Permaculture and Perennial Polycultures
|
Tweet this story! Support our efforts for a sustainable world.
|
|
The following is an excerpt from Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, a Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious, Easy-to-Grow Edibles by Eric Toensmeier. It has been adapted for the Web.
“Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” —Bill Mollison, from Permaculture: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future, 1990
Permaculture is a design tool to help you take all the garden elements you want (e.g., greenhouse, vegetables, shed, small fruits, pond) and integrate them in such a way that they become more than the sum of their parts. Permaculture is not about any particular type of food production, although it helped to develop and popularize the notion of perennial polycultures. The simple elegance of this idea has captivated me for the last 17 years. Whenever I am driving, walking, or riding my bike, I imagine the landscape around me converted to perennial polycultures.
Try to imagine polycultures of useful plants growing in public spaces everywhere. Vibrant ecosystems would surround our homes and neighborhoods, producing
- a diverse array of foods, from staple protein and carbohydrates to fruits, leaves, and roots;
- timber, bamboo, and other construction materials;
- grazing, browsing, and fodder for livestock;
- medicinal and culinary herbs;
- outdoor habitat for humans and wildlife;
- fuelwood for heat and cooking;
- fertilizers, compost feedstocks, and botanical pesticides;
- biofuels like vegetables oils to run diesel engines;
- and plant-based petroleum and plastic substitutes.
We’re not there yet. In fact, while some tropical areas have farmed this way for centuries, it is not yet certain that this vision is even possible for the frostier climates most readers of this book live in. But there is only one way to find out—to start experimenting on whatever land we have access to.
It isn’t enough to grow food sustainably—it has to be distributed equitably as well, and that’s going to take a lot more than perennial polycultures. We need political and economic systems that prioritize human beings and the environment over short-term greed and oppression. In such a scenario permaculture systems could provide the abundant basis of life in a “post-scarcity” agriculture. Perennial food systems could mean less work, less petroleum use, and more free time to enjoy life—that is, after the first few decades of working the bugs out and getting those trees to grow to maturity!
Ultimately, permaculture offers a vision of how humanity can participate in—rather than damage—our planet’s ecosystems and the process of evolution itself. When seen in this context, perennial vegetables are not just a novelty for the garden: They may just have a humble role to play in the future of our species and its relationship to the planet it calls home.
For further reading, see Bill Mollison and Reny Mia Slay’s Introduction to Permaculture and David Holmgren’s Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.
