Permaculture – [ˈpərməˌkəlCHər]
Table of Contents
What is Permaculture?
The development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.
The term permaculture was coined by David Holmgren, then a graduate student at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education’s Department of Environmental Design, and Bill Mollison, senior lecturer in Environmental Psychology at University of Tasmania, in 1978.[1] It originally meant “permanent agriculture”,[2][3] but was expanded to stand also for “permanent culture”, since social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system as inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka‘s natural farming philosophy.
It has many branches including ecological design, ecological engineering, regenerative design, environmental design, and construction. Permaculture also includes integrated water resources management that develops sustainable architecture, and regenerative and self-maintained habitat and agricultural systems modelled from natural ecosystems.[4][5]
Mollison has said: “Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.”[6]
The twelve principles of permaculture most commonly referred to were first described by David Holmgren in his book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (2002).
The Twelve Principles of Permaculture:
1. Observe and Interact,
2. Catch and Store Energy,
3. Obtain a Yield,
4. Apply Self Regulation and Accept Feedback,
5. Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services,
6. Produce No Waste,
7. Design From Patterns to Details,
8. Integrate Rather Than Segregate,
9. Use Small and Slow Solutions,
10. Use and Value Diversity,
11. Use Edges and Value the Marginal,
12. Creatively Use and Respond to Change.
(Credits: Wikipedia)
“The United States government continues to push for the use of more chemically-intensive and corporate-dominated farming methods such as GMOs and monoculture-based crops,” while “the United Nations is once against sounding the alarm about the urgent need to return to (and develop) a more sustainable, natural and organic system.“
That was the key point of a publication from the UN Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) titled“Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It’s Too Late,” which included contributions from more than 60 experts around the world.
“The world needs a paradigm shift in agricultural development: from a “green revolution” to an “ecological intensification” approach.” – UN/Wake up before its too late – Report
https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf
Permaculture Principles.
Principle 1. – Observe and Interact
For the native tribes of this Land we live on, observation of nature was key to gain knowledge. Through observation and acknowledging what we see we can find course of action to then proactively interact with the entire system.
The color and shape of leaves and stems helps us identify nutrient deficiencies, toxicities or pest infestations. The observation of drooping, hanging, canoeing, drying or deformation/mutation of leaves can be indicator of an imbalance of the soil environment an indication of water imbalance in chemistry or watering cycle, inhibiting osmotic interaction to happen. Or it is another indicator of Pest infestation of crawling critters, bacteria/viruses or fungal infections.
Principle 2. – Catch and Store Energy
Renewable energy become more Important in our futures but not everyone can set themselves up with personal Solar, Hydro, or Wind Energy. The consideration of everyday sunlight and the falling of rain water are two major sources of energy we’d like to forget about and it goes by unharnessed. Growing vegetables in your own home, watered with collected rain water, is probably the most impactful thing to contribute to a betterment of our climate.
A study done at the University of California – Santa Barbara:
“Summary: Want to help mitigate global climate change? Grow some veggies. According to a new study, turning lawn into a vegetable garden can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160907125128.htm
Principle 3. – Obtain a Yield
Obtaining a yield can be as easy as throwing down some seeds into fertile soil and let nature take over, or burry some mushroom mycelium and just forget about it. Nature will always take its own course if we want it or not. If we give it the right building blocks it will do the rest all by itself much as the functions of our bodies are self regulating when in balance.
The yields we reap from our garden is more than just the harvesting of produce, it is the probiotic interaction of soil bacteria with our immun system and mood, while we work our gardens. It is the sunlight, and tan line, we get, soaking up on vitamin D3, to obtain healthy cell hemostasis our bodies cell need.
Or just the happiness we harness from indulging and immersing ourselves in the naturally flowing energies, lights, smells and noises our garden is giving back to us.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15151947
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1868963/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452207001510?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/
Principel 4. – Apply Self-regulation and Accept Feedback
We need to encourage appropriate activity and behavior to ensure that systems can continue to function well. Feedback either positive or negative is is often slow emerging and as thus, when we get the feedback, it is important to act upon it to integrate positive change. This is applicable to your garden beds and the system around it; your personal space and social systems; the political systems that often times inhibit change; and the climate systems that are unavoidably driven by the input we feed it.
Principle 5. – Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services
Simply:
-Reduce – Reuse -Recycle -Repair -Repurpose
“Without Recycled Pallets, Woodchips and Tree Logs, I wouldn’t have a garden”
Tom; Foods-From-S.O.I.L.
Principle 6. – Produce No Waste
“Produce no waste” is the active acknowledgement of the waste we do produce as as single person or a family, monitoring our waste accumulation throughout the daily habits in our lives. It is the active approach of waste reduction and feeding clean waste such as Cardboard, Paper, and food scraps back to the earth. Installing Grey water systems so the our waste water becomes incorporated in the structure of life. It is the Refillable coffee cup, the carry on Water bottle, and the Fabric Grocery bag we carry around.
Principle 7.– Design From Patterns to Details
In our worlds it is hard to step back sometimes and take in the big picture. Nature itself reflects much of self-sufficient engineering structure. Applying this principle can be applied in your garden by looking at the natural water flow, natural soil build up and how the ecosystem has established itself. It can be applied to social structures and your personal life. But we can also project it on the world economy, politics and climate change.
The premis is simple: start by establishing a healthy base of all important essencial parts of a system and imply structured detailed change, in increments, to define detail; As such, creating harmony instead of stressors.
“Life is universally understood to require a source of free energy and mechanisms with which to harness it. Re-markably, the converse may also be true: the continuous generation of sources of free energy by abiotic processes may have forced life into existence as a means to alleviate the buildup of free energy stresses.”
– Harold Morrowitz, Eric Smith; Energy flow and the organization of life
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220657685_Energy_flow_and_the_organization_of_life
Priciple 8.– Integrate Rather Than Segregate
Every System needs sybiosis to be efficient. By considering a system based approach in our garden, with our body, or in our daily lifes and society, we can see how energy flows, is used then recycled or discarded. By arrangeing a system with symbiosis in mind, we consider all the aspect flowing energy within a system and can ensure the system works in unity. As such it generates the best output possible, with the least input possible, and the least impact on the environment.
For this reason western medicine has no answers for so many patient only looking at parts of the body; the Food and Pharma Industry only looking at parts of the plants or using single molecules of it, creating obesity, diabetes and medication side effect. Where as systems approached medicine, incorporating our daily foods and type of bodily systems, and the interaction of all the parts in play have much greater rates at beating chronic health conditions. In functional medicine, holistic medicine/naturopathic, Ayurvedic, Chinese or Indigenous medicine such an approach is taken and has been proven long before western medicine came into existence.
Principle 9. – Use Small and Slow Solutions
To reach symbiosis we need to implement the built of a system out of engineering perspective. A house needs a foundation, walls and, a roof to withstand natural forces, A body need sufficient nutrients, minerals, vitamins, ect. to function well and ward off viruses and bacteria, as well does your garden!
By building your garden; your future food source, up over time. small changes are easier implemented, less time consuming to maintain and have greater output capacity in the longrun.
In short: You will get more for less if you let nature do what it does best!
Principle 10.– Use and Value Diversity
Diversity does not only give an abundance on recourses it is also vital for the proper functioning of any ecosystem. Mono cropping, depletes the soil creating imbalance and toxicities. Racism suppresses cultural diversity and promotes White nationalism, ISIS and the split between Palestine and Jerusalem. Unstained capitalism suppresses the flow of currencies, eliminating middle classes and creating more poverty around the globe,
No matter what system we look at the value of diversity brings a system to thieve and to life. In your garden the application of companion planting creates symbiosis in the rootzone, with active bacteria, fungi and microorganism working for best osmotic exchange of nutrients. It creates symbiosis on a structural leaf level by giving shade, keeping the ground moist, by helping each other as trellis. Or by creating fragrances, calling in help from beneficial insect. That way plant are also able to chat with one and another sending waring signals through the mycelium in the ground or through the fragrance of flowers and foliage.
Principle 11.– Use Edges and Value the Marginal
Considering a forest and the medow; on the edge of it all, is where life happens. That is where all the herbs grow too weak for all day sunlight, that is where dear feed during the break of day, and it is the space where plant interact on multiple levels. Out of this perspective a creation of more such edges in our garden can have the most positive impact on the ecosystem.
This principle is implemented as easy as planting leafy greens in the shady corner where nothing else will grow, supplying your household with greens year round. Or to create cover crops to keep your garden beds always moist. Growing herbs in those spots helps deter pests from your crops. It is also ideal for mycelium to thieve supplying the soil biota with an additional communication system and nutrients.
Principle 12.– Creatively Use and Respond to Change
As our Native Indigenous People of these Lands have followed for centuries, we need to get back to applying the rule of the “7th Generation Philosophy”.
It is not about the hear and now it is about what we do for the 7th generation ahead of us. This perspective is in unison with the permaculture principles. Create sustainable spaces around yourself that are able to nourish yourself, your family and your community. Every Change comes with consequences and it is upon us to change towards the sustainability of all life on this planet.
Only through observation we can know what changes a system needs to implement sustainability. Without observation and interaction no system is sustainable in the longrun.
Creating and maintain sustainability on multiple levels by considering the impact of our daily doings through observation and interaction closes the loop in the Permaculture Phylosophy.
“We can teach philosophy by teaching gardening, but we cannot teach gardening by teaching philosophy.” — Bill Mollison