Generally I agree that controlled, well constructed
experiments are necessary to check what really works.
However, yield is not the only thing that counts.
For one thing, pc is about sustainability. You can
increase yield by destroing your resources. So what counts is _sustainable_
yield.
Secondly, as long as you build systems not for
comercial farming but for subsistency, yield may not be the only thing that
counts. A subsistence farmer may want a high diversity of products, he does
not want to eat just one thing every day. He might prefer less yield it more
yield means more work. The classical permaculture systems are subsistency
systems in the first place, even if comercial farming is done on part of the
area.
If you do comercial farming, you might have to do
different things and maybe that is not pc again Actually I don't care if it is
pc or not, as long as it would be sustainable. If the "classical methods"
developed by Bill & Co turn out not to be that good, I have no problem
replacing them by something that is better. I am quite pragmatic about
that.
For me the main thing is sustainability. In the
core of that is fairnes. If you decide not to be egoistic, but fair to everybody
(including yourself), and you understand that this has to include future
generations, then it follows that anything that gives us an advantage on the
expense of future people is unfair. E.g.m, atomic energy is unfair, because it
gives one generation energy and the next 1000 generations have the dangerous
waste. Likewise, anything that is not sustainable would give us advantages on
future people's expense. Therefore, nonsustainable lifestyles are instances of
exploitation. If we do not want to be exploiters, we must choose
sustainability.
The methods by which sustainability is achieved
aren't sacred. Whatever works is good. We have to be very pragmatic here. But it
would indeed be good to proof and measure what works, not just believe in herb
spirals. Some good science, let me propose the term "evidence based pc", is
necessary here.
Andreas
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2002 9:06
PM
Subject: Pc slammed in Whole Earth
Review
Those of you who can get Whole Earth Review may want to
look at the new Winter 2001 issue. WER sent a copy of Gaia's
Garden for review to Greg Williams, a one-time agroforestry guy who
publishes the HortIdeas newsletter. Turns out Williams absolutely hates
permaculture, thinks its mostly bull (he took one of the first American
courses from Bill). Williams didn't focus too much on my book, but spent a
couple thousand words blasting permaculture, very persuasively. Whole
Earth was kind enough to let me reply in print, and I did my best to
address his gripes, but he raised a couple of very good points (both Greg's
piece and mine were cut about 30% by the editors; the tone of Greg's was
originally very nasty and sarcastic, but the editors removed most of
that).
He used some pretty strong language: "The fundamentally
misguided ideas of some permaculturists . . . show signs of polluting the
larger culture." It's unpleasant to see this in a widely respected and
influential magazine.
One of Greg's less cogent arguments was that
Pc's whole idea of mimicking mature ecosystems was stupid because immature
ecosystems are more productive than mature ones. This was easy to dispose of,
since he missed the difference between fully mature (senescent, ancient, less
productive) forests and maturing forests (5-200 years old, which Pc
seeks to mimic), which are 2-10 times more productive than meadows or farms.
But his most damning points were about the absence of data, testing,
and experiments with controls to support any of permaculture's claims of being
a superior system to conventional agriculture or gardening. He wrote that he
has never seen "any convincing evidence that temperate zone forest gardens can
do better than meadow gardens at providing useful products." If anyone ever
did measure, he says, the yields of conventional gardens should dwarf those of
forest gardens.
Permaculturists, he writes, "have neglected the
scientific approach to determining the worth of their ideas . . . and instead
have argued for and against particular gardening techniques on the basis of
(at best) incomplete theoretical notions and (at worst) pure intuition. This
is worse than glossing over the details; it is misconstruing the details. . .
. It is completely unacceptable when their claims are made to the general
public, who stand to waste huge amounts of time and money on a (much)
less-than-optimal approach to boosting garden output."
The problem is,
it's hard to find data to refute his claims (I did my best, but to an insider,
there may be a faint whiff of the barnyard about some of my reply). We just
don't collect data. What do we answer when a farmer asks, "How much more money
or produce, or less erosion, will your system get me?" That we just
know it works better? Does anyone have any numbers? I've looked at a
lot of Pc sites in North America, and I haven't seen one where people are
measuring yields.
So are we justified in saying that this stuff works?
Or is permaculture just for those, as Williams says, "who do not require
optimal solutions to pressing agricultural and ecological problems"?
If anyone's got any hard numbers, or other reputable data, please
share them. If not, it points to a huge lack in permaculture, and we should
get busy setting up trials and getting reliable data instead of just banking
on Bill's wild claims. Without data, more folks like Williams will erode
permaculture's credibility.
I've also had inquiries from a researcher
who wants yield data from permaculture farms for a thesis. If anyone has
these, let me
know.
Toby _____________________________________________ For a
look at my new book on ecological gardening, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to
Home-Scale Permaculture,
visit http://www.chelseagreen.com/Garden/GaiasGarden.htm
--- You are currently subscribed to permaculture as:
ak.and.ak@on-line.de To unsubscribe send a blank email to
leave-permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu Get the list FAQ at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/documents/permaculture.faq
|