permaculture

[Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>]

This is another common critique of permaculture, that is, where are all the
permaculture farms if it's so successful? I think Joel deconstructs that
accurately in that it's not about farms per say, but all kinds of systems,
and the same question still stands. "Where's the beef?" I think this is
more complex than simple however...

One, is that systems often need a critical mass before noticeable change
can manifest. If I think about the greenhouse I've managed for the last
five years, the first two years were virtually pest free, then I started
noticing a little slug damage here and there. While nothing to worry about
at that stage, in two more years it became clear the slugs were a force to
be reckoned with. So it took time for the population to grow before the
slugs could impact the greenhouse as a whole. Permaculture is still quite
young is what I'm suggesting. From a farming perspective, we are up against
arguably 10,000 years of momentum for a particular method, i.e. large scale
annual soil cultivation. The same momentum could describe capitalism,
architecture, or you name it. I don't think we've had time to reach
critical mass enough to do much more than nibble around the edges, in
short. This lack of time and momentum effects the refinement of our methods
and design ability, as well as our population size. It's important to note
this doesn't mean permaculture hasn't had an impact, it's just not at a
large system scale.

However, lack of critical mass, nor time and momentum, doesn't totally
explain the lack of scaled impact, just as my greenhouse is much more
complex than it would appear. Somehow, regardless of these factors,
permaculturists are still quite the underdog considering whole system
change and what we are up against in all arenas. But, underdogs are an
interesting breed, as Malcolm Gladwell has unpacked the David and Goliath
myth to show that it's not as simple as David being small and Goliath
large. It was actually that David had a particular skill that rendered
Goliath totally ineffective, regardless of size and might. So we can ask
ourselves as permaculture practitioners, what is our skill that would
disarm the gigantic forces we are trying to counter? In my humble opinion,
too few of us have figured out what that force is. This suggests just
because people identify as permaculturists doesn't mean we are all taking
the same tact, approach, or using the same skills, and therefore, measuring
success based upon the Permaculture moniker alone might be entirely
useless, and probably is.

This brings up the last point I have time for at the moment...what is
permaculture for? I'm sure this question would generate a lot of different
answers (does that prove the point above?), but to me permaculture's
highest and best use is in waking people up through a particular form of
education, the PDC. It doesn't seem like more permaculture design firms are
the solution or more permaculture farms or more permaculture whatevers. To
me, more people who see themselves as part of the greater ecosystem, more
people who understand their wellbeing is tied in with that of all others,
more people who have been taught design (defined as intelligent decision
making), more people who can think in systems and recognize patterns, more
people who can do for self, might just be the particular force that impacts
whole systems. So, maybe it is permaculture education that is the force
that disables the current plethora of destruction that is going on and has
been for a very long time. And maybe our focus on farms instead of the
education system is the thing that is holding us back. In my experience
learning and teaching permaculture in the education system, there's a lot
of truth in that.

And this brings us back to critical mass, as well as time and momentum.
This is certainly the route of permaculture education and the PDC. It's
slow. It's small...at first. I believe it's lasting, however. Built designs
are very short term. Education, that is, the transfer of knowledge, wisdom,
skill, and values, endures. That's what changes culture, and I think that's
what we are trying to do through permaculture.


Jason Gerhardt

-- 


www.realearthdesign.com

720-496-9744