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Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Practice, Movement, and Worldview

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Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Practice, Movement, and Worldview Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Practice, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. This is a preprint (17 September 2013) of an article accepted for publication in Agronomy for Sustainable Development http://link.springer.com/journal/13593 The final published version may differ from this preprint. Review Article. Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Practice, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. Rafter Sass FERGUSON1, Sarah Taylor LOVELL2 1,2 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1009 Plant Sciences Laboratory 1201 S. Dorner Drive Urbana, IL 61801 (Accepted 11 Sepember 2013) Abstract - Agroecology is a promising alternative to industrial agriculture, with the potential to avoid the negative social and ecological consequences of input-intensive production. Transitioning to agroecological production is, however, a complex project that requires diverse contributions from outside of scientific institutions. Agroecologists therefore collaborate with tradtional producers and agroecological movements. Permaculture is one such agroecological movement, with a broad international distribution and a unique approach to system design. Despite a high public profile, permaculture has remained relatively isolated from scientific research. Though the potential contribution of permaculture to agroecological transition is great, it is limited by this isolation from science, as well as from oversimplifying claims, and the lack of a clear definition. Here we review scientific and popular permaculture literature. A systematic review discusses quantitative bibliometric data, including keyword analysis. A qualitative review identifies and asseses major themes, proposals and claims. The manuscript follows a stratified definition of permaculture as design system, best practice framework, worldview, and movement. The major points of our analysis are: 1) principles and topics largely complement and even extend principles and topics found in the agroecological literature. 2) Distinctive approaches to perennial polyculture, water management, and the importance of agroecosystem configuration, exceed what is documented in the scientific literature, and thus suggest promising avenues of inquiry. 3) Discussions of practice consistently underplay the complexity, challenges, and risks that producers face in developing diversified and integrated production systems. 4) The movement is mobilizing diverse forms of social support for sustainabililty, in geographically diverse locations. 5) Scholarship in permaculture has always been a diverse marginal sector, but is growing. permaculture / farm design / perennial polyculture / agroecological transition / diversified farming systems / agroecological movement Rafter Sass Ferguson & Sarah Taylor Lovell. Agronomy for Sustainable Development (in press). Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Practice, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2 BACKGROUND 4 2.1 Shifting Definitions 4 2.2 Historical Context 4 2.3 Conceptual Influences 5 2.3.1 Permanent as Sustainable and 5 Perennial 5 2.3.2 Systems Ecology 5 2.3.4 Keyline Planning 6 2.4 Permaculture and Agroecology 6 3 REVIEW METHODS 7 3.1 Systematic Review 7 3.1.1 Search Protocol 8 3.1.2 Bibliometric Analysis 8 3.1.3 Concept Network 9 3.2 Qualitative Review 10 4 RESULTS 10 4.1 Systematic and Bibliometric 10 Review 10 4.1.1 Publication Type 10 4.1.2 Geography of Publication and Topic 10 4.1.3 Concept Network 13 4.2 Qualitative Review 13 4.2.1 Design 14 4.2.2 Practice 20 4.2.3 Movement 22 4.2.4 Worldview 23 5 SYNTHESIS 24 5.1 Substantiation and Scholarship 24 5.1.1 Overreaching Claims 24 5.1.2 Isolation from Science 26 5.1.3 Permaculture Scholarship 27 5.2 Limitations of this Study 27 5.3 Future Directions 28 6 CONCLUSION 29 REFERENCES 30 Rafter Sass Ferguson & Sarah Taylor Lovell. Agronomy for Sustainable Development (in press). Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Practice, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. 1. INTRODUCTION This paper addresses the alternative agroecology Increasing concerns about the negative impacts of movement called permaculture and its potential industrial agriculture have generated a vigorous contributions to agroecological transition. debate over the feasibility of transition to alternative Permaculture is an international movement and forms of agriculture, capable of providing a broad ecological design system (Fig. 1). Despite suite of ecosystem services while producing yields for permaculture's international extent and relatively high human use. The transition to diversified, ecologically public profile, it has received very little discussion in benign, smaller-scale production systems is addressed the scientific literature. The term originated as a in the literature of agroecology (De Schutter 2010), portmanteau of permanent agriculture, and is defined diversified farming systems (Kremen et al. 2012), and by co-originator David Holmgren as “Consciously multifunctional agriculture (Wilson 2008). designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and Agroecological transition must be regarded as a relationships found in nature, while yielding an complex, multi-sector project, operating at multiple abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of temporal and spatial scales and involving diverse local needs” (2004, p. xix). As a broadly distributed constituencies (Geels and Kemp 2007; Marques 2010; movement with a distinctive conceptual framework Piraux et al. 2010). For this reason, researchers have for agroecosystem design, permaculture's relevance to often directed their attention outside of institutional the project of agroecological transition has several science, to document the contributions that traditional aspects. Permaculture can function as a framework and innovative practices offer to the process of for integrating knowledge and practice across transition (Altieri 2004; Ingram 2007; Rocha 2005; disciplines to support collaboration with mixed Koohafkan et al. 2012; Rosset et al. 2011). Alternative groups of researchers, stakeholders, and land users. agroecology movements, for example, have been Permaculture contributes to an applied form of critical in the process of regional agroecological ecological literacy (Orr 1992), supplying a popular transition (Nelson et al. 2009; Altieri and Toledo and accessible synthesis of complex socio-ecological 2011), and likely will be in the future (Fernandez et concepts. The design orientation of permaculture al. 2012; Petersen et al. 2012). offers a distinctive perspective that suggests avenues of inquiry in agroecosystem research. Lastly, these (a) (b) Figure 1. Examples of production and education in the permaculture movement. (a) Small farm with intercropped annuals and perennials, worked partially with hand labor, (b) Workshop on the design and maintenance of perennial polycultures. Rafter Sass Ferguson & Sarah Taylor Lovell. Agronomy for Sustainable Development (in press). Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Practice, Movement, and Worldview. A Review. factors are embodied in an international movement that operates largely outside of the influence and 2 BACKGROUND support of large institutions, which suggests 2.1 Shifting Definitions opportunities for participatory-action research and the The definition of permaculture varies among mobilization of popular inquiry and support (Méndez sources, and displays an expansion in subject area et al. 2013). over time. In 1978, permaculture was defined in the The potential of permaculture to contribute founding text as "an integrated, evolving system of broadly to agroecological transition is limited by perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal several factors. Of primary importance is the general species useful to man ... in essence, a complete isolation of permaculture from science, both in terms agricultural ecosystem, modeled on existing but of a lack of scholarly research about permaculture, simpler examples." (Mollison & Holmgren, p. 1). By and neglect within the permaculture literature of the 1988 the definition had grown in scope to contemporary scientific perspectives. This deficit is encompass broader issues of human settlement, while compounded by overreaching and oversimplifying maintaining a core agricultural focus: "Permaculture claims made by movement adherents, and the absence … is the conscious design and maintenance of of any systematic multi-site assessment of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the permaculture's impacts. Additionally, the difficulty of diversity, stability, and resilience of natural providing a clear and distinguishing description of ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of permaculture can cause confusion and hinder rigorous landscape and people providing their food, energy, and systematic discussion. shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way” (Mollison). While permaculture The objective of this paper is to contribute to a addresses multiple aspects of human settlement, this better understanding of the substance, strengths, and paper will focus primarily on those aspects of limitations of permaculture as a potential contributor permaculture relevant to agriculture and to agroecological transition. Introductory material agroecological transition. includes a brief overview of the origins and development of permaculture, the growth of the 2.2 Historical Context movement over time, and a preliminary heuristic for Permaculture emerged in parallel with other comparing the prominence and overlap of movements and disciplines with a focus
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