Has organic gardening hijacked permaculture

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by futuredesigner, Dec 18, 2006.

  1. futuredesigner

    futuredesigner Junior Member

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    A quote I often quote is Bill Mollisons responce to the question, "Where do you think Permaculture will be in 30 years" to which he said "It will have flown away with the faires, or it will have become an organic gardening club, which it is'nt"

    I heard Christopher Alexander, co author of "a pattern language" an excellent book all to do with traditional building. He refered to the modern day curse of regulations in the building industry, refering to how people in the past understood how to build houses, bridges, etc, without any government interference. People actually new what they were doing. They learnt from experience. Look at the buildings we have today.... I rest my case.....

    Today many people associate Permaculture with gardening. My personal opinion is that Permaculture has been sold as hobby horse, when in fact it is a Clydesdale, or an Australian Stock Horse, a Waler.

    If you are taught the Bill Mollison curriculum in its entirety, you learn "total system design" or "universal design skills".

    A teacher can only teach what they know. There must always be a starting point, for we soon discover that we learn for ever, especially when applying permaculture in differing locations. However all of the fundamentals are installed from Bills curriculum to his/your students for you to start the process of designing with universal design skills.

    Bill was once a University Professor. He has little regard for the modern education system. He bravely established a "new" method of teaching, simply let the amatuers loose. No restrictions, fire at will.

    Those who failed to make a decent living from a career in Permaculture took on a second job to support themselves while learning, or fell away to there own private world, or sought government assistance, APT for example.

    Those who shun government control over permaculture, and seek to better themselves from their tenacity and perserverence will enivitably be stronger, faster, and more effective, as will the work of their students, for they will have all benefited from experience. "If at first you dont succeed, apply for a government grant" is another favorite quote of mine from unknown origins.


    Bill Mollison is a man of great experience. It is a great pity that more people have'nt recognise the genius of what he has created. And a ever greater pity that they have not respected it.

    Those people who are "passing off" permaculture as a method of gardening or food processing or ..... should, if they were genuine thinkers, rename what they are selling to clearly identify what they are selling. A permaculture garden is not permaculture, it is a permaculture garden.

    And a final comment, it would be refreshing for teachers to put the name of the author of their curriculum into their marketing of permaculture courses. I do.

    I look forward to reading the opinions of all of the delightful people who may wish to respond to my above opinion. I hope they are many.

    Thanks Leo Mahon. Director Permaculture Design Institute.
     
  2. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Bill,

    Thankyou for that thoughtful reply. I threw that a thread out hoping you would participate, alas, its a new thread but not lost on us.


    cheers


    floot
     
  3. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    I agree Leo...I find it frustrating that Permaculture is often reduced to being about organic gardening or about 'garden design,' when as you say, taught correctly it really does offer a universal design template.

    FWIW, I think to some degree we (and I mean the collective 'we' as in people who have done a PDC of Bill's curriculum) have brought that perception upon ourselves. While there are plenty of people out there teaching the whole concept, there are very few physical manifestations of anything other than 'Permaculture gardens,' and on a much smaller scale, Permaculture principles applied to building design (which has been co-opted as much as organic gardening).

    There is no tangible physical manifestation of Permaculture ethics which can be separated from a whole range of other 'ethical' pursuits or organisations that either existed before Permaculture or are smarter about promoting their ability to change/improve something (possibly because they focus solely on one thing). There is no political application of Permaculture ethics on any level in Australia - the only engagement with government being APT, which I tend to agree, undermines the whole concept of Permaculture as it was intended to be taught.

    There is no Australian example (at least not widely and publicly known) of how Permaculture design can reinvigorate a community, regenerate land to provide sustainable produce, employment etc, yet we see Australian Permaculture practitioners doing exactly that overseas. These communities and the people within them that are influenced 'get it' - if it's not done at all here then we lose all chance to influence at this level...arguably the most effective.

    Permaculture is a universal design template as far as growing produce goes, yet so many of its leading practitioners are situated on the fertile, fairly densely populated coastline where land is expensive and everything is in their favour for success. What does any of this prove in terms of advancing Permaculture as a universal design template? History would show it proves that the students of these people tend to end up doing similar things in similar places.

    A person can love and endorse the idea of a Permaculture village as much as they like, but the fact remains that it costs serious money to buy into one and the existing ones are largely problematic because there was often no prerequisite to have done a PDC before purchase. The concept of WWOOFing further reinforces this whole situation - you're working on an organic farm, and for most, if they ever want to have any sense of real ownership in such an enterprise, they'll have to head back into the 'real world' and more than likely compromise any Permaculture ethics they had in order to be able to afford it.

    As far as I'm aware, there are no Australian businesses who openly state that they operate under Permaculture principles and aren't directly involved in either teaching, publishing (which is in effect teaching) or very small scale food production.

    So in ~3 decades, as far as I can see, we've made little or no inroads into:

    Government

    Business and economics

    Large scale commercial agriculture/pastoralism

    Enhancing communities as a whole on a genuinely broad level

    Providing employment beyond teaching, writing, designing organic gardens and homes for individuals and small scale implementation for growing produce

    Nor allowing graduates to practice Permaculture collectively without major financial resources already built up, or by doing it essentially as a volunteer.


    ----------

    Is it any wonder Permaculture is viewed the way it is here in Australia? Where have we had any tangible impact on society beyond the realm of organic gardening with a twist? Even that has been usurped to a large degree - as your thread title suggests.

    Unless Permaculture genuinely influences some or all of the other societal systems positively and publicly, how can it be ever seen by the broader public as capable of influencing any sphere other than the one it does influence - organic gardening?

    After many thousands of PDC graduates, I think it's fairly safe to say that teaching thousands more at what for some is a hefty cost, isn't going to change much at the levels of society we're already failing to influence. Teaching the full PDC will change the lives of individuals, but at present, is evidently not capable of changing wider society in all the ways it potentially could (and should).

    It pains me to say most of the above, and I certainly don't intend to offend anyone, but that's my $.02c on the situation.
     
  4. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    On a few occasions, and they are searchable, I have breasted the issue of permaculture politicians. I am not proposing a movement here but it is high time that an individual could stand as a permaculturist and generate enough community recognition to be elected.

    I also believe that permaculture may be a panacea, sadly and yet untested, voters have other interpretations of how they see permaculture. We even see it in this forum.

    So Jez, we have to plough on with the education and hope that enlightened commonsense kicks in. The founders of permaculture knew it was applicable worldwide and effectively took it to that forum.

    At this time in our history I believe we should take it back to the grass roots community - politically speaking.

    Henry Parkes, as an organic farmer, did his bit to lay the political seeds for an australian environmentally friendly society. We need to address this issue again as, I fear, '' time and clime are agin us''.

    floot
     
  5. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    I replied to this but my post is not here :(.
     
  6. murray

    murray Junior Member

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    sorry dude - we just switched the perma forum to a new server today.

    i put a "DO NOT POST" notice up on the old site before i did the switch, but you must have gotten yours in just before the notice went up or something.

    apologies..

    m
     
  7. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    yes jez,

    i procrastinated about this reply, but for what it is worth here it is.

    exactly what you say, while all that can be seen is permaculture for sale the ball will never get rolling, so the few of us who are doing our bit to change what we can will simply go down with the rest of them.

    for the main the reactions i have gotten is we are the 'modern nimbin hippies' and doomed to go the same way.

    len
     
  8. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    PMSL @ Len as a "modern Nimbin hippie" ;). Now maybe me... ;)

    S'ok Murray, not your fault! I might come back to it :).
     
  9. MonteGoulding

    MonteGoulding Junior Member

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    What are the possibilities for permaculture to move forward? It would certainly be interesting to see a permaculture takeover of local government.
     
  10. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    G'day Floot,

    Yeah, as you say, the average Australian voter doesn't see Permaculture's potential in terms of being able to solve problems outside the realm of 'green building' and organic gardening.

    And in our 30 second soundbyte society, it's virtually impossible to get a complex explanation of who you are and what you stand for though to the public using the media.

    I've got nothing against Permaculture education...it's a great thing...I just question what impact it has in terms of changing anything except at the level of a small minority of individuals. It seems to have reinforced the 'organic gardening club' mentality more than it has promoted 'enlightened commonsense' at a societal level.

    I'm sure it's changed people's outlook and actions as individuals in many other ways, but these changes don't seem to be as easily communicable or easy to spread at the level outside the individual as organic gardening is. Or perhaps the majority of people focus on what they can change as individuals for themselves (which often amounts to basically taking up organic gardening), rather than enhanced, pervasive change through group action?

    There's no doubt that the world is coming to a crossroads where much wider dissemination of Permaculture principles is needed more urgently than ever...


    G'day Len,

    Just to clarify, I think anyone who teaches Permaculture, designs, implements or writes about it is doing a wonderful thing...no doubt they make a lot of financial sacrifices to follow a career path which is about the most ethical they could choose. And they have to make some sort of living, so money has to be involved somewhere along the line.

    I'm sure you feel the same?

    But yeah, all it seems to have achieved is that Permaculture has been pigeon holed as good for 'those who are into that sort of thing'...when really it has beneficial universal applications.


    G'day Monty,

    The Green movement was born out of a cluster of 'Green thinking' people in one Tasmanian electorate who elected Bob Brown and then the whole thing sort of snowballed into a statewide, then a national movement from there.

    But it took a lot of effort, donations, and a certain density of people who felt the same way to get it off the ground. It seems to me that Permaculture lacks the same sort of financial clout, organisational skills (as a group), lacks a fairly dense hub of people in a small enough area, and possibly lacks the will (as a group) to achieve the same thing.

    If you look at what Peter Andrews (Click) has achieved, you can see that it really doesn't take entering or controlling politics to change the outlook of the public, it just takes concrete results which you can show people and a bit of the right publicity. The National Party may be perceived as rednecks, but if they (as John Anderson did with Peter's property) walk onto a piece of land and see it working brilliantly as a system, they are willing to listen to how it was done. One certain way to change the face of the landscape is to get your message through to farmers - they have major established political representation and they have money literally thrown at them by the current government.

    Peter isn't doing anything which isn't already embodied in Permaculture teaching. He's been in such demand (as in to do what he's done at his place on other people's land) following the publicity of his property and his regeneration work that he can't keep up with it. Imagine if Permaculture had the same type of positive exposure...with hundreds if not thousands of people already trained and capable of capitalising on the demand - rather than just Peter and a handful of others as it is with NSF.

    But for some reason, to my knowledge, very few people are working on rejuvenating degraded, failing farming land here in Australia using Permaculture principles, and returning that land to being a profitable, sustainable system. Those who are, obviously aren't getting the necessary publicity to have any public impact outside that individual property. Or perhaps they are too few spread too thinly.

    There's no greater way of advancing your principles and gaining the necessary publicity to make those principles more widespread than to go to the coal face of a major problem and do something positive about it. What could fit that bill better than so much of the country being in drought, in need of new direction and screaming out for help?

    Like the Midnight Oil lyric re. our farming areas...'The land is cracked and the land is sore'...but who is doing anything? At least some Permaculturalists have the tools, but apparently lack the will or can't see any way of going about starting to do it.

    IMO, if you want to change the world, you have to start by getting its attention in a major way - and you should start in your own backyard/region/country first.


    ***As always, these are just my opinions and not intended to offend anyone.
     
  11. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Jez,

    Beautifully said.

    You are right the Greens did have their 'to die for' issue over the Franklin River and the Tasmanian Hydro Schemes which galvanised the movement. Permaculture probably embraces too many issues to get a start. We are probably too diverse in so many ways.

    These figures are about 15 years old and hearsay from Tim Fischer. The NPA had 100,000 members, ALP 40,000 and the Liberals about 11000 members nationally. I have no idea of the situation currently as a lot has changed. Mollison said in an interview he had probably trained 30,000, even conservatively, there would have to be 10,000 in Australia.

    Perhaps there will come a time. Who would have said 20 years ago that smoking would be banned in public parks etc?

    floot
     
  12. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    permaculture can't move forward until we get it away from the giddy heights of feel good society and get it entrenched into the grass roots of our society then it will spread like a good lawn and people will look for those aspects so it will have relevence and will then get political representation but not before that. presentrly i feel it is starting at the wrong end ie.,. the top working down.

    len
     

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