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About permaculture
Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is a design framework developed in the 1970s by two Australians: Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. It facilitates the design and management of productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems.
Permaculture was a pushback against the growing trend towards oil-dependent industrial farming. Permaculture is based on working with nature rather than against it, considering all functions of a system, rather than just one aspect.
At its heart, permaculture is based on 3 ethics:
- Earth care – caring for all the living and non-living things – including the soil, the air, plants, animals, water. The aim is to enhance and preserve rather than deplete or degrade.
- People care – making sure our basic needs for food, shelter, education, employment and healthy social relationships are met. This is about promoting self-reliance and community responsibility so that we look out for one another.
- Fair share – reducing our consumption and increasing the creation and redistribution of surpluses. Surpluses result from successful designs in which abundance is shared with the community or returned to the earth as animal feed or compost.
Permaculture was influenced by the practices of indigenous subsistence farmers across the world, who have long used sustainable methods to grow their crops. Farmers would typically plant diverse sets of crops, using perennial species to form productive stable systems, and prioritise the regeneration of soil. This is a very different approach to modern industrial agriculture based on annual, monoculture crops that deplete the soil and require chemical fertilisers.
Permaculture shares aspects of regenerative agriculture – though it’s probably fair to say permaculture is more holistic in its approach, covering aspects such as the social context, and even extending into community, political and financial systems.
