Changing the Face of Farming: Permaculture Farms in the US
General — by Rafter Ferguson November 16, 2012
After more than 30 years of permaculture, it’s time to see what’s happening on the ground. I’m working with SciFund Challenge to fund my research into permaculture farming. You can find out more about this effort, and get behind it, here.
Comments (3)Permaculture Research in the 21st Century: Web Surveys and Way, Way, Beyond
Community Projects, Developments — by Rafter Ferguson July 25, 2012
Participation in Permaculture is a web survey designed to help us learn about who is doing permaculture, how we are participating, and how it’s affecting our lives and landscapes. It’s part of a emerging phenomenon: doing research to systematically track and assess our impacts.
Holmgren and Mollison broke up with institutional science back when they forged the permaculture perspective and birthed a movement. They had good reasons for doing so — in the 1970s, there was virtually no scientific research to support the practical proposals they were making. Science wasn’t ready.
For the past 34 years, permaculture has largely stayed on the track of an independent grassroots movement. If you search the massive databases of peer-reviewed scientific literature, there is almost (but not quite) zero mention of permaculture. That’s not a criticism of permaculture’s history — we’ve been busy growing a movement, project by project.
But the separation between permaculture and science is becoming more and more arbitrary and unnecessary. Over the past three decades, parallel disciplines to permaculture have emerged and matured within the scientific community: agroecology, agroforestry, ecological waste and water treatment, resilience science, participatory research methods, and much more. All of these approaches have accumulated an invaluable and impressive body of empirical research and theory. Science is ready. Now we need to show up.
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