[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: research on pc projects needed



Title: Re: research on pc projects needed
Hi Rick + Naomi...
Must be some parallel thought going on here!

You wrote:
We work with an aid agency on sustainable permaculture aid projects. One of
the issues that came up at our last meeting was the lack of documentation
and research into the effectiveness of permaculture techniques.

I think this attitude may be more common among aid agencies than we think. Over years of work with an agency, I have come across a skepticism regarding the effectiveness of permaculture as a tool in aid. I know that. a few years back, an agricultural adviser with AusAID (the Australian government's aid funding body) publicly ridiculed permaculture at an aid organisation meeting. He said "Permaculture is not a suitable technolology for overseas development" and likened it to Farming Systems Research of the 1970s.

Were there the documentation you mention, then answering critics would be simplified.

Rick and Noami write:

Many case studies are documented in the various global permaculture
publications and in the International Permaculture Conference Proceedings
papers. However we do agree that there is a broad lack of research and
quantitative data reports on such projects.

Articles in the permaculture press are valuable as descriptive journalistic pieces. They are generally not, however, analytical articles which ask questions about processes and outcomes. They therefore lack that hard, enquiring edge which is needed to make a realistic assessment of things and which is needed to effectively answer critics. In fact, a great deal of permaculture writing is self-congratulatory, fails to address negatives (how else can we learn?) and make comparisons. This feels good in the short term but takes us nowhere over the longer term.

At the risk of being accused of negativity to permaculture development aid, may I make a few observations based on experience in permaculture since 1984 and in overseas aid since 1995?

1) There is no funding that I know of to successfully carry out in-depth monitoring and evaluation visits of permaculture development aid projects. This is one of the reasons that hard data is difficult to find.

2) Much permaculture aid is short-term stuff rather than the long-term which is so critical to training local people to take over the management of projects and to ensuring their sustainability (as much as that is ever possible). Little thought is given to making projects sustainable.

3) There exists a 'workshop' mentality with permaculture aid. That is, it is believed that by conducting a workshop or two, what is taught will continue to be implemented. Our experience in the South Pacific indicates that this is untrue.

There's an interesting story about an Australian permaculture team that went to PNG for a project. As I received the story, they went to Port Moresby markets and demonstrated a solar cooker. Locals, interested in the seemingly useful contrivance, asked why they hadn't seen such a device before. Well, maybe they hadn't, but the organisation seemed to be suggesting that small scale appropriate technology such as the cooker was new to PNG. In fact, a little research would have disclosed the existence of appropriate technology in the country since the late 1970s.  Anyone who visits the UniTech campus in Lae, on the PNG north coast, can visit the Appropraite Technology and Community Development Institute, spend time in their excellent library, buy there publications - including the excellent manual on appropriate technology and small scale village agricultural development, the Lik Lik Buk (a must for rural development workers) visit the technology workshop next door and see the buildings they designed. And why have solar cookers not taken off? Maybe it has something to do with the extent of wet season cloud cover, the cost  and simply finding the materials to make a solar cooker from.

4) Generally, a Permaculture design Course, without any follow-up study or prior experience, is an inadequate qualification for working in overseas aid.

While working for an aid agency in Sydney, I don't know how many  times young hopefuls - really well intentioned people - walked into the office and asked to be deployed to one of our aid projects in Melanesia. When asked about experience and studies, all they had was a design certificate. Usually, they had just completed one and, fired up and enthused,  were consequently ready to put it into action (called by some the 'permaculture eureka' effect).

The design course is all too often an information-shovelling effort where a knowledgeable teacher downloads content into the heads of students. Actual skills development is another matter. The students I saw had no skills in, or even knowledge about, techniques commonly used by development field staff and which we use in Melanesia - Participatory Rural Appraisal, Participatory Technology Development, community food security assessment. Nor did they commonly have any knowledge of project management.

5) In general, monitoring and evaluation of permaculture projects, even in developed countries, is lacking. There seems to be little mention of it in permaculture design courses and little application of it as part of the overall permaculture project management cycle.  Yet, without a realistic assessment of our work, how do we learn? How do we improve? One of the notions we adopted for our work in the Pacific was that of 'continual improvement' based on monitoring and adjustment - through formal analysis, participant questioning and informal discussion - and, at suitable intervals when funding allowed, through evaluation of the program to date.

6) Permaculture has to move beyond the herb spirals and banana circles mentality to create a niche in the aid industry where it works from its strong points. To do this, permaculture has to shed its aversion to self-reflection, its dislike of the consideration of negatives and the defensiveness of some of its adherents. It needs to become self-critical. It must also shed the damaging
'permaculture missionary' attitude of some of its more enthusiastic proponents which can be e real turn-off to development professionals.

7) Permaculture needs to leave emergency and humanitarian intervention to the agencies streamlined to provide this - the Australian Defence Force and the emergency agencies such as Medicine Without Frontiers, Red Cross/ Crescent, World Vision and so on. Permaculture is at home in the development phase following an emergency when infrastructure is being rebuilt, not in the emergency response phase for which it has little experience, no Australia-based or in-country back-up (including an administrative and communications component), little knowledge about field security in conflict situations, little financial back-up and little experience working with those whose melieu in this area.

This is not to say that permaculturists should not participate in a broader team in emergency/ humanitarian aid.

Rick +Noami write:

Does anyone on this list know of any formal research into the effectiveness
of permaculture strategies, or documentation of projects that could add to
our current knowledge?

We applied for and received funding from an agency research body to produce an evaluation - a documentation - of our program in the South Pacific and to produce some training manuals suitable for use by Melanesian field staff. These latter include a manual about basic introductory agricultural techniques for people using slash and burn farming (includes mulching, soils etc).

Rather than produce the research (carried out through the 'action research' methodology) in conventional data-heavy format, we wanted it in a form understandable by Melanesian aid workers as well as by people in developed countries. Consequently, we are producing it as a narrative, in everyday English... more as a journalistic document but heavy laden with factual stuff. All these products are nearing final draft and will most likely be made available free as PDF format printable documents from a website planned for the program.

Rick + Noami write:

We believe (with a passion) that permaculture systems work if well designed
and considered, it would be great to have more documented evidence of this.

Absoloutely! Permaculture provides that broad appreciation of a situation.

May I recommend that permaculture people interested in overseas aid:

- volunteer in Australia or wherever they live with a suitable non-government aid organisation to gain understanding of how aid and its agencies operate and to build up some experience in project management

- enroll in one of the permaculture advanced courses for aid workers - Permaculture Education at Nimbin and the Seed Savers Network at Byron Bay offer courses - maybe Rick + Naomi do too?

- learn participatory techniques for working with communities

- if your interest is agriculture, then learn about human nutrition and health. water supply and irrigation and sanitation as well as developing practical food gardening skills in your garden or in a community garden

- read books such as:

a) STRIKING A BLANCE - a guide to enhancing the effectiveness of non-government organisations in international development (Fowler A, 1997; Earthscan; London)

b) A BASIC GUIDE FOR DEVELOPMENT WORKERS (1995, Rubin F; Oxfam; UK)

c) CHOOSING RESEARCH METHODS (1992, Pratt B, Loizos P: Oxfam; UK)

d) BASIC ACCOUNTING FOR SMALL GROUPS (1992, Cammack J; Oxfam; UK)

e) GARDENING FOR BETTER NUTRITION (1978, Pacey A; Internediate Technology Publications; London)

f) GETTING READY - a guide for international NGO, permaculture and community development workers (1998: Permaculture and Development Team; Sydney, Australia) - from Action for World Development: awdev@ozemail.com.au

g) BRIDGING THE GAP -  a guide to monitoring and evaluating development projects (Broughton B, Hampshire J; Australian Council for Overseas Aid; Canberra, ACT)

h) TWO EARS OF CORN - a guide to people-centred agricultural development (Bunch R, 1982; World Neighbours; Oklahoma, USA)

i) PARTICIPATORY LEARNING AND ACTION - a trainer's guide (Pretty N et al, 1995; International Institute for Environment and Development; London)

j) DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGY WITH FARMERS - a trainer's guide for participatory learning (1997, van Veldhuizen et al; Zed Books; London)