Lessons in Permaculture #010

This is the tenth installment of a multi-part series on permaculture. Future installments of Lessons in Permaculture will be posted at a rate of one or two per month. Be sure not to miss upcoming installments by subscribing to the Sustainable Future website (it is free & you get only one email a day). The sign-up box can be found at the top of the website's right-hand column.

Lessons in Permaculture #010

From David Homgren's booklet Essence of Permaculture comes this discussion of his 10th principle of permaculture design:

Principle 10: USE AND VALUE DIVERSITY
Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

The spinebill and the humming bird both have long beaks and the capacity to hover - perfect for sipping nectar from long, narrow flowers. This remarkable co-evolutionary adaptation symbolises the specialisation of form and function in nature.

The great diversity of forms, functions and interactions in nature and humanity are the source of evolved systemic complexity. The role and value of diversity in nature, culture and permaculture is itself complex, dynamic, and at times apparently contradictory. Diversity needs to be seen as a result of the balance and tension in nature between variety and possibility on the one hand, and productivity and power on the other.

It is now widely recognised that monoculture is a major cause of vulnerability to pests and diseases, and therefore of the widespread use of toxic chemicals and energy to control these. Polyculture is one of the most important and widely recognised applications of the use of diversity to reduce vulnerability to pests, adverse seasons and market fluctuations. Polyculture also reduces reliance on market systems, and bolsters household and community self-reliance by providing a wider range of goods and services.

However polyculture is by no means the only application of this principle.

Diversity of different cultivated systems reflects the unique nature of site, situation and cultural context. Diversity of structures, both living and built, is an important aspect of this principle, as is the diversity within species and populations, including human communities. The conservation of at least some of the great diversity of languages and cultures on the planet is arguably as important as the conservation of biodiversity. While inappropriate and destructive responses to energy descent will have knock on impacts on both human and biodiversity, in the longer-term, energy descent will slow the economic engine of diversity destruction, and stimulate new local and bioregional diversity. While many environmental and social movements only recognise prior biological and cultural diversity, permaculture is just as actively engaged in how to create new bioregional diversity from the melting pot of nature and culture we have inherited

The proverb 'don't put all your eggs in one basket' embodies the common sense understanding that diversity provides insurance against the vagaries of nature and everyday life.

My Comments

Modern industrialized agriculture has left most of us with a particular image of a highly successful farm - the image of acres and acres of neatly planted rows of the same type, be it corn or wheat or even cabbages. This image is often repeated in miniature in our backyards where one usually finds gardens planted with neat rows of a single crop each.

Modern industrialized agriculture can be wonderfully productive, but that production can come at quite a price. That price includes soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, a food supply more susceptible to disease, introduction of chemicals into the environment and the resulting health and environmental problems, among other things.

Rarely in nature do plants line up neatly in row after row of the same species. That is not how nature was designed. Getting those neat rows of monoculture to be successful requires forcing nature into a unnatural state. This means deforestation, lots of plowing with machines, artificial watering techniques and the application of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and other chemicals. It has also meant relying on only the most productive crop varieties and excluding less productive, or even less attractive, varieties.

The requirement that modern industrialized agriculture has for vast inputs of petroleum products for both production and transport means that the food supply is highly vulnerable to high inflation or even disruption by events far from the farm.

The situation requires some examination and reconsideration. Agriculture, as it is practiced today, is simply not sustainable for much longer. I highly recommend Toby Hemenway's essay, Is Sustainable Agriculture an Oxymoron, for additional insights.

What is the answer? There are many potential solutions, among them relocalization of food systems, people raising a portion of their own food, permaculture, forest gardening, and the organic food movement.

Communities should encourage people to produce a portion of their own food (see my call for a Modern Victory Movement). This can be done by reviving the Victory Gardens idea of the first two world wars. Communities should also promote local sustainable agriculture.


Ways to Encourage Local Food Production

1. Promote the idea Victory Gardens (both private and community-based) and food co-ops.
   
2. Provide training courses in gardening and permaculture through local community colleges and agricultural extension offices.
3. Remove unnecessary restrictions on people growing their own food (maintaining needed restrictions to promote health & safety and prevent animal cruelty).
4. Remove unnecessary restrictions on local farmers selling their crops to local markets (often put in place due to lobbying by big agri-business).
5. Require that government food services (such as school lunch programs) spend an increasing portion of their budgets on locally produced food.
6. Encourage the formation of farmers markets.
7. Local relief agencies should provide vouchers or special debit cards for use at local farmers markets as part of their assistance programs.
8. Promote the health, economic and environmental benefits of low-meat diets (educational programs only - what people eat should be their choice).
9. Public tree-planting programs should include fruit and nut trees.
10. Support programs to capture organic waste (food scraps, animal & human manure, leaves & other yard waste, agricultural waste) for composting to improve soils.

Additional Resources

For those interested in raising a portion of their own food, I particularly recommend Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times by Steve Solomon, and Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens by Patricia Lanza.

David Holmgren is one of the co-founders of the permaculture movement. His latest book is Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.

Toby Hemenway is a permaculture expert and an associate editor of The Permaculture Activist. His most recent book is Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture. A collection of his essays can be found online at the Pattern Literacy website.