Hola-
I´m a permaculture enthusiast, but I also find some critical aspects in
PC promotion, the way PC is very often presented.
As sombody who is struggeling to live from the land in Michoacán,
México, after a process of now 12 years developing a small piece of
land, inspired by PC principles, and also teaching and mentoring young
students, I´ve come to be a bit more sceptic of some expressions of
Permaculture (over-) promotion.
This article I just discovered on the web, and in certain aspects speaks
out of my heart.
I´ll copy the entire article from the blog "Small Farm Future - Making
the case for a small farm renaissance" -
I wrote a version of this post quite a while ago, and have been sitting
on it ever since. Various criticisms of permaculture and permaculturists
had been accumulating in my thoughts, but I don't take parricide lightly
(permaculture is, after all, how I got into all of this). Then the
ever-excellent Land Magazine ran some critical articles about
permaculture, followed by some predictable onslaughts from the
eco-panglossian brigade, and I started to feel protective. But anyway,
here for what it's worth is my post on the good, the bad and the ugly of
permaculture.
At Vallis Veg we're fortunate to have a seemingly inexhaustible supply
of WWOOFers and HelpXers wishing to volunteer to work on our holding.
Often they're young people with no special interest in farming or
environmental issues who are simply looking for a cheap way to travel,
and I've tended to look preferentially for people who can demonstrate a
genuine interest in the work -- one such criterion being the possession
of a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC). However, I've increasingly
been noticing what we've started to call 'PDC syndrome' in some of these
volunteers, to the extent that I'm beginning to think twice about taking
them on.
PDC syndrome can involve one or more of the following symptoms:
* a belief that no till or mulching or forest gardening or
polycultures or mob-stocking or chicken tractors or perennial crops
or compost teas or various other techniques must invariably be
practiced in preference to any alternatives
* a belief that whatever Bill Mollison or David Holmgren or a
handful of other authors have written is above criticism
* likewise, a belief that the way things are done by certain famous
permaculturists or on certain famous permaculture holdings must
always be faithfully reproduced elsewhere
* a belief that permaculture has cracked the problem of creating a low
input -- high output farming system
* a belief, consequently, that anyone who struggles to make a living
out of farming must be failing because they are not properly
following the correct principles
* a slightly superior smile at the sight of weeds, hoes, spades,
tractors etc
* a belief that a small garden crammed with edible perennial things is
proof positive that permaculture can feed the world
* a belief that controlled trials and numerical analysis are
reductionist and unnecessary
* a belief that people who question aspects of permaculture principles
are simply nay-sayers who sap the movement's joie de vivre
* most importantly, a ready admission that permaculture is not a set
of approved techniques or received dogma that must always be applied
everywhere but a way of thinking, a broad set of handy design
principles, before cheerfully reverting to any of the preceding
affectations
I'm exaggerating a little of course. And the good news is that the
condition is rarely permanent -- it usually fades within a few years of
taking a permaculture course, faster if the sufferer takes on a farm
themselves (the quickest cure recommended by physicians). Perhaps I'm
just being over-sensitive to criticism: God knows there are plenty of
things I've done on my holding that deserve it. And in case it seems
like I'm putting myself above those who suffer from this troubling
condition, let me tell you that I had a very bad case of PDC syndrome
myself for a couple of years. It's not that I feel I have nothing to
learn from recent PDC graduates, but I do weary of the judgmental spirit
that too often seems to accompany the process.
From my perspective as a small-scale agroecologically-oriented
commercial grower, I'd offer the following criticism of the package that
many PDC graduates seem to emerge with:
* a tendency to over-emphasise the role of smart design tricks and to
under-emphasise the important but unglamorous basics of sound
growing/farming skills
* a tendency to be over-impressed by the media schtick of various
global permaculture gurus who very rarely make a living from
producing basic food commodities, and a tendency not to notice what
many unsung local farmers and growers are achieving as 'implicit
permaculturists' who simply apply good design in their practice
* a tendency to a religious mode of thinking, in which the rudiments
of scientific rigour are rejected as 'positivism' or 'reductionism'
and replaced by an overwhelming faith in the views of permaculture
gurus as per my previous point
* a metropolitan disdain for farmers past and present, and a
conviction that the way they have done things is wrong
* an insufficiently fine-grained understanding of agro-ecosystems
I do struggle with these aspects of the permaculture education process
-- particularly the fixed ideas around what constitutes a 'permaculture
approach' and the tendency to substitute a religious for a critical mode
of thinking, with its concern to enact what X says rather than to think
about what X has said, engage with it critically, and then apply what's
useful from it to one's own situation. But I'm not going to turn my back
on the movement, because I think its basic principles are sound when
thoughtfully applied, because generally I like its cheerful can-do
amateurism, because I usually find the way it imagines different
possible ways of living invigorating, and because there are signs that
it's sharpening up its act. The movement could probably have done a
better job historically in subjecting its claims to some kind of
experimental scrutiny, but the fact is that it's been a grassroots
movement without the resources to do much proper research, especially
when the methods it typically adopts are complex and multifaceted (on
which note, more news of the Vallis Veg Experiment soon). Actually, I've
recently been in touch with Rafter Sass Ferguson who's doing an academic
study of permaculture over in the US -- his liberation ecology site
looks like a really promising project in sorting through the
permaculture chaff from the grain. I haven't had a chance to assimilate
what he's doing properly yet, but his site seems to me to be one of the
'act sharpening' signs I mentioned above.
So -- well, I do despair of the kind of
permaculture-principles-as-holy-law approach showcased by Angelo Eliades
and some of his supporters in my debate with him about perennial crops
(my key alarm bell phrase: "you'll never understand permaculture"; its
equivalent: "you'll never let God into your life and you will die an
unforgiven heathen"). But I think there's enough self-critical dynamism
in the movement to compensate. I'm not especially proud of my exchange
with Eliades, whose condescension got right under my skin -- but his
condescension does actually raise interesting issues. As I recall, I
mentioned that I was a 'struggling farmer' and Eliades proceeded to
belabour me with comments to the effect that I was obviously struggling
financially because I wasn't properly applying permaculture principles,
citing various successful 'permaculture farmers' such as Joel Salatin.
Now, from what I've read and seen of Joel I think he's fantastic, and
the same goes for other permaculture farmers like Sepp Holzer. But I'd
like to make three points about the nature of such success:
It stems partly from being an innovator and opening up a new market,
such as Joel's grass-fed chickens. Kudos for the originality, but normal
market forces apply here. As more suppliers join in to fill the niche,
the economic returns start to falter, which is pretty much where we're
now at in the local veg box scheme movement. These innovators haven't
found some golden goose to make food production intrinsically profitable.
It also stems partly from being good at self-promotion and marketing a
new product. Again, kudos for the success -- it's what you need to do as
a self-employed small farmer. And I suppose you could say at a stretch
that talking a good game is a permaculture skill. But being good at
marketing doesn't really get to the heart of farm economics or agro-ecology.
If I could make so bold, part of the success also stems from a certain
credulity among the permaculture public, who too rarely ask tough
questions of different farming systems. Joel Salatin's chicken operation
is no doubt very productive, but it does rely on bought-in commercial
feed, which enthusiasts tend to gloss over. Sepp Holzer has created an
amazing-looking farm with some clever ideas that make people want to
visit it, and that alone is worth celebrating, but I think the results
are open to question on input/output grounds.
Anyway, one good outcome of my debate with Eliades was that it prompted
me to look more carefully at the literature on perennial cropping, with
the result that I've now formalised my thinking on this in a journal
article -- all it needs is a home to go to, and I'll report back on that
soon. Perhaps this illustrates what David Holmgren means when he says
'obtain a yield'. Hmm, guess I'm still a permaculturist at heart.
Towards the end of the PDC I took 13 years ago, my esteemed tutor
admonished his assembled students with the words "You don't know
anything". At the time it struck me as a rather harsh note in an
otherwise empowering course, but now I see his wisdom. I know a hell of
a lot more now than I did back then, but I realise that I still don't
know anything. I only wish a few more PDC graduates realised they don't
know anything either..."
--
Holger Hieronimi - holger@tierramor.org
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