Research Grant for Permaculture Explainer Video

 

This video was presented last November 2 at The Green Unconference 2021. Click here to watch.

Mainstreaming Permaculture: A Brief Overview

 

Permaculture has been popularized in different forms of traditional media such as books and magazines. Examples include Mollison and Holmgren’s groundbreaking “Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements” (1981), Mollison’s “Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual” (1988), Holmgren’s “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability” (2002), and “Permaculture Magazine,” a quarterly magazine published by Permanent Publications in the United Kingdom. Other popular titles include “Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture” by Toby Hemenway (2001); and “Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture” by Rosemary Morrow (1994). 

According to a bibliometric review of permaculture literature from 1978 to 2013 by Ferguson and Lovell in the publication, “Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview. A Review” (2013), journal articles make up the majority of publications (50) followed by graduate thesis (46) and books (41). It is worth noting though that majority of literature were not written by scientists, although results show that the share of scholarly work and t-reviewed articles have grown over time from 33% (1978-1982) to 71% (2008-2013).  It was only in the early 2010s when permaculture designers started uploading content on new media platforms, such as YouTube, making it more accessible to the masses through computers and mobile devices. Examples of YouTube channels are “Discover Permaculture with Geoff Lawton” (August 24, 2015) and the “Oregon State University E-campus” (first permaculture-related content was uploaded on September 19, 2016). The UMASS permaculture documentary video that was uploaded in 2014 now has 166,000 views. Together with the creation of Facebook groups (2010) and the founding of Instagram (2010) and Pinterest (2010), interest in permaculture suddenly grew. There are currently 632,921 Instagram posts using the hashtag #permaculture, while Pinterest has almost a thousand permaculture designs ‘pinned’ on boards as of this writing. 

References

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS., S.T. LOVELL. 2013. Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

HOLMGREN, DAVID. 2002. Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Permanent Publications. Australia.

MOLLISON, BILL. 1988. Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. Australia. Tagari Publications.

Permaculture and Food Security: A Brief Overview

According to Koohafkan et al in “Green Agriculture: Foundations for Biodiverse, Resilient and Productive Agricultural Systems” (2011), there are many interpretations as to how sustainable agriculture would be able to provide enough food in an age of climate change, increasing energy costs, social unrest, financial instability and increasing environmental degradation. Food security is a complex issue that warrants a creative solution through innovation and cooperation.  Permaculture is one such solution. But it remains in the fringes of major topics in the academe in spite of its appeal and novelty. Permaculture’s ‘novelty production’ is highly dependent on dynamic learning processes that are being enabled by the cooperation of social networks as discussed by Charao-Marques et al. in “Constructing Sociotechnical Transitions Toward Sustainable Agriculture: Lessons from Ecological Production of Medicinal Plants in Southern Brazil” (2010). It is not only the methods of design that are worth studying but also the people who practice it. What are their motivations? How were they able to grasp a concept such as permaculture and integrate it into their lives?  Food security is not just about producing more food. At the end of the day, it is all about collective action, or community action, to be more precise. It is a situation wherein people are sharing and working together, caring for one another and protecting the Earth.     

The issue of food security in permaculture is akin to the concept of food sovereignty according to Peeters in “Permaculture as Alternative Agriculture” (2011). It is commonly understood by many as the ability to provide food for one’s family and the community by growing your own food in your own backyard. In 1996, La Via Campesina defined the concept of food sovereignty as “the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (Fernandez et al., 2012). Supplying the Earth’s growing population with a sufficient amount of food is often viewed as a challenge for the agriculture sector. True enough, farmers are indeed the managers of global useable lands that shape the Earth’s landscape today and in the next several decades to come (Lovell, et al., 2010). 

Agricultural activities all over the world will continue to impact the environment and the ecosystems services that it provides at varying scales according to Lovell, et al. in “Integrating Agroecology and Landscape Multifunctionality in Vermont: An Evolving Framework to Evaluate the Design of Agroecosystems” (2010). Dogliotti et al. reports in “Designing sustainable agricultural production systems for a changing world: Methods and applications. Agricultural Systems” (2014) that in the next 40 years, the agriculture industry needs to increase food production by at least 70 percent on the same arable lands. Food security is often viewed as an issue of production. Though the agriculture sector’s current production schemes are efficient at producing food, it places the natural and social environments under a lot of stress as a consequence. Given this scenario, it is necessary to try new alternatives without compromising the health of these ecosystems. Currently, small-scale farming market systems compete with the high labor productivity of specialized and mechanized industrial farming systems according to a study by Ferguson and Lovell entitled, “Livelihoods and production diversity on U.S. permaculture farms” (2017). As a worldview shared in the grassroots movement, permaculture connects food insecurity to the current food production systems’ downplaying of innovation by smallholder farmers as described by Millner in “The Right to Food is Nature too: Food Justice and Everyday Environmental Expertise in the Salvadoran Permaculture Movement” (2016) and even backyard and small-scale gardeners.

It is important to remember that food security is not simply an issue of production—of who produces more and of better quality.  It is also a political issue that deals with deciding which system of production is prioritized. Sustainable food systems follow a bottom-up approach and yet the top-down agrarian development programs for farmers run in conflict with their strategy (Millner, 2016). There is an existing dichotomy in the system today that labels one side as ‘knowers and innovators’ while the other is marginalized simply as ‘passive recipients’ (Millner, 2016) referring to the smallholder farmers and backyard food growers. Food security is a complicated issue entangled in the intricacies of politics, the complexities of the unpredictable bio-physical environment, and the beauty of the natural world. Nonetheless, steps have to be taken for a paradigm shift or what Ferguson and Lovell calls as a “transition to agroecological production” in their study, “Diversification and Labor Productivity on US Permaculture Farms” (2013).

References

CHARAO-MARQUES, FLAVIA, F.K. DAL SOGLIO, J.D. VAN DER PLOEG. 2010. Constructing Sociotechnical Transitions Toward Sustainable Agriculture: Lessons from Ecological Production of Medicinal Plants in Southern Brazil. HAL Archives.

DOGLIOTTI, SANTIAGO, D. RODRIGUEZ, P. TITTONELL, S. LOPEZ-RIDAURA, W. ROSSING. 2014. Designing sustainable agricultural production systems for a changing world: Methods and applications. Agricultural Systems, Volume 126, Pages 1-86 (April 2014)

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS, S.T. LOVELL. 2017. Livelihoods and production diversity on U.S. permaculture farms. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, Volume 41, 2017 – Issue 6.

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS., S.T. LOVELL. 2013. Diversification and Labor Productivity on US Permaculture Farms. Cambridge Core.

FERNANDEZ, MARGARITA, K. GOODALL, M. OLSON, V.E. Mendez. 2012. Agroecology and Alternative Agri-Food Movements in the United States: Toward a Sustainable Agri-Food System. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/harvestplus-hidden-hunger-biofortification-malnutr/

KOOHAFKAN, PARVIZ., M.A. Altieri, E.H. GIMENEZ. 2011. Green Agriculture: Foundations for Biodiverse, Resilient and Productive Agricultural Systems. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. 

LOVELL, SARAH TAYLOR, S. DESANTIS, C.A. NATHAN, M.B. OLSON, V.E. MENDEZ, H.C. KOMINAMI, DL ERICKSON, K.S. MORRIS, W.B. MORRIS. 2010. Integrating Agroecology and Landscape Multifunctionality in Vermont: An Evolving Framework to Evaluate the Design of Agroecosystems. Agricultural Systems.

MILLNER, NAOMI. 2016. The Right to Food is Nature too: Food Justice and Everyday Environmental Expertise in the Salvadoran Permaculture Movement. International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. 

PEETERS, BERT. 2011. Permaculture as Alternative Agriculture. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies.

Permaculture Designs & Practices (Pt. 3): Methods of Design

 

What distinguishes permaculture from other approaches of alternative agriculture is its emphasis on conscious design (Krebs and Bach, 2018).  Design, as a verb, refers to the “intentional transformation or modification of landscape features in a certain area which is expressed as graphic representation, conceptual description, and/or physical manifestation” (Lovell et al, 2010). On the other hand, design, as a noun, refers to “the spatial arrangement of landscape features resulting from the design process, either in the existing state or as a proposed future state” (Lovell et al, 2010). 

A permaculture design is also characterized by the integration of manmade, natural, spatio-temporal, socio-cultural, and economic components of a system recognizing that social systems are not separate from natural or land use systems (Krebs and Bach, 2018). The functional relationships and interconnectedness of the components within the system are the main emphasis of whole-systems design (Mollison, 1988). Ferguson and Lovell (2013) summarize the most important features of planning with the use of permaculture. These include 1) identifying the site characteristics; 2) determining the interaction of individual elements (components) on several levels (scales); and 3) recognizing the spatial arrangements of elements as drivers of multi-functionality. 

The main objective for permaculture designs is to have every component within the system to be multifunctional (Mollison, 1988).  Each of these functions should be supported by a diversity of other components. The diversity of connections strengthens ecological processes and functions of the farm landscape (Mollison, 1992). Design can be modified during actual practice and learning from experience.  It is a continuous and evolving process that is guided by the development and updating of information and skills that comes from observations and experiments from past experiences (Mollison, 1988). Malezieux (2012), discussed a three-step framework that is a common practice in permaculture: 1) observation of natural processes in the ecosystem; 2) development and experimentation of new techniques; and 3) implementation of new techniques.

According to Mollison in “Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual” (1992), permaculture design has four different components: techniques, strategies, materials and assemblies. Each component is defined as the following:

1. Techniques - a ‘one-dimensional’ concept which focuses on the ‘how’ of doing something.

2. Strategies - a temporal aspect of technique which is a means used in applying a technique to achieve a future goal.

3. Materials - refers to physical and natural resources which include implements, tools and technologies.

4. Assemblies - a component which incorporates technologies, structures, plants and animals in a design.

Permaculture design is guided by three core ethics: 1) care for the Earth, 2) care for people, and 3) fair share (Mollison, 1992). These three ethics are universally shared by all permaculture designers albeit varying in the phrasing of this moral code. Although permaculture ethics were not explicitly stated in early permaculture text (Holmgren, 2002), these were later narrowed down to three by Mollison and Holmgren as a result of their research in community ethics as practiced by religious groups and cooperatives (Holmgren, 2002). The ethics were used as a permaculture teaching tool which carried a universal message that is highly relatable to all cultures. This is especially true to indigenous peoples all over the world who are more attuned to the rhythms of nature compared to other groups of people. These ethics are also the basis for decision-making within a permaculture design system. 

The three ethics of permaculture serve as the ethical and moral foundation in addressing design decisions and challenges in the real world. The essence of these ethics is then operationalized into design principles. Different authors have variations of these principles. Mollison provided 5 principles of design in “Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual” (1988); Holmgren expanded Mollison’s into 12 in “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability” (2002); and Peeters et al combined their ideas into his own set of 12 ‘natural laws’ of design in “Systems Thinking – An Ecological Process” (2011). 

Among the three, Holmgren’s version has been adopted and modified by many practitioners. He enumerated the following design principles: 1) observe and interact; 2) catch and store energy; 3) obtain a yield; 4) apply self-regulation and feedback; 5) use renewable resources; 6) produce no waste; 7) design from pattern to details; 8) integrate rather than segregate; 9) use small and slow solutions; 10); use and value diversity; 11) use the edges; and 12) creatively use and respond to change. 

In a thesis entitled, “An Instructional Module on Permaculture Design Theory for landscape Architecture Student” (2016), Althouse categorized these twelve design principles into five design processes in the perspective of landscape architecture: 

1) inventory and analysis (principles 1, 4, 5); 

2) determine your needs (principles 2, 3, 6); 

3) functional diagrams (principles 7, 8); 

4) concept designs (principles 9, 10, 11); 

5) final design (principle 12).

Aside from the design principles, permaculture designers use several methodologies for designing a project. Mollison (1988) enumerates ten methods of design as follows: 

1) design by listing characteristics of components (analysis); 

2) design by expanding on direct observations of a site (observation); 

3) design by adopting lessons learned from nature; 

4) design as a selection of options or pathways based on decisions (options and decisions); 

5) design by map overlay (data overlay); 

6) design by assessing the results of random assemblies (random assembly); 

7) design for work places (flow diagrams); 

8) design by the application of a master pattern (zone and sector analysis); 

9) zoning of information and ethics; and 

10) incremental design. 

References

ALTHOUSE, KENI. 2016. An Instructional Module on Permaculture Design Theory for Landscape Architecture Students. Utah State University.

KREBS, JULIUS, S. BACH. 2018. Permaculture—Scientific Evidence of Principles for the Agroecological Design of Farming Systems. Sustainability (Switzerland), MDPI AG, 2018 vol: 10 (9).

HOLMGREN, DAVID. 2002. Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Permanent Publications. Australia.

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS., S.T. LOVELL. 2013. Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

MALEZIEUX, ERIC. 2012. Designing cropping systems from nature. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 2012, 32, 15–29.

MOLLISON, BILL. 1988. Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. Australia. Tagari Publications.

Permaculture Designs & Practices (Pt. 2): Ecological Foundations

 

The principles of permaculture design are deeply rooted in ecology with most of its ideas inspired by the works of ecologist Howard T. Odum on energy flows and complex living systems. In “Permaculture for agroecology: design, movement, practice, and worldview. A review” (2013) Ferguson and Lovell enumerated the agroecological principles (and its allied fields) that provided scientific basis for the permaculture principles published by Mollison (1988), Mollison and Slay (1997), and Holmgren (2004).   The comparison of principles is listed in the table below:

Permaculture Principles	Agroecology and Related Principles
DIVERSITY
Diversity, Plant Stacking & Time Stacking (Mollison, 1988; Mollison & Slay, 1997)     Use and Value Diversity (Holmgren, 2004)	Species and genetic diversification of the agroecosystem in time and space (Reijntjes et al., 1992)   Contain pests through complex trophic levels (Malezieux, 2011)   Maintain landscape heterogeneity and capture environmental gradients (Fischer et al., 2008)
INTERACTION
Edge Effects (Mollison, 1988), Use edges and value the marginal (Holmgren, 2004)   Everything gardens (Mollison, 1988)   Relative location (Mollison & Slay, 1997)   Each important function is supported by many elements (Mollison, 1988), each element performs many functions (Mollison, 1988)	Optimize available resources through synergies between “plants, animals, soil, water, climate and people” (Pretty, 1994, Vandermeer, 1995)   Use complementary functional traits to ensure production and resilience (Malezieux, 2011)   Enhance beneficial biological interactions and synergisms (Reijntjes, et al., 1992)   Enhance recycling of biomass and optimizing nutrient availability and balancing nutrient flow (Reijntjes, et al., 1992)
CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
The problem is the solution (Mollison, 1988)   The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited (or only limited by the imagination and information of the designer) (Mollison, 1988)   Make the least change for the greatest possible effect (Mollison, 1988)	No corollary agroecological principles.
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT
Observe and interact (Holmgren, 2004)   Apply self-regulation and accept feedback (Holmgren, 2004)   Creatively use and respond to change (Holmgren, 2004)   Accelerating succession and evolution (Holmgren, 2004)	Management by experiment (Nudds, 1999)   Mobilize capacity for inquiry (Blann et al., 2003)   Detect and foster novelty (Blann et al., 2003)   Create opportunities for self-organization (Folke et al., 2003)

In support to the review by Ferguson and Lovell (2013), another publication entitled, “Permaculture—Scientific Evidence of Principles for the Agroecological Design of Farming Systems” by Krebs and Bach (2018) discussed the scientific evidence behind Holmgren’s permaculture design principles (2004). Their findings are reported in the table below:

Principle	Approach	Relation	Examples with Evidence
Observe and Interact	Bottom-up	Design process, management	Adaptive management
Catch and Store Energy	Bottom-up	Agroecosystem structure	Organic mulch application Rainwater harvesting measures Woody elements in agriculture
Obtain a Yield	Bottom-up	Design process, management	Emergy evaluation Ecosystems services concept
Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback	Bottom-up	Agroecosystem structure	Enhancement of regulating ecosystem services Natural habitats in agricultural landscapes Wildflower strips
Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services	Bottom-up	Agroecosystem structure	Legumes and animal manure as nutrient source Mycorrhizal fungi
Produce no Waste	Bottom-up	Agroecosystem structure	Animal manure Human excreta Waste products as animal feed
Design from Patterns to Details	Top-down	Agroecosystem structure, Design process	Natural ecosystem mimicry Use of grazing animals in cold and dry climates Structurally complex agroforests in tropical climates
Integrate Rather than Segregate	top-down	Agroecosystem structure	Integration of livestock in corn cropping Cereals and canola used for forage and grain harvest Integration of fish in rice cropping Polyculture (crops)
Use Small and Slow Solutions	top-down	Agroecosystem structure	Inverse productivity-size relationship Agroforestry systems
Use and Value Diversity	top-down	Agroecosystem structure	Plant species diversity Pollinator diversity Habitat diversity Diversified farming systems
Use Edges and Value the Marginal	top-down	Agroecosystem structure	High field border density Field margins Edges with forests
Creatively Use and Respond to Change	top-down	Design process, management	Decision-making under uncertainty Increase ecological resilience Directed natural succession

References

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS., S.T. LOVELL. 2013. Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

KREBS, JULIUS, S. BACH. 2018. Permaculture—Scientific Evidence of Principles for the Agroecological Design of Farming Systems. Sustainability (Switzerland), MDPI AG, 2018 vol: 10 (9).

HOLMGREN, DAVID. 2004. Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Permanent Publications. Australia.

Permaculture Designs & Practices (Pt. 1): Environmental Degradation

The widespread practice of modern industrial farming has led to the homogenization or simplification (Krebs and Bach, 2018) of landscapes. According to a study by Lanz et. al entitled “The Expansion of Modern Agriculture and Global Biodiversity Decline: An Integrated Assessment” (2018), this translates to the loss of global biodiversity and subsequent habitat loss.  According to a study by Firbank, et al., “Assessing the impacts of agricultural intensification on biodiversity: a British perspective”  (2007), biodiversity loss also affects the functioning of ecosystems services like pest control in the form of natural predator-prey relationships, pollination as a result of fauna-flora interactions, and nutrient cycling which contributes to the health and well-being of people in the long term as described by Tscharntke et al (2005) in “Landscape perspectives on agricultural intensification and biodiversity—Ecosystem service management.” However, with the use of permaculture as a framework, agricultural landscapes can become functionally complex in terms of regulatory, habitat, production, and information functions (de Groot et al (2002), simply because with such a framework, a set of principles is made available to create and maintain resilient agroecological systems according to a research by Krebs and Bach (2018) justifying the scientific foundations of permaculture in “Permaculture—Scientific Evidence of Principles for the Agroecological Design of Farming Systems.”

In actual practice all over the world, many studies provide evidence that farming systems that were designed using permaculture have the following characteristics: a) grow organic crops and livestock (Bethany, 2017) ; b) require less inputs (resources are cycled in a closed system); c) establish dense food forests (Roberts, 2017); d) have a high biodiversity (Roberts, 2017); e) apply popular management strategies such as intercropping (Engels, 2016); f) invest in perennial trees (Roberts, 2017); g) use appropriate technology (Corker and Barker, 2012); and h) maximize precipitation using rainwater harvesting (Roberts, 2017). Recent studies have also shown that the application of permaculture is already broadening its scope to include a) rural development (Rivett et al, 2018); b) climate change and social unrest (Karim, 2018); c) marine permaculture array technology (von Herzen, et al, 2017); d) the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (Isaac, 2016), and over-all social systems in general (Krebs and Bach, 2018). 

Permaculture can also be viewed as a type of “new ecology” which focuses on meaningful interventions according to Hobbs et al. in “Intervention Ecology: Applying Ecology Science in the Twenty-First Century” (2011). Interventions are not limited to agriculture but also extend to all social structures and institutions. A study in Japan by Chakroun (2019) points out that permaculture is unique in such a way that it merges internationally-shared sustainable agriculture goals with the socio-cultural components of a sustainable lifestyle. Through the years, permaculture has been imagined in different ways but with a shared emphasis on design and ecology. 

Thus, permaculture was defined in published work as a systems design approach directly working with nature (McManus, 2010);  a design system for sustainable human habitats, rooted in ethics of environmentalism, humanism and equity (Henfrey, 2017); a design system guided by the principles of nature (Peeters, 2011);  a holistic system of design that promotes the harmonious relationship between humans and nature (Caraway, 2018); and an agro-ecological systematic design tradition for maximizing the sustained flourishing of resource renewing cycles (Cassel, 2016).

References

ALTHOUSE, KENI. 2016. An Instructional Module on Permaculture Design Theory for Landscape Architecture Students. Utah State University.

ALTIERI, MIGUEL. 1995. Agroecology: the science of sustainable agriculture. Westview Press, 1995. 433 pp Softbound.

ALTIERI, MIGUEL. 1989. Agroecology: A new research and development paradigm for world agriculture. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, Volume 27, Issues1-4, November 1989, Pages 37-46.

ALTIERI, MIGUEL. 2002. Agroecology: the science of natural resource management for poor farmers in marginal environments. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, Volume 93, Issues 1-3, December 2002, Pages 1-24. 

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BRADLEY, PARKER, A. HILL, L. KIRKER, A. VAN HOUTEN, J. LAMY, J. KENNEY, L. KUZMITCH. Habitat Reforestation Through Permaculture and Agroforestry in Southern Belize. Plymouth State University.

CARAWAY, ROSE. 2018. The Spiritual Dimensions of the Permaculture Movement in Cuba. November 2018, Religions 9(11):342.

CASSEL, JOHN BENJAMIN. 2016. Permaculture Assessment: Process for Reliable Flourishing. Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium.

CHAKROUN, LEILA. 2019. Cultivating Concrete Utopia: Understanding How Japan's Permaculture Experiments are Shaping a Political Vision of Sustainable Living. July 2019. Conference: Asian Conference for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (ACSEE) at: Tokyo, Japan. Volume: ISSN: 2186-2311.

CHARAO-MARQUES, FLAVIA, F.K. DAL SOGLIO, J.D. VAN DER PLOEG. 2010. Constructing Sociotechnical Transitions Toward Sustainable Agriculture: Lessons from Ecological Production of Medicinal Plants in Southern Brazil. HAL Archives.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 2015. Permaculture Design Series. College of Agriculture and Life Science.

DE GROOT, RUDOLF S., M.A. WILSON, R.M.J. BOUMANS. 2002. A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services. Ecological Economics, Volume 41, Issue 3, June 2002, Pages 393-408.

DOGLIOTTI, SANTIAGO, D. RODRIGUEZ, P. TITTONELL, S. LOPEZ-RIDAURA, W. ROSSING. 2014. Designing sustainable agricultural production systems for a changing world: Methods and applications. Agricultural Systems, Volume 126, Pages 1-86 (April 2014)

ENGELS, JONATHON. 2016. What it is, what it isn’t, and why we do it. Permaculture Research Institute. Retrieved from https://permaculturenews.org/2016/08/12/intercropping-what-it-is-what-it-isnt-and-why-we-do-it/.

FADAEE, SIMIN. 2019. The permaculture movement in India: a social movement with Southern characteristics. Social Movement Studies, Volume 18, 2019 – Issue 6.

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS., S.T. LOVELL. 2013. Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS., S.T. LOVELL. 2013. Diversification and Labor Productivity on US Permaculture Farms. Cambridge Core.

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Linking Permaculture with the Organic Agriculture Movement in the Philippines: A Literature Review (2018)

Permaculture is a relatively new concept in the Philippine agriculture and development sectors. When and where it was exactly introduced is yet to be known.  The lack of literature on the history of permaculture in the Philippines has proved difficult in identifying the actors involved in the history of the movement. As a result of this knowledge gap, there is still no published data regarding the profile of its adopters and the number of its practitioners in the country. Fortunately, we can gain insight into the permaculture movement by reviewing other sustainable (or alternative) farming systems, such as organic agriculture in particular. The author’s experience with local permaculture practitioners led to the hypothesis that the organic agriculture movement may have prepared the groundwork for permaculture to take root in the country. The two approaches are closely related since permaculture practitioners consider organic as the primary means of crop production within a permaculture design system.

Prior to the 1970s, the Philippines has been growing crops using traditional methods of farming (Lesaca, 2012 as cited by Suner et al, 2016) which can be considered ‘organic’ in today’s standards. Then global food security threats paved the way for a technological breakthrough in agriculture research and industry called the Green Revolution (Suner et al, 2016). After decades of ‘conventional’ or ‘industrial’ farming (Maghirang et al., 2013), landscapes began to change and the effects were damaging to both people and the environment. We can hypothesize that permaculture may have arrived in the 1980s at the time when non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and farmers’ groups began criticizing the Green Revolution and the effects of chemical farming on health and the environment. These sentiments were articulated by the Farmers Assistance Board in “Profits for Poison” by Noel Mondejar in 1980 and “The Miracle that Never Was” by the Agency for Community Education and Service in the mid-80s (Carating and Tejada, 2012). During this decade, NGOs advocated for a shift to traditional ways and promoted organic farming (Suner at el, 2016) in an attempt to restore farming communities and agricultural landscapes. It is also probable that permaculture may have entered the sustainable agriculture conversation in the 1990s when the low-external-input-sustainable-agriculture (LEISA) global movement gained traction in the Philippines through the formation of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the Philippine Forum for Sustainable Agriculture (Carating and Tejada, 2012). Though there is no published evidence regarding the link between LEISA and permaculture in the country, the arrival of the former has helped push the larger sustainable agriculture agenda forward.

The earliest piece of published evidence of Filipino participation in the permaculture movement is found in the conference proceedings of the Sixth International Permaculture Conference in Perth, Australia in 1996. University of the Philippines Los Banos-College of Agriculture (UPLB-CA) professor, Teodoro Mendoza, presented a paper in the conference entitled, “Upscaling the Adoption of Ecologically Sound Agriculture in the Philippines” which promoted sustainable agriculture among rice farmers (Permaculture Association of Western Australia Inc., 1996). Coincidentally, just four years later, the Philippine Permaculture Association (PPA) was formed in 2000. 

In an interview conducted by the author in 2018 with PPA director, Bert Peeters, it was revealed that permaculture was introduced to him by a Columban priest named Fr. John Leydon of the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) in the late 1990s. It was Peeters, a product of PRI-Australia in 2000, who conducted possibly the first Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course in 2008 at Cabiokid Foundation Inc. in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija. In 2010, graduates of the PDC course and the PPA organized the 1st Philippine Permaculture Convergence in Cebu. In the same year, the national government finally mainstreamed organic agriculture by implementing RA 10068 or the Organic Agriculture Act of 2010 through the Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Agriculture Program (Maghirang et al., 2013). 

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