After a recent weekend workshop on decolonizing permaculture in the rural outskirts of Berlin, Germany, I finally received a basic understanding of what permaculture is following years of hearing the word thrown around like an unwanted dish towel.
The first person to ever say the word ‘permaculture’ to me was a German woman in billowing pantaloons, who recounted how she spent her seemingly glamorous life sailing around the world crewing on ships, cooking vegan food, and teaching permaculture.
Could she tell me what permaculture was when I asked? No. Did I care at the time? Absolutely not! I was completely enthralled at the time, being only 20 years old, for such an effortlessly cool woman to tell me anything she cared to share under the light of the full moon in the garden of a hostel in Guadeloupe.
The next time I heard permaculture spoken about in a real way was a lifetime later, at a workshop during the Pennsylvania Sustainable Agriculture Conference (PASA) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. I was shown pictures of gardens shaped like spirals and recommended some books to read, but after between four and six hours of being talked at, I still could not tell a difference between having a good garden and actually doing this elusive thing named permaculture everyone was raving about.
Permaculture, as it was explained to me recently by a wonderful set of workshop facilitators, is a set of design principles one can use to farm, live, think, and work. The term, derived from the words ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture’ was coined by two white Australian men who observed the ways in which Aboriginal Australians (the world’s oldest known continuous civilization) related to the land. Naturally, these two men took those practices, put their own brand on them, and were regarded as geniuses up until relatively recently. More and more, food systems activists are forced to become critical of their own movements and gain awareness that terms like permaculture, (along with ‘regenerative’ or ‘circular economy’) are just Indigenous practices with whitewashed marketing on top.
My first introduction to food systems activism was through the lens of sustainable agriculture. Sustainable is now a word so overused, by corporations and nation-states, that it may no longer hold any real meaning at all. But when I was eighteen years old, WWOOFing at a ‘sustainable farm’ felt radical.
Growing critique of what we are actually sustaining when we use the word sustainable has resulted in a more nuanced definition: Sustainable anything means that the production and consumption can be continued more or less in perpetuity—ergo, sustained. Given that our food system, and the society which relies upon it, require a complete overhaul with new systems to be dreamed of and made real, ‘sustainable agriculture’ may no longer be helpful when speaking about creating a just food system for humans and our non-human relations. However, in a smaller context—for example, on a farm, intentional community, or other residence project which strives to be self-sustaining—sustainable agriculture may still be relevant in speaking of a community’s ability to sustain its own needs.
This critique, and the realization that our food system should replicate the regenerative aspects of an ecosystem, led me to identify more with the idea of regenerative agriculture once I learned about it. Regenerative agriculture speaks to the ways in which techniques of growing food and relating to the land to fulfill our basic needs (again, completely derived from Indigenous practices in the Americas and Africa) can actually help reverse certain impacts of the climate crisis. For example, one might hear about regenerating soil—by introducing soil amendments or perhaps by allowing an area to rewild—which has been depleted of the necessary bacteria (yes, some bacteria are good!), micro-organisms, organic material, air, or water that makes soil fertile as being an aspect of regenerative agriculture.
The emphasis on soil is one of the focuses held in common with permaculture. There are some permaculturists (a word which spell check is currently telling me does not exist, but definitely does) for whom soil health—also known as ‘tilth’—should be the main focus and signifier of a project’s success.
For me personally, learning that there is a difference between soil and dirt continues to be a transformative moment in the journey I am on as a food systems and land activist. It was explained to me by the teacher of an organic vegetable gardening course that soil is alive, and dirt is not. Dirt is what you sweep off the floor in your kitchen, and soil is what is keeping you alive and fed at this very moment.
Whether it is regenerative, permaculture, or sustainable, food systems change is necessary—and thanks to the work of many ancestors, elders, youth, and wonderful people in the world, it is happening right now.
What’s most important is that each of us find our path where we can have the most positive impact–and stick to it!
~J
Links to learn more: https://www.kcet.org/shows/tending-nature/the-indigenous-science-of-permaculture
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