Permaculture: Back to Basics?

Permaculture seems to have grown almost as many interpretations as there are practitioners. Patrick Whitefield talks to Simon Fairlie.

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SF : A lot of “permaculture plots” are on a small  fiddly scale. The prevalence of herb spirals, mini-ponds, willow arbours and micro-coppices, along with ubiquitous “forest gardens” are charming, but are they really any more than a current fashion trend in “alternative” gardening? In some quarters, the perceived quaintness of Permaculture (PC) gardening prevents it from being regarded as a serious method of cultivation. Are these approaches actually permacultural and if so, is PC married to such methods? Or is there room for a more efficiency-based approach?

PW : Small scale is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact there’s plenty of evidence to show that small scale food production, including gardening, actually yields more food than large scale. It may produce less per person employed and certainly produces less financial return, but on average it does produce more food per hectare.¹

Permaculture and the beaten path to freedom

Permaculture revisited

Here we have a good example of how a noble proposal and related information may be undermined to pose no threat to the system.  While wondering around the web for practical information about permaculture, one good source is The Permaculture Institute.  As an example (there is nothing in particular that is wrong with the PI but it is representative) of how an idea can be sterilized and be assimilated within the dominant system of capitalism.  Permaculture as a proposal of how land can be utilized in a sustainable way and not as a temporary area of exploitation till it is depleted and abandoned is something that few good willing souls may have anything against.  But in itself does not contain automatically a viable way for people to escape the domination of the economic and political system we all (almost all, or almost all who are not struggling to escape it) live under.  Some would say it does not need to, and may be a good step for people who will engage in such living to take the next step towards liberation.  This is what is troubling us and we can not see clearly.  Does permaculture have a hidden radical agenda?  Who is the keeper of this hidden agenda and who are the innocent victims who will engage in such a practice