permaculture

permaculture, worldwide holistic agricultural and land management design approach that attempts to mimic patterns found in surrounding natural ecosystems to reduce waste, prevent pollution, maximize sustainability, protect wildlife, and improve the land’s resiliency and biodiversity. In practice, permaculture aims to raise food and use the land in a supportable, nondestructive manner, and it often extends into a philosophy that prescribes a way of living. Adhering to this ethical framework can be achieved through combining several tenets of design and engineering with thoughtful land use, recycling, gardening with crop rotation and rainwater harvesting, renewable energy use, and low-impact livestock farming. Bruce Charles (“Bill”) Mollison, an Australian biogeography and environmental psychology professor, coined the term permaculture, a portmanteau of permanent and agriculture, in 1978. As of the early 21st century, permaculture was practiced by more than three million people in 140 countries.

Goals and practices

The goal of permaculture is responsible production and land stewardship and sustainable agriculture. Those who practice permaculture argue that by shifting their focus toward production and limiting consumption, people can reduce their own ecological impact on the land, the food system, and the energy grid and extend Earth’s limited natural resources for future generations, with the added benefit of maintaining plant and animal habitats. Practitioners note that living according to such a philosophy can be applied on a large scale. For example, planned real estate developments can be designed as ecovillages—that is, planned communities with dwellings built and operated with sustainable materials, renewable energy resources, and centrally located farms or community-supported gardens. Permaculture can also be applied on an individual scale, with small garden plots in suburban backyards.

Some of the ideas of permaculture involve combining sustainable architecture and agroforestry with garden planning that includes companion and succession planting, soil fertility monitoring, rotational grazing, and incorporating renewable energy, such as using animal manure as the feedstock for a biogas digester. Wherever possible, various elements in the design should serve multiple functions. Raising chickens, for example, can provide eggs, meat, pest control, and soil enrichment: as they range throughout the garden, the birds dig, scratch, and till the soil, and their waste is a good source of nitrogen, which can be composted for use as fertilizer. Closed-loop agriculture, or zero-waste farming, is often cited as a goal of permaculture—by returning all the materials and nutrients used to produce plants and animals for human consumption to the soil, usually through composting or feeding plant excess to animals. This ensures that the soil stays healthy and will be able to produce crops in the future.

Critiques of permaculture

Critics of permaculture point out that it is unreasonable to expect most people—especially those in densely populated areas—to have the space, equipment, and time to raise their own food. In addition, some aspects of permaculture may be difficult to apply on an individual scale within an urban centre, such as human-waste composting projects, which may run afoul of municipal codes. Some elements—such as aquaculture or biogas digester systems—have start-up costs that can be prohibitively expensive. Some critics also note that high labour requirements and the prospect of lower crop yields may make permaculture inefficient economically, especially when competing with contemporary large-scale resource-intensive industrial farming (see also intensive agriculture).

Origins

Mollison and David Holmgren, a graduate student at the University of Tasmania, first conceptualized permaculture and established the movement’s principles in their book Permaculture One in 1978. In his research, Mollison observed patterns of interplay between human beings, agriculture, and the environment—inspired by the way Indigenous and Aboriginal subsistence farmers worked in harmony with nature, which stood in contrast to modern industrial agriculture. Mollison went on to found the Permaculture Institute, in The Channon, New South Wales, Australia, in 1979. Mollison’s best-known work is Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual (1988), which is still used as a reference text. Other influential works include Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (2002) by David Holmgren and The Permaculture Way: Practical Ways to Create a Self-Sustaining World (1992) by Graham Bell.