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. 

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