Introduction to Permaculture (1994)
archive.org
archive.org
I was not a fan of the hippies. I lived on 15th and High (that is not a joke) when Jerry Garcia died. The hippies were lost for a bit so they flooded 13th in Eugene until they found Phish and moved on. It was horrible. I'm more of a punk rock guy.
But this book really got me going about permaculture. To the point where it was all I would talk about when I got drunk at parties. And people hated me for it. I guess I know how the bitcoin guys feel.
But I found out my aunt and uncle owned about a hundred acres near Klamath Falls. And they were cool with me doing whatever out there. Tons of lumber and there was already a well. So over a summer we built a cabin with working plumbing and a septic tank. And by cabin I mean the unibomber would have considered it a downgrade. We had no clue about what we were doing.
But it was fun to camp out and build something, even if it was shit. That was about as far as we got. There is now a rotting log cabin out there.
The reason why I bother to make this point is because there are many terms in the agricultural scene that are marketing terms ("organic", "bio" and even "free range"). They are marketing terms because they are not well-defined; they are well-defined only up to sticker restrictions. For example, if you buy "orangutan sensitive palm oil", do you have any idea what that means? Can we know that they don't cut corners? The term "organic" is especially dangerous, because of its connotation to organic vs. inorganic chemistry and the loss of information when converting between the technical definitions and cultural perceptions.
In Southern Africa, almost all game meat biltong is free-range, hormone free, pesticide free and yet it is not marketed as such, because those properties are a given! In contrast you'll have eggs in the same grocery store that are labelled as "free-range", because the chickens are in housing that can be physically picked up and moved around.
In the United States, "organic" in the context of food is not a cultural perception, it is an FDA-regulated certified word with a very strict definition and penalties for misuse.
https://www.ams.usda.gov/about-ams/programs-offices/national...
https://thecounter.org/organic-food-fraud-usda-doj-randy-con...
People I trust to know these things have always said the USDA-certified Organic label is pretty legit.
To give you an example, weather driven modelling in conventional agriculture has the potential to make a massive difference in, for example, pesticide application. But if you use less pesticides as part of your daily routine, that does not mean that you have the right sticker or label to represent your produce and your incremental improvements. The reason why I say this is that pesticide should be applied at a very precise point of the target organism's life cycle, but it is not always possible for the farmer to do it without considerable new added effort.
With everything that’s been happening, I’ve been thinking a lot about “resilience”, and how it really begins at the household level and goes upwards from there to community, state, country.
[Think of how individual houses being prepared enough to weather a months-long emergency leads to a stronger community, where emergency resources can be targeted on the most vulnerable, etc. Contrast with our current predicament of on-demand everything.]
It’s really interesting to go back to “first principles” in this context, and get a new appreciation for what Mollison was trying to do with Permaculture.
Fun fact: the phrase “permanent agriculture” goes back to a book from the 1930s called “Tree Crops”. It contains a great quote by FDR:
“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”
Note that he went and actually applied permaculture at at Melliodora.
Anyway, same experience with this book. I ended up on a remote farm in alpine Europe in the 00's and otherwise seem to have retained much of the lessons after all these years.
A lament for that book shop, and for all the many book shops on Charing Cross Road which have closed down.
I think many people here on HN would be interested in permaculture. There’s a lot of the same design and systems thinking that appeal to computer programmers. As noted by others, permaculture is also really into the hacker ethic.
It scales up and down really nicely, and can fit into your urban, small apartment lifestyle, or your suburban backyard, small acreage, or even big farms.
What it has me thinking about most, is what set of ethics and principles can/should I take to my practice as a software engineer. Permaculture is a design method based in a set of simple ethics, that lead to a set of basic principles, that help you select, adapt, and use various practices.
Is there a “earth share, people share, fair share” set of ethics that could become the basis for how you solve tech problems? Is anyone familiar with an existing author or community that seeks to address this in tech? Would love references.
I think permaculture encourages us to think in terms of large scale systems like ecosystems and societies and in terms of small systems, like individuals and families, and consider the consequences of our actions in terms of whether they weaken those systems or whether they strengthen them. As a simple example: we all have to eat. But if I grow food (or eat food that was grown) using methods that deplete the soil of nutrients that action weakens the overall system. Permaculture principles would teach me that I should grow my food using methods that improve the soil it is grown in.
Attempting to translate this into software engineering, suggests to me we should design systems and code with an eye towards the future. Our programs should be readable, maintainable and robust to unexpected input. They should make careful use of resources. They should be secure. We should realize the things we build are not going to exist in a vacuum but within an overall system (of the internet and society at large) and it is our goal to strengthen rather than to exploit that system.
I'm just brainstorming here. Would love to hear more considered opinions and thoughts if anyone has them to share.
What I like about permaculture is that it doesn't suggest that everyone should be a smallholder. The author comments that it's more sensible to support a local farm that grows sustainably than to try and grow everything yourself (though you can of course!) And in principle, permaculture is a very hacker friendly idea. Everything in your property is placed optimally, which makes for a fun game trying to figure out how to maximise the use of your land whilst minimising negative effects.
Just something I was thinking about earlier now that archive.org is getting popular.
Someone out there is spending their extra home time working on a new compromise. I don't think it'll involve the death of capitalism in our lifetime, but I do think it'll involve a wider awareness of the difference between a market problem and a collective action problem.
Related, i can't recommend enough "The One-Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka for people interested in that topic and don't know about it.
https://archive.org/details/The-One-Straw-Revolution/page/n1...
https://www.tagari.com/store/books/permaculture-a-designers-...
Anyhow, I was reading Smil's "Energy and Civilization: A History" (yes, because Gates) and it dawned on me that the high-touch high-tech (ecology is a science) "horticultural" civilization, as described so ably by Toby Hemenway (RIP) in his talks "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Planet – But Not Civilization" and the sequel "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture", would be a new, radically new, thing under the Sun. A new form of civilization.
https://tobyhemenway.com/videos/how-permaculture-can-save-hu...
https://tobyhemenway.com/videos/redesigning-civilization-wit...
http://vaclavsmil.com/2017/05/08/energy-and-civilization-a-h...
Combine applied ecology with Alexander's Pattern Language and I think we've really got something.
There is also the possibility of integrated carbon-neutral alcohol fuel production. http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com/node/518
Since it seems like we're going to have to redesign (parts of) our civilization anyway, why not make it really awesome?
(I should add something about wholesome plant-based whole food diet and the health effects but I can't find a good link right now.)
Importantly, permaculture design applies to any situation: a verdant mediterranean garden, a driveway, a digital product, how you wash dishes, how you connect with a loved one. The design principles in permaculture are timeless – they're applicable in every context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBQCKK4sLhg
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=robert+hart+for...
He possibly was the pioneer of the 'forest garden' way of permaculture.
It's a pity when the more modern materials don't give the history or credit to the originators of these ideas.
Warning, her writing style is closer to rambling than academic/professional.
But the genius of Permaculture is that it's also way less effort. Work with nature, rather than fight it.
Chop and drop. Pull out weeds then drop them on the ground, let it turn into mulch.
The date actually had me wondering. At what point do we start to refer to 1994 as the "1900s". We are already 2 decades into the 2000s, but it feels strange to refer to 1994 as the 1900s? Wonder which decade in the 1900s people started feeling comfortable referring to 1894 as "the 1800s".
In contrast, I think 20th century versus 21st century doesn't feel as wrong, and I regularly use 20th century to refer to time periods that include the 1990s.
It's just a matter of experience and perspective. Many of the permaculture principles have been practiced since long before industrialization. In the scale of human existence, the current "normal" agriculture practices are abnormal, while permaculture is normal.
Also, don't cut the weeds unless you have a very good reason. Even the definition of "weed" is questionable. Most of the time, the "weed" grows where it is actually beneficial.
It really wasn't.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3961757-permaculture-one
It's interesting that, while the statement is technically true, you pick the number 26.
Bill Mollison & David Holmgren published 'Permaculture One - A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements' in 1978.
So it's not only more than 26 years old, it's also more than 41 years old.
In the section on soil fertility, you can find tables quantified in terms of pees per area, depending on the breakdown of what you already have planted.
He avoids the term "Permaculture" because like "organic" or "bio" it's turned into this whole badly defined spiritual thing, instead of just being about growing as much food as possible, with as few inputs as possible, with perennial plants.
> it's turned into this whole badly defined spiritual thing, instead of just being about growing as much food as possible, with as few inputs as possible, with perennial plants.
I recently purchased Bill Mollison's designers manual. From this book, it's clear that the spiritual/ethical component has been integral to permaculture since the beginning.
"growing as much food as possible...with perennial plants" is great, but it's a subset of what permaculture is or was about.
“The Resilient Farm and Homestead”, by Ben Falk is another great one — full of illustrations and practical ideas (like using a compost pile to power a radiant heat system.)
Maybe starting with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab463aw0AWM
He's an engineer from the oil and gas industry and he's excellent at designing for energy efficiency