Perspectives of Permaculture: A Literature Review

Main text: Permaculture in the Philippines: Landscape Structure, Practices, and Perspectives

Permaculture is commonly considered to be a subcategory of sustainable agriculture (Maghirang et al., 2013). Therefore, it can be a valuable toolkit for meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) as permaculture ethics directly address sustainability’s ‘triple bottom line’ of social, economic, and environmental welfare (Frankel-Goldwater, 2012). Beyond the SDGs, permaculture was intended by its proponents to be a radical reimagination of conventional agriculture in which sustainable food production is an outcome of proactive individual action from the grassroots (Crosby et al., 2014). Nevertheless, eventual structural change (socio-political) is also viewed as necessary by its adherents.  Socio-cultural and environmental contexts have provided diversity in how permaculture is viewed by its practitioners. A review of some examples of permaculture communities in other countries provides clues on their perspectives of permaculture. 

Abdala and Mocellin (2010) studied permaculture practitioners in two ecovillages in Brazil, Arca Verde and Karaguata. These were identified to be composed of middle-class professionals (i.e. journalist, teacher, medical doctor, biologist, etc.) who chose to relocate from the city for practical reasons and experiment on communal and ecological living. One respondent even described himself as a ‘wanderer’ implying the privilege of mobility. The small communities were described to have simple and utopian lifestyles. It was also reported by the author that some political perspectives of the villagers have Marxist undertones with regards to social commentary on issues related to factory labor and division of surplus. The opportunity to ‘experiment’ on alternative lifestyles is in itself a privilege of the middle-class. Though not as financially stable as their counterparts in the city, their reliance on their knowledge capital gives them a safety net and distinct advantage over poor rural folk who don’t have the same opportunities. 

The communitarian lifestyle of ecovillage permaculture practitioners in Brazil demonstrated altruistic values (Abdala & Mocellin, 2010). Their advanced knowledge in sustainable consumption habits is a manifestation of the new consumption communities (NCC) phenomenon—defined as a group of localized people that oppose multinational corporations (Abdala & Mocellin, 2010). But apart from intentionally embracing an eco-centric lifestyle through simple communal living, their motivations were not yet clear. Hence, how long they will be able to maintain this lifestyle and perspective is subject for further research.

Brawner (2015) in her case study of villages in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) reinforced the permaculture-based ‘ecovillage’ model from a different cultural perspective. Instead of establishing ‘intentional communities’ for alternative communal living like in Brazil, permaculture existed in CEE as part of well-established traditional towns in which networks of gardens, villages, forests, and irrigation systems were already embedded into the socio-ecological landscape. Yet revisiting past values and ‘reimagining progress’ have met much resistance from older generations as they viewed permaculture as retrograde. This perspective has hindered the assimilation of permaculture principles into public policy. Practitioners continue to insist that permaculture can be a platform for the marriage of traditional practices with contemporary scientific knowledge thus redefining the trajectory of progress. The sustainability of such a model rooted in culture and tradition can only be hindered by opposing perspectives of development upheld by those in the position of power. A similar study by Kelly-Bisson (2013) in Canada followed a group called Permaculture Ottawa which resisted the neoliberal management of the environment.  

Kenis and Mathijs (2014) studied a permaculture-based network called Transition Towns in Belgium. An alternative lifestyle concept that originated in the United Kingdom, Transition Towns promoted the creation of resilient local communities and used a collective approach to affect behavioral change. It viewed localism or small-scale local economies as a sustainable alternative to globalization. One popular practice in these communities is community-supported agriculture (CSA)--a ‘shared risk’ market model that partners consumers with local farmers (Fernandez et al., 2012). 

In Turkey, Abiral (2019) described the ‘permaculture habitus’ of practitioners living in upper-middle class districts privileged with educational and financial capital. He discussed how permaculture practitioners tend to bring with them residues of their socio-economic privileges into their new ecologically-based dispositions as well as perspectives. These practitioners were described to have a general dislike for organized politics and are attracted to intentional communities such as the Transition Towns movement mentioned earlier.  

In a case study in Melbourne, Australia by Hillis (2011), it was concluded that permaculture appealed mostly to those who have had prior knowledge and experience in sustainable food and alternative agriculture movements. Though permaculture seems to appeal to the intellectual elite because of its philosophical and often utopian view of rural life, Millner’s (2017) studies of peasant farmers in El Salvador demonstrate that it is not an entirely middle-class perspective.

Similarly, the Asian experience of the permaculture movement in Japan sought to find congruence and unity in local culture and sustainable living through what Chakroun (2019) called a ‘concrete utopia’—concrete actions that critique or resist mindsets of a hegemonic society. In such a setting, networks of micro-scale permaculture experiments may be realized in local gardens helping to accelerate the transition to a sustainable form of society. However, scaling up this concrete utopia at the political and territorial level remains a challenge and a subject for further research. 

In the Philippines, since practitioners have yet to be identified, corresponding perspectives on permaculture have yet to be determined as well.  Research on this topic may help in identifying how the Philippine context influences the way permaculture is interpreted and manifested in the design of sustainable agricultural landscapes.

LITERATURE CITED

ABDALA, PAULO R.Z. & G.D.P MOCELLIN. (2010). Ecovillages and permaculture: A reference model for sustainable consumption? Encontro da ANPAD, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 25-29.

ABIRAL, BURGE. (2019). Permaculture and ecological lifestyle: A restricted radicalism. In R. Kinna and U. Gordon (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics, 477-49. Routledge. 

BRAWNER, JUNE. (2015). Permaculture in the margins: Realizing Central European regeneration. Journal of Political Ecology, 22 (1), 429. https://doi.org/ 10.2458/v22i1.21117. 

BUOT, INOCENCIO E. & K. OSUMI. (2004). Satoyama landscape in the Philippines. Journal of Nature Studies, 3, 1-11. 

CARAWAY, ROSE. (2018). The Spiritual Dimensions of the Permaculture Movement in Cuba. Religions, 9 (11), 342. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110342.

CHAKROUN, LEILA. (2019). Cultivating concrete utopia: Understanding how Japan's permaculture experiments are shaping a political vision of sustainable living. The International Academic Forum-Asian Conference for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (ACSEE), Tokyo, Japan, May 20-22.

CHAKROUN, LEILA. & L. DROZ. (2020). Sustainability through landscapes: natural parks, satoyama, and permaculture in Japan. Ecosystems and People, 16 (1), 369-383. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2020.1837244

CROSBY, ALEXANDRA., J. LORBER-KASUNIC, & I.V. ACCARIGI. (2014). Value the edge: Permaculture as counterculture in Australia. M/C Journal, 17 (6). http://journal.media-culture.org.au.

DE GUZMAN, ROWENA P., G.L.M. NELSON, G.N.A. ABRIGO, & R.D.T. BACONGUIS. (2017). Selected organic agricultural organizations’ social networks in the promotion of organic agriculture in Quezon Province, Philippines. Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 5 (2), 64-76. 

DEWEY, C.E., K. HOEKSTRA, K., & N. CARTER, N. (2014). Permaculture: Supports food security and primary education in rural Kenya. Abstract in proceedings of the 2014 Global Development Symposium, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, 4-7 May 2014. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/61849.

EYHORN, FRANK, M. HEEB, & G. WEIDMANN. (n.d.) International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) Training Manual for the Tropics. 

FADAEE, SIMIN. (2019). The Permaculture Movement in India: A Social Movement with Southern Characteristics. Social Movement Studies, 18 (6), 720-734. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2019.1628732. 

FENWICK, TARA & R. EDWARDS. (2010). Actor-network theory in education. London, U.K.: Routledge

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS & S.T. LOVELL. (2014). Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview: A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 34 (2), 251-274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-013-0181-6.

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS & S.T. LOVELL. (2015). Grassroots engagement with transition to sustainability: Diversity and modes of participation in the international permaculture movement. Ecology and Society, 20 (4), 39. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08048-200439.

FERNANDEZ, M., 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, Vol 37(1), 115-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/10440046.2012.735633.

FRANKEL-GOLDWATER, L. (2012). Permaculture as a tool for implementing the UN decade of education for sustainable development. [Master’s Thesis]. New York University, United States. 

FRANKHAM, JO. (2006). Network utopias and alternative entanglements for educational research and practice. Journal of Education Policy, 21 (6), 661-677.

GORUR, RADHIKA. (2017). Towards productive critique of large-scale comparisons in education. Critical Studies in Education, 58(3), 341-355. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1327876.

GRAYSON, RUSS. (2018). The Structure of Permaculture—understanding the network. Medium. https://medium.com/permaculture-3-0/the-structure-of-permaculture-understanding-the-network-b41b5430732d

HALUZA-DELAY, RANDOLPH. & R. BEREZAN. (2010). Permaculture in the city: Ecological habitus and the distributed ecovillage. Localizing Environmental Anthropology. In J. Lockyer and J.R. Veteto (Eds.), Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia: Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages. 

HEADEY, DEREK & O. ECKER. (2013). Rethinking the measurement of food security: From first principles to best practice. Food Security. 5(3), 327-343. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-013-0253-0 

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

HILLIS, DE CHANTAL K. (2011). The wired village: Sustainability, social networking and values in an urban permaculture community. [Master’s Thesis]. Melbourne Graduate School of Education, Australia. http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b4834593.

HIRSCHFELD, S. & R. VAN ACKER. (2019). Permaculture farmers consistently cultivate perennials, crop diversity, landscape heterogeneity and nature conservation. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 35(3), 342-351. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170519000012.

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

ISMAIL, NOR ATIAH & S.M. AFFENDI. (2015). Awareness and acceptability of permaculture in a residential landscape design: A case study of Denai Alam community. Research Journal of Fisheries and Hydrobiology, 10(14), 6-10. 

JANOS, SZILÁGYI ALFRÉD. (2015). The permaculture design in the open-air museum of Szenna. [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Szent Istvan University, Hungary. 

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2019). Actor-network theory. Education, Change, and Development. University of Canterbury. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.526.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Assembling the actors: Exploring the challenges of “system leadership” in education through actor-network theory. Journal of Education Policy, 33(6), 778-792.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Humans, nonhumans and the mediation of workplace learning in the senior school curriculum. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 69 (2), 214-228.

KELLY-BISSON, CHRIS. (2013). Forests for the people: Resisting neoliberalism through permaculture design. [Master’s Thesis]. Carleton University, Canada. 

KENIS ANNELEEN & E. MATHIJS. (2014). (De)politicising the local: The case of the Transition Towns movement in Flanders (Belgium), Journal of Rural Studies, 34, 172-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.01.013.

KREBS, JULIUS & S. BACH. (2018). Permaculture—scientific evidence of principles for the agroecological design of farming systems. Sustainability, 10(9), 3218; https://doi.org/10.3390/su1009321.

KRUGER, ELIZABETH MAY. (2015). Options for Sustainability in Building and Energy: A South African Permaculture Case Study. Energy Procedia, 83, 544-554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.12.174.

LAFFOON, MEGAN. (2016). A quantitative analysis of hugelkultur and its potential application on karst rocky desertified areas in China. [Thesis]. Western Kentucky University, United States. 

LATOUR, BRUNO. (1996). On actor network theory. A few clarifications plus more than a few complications. Soziale Welt, 47, 369-381.

LAW, JOHN. (2009). Actor network theory and material semiotics. In B.S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to social theory (141-158). Wiley-Blackwell.

LOVELL, S.T., 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, 103 (5), 327-341. DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.  

MAGHIRANG, RODEL G., R. DELA CRUZ, & R.L. VILLAREAL. (2013). How sustainable is organic agriculture in the Philippines? Transactions of National Academy of Science and Technology (Philippines), 33 (2), 289-321. 

MALEZIEUX, ERIC. (2012). Designing cropping systems from nature. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 32(1), 15-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150902820354. 

MAYER, ANNE-MARIE. (2019). Nutrition-sensitive outcomes of a permaculture project in Nepal. Field Exchange, 59. Retrieved from www.ennonline.net/fex.  

MCCLEARY, SUSAN. (2016). An introduction and long-term viability of community sustainable agriculture projects within marginalised communities: A food sovereignty study. Fourth World Journal, 14 (2), 79-105. 

MILLNER, NAOMI. (2017). The right to food is nature too: Food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement. Local Economy, 22(6), 764-783. https://doi.org/1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.

MOLLISON, BILL. (1988). Permaculture: A designer’s manual. Australia: Tagari Publications.

MUGWALL, THOMAS. (2017). On the path of untricking Hermes: Adaptation of the design philosophy and methods of permaculture in community engaged art projects. [PhD Thesis] University of Tasmania, Australia. 

NAMULULI, ANASTANSIA MUSANA. (2011). The Potential of Permaculture in Addressing Food Insecurity in Karamoja District, Uganda. [Master’s Thesis]. Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden. 

PEETERS, BERT. (2011). Permaculture as alternative agriculture. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, 26(1-2). https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1556-486X.2008.00007.x.

PERMACULTURE GLOBAL. (2017). Permaculture Worldwide Network. https://permacultureglobal.org/.

PONT, LOUIS-MARIE. (2015). What is permablitz and does it impact on local communities? [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Griffith University School of Environment, Australia. 

PUTRO, RADITYO HARYO. & R. MIYAURA. (2020). Indonesian Permaculture: Factors shaping permaculture farm systems in humid tropical Indonesia. Tropical Agricultural Development, 64 (33), 113-124.

RIVETT, MICHAEL O., A.W. HALCROW, J. SCHMALFUSS, J.A. Stark, J.P. TRUSLOVE, S. KUMWENDA, K.A. HARAWA, M. NHELMA, C. SONGOLA, G.J. WANANGWA, A.V.M. MILLER, & R.M. KALIN. (2017). Local scale water-food nexus: Use of borehole-garden permaculture to realise the full potential of rural water supplies in Malawi. Journal of Environmental Management, 209 354-370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.12.029.

ROBERTS, TOBIAS. (2017). Perennial polycultures and the richness of diversity. https://permaculturenews.org/.

ROTHE, KATJA. (2014). Permaculture design: on the practice of radical imagination. Afterlives of Systems, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.7275/R58913S2. 

THIONG'O, WANGARI. (2017). Food security through permaculture: A case study of Samburu County. [Master’s Thesis] United States International University-Africa, Kenya. 

ULBRICH, RAISSA. (2016). Practising change(s) - Analysing the german niche of permaculture with a social learning perspective to monitor social change in sustainability transitions. [Master’s Thesis]. Leiden University & Delft University of Technology, Germany.

VON HERZEN, BRIAN, T. THEURETZBACHER, J. NEWMAN, M. WEBBER, C. ZHU, J.S. KATZ, & M. RAMASWAMY. (2017). A feasibility study of an integrated air conditioning, desalination and marine permaculture system in Oman. 10th International Conference on Thermal Engineering: Theory and Applications, Muscat, Oman, February 26-28, 2017.

WANG, XUEYU. (2017). A using permaculture to enhance urban food security: An abandoned golf course case study. [Master’s Thesis]. Virginia Tech, United States. 

WHITEFIELD, PATRICK. (2004). Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook for Britain & Other Temperate Climates. Permanent Publications.

The Structure of Permaculture Landscapes: A Literature Review

Main text: Permaculture in the Philippines: Landscape Structure, Practices, and Perspectives

Mollison and Holmgren (1981) defined permaculture as “consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fiber, and energy for provision of local needs.” This systems thinking approach (Peeters, 2011) to designing landscapes gave permaculture landscapes a distinct appearance and function similar to ecosystem mimicry (Malezieux, 2012). In a study of permaculture farms in Indonesia, Putro and Miyauro (2020) reported that one distinguishing feature of a permaculture landscape is its biodiversity which mimics that of a forest ecosystem. Unlike the homogenous landscape of conventional farms that consist of only 1 to 2 main crops in a monoculture design, a permaculture farm has significantly more biodiversity (30-54 plant species) as well as a diversity of farm services and functions being offered (Putro and Miyaura, 2020). Dominated mostly by perennial crops, plant and tree species are used for food, forage, fuelwood, windbreaks, and wildlife habitats. Other studies reported that permaculture farms are characterized by polyculture cropping (Roberts, 2017) using organic farming techniques (Hirschfeld & Van Acker, 2019) and integrated crop-livestock systems (Lovell et al., 2010).  On the other hand, natural greywater treatment systems are applied in urban residential landscapes to grow crops and fruit trees in Malaysia (Ismail and Affendi, 2015) as well as rural communities in Malawi using borehole-garden permaculture (Rivett et al., 2017). 

Another unique feature of permaculture is its farm layout (Putro and Miyaura, 2020) and how landscape components are arranged according to zones (Mollison, 1988).  This strategy for efficient flow of energy and movement patterns has been mentioned in the literature review of several studies (Hemenway, 2009; Whitefield, 2004; Kruger 2015; Hirschfeld & Van Acker, 2019; Bhandari and Bista, 2019) but has yet to be the focus of scientific literature. A probable reason for this is the current trend of most research to focus on the socio-political dimensions of permaculture rather than the biophysical and ecological aspects of the farm landscape. However, a more well-studied topic is the traditional Japanese concept of satoyama landscapes (Buot and Osumi, 2004) which resemble that of permaculture landscapes as pointed out by Chakroun and Droz (2020) in a comparative study of sustainable landscape strategies in Japan. 

There is scientific and ecological evidence to support the validity of practice of permaculture as highlighted by Krebs and Bach (2018). And yet how permaculture landscapes mimic the patterns (Rothe, 2014) and relationships in nature in the design of landscapes should be further investigated in actual case studies of permaculture landscapes as in the case of hugelkultur (Laffoon, 2006), for example, which is a common permaculture design component. Permaculture is even extending its applications to the design of seascapes called ‘marine permaculture’ (Von Herzen et al., 2017).  ‘What kind of patterns are visible and what relationships between landscape components exist?’ are research questions that need to be answered in this study.  In addition to these two issues is the need to further explore how permaculture landscapes can improve the food security of people without compromising the health of the environment.  

A study in a school landscape by Dewey et al. (2014) in Butula, Kenya has reported an improvement in school attendance and academic standing of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) through a long-term permaculture program that provided accessible food sources and livelihood. The program included education on sustainable agriculture, revenue sources from livestock, fish, and tree nurseries, and community gardening with students and teachers. After a year of implementation, 1,200 students were regularly fed with crops in season including maize, beans, rice, vegetables, fruits, and nuts that were grown in the permaculture landscape. Another study in Kenya conducted by Thiong’o (2017) looked into the food security status of pastoralists in the Samburu County landscape. Though permaculture has yet to be practiced, findings of the study suggest that permaculture can harness the advantages of pastoralist culture and become a model for smart farming in arid and semi-arid landscapes. This illustrates how permaculture design principles can be landscape-specific and culturally relevant.

Another example from Africa, in Karamoja, a region in Uganda struggling with poverty and unpredictable rainfall, Namululi (2011) reported that the Karimojong (people of Karamoja) who practiced permaculture in the Abim District (referred to as the Green Warriors) agricultural landscape were more food secure than the conventional farmers of nearby Moroto district. Results of the study revealed that thirty percent (30%) of permaculture practitioners rely on the garden for food while only 8% get their food from food aid.

Shifting to an Asian landscape in Nepal, Mayer (2018) reports on the increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, and pulses of respondents since joining the Himalayan Permaculture Center—a grassroots initiative that capacitates farmers to use permaculture as a strategy for food security, health, education, and livelihood in a mountainous landscape. Although results showed that animal milk consumption has decreased due to labor shortage and livestock rearing, applying permaculture has somehow mitigated the effects by increasing the supply of fodder and water while improving breeds of livestock.

Permaculture landscape design for food security is not limited to farmers. A study by McCleary and Moran (2019) reported the potential of establishing guild food forests for satisfying the caloric requirements of indigenous communities that are vulnerable to climate change.  A ‘food forest’ is a common landscape component of a permaculture design wherein an assemblage of edible plant species is grown to mimic a forest landscape. It is characterized by low-maintenance perennial crops and multistory cropping to maximize vertical space and provide year-round food production.

Food security in urban landscapes can also be addressed by permaculture design. A study by Wang (2017) in Virginia, United States proposed the conversion of a golf course landscape for urban agriculture. A permaculture approach in this context seeks to establish and maintain an urban agriculture landscape wherein open spaces are constantly sought and utilized to address the food security of cityfolk.

How the diversity of the landscape translates to dietary diversity is a research gap that the study seeks to address. What kind of food are they growing? And do they actually eat what they grow? In the Philippine context, we investigate how the characteristics of permaculture landscapes affect the food security status of household members. 

LITERATURE CITED

ABDALA, PAULO R.Z. & G.D.P MOCELLIN. (2010). Ecovillages and permaculture: A reference model for sustainable consumption? Encontro da ANPAD, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 25-29.

ABIRAL, BURGE. (2019). Permaculture and ecological lifestyle: A restricted radicalism. In R. Kinna and U. Gordon (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics, 477-49. Routledge. 

BRAWNER, JUNE. (2015). Permaculture in the margins: Realizing Central European regeneration. Journal of Political Ecology, 22 (1), 429. https://doi.org/ 10.2458/v22i1.21117. 

BUOT, INOCENCIO E. & K. OSUMI. (2004). Satoyama landscape in the Philippines. Journal of Nature Studies, 3, 1-11. 

CARAWAY, ROSE. (2018). The Spiritual Dimensions of the Permaculture Movement in Cuba. Religions, 9 (11), 342. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110342.

CHAKROUN, LEILA. (2019). Cultivating concrete utopia: Understanding how Japan's permaculture experiments are shaping a political vision of sustainable living. The International Academic Forum-Asian Conference for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (ACSEE), Tokyo, Japan, May 20-22.

CHAKROUN, LEILA. & L. DROZ. (2020). Sustainability through landscapes: natural parks, satoyama, and permaculture in Japan. Ecosystems and People, 16 (1), 369-383. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2020.1837244

CROSBY, ALEXANDRA., J. LORBER-KASUNIC, & I.V. ACCARIGI. (2014). Value the edge: Permaculture as counterculture in Australia. M/C Journal, 17 (6). http://journal.media-culture.org.au.

DE GUZMAN, ROWENA P., G.L.M. NELSON, G.N.A. ABRIGO, & R.D.T. BACONGUIS. (2017). Selected organic agricultural organizations’ social networks in the promotion of organic agriculture in Quezon Province, Philippines. Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 5 (2), 64-76. 

DEWEY, C.E., K. HOEKSTRA, K., & N. CARTER, N. (2014). Permaculture: Supports food security and primary education in rural Kenya. Abstract in proceedings of the 2014 Global Development Symposium, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, 4-7 May 2014. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/61849.

EYHORN, FRANK, M. HEEB, & G. WEIDMANN. (n.d.) International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) Training Manual for the Tropics. 

FADAEE, SIMIN. (2019). The Permaculture Movement in India: A Social Movement with Southern Characteristics. Social Movement Studies, 18 (6), 720-734. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2019.1628732. 

FENWICK, TARA & R. EDWARDS. (2010). Actor-network theory in education. London, U.K.: Routledge

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS & S.T. LOVELL. (2014). Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview: A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 34 (2), 251-274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-013-0181-6.

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS & S.T. LOVELL. (2015). Grassroots engagement with transition to sustainability: Diversity and modes of participation in the international permaculture movement. Ecology and Society, 20 (4), 39. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08048-200439.

FERNANDEZ, M., 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, Vol 37(1), 115-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/10440046.2012.735633.

FRANKEL-GOLDWATER, L. (2012). Permaculture as a tool for implementing the UN decade of education for sustainable development. [Master’s Thesis]. New York University, United States. 

FRANKHAM, JO. (2006). Network utopias and alternative entanglements for educational research and practice. Journal of Education Policy, 21 (6), 661-677.

GORUR, RADHIKA. (2017). Towards productive critique of large-scale comparisons in education. Critical Studies in Education, 58(3), 341-355. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1327876.

GRAYSON, RUSS. (2018). The Structure of Permaculture—understanding the network. Medium. https://medium.com/permaculture-3-0/the-structure-of-permaculture-understanding-the-network-b41b5430732d

HALUZA-DELAY, RANDOLPH. & R. BEREZAN. (2010). Permaculture in the city: Ecological habitus and the distributed ecovillage. Localizing Environmental Anthropology. In J. Lockyer and J.R. Veteto (Eds.), Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia: Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages. 

HEADEY, DEREK & O. ECKER. (2013). Rethinking the measurement of food security: From first principles to best practice. Food Security. 5(3), 327-343. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-013-0253-0 

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

HILLIS, DE CHANTAL K. (2011). The wired village: Sustainability, social networking and values in an urban permaculture community. [Master’s Thesis]. Melbourne Graduate School of Education, Australia. http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b4834593.

HIRSCHFELD, S. & R. VAN ACKER. (2019). Permaculture farmers consistently cultivate perennials, crop diversity, landscape heterogeneity and nature conservation. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 35(3), 342-351. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170519000012.

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

ISMAIL, NOR ATIAH & S.M. AFFENDI. (2015). Awareness and acceptability of permaculture in a residential landscape design: A case study of Denai Alam community. Research Journal of Fisheries and Hydrobiology, 10(14), 6-10. 

JANOS, SZILÁGYI ALFRÉD. (2015). The permaculture design in the open-air museum of Szenna. [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Szent Istvan University, Hungary. 

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2019). Actor-network theory. Education, Change, and Development. University of Canterbury. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.526.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Assembling the actors: Exploring the challenges of “system leadership” in education through actor-network theory. Journal of Education Policy, 33(6), 778-792.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Humans, nonhumans and the mediation of workplace learning in the senior school curriculum. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 69 (2), 214-228.

KELLY-BISSON, CHRIS. (2013). Forests for the people: Resisting neoliberalism through permaculture design. [Master’s Thesis]. Carleton University, Canada. 

KENIS ANNELEEN & E. MATHIJS. (2014). (De)politicising the local: The case of the Transition Towns movement in Flanders (Belgium), Journal of Rural Studies, 34, 172-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.01.013.

KREBS, JULIUS & S. BACH. (2018). Permaculture—scientific evidence of principles for the agroecological design of farming systems. Sustainability, 10(9), 3218; https://doi.org/10.3390/su1009321.

KRUGER, ELIZABETH MAY. (2015). Options for Sustainability in Building and Energy: A South African Permaculture Case Study. Energy Procedia, 83, 544-554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.12.174.

LAFFOON, MEGAN. (2016). A quantitative analysis of hugelkultur and its potential application on karst rocky desertified areas in China. [Thesis]. Western Kentucky University, United States. 

LATOUR, BRUNO. (1996). On actor network theory. A few clarifications plus more than a few complications. Soziale Welt, 47, 369-381.

LAW, JOHN. (2009). Actor network theory and material semiotics. In B.S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to social theory (141-158). Wiley-Blackwell.

LOVELL, S.T., 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, 103 (5), 327-341. DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.  

MAGHIRANG, RODEL G., R. DELA CRUZ, & R.L. VILLAREAL. (2013). How sustainable is organic agriculture in the Philippines? Transactions of National Academy of Science and Technology (Philippines), 33 (2), 289-321. 

MALEZIEUX, ERIC. (2012). Designing cropping systems from nature. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 32(1), 15-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150902820354. 

MAYER, ANNE-MARIE. (2019). Nutrition-sensitive outcomes of a permaculture project in Nepal. Field Exchange, 59. Retrieved from www.ennonline.net/fex.  

MCCLEARY, SUSAN. (2016). An introduction and long-term viability of community sustainable agriculture projects within marginalised communities: A food sovereignty study. Fourth World Journal, 14 (2), 79-105. 

MILLNER, NAOMI. (2017). The right to food is nature too: Food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement. Local Economy, 22(6), 764-783. https://doi.org/1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.

MOLLISON, BILL. (1988). Permaculture: A designer’s manual. Australia: Tagari Publications.

MUGWALL, THOMAS. (2017). On the path of untricking Hermes: Adaptation of the design philosophy and methods of permaculture in community engaged art projects. [PhD Thesis] University of Tasmania, Australia. 

NAMULULI, ANASTANSIA MUSANA. (2011). The Potential of Permaculture in Addressing Food Insecurity in Karamoja District, Uganda. [Master’s Thesis]. Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden. 

PEETERS, BERT. (2011). Permaculture as alternative agriculture. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, 26(1-2). https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1556-486X.2008.00007.x.

PERMACULTURE GLOBAL. (2017). Permaculture Worldwide Network. https://permacultureglobal.org/.

PONT, LOUIS-MARIE. (2015). What is permablitz and does it impact on local communities? [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Griffith University School of Environment, Australia. 

PUTRO, RADITYO HARYO. & R. MIYAURA. (2020). Indonesian Permaculture: Factors shaping permaculture farm systems in humid tropical Indonesia. Tropical Agricultural Development, 64 (33), 113-124.

RIVETT, MICHAEL O., A.W. HALCROW, J. SCHMALFUSS, J.A. Stark, J.P. TRUSLOVE, S. KUMWENDA, K.A. HARAWA, M. NHELMA, C. SONGOLA, G.J. WANANGWA, A.V.M. MILLER, & R.M. KALIN. (2017). Local scale water-food nexus: Use of borehole-garden permaculture to realise the full potential of rural water supplies in Malawi. Journal of Environmental Management, 209 354-370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.12.029.

ROBERTS, TOBIAS. (2017). Perennial polycultures and the richness of diversity. https://permaculturenews.org/.

ROTHE, KATJA. (2014). Permaculture design: on the practice of radical imagination. Afterlives of Systems, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.7275/R58913S2. 

THIONG'O, WANGARI. (2017). Food security through permaculture: A case study of Samburu County. [Master’s Thesis] United States International University-Africa, Kenya. 

ULBRICH, RAISSA. (2016). Practising change(s) - Analysing the german niche of permaculture with a social learning perspective to monitor social change in sustainability transitions. [Master’s Thesis]. Leiden University & Delft University of Technology, Germany.

VON HERZEN, BRIAN, T. THEURETZBACHER, J. NEWMAN, M. WEBBER, C. ZHU, J.S. KATZ, & M. RAMASWAMY. (2017). A feasibility study of an integrated air conditioning, desalination and marine permaculture system in Oman. 10th International Conference on Thermal Engineering: Theory and Applications, Muscat, Oman, February 26-28, 2017.

WANG, XUEYU. (2017). A using permaculture to enhance urban food security: An abandoned golf course case study. [Master’s Thesis]. Virginia Tech, United States. 

WHITEFIELD, PATRICK. (2004). Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook for Britain & Other Temperate Climates. Permanent Publications.

Permaculture as a Social Network: A Literature Review

Main text: Permaculture in the Philippines: Landscape Structure, Practices, and Perspectives

The permaculture network is a loosely organized international movement of practitioners, educators, and grassroots communities (Ferguson & Lovell, 2014) that advocate a sustainable way of life based on permaculture ethics and design principles (Holmgren, 2002). Discussed in this subsection are the characteristics of permaculture networks in different countries.

Permaculture originated in Australia and was conceptualized by co-founders Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the late 1970s. According to Grayson (2018), it was in Stanley, Tasmania where students of Mollison would form the first permaculture network in the early 1980s. The network was composed of individuals and associations that would recruit new members and pass on permaculture knowledge based on the work of Mollison and Holmgren.  The network structure of the Australian permaculture was described by Grayson (2018) as a self-organized distributed network. This meant that network members were dispersed geographically across the country and all over the world without any central authority figure. In addition, Crosby et al. (2014) described that the actions of network members were known to be highly ‘localized’ pertaining to the emphasis on individual actions to achieve sustainable ways of living in Australia’s urbanized environments. Practitioners reached out to other people at their own behest hence the spread of the permaculture movement from Australia to other continents.

Crosby et al. (2014) identified network members in Sydney, Australia. These include city and regional level networks, such as in Permaculture Sydney and New South Wales, respectively; local government initiatives in Randwick; community gardens such as the Permaculture Interpretive Garden; urban gardeners and landscaping businesses such as Milkwood and Sydney Organic Gardens; informal gatherings such as Permablitz Sydney; the Transition Towns movement; and various farmers’ markets and cooperatives.  

They further described the network as a countercultural social movement that provided an alternative to the industrialized food system and highly globalized economy of the country at that time. No formal study has yet to estimate the number of practitioners in Australia, but the Permaculture Research Institute has 2,124 individual profiles and 2,663 projects registered on its database as of 2020. 

In Europe, a study in Germany by Ulbrich (2016) stated that social networks played an important role in permaculture as social capital is gained from interactions and relationships with fellow practitioners. These communication platforms sped up resource-sharing, knowledge-sharing, marketing, and cooperation through the formation of online national and transnational permaculture networks. Ulbrich provided data on the membership composition of the largest network of practitioners in the country called the Permakultur Institut e.V. (PKI). According to the study, membership included individuals, companies, and progressive communities that were open to designing their development and food security projects according to permaculture principles. Though the author did not mention any specific socio-demographic characteristics of individuals, it can be deduced from broad descriptions of membership composition that permaculture appealed to people who ventured away from business-as-usual (BAU) approaches. Also, social class may have played a role in their decision to be part of the permaculture movement as demonstrated in the following examples in Latin America.

According to Caraway’s study (2018),  permaculture arrived in Cuba in 1993 as a response to an economic crisis known as the ‘Special Period.’ A group called Nunez Jimenez Foundation for Nature and Man (FANJ) promoted permaculture as a cambio de mentalidad or ‘change of mentality.’ FANJ was part of a larger post-Soviet revival of civil society and religious organizations. It is a network of 24 national permaculture groups. Network of promoters and facilitators working in local communities included permaculture activists that had a wide variety of personal backgrounds, identities, and relationships to institutionalized religions. FANJ’s unique 3-part method proved effective in growing and strengthening the network through a motivational workshop, approaching workshop, and Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course. The failure of the state to provide basic needs during the fall of the Soviet Bloc enabled the permaculture network to grow because it fulfilled important social and spiritual functions.

In the case of El Salvador, Millner (2017) stated that agro-ecological networks grew in Central America during the 1960s when hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers were first introduced. The author narrated how the roots of Salvadorian permaculture were deeply linked with a history of campesino (or peasant) farmers adhering to concepts like food sovereignty, agroecology, and liberation theology as influenced by Catholic activist priests from South America. The study also identified two main actors in the introduction of permaculture: Juan Rojas, a civil war exile who returned to the country in 1999 as a “permaculture missionary” and Karen Inwood, a development worker from the United Kingdom who attended a permaculture course in Scotland along with Rojas. It was Inwood who would introduce permaculture in campesino-a-campesino (CaC) activities. According to Millner (2017), permaculture is a post-colonial alternative food network that arose from a post-conflict context. Permaculture critiqued conventional food security and development concepts. Permaculture and agroecology are also highly complementary concepts in El Salvador.

In the Asian context, Chakroun (2019) pointed out the historical connection of permaculture with Japan, stating that Mollison and Holmgren were inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka’s book, ‘One Straw Revolution: Introduction to Natural Farming.’ In 1993 a small group of people encountered the Japanese translation of Mollison’s ‘Introduction to Permaculture.’ Two key actors were said to be crucial in its proliferation, Shidara Kiyokazu, a rice farmer, and Itonaga Koji, a landscape architect. They founded the Permaculture Center Japan (PCCJ) in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1996 which was inaugurated by Mollison himself. In 2011, the Tokyo Urban Permaculture Group was founded by activists as a response to the Fukushima nuclear incident. The group brought the permaculture movement from the rural to the urban areas. 

Prior to Japan, Mollison also went to India in 1986 to teach permaculture by conducting workshops with farmers according to a study by Fadaee (2019). The first permaculture site was located in the Southern Province of Andhra Pradesh. Fadaee enumerated four categories of permaculture practitioners in India: individuals working in NGOs, new farmers who have professional backgrounds (medical doctors, scientists, engineers, social workers), city residents interested in alternative living, and traditional farmers. Permaculture practitioners were said to be supported by other actors such as organic and local food activists. 

Based on these studies, permaculture had influenced both traditional farmers and the educated middle-class albeit different histories and varied motivations. In addition, the diversity of membership in permaculture, though informal in most cases, enabled it to receive influence from different sectors expanding the scope of its applications from traditional farming to urban gardening (Chakroun, 2019), to community organizing (Abdala & Mocellin, 2010), and to curriculum development in universities (Ulbrich, 2016). Also, the permaculture network itself is connected to larger networks of educators, farmers, and activists (Abiral, 2019; Millner, 2017) among many other vocations and professions. The evolution of permaculture from agricultural to socio-ecological design attracted non-farmers, expanding its influence to health and wellness circles, landscape architecture, community development and mobilization, political discourse, and environmental networks (Haluza-DeLay & Berezan, 2010; Janos, 2015; Pont; 2015; Althouse, 2016; Mugwall, 2017; Henfrey & Ford, 2018; Caraway, 2018).

An international online survey by Ferguson & Lovell in 2015 provided socio-demographic data on 731 self-identified permaculture practitioners in 45 countries. Results of the survey showed an overwhelmingly White/Caucasian participation (661) most of which are college-educated (300) with land of their own (344). The authors pointed out the lack of diversity in the international permaculture movement and the role of socio-demographic factors in permaculture network involvement. The Permaculture Worldwide Network database (Permaculture Global, 2017) also gives a general idea on the number of practitioners globally. In 2012, there were 3,804 registered user profiles of practitioners and 812 permaculture project profiles. The numbers increased to 19,504 user profiles and 2,480 projects in 2018. This implied a growing interest in permaculture over time. 

The above-mentioned studies provided data on the kinds of people (or ‘actors’ in network terminology) involved in the permaculture network along with their respective historical narratives, activities, and initiatives. Estimates on the number of practitioners were documented in some cases as well. However, these studies lack historical data that can help monitor trends in permaculture network involvement, a major research gap where such data are also non-existent in the Philippine context. Who are the actors in the network? And are their actions significant? Without this information, future research work on permaculture will not progress. 

The lack of literature on the history of permaculture in the Philippines has also proven to be difficult in identifying early adopters of permaculture. Although using statistics from organic agriculture, which is closely related to permaculture, the legislation of RA 10068 (Organic Agriculture Act of 2010) created a renewed interest in farming and encouraged farmers and non-farmers alike to learn organic agriculture (de Guzman et al., 2017). From only 9000 organic farmers in 2011, the number increased to 43,000 in 2015 (de Guzman et al., 2017). The mainstreaming of organic agriculture, through seminars, workshops, and government programs, opened the agriculture industry to the youth and senior citizens—sectors which may probably characterize the demographic of permaculture practitioners today.  It is likely that those already in the organic movement have participated in permaculture-related events given the similarities the two approaches share in its core design principles and ethics .

There is still no published literature on the profile of permaculture’s adopters and the number of its practitioners in the country. It must be noted though that permaculture, unlike organic agriculture, lacks a regulatory and certifying body according to the International Federation of Organic Movements (Eyhorn et al., n.d.). Rather, its practice is maintained by a loosely coordinated network of organizations, communities, and teachers (Ferguson & Lovell, 2014). As a result, a reliable estimate of the number of practitioners in the Philippines and around the world remains to be undetermined at present. 

LITERATURE CITED

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CHAKROUN, LEILA. (2019). Cultivating concrete utopia: Understanding how Japan's permaculture experiments are shaping a political vision of sustainable living. The International Academic Forum-Asian Conference for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (ACSEE), Tokyo, Japan, May 20-22.

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CROSBY, ALEXANDRA., J. LORBER-KASUNIC, & I.V. ACCARIGI. (2014). Value the edge: Permaculture as counterculture in Australia. M/C Journal, 17 (6). http://journal.media-culture.org.au.

DE GUZMAN, ROWENA P., G.L.M. NELSON, G.N.A. ABRIGO, & R.D.T. BACONGUIS. (2017). Selected organic agricultural organizations’ social networks in the promotion of organic agriculture in Quezon Province, Philippines. Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 5 (2), 64-76. 

DEWEY, C.E., K. HOEKSTRA, K., & N. CARTER, N. (2014). Permaculture: Supports food security and primary education in rural Kenya. Abstract in proceedings of the 2014 Global Development Symposium, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, 4-7 May 2014. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/61849.

EYHORN, FRANK, M. HEEB, & G. WEIDMANN. (n.d.) International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) Training Manual for the Tropics. 

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FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS & S.T. LOVELL. (2014). Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview: A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 34 (2), 251-274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-013-0181-6.

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FRANKEL-GOLDWATER, L. (2012). Permaculture as a tool for implementing the UN decade of education for sustainable development. [Master’s Thesis]. New York University, United States. 

FRANKHAM, JO. (2006). Network utopias and alternative entanglements for educational research and practice. Journal of Education Policy, 21 (6), 661-677.

GORUR, RADHIKA. (2017). Towards productive critique of large-scale comparisons in education. Critical Studies in Education, 58(3), 341-355. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1327876.

GRAYSON, RUSS. (2018). The Structure of Permaculture—understanding the network. Medium. https://medium.com/permaculture-3-0/the-structure-of-permaculture-understanding-the-network-b41b5430732d

HALUZA-DELAY, RANDOLPH. & R. BEREZAN. (2010). Permaculture in the city: Ecological habitus and the distributed ecovillage. Localizing Environmental Anthropology. In J. Lockyer and J.R. Veteto (Eds.), Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia: Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages. 

HEADEY, DEREK & O. ECKER. (2013). Rethinking the measurement of food security: From first principles to best practice. Food Security. 5(3), 327-343. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-013-0253-0 

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

HILLIS, DE CHANTAL K. (2011). The wired village: Sustainability, social networking and values in an urban permaculture community. [Master’s Thesis]. Melbourne Graduate School of Education, Australia. http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b4834593.

HIRSCHFELD, S. & R. VAN ACKER. (2019). Permaculture farmers consistently cultivate perennials, crop diversity, landscape heterogeneity and nature conservation. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 35(3), 342-351. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170519000012.

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

ISMAIL, NOR ATIAH & S.M. AFFENDI. (2015). Awareness and acceptability of permaculture in a residential landscape design: A case study of Denai Alam community. Research Journal of Fisheries and Hydrobiology, 10(14), 6-10. 

JANOS, SZILÁGYI ALFRÉD. (2015). The permaculture design in the open-air museum of Szenna. [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Szent Istvan University, Hungary. 

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2019). Actor-network theory. Education, Change, and Development. University of Canterbury. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.526.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Assembling the actors: Exploring the challenges of “system leadership” in education through actor-network theory. Journal of Education Policy, 33(6), 778-792.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Humans, nonhumans and the mediation of workplace learning in the senior school curriculum. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 69 (2), 214-228.

KELLY-BISSON, CHRIS. (2013). Forests for the people: Resisting neoliberalism through permaculture design. [Master’s Thesis]. Carleton University, Canada. 

KENIS ANNELEEN & E. MATHIJS. (2014). (De)politicising the local: The case of the Transition Towns movement in Flanders (Belgium), Journal of Rural Studies, 34, 172-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.01.013.

KREBS, JULIUS & S. BACH. (2018). Permaculture—scientific evidence of principles for the agroecological design of farming systems. Sustainability, 10(9), 3218; https://doi.org/10.3390/su1009321.

KRUGER, ELIZABETH MAY. (2015). Options for Sustainability in Building and Energy: A South African Permaculture Case Study. Energy Procedia, 83, 544-554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.12.174.

LAFFOON, MEGAN. (2016). A quantitative analysis of hugelkultur and its potential application on karst rocky desertified areas in China. [Thesis]. Western Kentucky University, United States. 

LATOUR, BRUNO. (1996). On actor network theory. A few clarifications plus more than a few complications. Soziale Welt, 47, 369-381.

LAW, JOHN. (2009). Actor network theory and material semiotics. In B.S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to social theory (141-158). Wiley-Blackwell.

LOVELL, S.T., 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, 103 (5), 327-341. DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.  

MAGHIRANG, RODEL G., R. DELA CRUZ, & R.L. VILLAREAL. (2013). How sustainable is organic agriculture in the Philippines? Transactions of National Academy of Science and Technology (Philippines), 33 (2), 289-321. 

MALEZIEUX, ERIC. (2012). Designing cropping systems from nature. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 32(1), 15-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150902820354. 

MAYER, ANNE-MARIE. (2019). Nutrition-sensitive outcomes of a permaculture project in Nepal. Field Exchange, 59. Retrieved from www.ennonline.net/fex.  

MCCLEARY, SUSAN. (2016). An introduction and long-term viability of community sustainable agriculture projects within marginalised communities: A food sovereignty study. Fourth World Journal, 14 (2), 79-105. 

MILLNER, NAOMI. (2017). The right to food is nature too: Food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement. Local Economy, 22(6), 764-783. https://doi.org/1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.

MOLLISON, BILL. (1988). Permaculture: A designer’s manual. Australia: Tagari Publications.

MUGWALL, THOMAS. (2017). On the path of untricking Hermes: Adaptation of the design philosophy and methods of permaculture in community engaged art projects. [PhD Thesis] University of Tasmania, Australia. 

NAMULULI, ANASTANSIA MUSANA. (2011). The Potential of Permaculture in Addressing Food Insecurity in Karamoja District, Uganda. [Master’s Thesis]. Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden. 

PEETERS, BERT. (2011). Permaculture as alternative agriculture. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, 26(1-2). https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1556-486X.2008.00007.x.

PERMACULTURE GLOBAL. (2017). Permaculture Worldwide Network. https://permacultureglobal.org/.

PONT, LOUIS-MARIE. (2015). What is permablitz and does it impact on local communities? [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Griffith University School of Environment, Australia. 

PUTRO, RADITYO HARYO. & R. MIYAURA. (2020). Indonesian Permaculture: Factors shaping permaculture farm systems in humid tropical Indonesia. Tropical Agricultural Development, 64 (33), 113-124.

RIVETT, MICHAEL O., A.W. HALCROW, J. SCHMALFUSS, J.A. Stark, J.P. TRUSLOVE, S. KUMWENDA, K.A. HARAWA, M. NHELMA, C. SONGOLA, G.J. WANANGWA, A.V.M. MILLER, & R.M. KALIN. (2017). Local scale water-food nexus: Use of borehole-garden permaculture to realise the full potential of rural water supplies in Malawi. Journal of Environmental Management, 209 354-370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.12.029.

ROBERTS, TOBIAS. (2017). Perennial polycultures and the richness of diversity. https://permaculturenews.org/.

ROTHE, KATJA. (2014). Permaculture design: on the practice of radical imagination. Afterlives of Systems, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.7275/R58913S2. 

THIONG'O, WANGARI. (2017). Food security through permaculture: A case study of Samburu County. [Master’s Thesis] United States International University-Africa, Kenya. 

ULBRICH, RAISSA. (2016). Practising change(s) - Analysing the german niche of permaculture with a social learning perspective to monitor social change in sustainability transitions. [Master’s Thesis]. Leiden University & Delft University of Technology, Germany.

VON HERZEN, BRIAN, T. THEURETZBACHER, J. NEWMAN, M. WEBBER, C. ZHU, J.S. KATZ, & M. RAMASWAMY. (2017). A feasibility study of an integrated air conditioning, desalination and marine permaculture system in Oman. 10th International Conference on Thermal Engineering: Theory and Applications, Muscat, Oman, February 26-28, 2017.

WANG, XUEYU. (2017). A using permaculture to enhance urban food security: An abandoned golf course case study. [Master’s Thesis]. Virginia Tech, United States. 

WHITEFIELD, PATRICK. (2004). Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook for Britain & Other Temperate Climates. Permanent Publications.

What's Next for Permaculture Research in the Philippines?

The first step is always the hardest. When our team first started researching on permaculture in 2015 there was almost no scientific literature that we can refer to about this topic, especially in the Philippines. If permaculture is what it says it is, surely there should be local studies to back this up. 

Fast forward to the present, we now know who the practitioners are, where they are, what kind of projects they are doing, what kind of landscapes they are designing, and what perspectives they have on food, sustainability, and the environment. Our research produced baseline data from 12 sites all over the country in 2018. But it should not stop there. 

We need to know how permaculture designs change and evolve according to challenges such as market demands, labor shortage, and climate change. We need to know which time of the year designs are most vulnerable and when they are optimal. How does crop diversity vary across the year? What role does biodiversity play in the long term? We only gathered data once in each site. How does the designer respond? What skills and knowledge are added as challenges accumulate? How resilient is a permaculture design and its designer?

Permaculture is such an interesting topic because of its complex nature. It's learning how to design how we do agriculture in a way that will also benefit the natural landscape. It's a design toolkit that's made available to everyone who has access to land regardless of scale (urban garden or farm). In a way, permaculture can be a gateway to more understanding to better improve nature-based solutions and designs. 

Our hope that our research grant program with University of the Philippines Los Banos undergraduate students will help fulfill these two objectives:

1) To continue the detailed documentation of permaculture projects in the country

2) and to map, measure, and monitor changes in the landscape as well as changes in innovations, challenges, and perspectives in documented sites.

By achieving these two objectives, we can understand and visualize how small networks of permaculture designs contribute to food security, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable development at a larger scale.  

If our research grant program for undergrad students of the University of the Philippines Los Banos becomes successful, we can get more funding to support more students in other colleges and universities. This will be our contribution to the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030). And this will be our way of healing the planet.