing interest in Whole Farm
Planning that I have seen (Rhonda Janke at Kansas University) might be just
such a vehicle for this. However, it has always seemed to me that Pc favours
small, intensive systems and not larger cropping systems - although Mark has
suggested some intriguing possibilities in another post.
        I'm trying to extract an ethic that I feel present in Pc that somehow 
is
anathema to larger farms and not just those awash with industrial chemicals.
It has to do with the nature of our interaction with the land we work.
Larger scale has meant in modern times the use of ever more and ever larger
machinery to achieve a certain operation whether it be clearing, plowing,
harvesting etc. It often means the landowner employing others to do much of
the work. The result of the machinery and the workers is to create a
distance between the farmer and his land, a distance not present in the very
real, hands on (and often non-machine orientated) world of Pc. It is
alienation from the land that leads to the environmental problems only now
being faced up to. However, these pressures toward larger and larger farms
in the desire for greater and greater efficiency, is not new. The resultant
wastage of once prime agricultural land has been seen before. Look at the
quote below and I wonder if you will be struck, as I was, by the
similarities between today's agricultural pressures and those of the Roman
Empire:


 Reconstruction by Way of the Soil
by G.T. Wrench (1946 if I'm reading the roman numerals correctly)
Chapter 2
Rome
Rome and its civilization constitute the progenitors of the civilized
Western world; consequently, without a knowledge of Rome's relation to the
soil, it would not be possible for us to extract from history the principles
of reconstruction from the soil.

We have to study history, because in no other way can we tell what the Roman
land was like and how it looked. History reveals that if, by some magic, we
could transport ourselves back to the days of the early Latin farmers, we
should see a picture of a well-populated countryside with the land divided
up into a number of small farms, often not exceeding five acres in extent.
As each small farm had to support a family, the farming, we should see, was
intensive; in other words, each particle of soil would be in use, so that
the fields appeared quite crowded with a variety of crops. The whole food of
the family would come from the farm, and not only the food of the family,
but that of some of its domestic animals. By day we should see the various
members of the family hard at work upon the farm, the males -- and sometimes
females -- busy upon the land itself, and the womenfolk in the home and
dairy. We should see also a large number of villages with a pleasant light
of prosperity shining upon them. Other things would also be there of great
importance, soon to be described, some of which could be seen, and some
found under the earth.

Then let us be allowed to look at the same land some five centuries later.
The picture is now quite different. We should see but few villages and few
small farms, and upon the farms we should see what farmers call foul fields
and even land that was derelict. In place of the small farms we should see
mainly orchards, vineyards and dairy farms. It would, indeed, be quite clear
to us that the main object of this different form of farming was to supply
fruit, grapes, olives, milk and cheese to people who did not work upon the
farms or in the villages at all, but who lived in the proud, neighbouring
city that had now become the chief city of all Italy and was soon to become
the capital of the Mediterranean world. We should also see that these
estates were no longer worked by Latin farmers, but by quite a different
sort of men, clearly not Italians, and men lacking the buoyancy and freedom
of the older farmers. We should, indeed, have reason to rub our eyes, for
some of these men, incredible though it might seem to us, would be shackled
with iron and some even chained to each other while they worked. These were
the slaves, some of whom were strong, fierce men and some weak and
depressed. These two pictures we should see; the first would be that of
family farming, the second that of capitalistic farming.

Transporting ourselves to a yet later date, we should see a third picture.
The land is now swampy and derelict, and its most significant product swarms
of mosquitoes, which caused the fevers that permitted only a few wretched
men and cattle to scrape together some sort of livelihood and that visited,
with lethal effect, the inhabitants of the great but waning city itself.
This would be the picture of debased soil fertility.

Just as was seen 1500 and more years ago, the most suitable form of
agriculture is family orientated, erected on the same principles of
practical concern as the family itself- the two so closely intertwined as to
be inseparable. It is just this connection that I see Pc making, if only in
an implicit guise. Family's fortunately have the ability to be whatever we
chose to make them now in our post nuclear (family) society, but I suspect
that such a unit, whatever its actual make up of sexes, offspring or age
groups, is essential to the ties and thus husbandry (sustaining care) of the
land. When crops are grown for money (as it is explicitly on large farms and
some medium and small scale farms too) and not for the sustenance of those
who tend the land, then another relating layer is stripped away.
If I making sense here, then I should have drawn a connection (however
tenuous) between Pc and it's favouring of small, family sized, integrated
and intensively cultivated farms. If true then large farms are anathema to
Pc, period.

Jamie
Souscayrous






-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-admin@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-admin@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Kirby Fry
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 5:42 AM
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [permaculture] Theory of Everyhting

Hi Jamie,

Good to hear from you.  In the midst of all this text flying around there
ARE actually people behind the words.

>>  though I might have toned down your 'no exceptions'  <<

Yes, that was certainly overstated.  By 'no exceptions' I believe I meant
that, non-native plants should fall under permaculture ethics as well as the
natives they may be displacing, that they shouldn't be an exception to Pc
ethics.  I didn't mean 'no exception' to my interpretation of, working with
Nature rather than against it.

>>  It is for this reason that I'm not quite sure to what you were
responding.  <<

Apparently, I misunderstood Steve's question.  What I have been studying is
why folks have it in for non-native plants and if steady eradication
regimens are what they are recommending we carry out.

So I think I misinterpreted Steve's post as using scale of operation as
justification for persistently removing non-native plants.

>>  big from a European perspective  <<

Are you from Europe?

>> I certainly agree that 'industrial agriculture...is anathema to
permaculture' but does that also hold true of all large farms?  <<

No, not inherently, though the scale of mistakes increases right along with
scale of size.

I worked on a dairy farm in California for a few summers growing up.  It was
a big farm and could keep 1,000 cows milking three times a day.  I believe
now they are milking 3,000 cows twice daily.

There was a lot of manure and illness but I believe that the operation could
have eventually been run sustainably since my cousins were always open to
better and cleaner ways of doing things.  I hope to take my two girls there
(now 3 and 6 years old) for a summer in the near future.

>>  Should larger farms be broken up so Pc principles can be applied?  <<

 Pc principles, of course, can be applied at all levels of scale.  I don't
think anything but market factors or disaster will lead to the break up
large farms, but large farms at least should be given more government
incentives to work with nature, i.e. better utilize their waste, improve the
treatment of their workers, and the plants and animals they harvest.
Hopefully, one day soon, our markets and natural resources will achieve
equilibrium.

>>  What I'm after is a similarly coherent Pc strategy on the large scale
(within the resources of current large farm owners) to that many of us
practice on a small scale.  <<

Funny that you mention this.  I recently read Ken Wilber's book called, "The
Theory of Everything."  He talks about there being four quadrants that we
operate in:  internal singular - our individual perceptions and emotions;
internal plural - our collective behavior as a culture and society; external
singular - examination of the human body as an organism; and, external
plural - all of the natural world around us.

A genuinely integral Pc strategy or ethic would be able to serve all scales
of production and operate in all four quadrants of thought.  Larger scale
operations, hopefully, would not expand beyond their ability to meet the
emotional and social needs of the people which create and operate the
business.  Neither would the medical health of the individual nor the
biological health of the land and bio-systems supporting the business be
diminished.

When we factor in the well being of all four of the quadrants we really
can't go wrong.  IMO, Pc needs the most work on the inner two quad's.

Re: my frustration with industrial agriculture...

I believe when I was talking about industrial agriculture, I was referring
to those sectors which are doing everything they can to dump their wastes as
inexpensively as possible.  Here in Texas there are suburban developers,
chemical companies, oil refineries and commercial farmers pushing every
button they can to make their operations as inexpensive as possible at the
expense of everything except the value of their stock or profits.

I speak from first hand experience...  We live right next to an aluminum
smelter that is about to annex another 16,000 acres of land for coal surface
mining - 2 miles away from our land.  This coal will fire the power plant
for the ALCOA Rockdale smelter which is the dirtiest energy plant in Texas.
Texas is the number one source of air pollution in the U.S.A.

The former CEO of ALCOA is now the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

So guess where that puts us, back in the realm of politics and graft.

However, there's plenty of hope for businesses who are willing to work
towards being more integrally sustainable in their operations.

>>  If we could come up with such a coherent structure we could then keep
these farmers away from the 'machine and influence peddling...corporations.'
<<

I really like what Ben Cohen with true Majority, once of Ben and Jerry's Ice
Cream, is doing here in the states.  True Majority sends out an e-mail that
covers one social or environmental issue per month so that you can send a
fax, write a letter or call your congress person about that issue.

Those of us concerned with our natural resources and food production also
need to know more about our tax and trade laws and when to collectively
apply pressure on our governments and steer them towards an integral future.

Right now in Johannesburg, the World Summit is going on.  I wonder what's on
their agenda?  Who should we call?

You bring up Mark's response to my description of a Pc course.  Does that
seem like brain-washing to you?  I would only ad that most cultural
epiphanies happen when we let go of what we're sure reality is for a little
bit, when we seen something so many times that we finally see through it.


Kirby Fry

For the real scoop on environmental and social justice issues check out the
archives of Democracy Now!
http://www.webactive.com/webactive/pacifica/demnow/archive.html

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