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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Trends in America
  • Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:55:07 -0800


Marjory wrote:

Toby, I don't want to sound harsh (as text can often be), but yes, if you do not have the skills to grow food and manage your water, then yes, I think you and most of the other p.d.c. teachers should stop teaching until you do.
(thanks for the note on harsh words--this is a narrow bandwidth medium and it's difficult to get a lot of nuance in it.)

I've not yet met any Pc teacher who hasn't at some time grown food, managed water, and done a zillion other practical things--it would be hypocritical to teach what you can't do. I had a ten-acre homestead for ten years--built much of the passive solar house, had a 6000 square foot garden, catchment, graywater, food forest, harvested wood for heat, greenhouse, solar hot water, etc, etc. But doing that is no longer the best use of my time, given the needs of others around me (and the work others do for me in exchange). I've also found that as people spend time as Pc-ists, many go through an evolution from gardening and building to design, and then to community development and focusing on invisible structures. That's where I am, at any rate.

Throughout pre-fossil fuel history, at least 95% of people primarily worked to produce food.

The primary reason that most people were farmers until recently is due to a grossly inequitable distribution of political power (feudalism, serfdom), not because everyone needed to farm to produce enough food. I've seen studies showing that one farmer in 1700 could grow enough food to feed 50 people. They were forced to grow grain and give most of it to their rulers to feed the rulers' livestock, army, servants, courtiers, and so on. In an equitable political system without fossil fuels, no more than 10-30% of people would need to be involved in food production. Don't get me wrong, I love gardening and think everyone should do it to be connected to the land, but even without oil, we don't all need to be farmers.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com




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