permaculture

[Russ Grayson <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

On Sunday, December 29, 2002, at 04:49  AM, Marshall Chrostowski wrote:

> On another web forum an argument has arisen over the differences between
> organiculture and permaculture. 

Some years back in Australia, Mollison stated that permaculture is "organic gardening plus design".

I understand that he was referring to permaculture design such as the zoned landuse system in which elements in design are placed according to their need for attention, monitoring, harvest and visitation, a process which gives to permaculture gardens a characteristic pattern but a pattern also in evidence at times in organic gardens. I do not know whether he was inferring that organic gardeners and farmers have no concept of design and do not use design concepts in their production. A little thought on the question shows that organic producers must 'design' their production process in accordance with local climatic, soil and market conditions.

Criticism of organic production practices by permaculturists - most permaculturists are home gardeners, not commercial growers with their need for a more disciplined process - and false beliefs about permaculture among some organic growers, I believe, account for the occasional animosity held by organic growers towards permaculture. Interestingly, the practice of organic gardening in modern times predates the development of permaculture by some years in this country and, so far as I know in the US, even though both practices emerged from the same social milieu in Australia in the late1960s. 

An incident during the early history of Nunawading Community Garden, the first community garden in Australian started around 20 years ago, serves as an example of the misuderstandings that occur when people trained in only one type of garden construction come up against organic gardeners from a different tradition. A bunch of enthusiastic and recently-trained permaculturists, knowing only the sheet mulch approach to gardening, joined the garden and proceeded to cover the plots with old carpet, presumably to suppress weed growth. This conflicted with the aesthetics of the other gardeners who saw their pioneering community garden becoming a visual blight. Disagreement resulted when it might have been better had the permaculturists selected a different approach to organic gardening, had they known any. Thus, permaculture gained an erroneous reputation among the gardeners that has persisted to this day. The point is that it may be better to train permaculturists in different approaches to organic gardening, such as double-digging, as well as sheet mulching.

> My contribution, much disputed BTW, was that
> permaculturists did not necessarily operate in a manner consistent with
> certified organic practices and use of materials. 

In reference to Australian organic certification standards, I believe that some materials used by permaculture gardeners might not be acceptable to organic certifiers. The use of old vehicle tyres, for instance, may exclude organic certification because they are believed to leach cadmium over time. There is some folklore regarding the leaching of compounds from tyres as they undergo a process of weathering. I have been unable to discover any definitive work on this question and pertinent facts such as the actual materials purported to leach, the rate of leaching over time, the climatic and other conditions under which leaching might take place, the volume of material leached and whether its quantity constitutes a hazard to human health remain unanswered.

Perhaps someone associated with a organic certification agency has these answers, but the situation is one frequently encountered in permaculture and elsewhere - notions become repeated as facts (Australian politicians are adept at this) and enter the pool of common knowledge even though there are no hard facts to support them.

There was an analogous issue with the use of newspaper as a weed barrier in the construction of no-dig gardens in Australia not so many years ago. Its persistence shows how such issues remain prevalent in the form of folklore, rumour and erroneous assumprtion even though the relevant technology has changed. 

The concerns were over the leaching of lead from newsprint ink and the presence of dioxin in the paper. Lead type has not been used in this country since the early 1980s when the old lead typesetting process was replaced by computer-based systems, so lead from that source is ruled out. Modern inks, such as those used in newspaper production, are based on carbon or soy. Some of the coloured inks used to print glossy papers may contain other chemicals, however.

As for dioxin, my understanding is that most papers in Australia are now chlorine bleached. Approximately 40% of newsprint is made from recycled stock -- old newspapers - in a cooperative arrangement of publishers.

> I received a bit of
> bashing for writing that from an Aussie permaculturist who insisted that
> Mollison held strongly to the organic ethic and practices.

Mollison did hold organic ethics and promotes organic practices as I assume he continues to do so although he is largely silent these days and remains aloof from listservs such as these. Many of his ideas were derived from traditional systems of farming in developing countries and can also be found in use by agricultural aid and development agencies where they are part of the LEISA - Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture - approach to food production. Here they have been developed independently of permaculture and, I believe, were permaculturists to study them then their approach would be more diversified and adaptable.

These farming ideas are more developed and better articulated among aid agencies because the need to increase the food supply encourages continual innovation and, in part, because orthodoxies such as no-dig gardening tend to become entrenched in permaculture although alternatives such as double digging and biointensive offer faster pathways to nutrients entering the soil profile and to working with compacted soils. Permaculture's argument is that the alternative methods are more labour intensive, which they are, and this is held to be a negative even though there are benefits such as faster nutrient availability and improved soil structure. Seems to be no agricultural equivalent of cost/ benefit analysis.

Permaculture once received criticism for 'ripping-off' the traditional farming methods of developing countries, however the accuser ignored the design component of permaculture and the fact that identical or similar farming techniques are found across a swath of developing countries. The techniques found in LEISA are derived from many cultures and packaged so that those most appropriate can be selected according to circumstances and adapted. In doing this the processes evolve, are picked up by other aid workers and transferred elsewhere. Thus, like music, seeds and art styles, they are international.

The critic of permaculture cited above was not advocating cultural property rights to farming technology, a move which would be ludicrous as farming techniques have been spread since the dawn of the agricultural revolution by diffusion as peoples migrated, invaded and otherwise made contact and spread their ideas - that, however, is another issue.

So, in a similar way, permaculture has taken on board the practices of organic gardeners and farmers and these are now common property. But permaculture goes further to look at the integration, through design, of the settlement, the economy, the selection of technologies and the other elements of living.

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PacificEdge Media
Russ Grayson + Fiona Campbell
pacedge@magna.com.au
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