Divided we fall? Does Regenerative Agriculture need a good dose of Marketing?

What if human civilization was wiped out because ‘Permaculture’ was a weird word?

What if the atmosphere of the planet burns off into space because the people who did know what needed to be done were squabbling over what to call doing it?

I am a babe in the Permaculture food forest woods – like some of you, I’ve always been interested in the natural world, came across Geoff Lawton’s videos, and ended up taking the Online 2014 Permaculture Design Course.

I’ve done my design, tried to explain Permaculture to a lot of people, and followed a lot of like minded groups on Facebook and other places.

And then was struck by the fact that as confusing a word as ‘Permaculture’ is – there’s about twenty other words, than mean almost the same thing.

Restorarion agriculture? Regrarianism? Agroforestry? Beyond Organic? Silvoculture? Agroecology? Biodynamic? The Amish version: Advancing Eco Agriculture. The list goes on and on. And these are only SOME of the English ones…

To reach the tipping point Geoff Lawton talks about for sustainable agricultural and food growing practices to go mainstream it would help if we could simplify the message.

In looking up the origins of these various strands of sustainable food growing systems I had to revisit the three ethics of Permaculture, which, as a newcomer, I’m not proud to admit I’d forgotten about.

Earth Care, People Care and Return of Surplus.

Earth Care – that the systems we design should not harm the Earth, but rather help all living systems.

People care – that our systems are designed to feed people, AND to provide safe, healthy places to live and meaningful lives within them…

And Return of Surplus – that in order to care for the Earth and it’s people, we must constantly return energy and materials to the environment to allow it to gain in fertility and abundance.

Now these ethics do distinguish Permaculture from similar, strictly technical food growing systems – but they are also a little hard to explain, and unfortunately, not something everyone is able to accept.



To my mind the overarching theme that unites permaculture and other sustainable food growing systems is: “Feeding people without harming the planet”. Already there’s an obstacle here for going mainstream because a lot of people don’t believe that industrial agriculture IS harming the planet. And like it or not, we may never convince them otherwise.

If our primary goal is keeping the Earth liveable, we might just need a little marketing to reach a wider audience.

And part of that work, might make a few people very uncomfortable.

We might have to set aside some of what is so near and dear to us about the ethical foundations of permaculture, in order to reach people who quite frankly philosophically and constitutively will never proactively accept people care and earth care as the same moral imperatives that we do.

In talking to a friend about the urgency of action on climate change to help people in countries at risk his response was: “But I have enough trouble caring about other Canadians”. And he’s a very nice guy. Generous, caring, etc.
So how can we get these people onside?
How about money?
If we can demonstrate that sustainable food growing systems are more profitable than business as usual, well then a whole extra tranche of people might suddenly become interested.

I know a lot of people will object to this, arguing, rightly to my way of thinking but not to everybody’s, that the pursuit of profits at all cost has gotten us into this mess.

And I will admit I’ve not thought about this long enough to think through all of the repercussions of what I’m proposing. I’m hoping this will trigger a debate on what I do think is a fundamental challenge to shift people towards sustainable food growing systems to avert environmental catastrophe.

We don’t all share the same motivations. The ethical motivations that attract some of us to permaculture might actual repel others from coming on board. “Too hippy, communist, etc.”

So what do you think?

Patterns and Power Laws

In Geoff Lawton's Permaculture design course a lot of participants had problems with the video on patterns.

In it, he asserts that in nature, most if not all patterns in a whole raft of phenomena (river sizes, relative bone lengths, etc) occur in between 5 and 9 orders of size. ie there's a recognizable and limited number of classes of sizes of the object.

I've started to attempt to explain my take on it. I think, like on the video about entropy, he's 'onto something' but missing some of the explanation. And as both entropy and natural patterns are such big topics - we observe the phenomena and really want a good explanation for it - they can't be glossed over.

Draft the first - on Patterns in nature:

Patterns and power laws

What I take away from this discussion of pattern is that it is as a heuristic, or rule of thumb, when we observe natural patterns that they often show between 5 and 9 orders of size.

It’s not a “law” but a useful tool to use while looking for patterns. “Many” natural patterns show between 5 and 9 orders of size, so see if you can spot between 5 and 9 orders of size, before concluding the pattern you are observing has fewer or greater orders of size.


As for the scientific and mathematical rigour of the assertion …

A quick search came up with two links that might help understand “why” natural systems do this.


1) examples of the Fibonacci sequence http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emat6680/parveen/fib_nature.htm


2) a description of rank-size distributions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank-size_distribution

From the description of rank-size Wikipedia says :

"(The) rule “works” because it is a “shadow” or coincidental measure of the true phenomenon.2 The true value of rank size is thus not as an accurate mathematical measure (since other power-law formulas are more accurate, especially at ranks lower than 10) but rather as a handy measure or “rule of thumb” to spot power laws."


Which I paraphrase as "many natural systems exhibit similar recurring patterns because they are following some power law relationship (in the mathematical sense) ie surface area increases as the square of the radius (radius “to the power of 2”) while volume increases as the cube of the radius (“to the power of 3”)

And because many natural systems must contend with these types of interactions – the two dimensional surface of water being pushed by wind that contains a three dimensional volume of liquid – similar patterns occur.

This is a good description of natural patterns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature



And one of the “reasons” these patterns occur is because they are either energy maximizing (in the case of the distribution of leaves to capture sunlight) or minimizing (spheres are the minimum surface area to contain a given volume)

Natural selections favours organisms that use energy most efficiently, and physical and chemical systems follow the least energetic path (I.e water rarely flows uphill and products of combustion rarely reassemble into reactants)

"Greening" the green movement

In order to revolutionize global agriculture and help save the planet, the green movement has to demonstrate how in the short term farming smarter will put money in your pocket.

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"La tendance est au desespoir"

It takes a not inconsiderable amount of energy to filter out the bad news and find the good. Lately, faced with the seemingly relentless stream of catastrophic climate change reports, political ass-hatitude, etc, I began actively seeking out good news to, you know, curtail my drinking.

I had been following the Permaculture Research Institute's email newsletter for awhile, and when they started pushing their online permaculture design course I looked into it.

Permaculture is a term coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978.

"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system." - Bill Mollison [Mollison, B. (1991). Introduction to permaculture. Tasmania, Australia: Tagari.]

It's a tricky term to explain and needs some better branding.

In essence it is about designing systems to feed and support humans using natural processes that are self-regenerating and increase system fertility and productivity.

Farming smarter. Or S.M.A.R.T.E.R Farming - Sustainably Maximizing Agricultural Returns Through Ecological Resiliency. (I'm not so much a marketing guy...)

Modern industrial farming is very good at maximizing crop yields through the intensive application of chemical and mechanical inputs. i.e we throw a shit tonne of fertilizer and machines at a single species at a time and maximize it's yield per acre.

It works, it's allowed the world's population to explode, but it's carbon intensive and sucks fertility from the soil. As long as there's ever more land to farm, and fossil fuel in the form of fertilizer, diesel, etc, to throw at it, it "works".

But as arable land becomes scarce or impoverished, the costs of fuel and fertilizer rise, and the impacts of climate change increase, the tenuousness and fragility of stretching a few crop species to their limits become apparent.

Like a race car or professional athlete, you can achieve incredible things by pushing your capacities to the limits, but the risk of catastrophic failure or debilitating injury increase.

Minor perturbations can cause massive disruptions and almost everyone not being paid not to, agree we're in store for a few of those.

Now permaculture, and the various other names it goes under - regenerative organic agriculture [ used by Tom Newman and others, The Carbon Underground ], etc. create systems whose aim is to maximize yield and increase fertility through the intelligent design of interconnected ecological processes.

Every element in the system has many functions, and every function is supported by many elements. i.e if one part fails, other elements pick up the slack.

You maximize yield and fertility by acre by recycling all the resources available to the system - sun, water, wind, animal, vegetable and human waste streams etc, as many times as possible.


It's taking the most efficient energy and material converting processes on the planet - living systems, and arranging them to best serve our needs.

By returning sufficient organic material to the system, it builds resilience and increases yield with only the fertilization the system naturally provides.

...

I've fallen into the same trap I was hoping to avoid - telling people about the science instead of showing people the money.

In order for this "better" way to farm to be adopted, a number of options are open.

1) through force and coercion - people mount bloody revolutions or get their governments to enact policies that require better farming practices.

Not super likely.

2) grassroots activism and education - by spreading the good word, greenies enlist support and win over people to their cause

Generational - it's perhaps 'happening', but slowly

3) Money - Permaculture and regenerative organic farmers open their books and show the world how profitable smart farming can be.

While some of 1 may unfortunately occur, and some of 2 is to be applauded, "liked" and "shared" until our slacktivist clicking fingers are calloused and bloody, 3 - to me - is what could turn another "good idea" into reality.

If we can demonstrate, through audited financial statements showing yields per investment of time and money, that Smart Farming is better - everyone will jump on board.

If we can show small hold farmers all over the world that current industrial methods are expensive and impoverish the soil, while ecologically sound farming is cheap and produces greater yields, well then we're off to the races.

And I think this is the way forward.

As long as permaculture remains something we "should" do, or "could" do because it is "better" - it requires individuals to exert themselves to do it - either willingly, out of conviction, or reluctantly because they are coerced to do so.

But if the business case can be made - under current legislative regimes as overturning vested industrial agricultural interests will take some doing, then people will adopt these practices in droves.

It's a lot like exercise, eating healthily, tracking your budget. We can "know" they're good for us, but until we experience it for ourselves or see their positive impacts directly in others, it's just more shit we ought to do. Governments and proselytizers can encourage us, but the cheapest positive action is the one we take freely by ourselves.

So smart farmers - open your books, and show the world the "green" way forward.

Farming 2.0

I'm taking an online course on Permaculture with Geoff Lawton and the Permaculture research institute out of Australia. I've been trying to come up with an easy way to explain it. Here's a few that I've seen and a few I've tried to come up with.


Permaculture - an easy definition

Ecology, applied
Ecological Architecture
Life support systems
Abundance by design
The Design of Abundant Ecosystems for Humans

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For 8000 years we've tried to extract the maximum food from our environment through pushing natural systems up to and beyond their breaking points. Using energy intensive chemical fertilizers, genetically modified organisms and pest controls, and relentlessly specialized crop and animal breeding programmes, we have created farming methods that are highly productive but environmentally unsustainable and dangerously unresilient.

Built on cheap energy and an ever expanding agricultural land base, we are now faced with fossil fuel driven climate change and a degraded stock of fertile territory. Business as usual will drive us off a cliff.

It's time for a reboot.

The aim of permaculture is to create abundance through ecosystem management and design. To feed and care for people through the intelligent optimization of natural systems via ever increasing soil fertility and biological interactions.

It's like harnessing "the power of compound interest" for your farm or garden.

Living systems remain the most powerful energy harvesters known.

Through the application of careful design principles, food systems have been developed that can radically increase the productivity of almost any area. By maximizing energy and resource usage and beneficial interactions within the system and reinvesting surplus biological materials and energy into the system future fertility and productivity is increased.

Resilient and robust, these systems favour complex self-reinforcing biological, energetic and chemical interactions, whereby every element fulfils multiple functions and supplies multiple products for use within the system and for the humans relying upon it.

As the web of interactions is dense, the system is dynamically responsive to outside perturbations such as extreme weather or pests, all the while building increasing fertility and productivity through the constant "reinvestment" of materials into the system.

By working to reinforce natural systems instead of attempting to exploit them for short term, unsustainable gain, more people can be fed with less land while drawing more carbon out of the atmosphere.

And by fostering dispersed, redundant, self-sufficient ways of feeding ourselves, we increase food security and empower citizens to make positive changes both for themselves and for the planet.