Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 19)

I love permaculture!! Listening and reading about permaculture reminded me a lot of a farmer who’s farm I visited last semester. I volunteered at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, and so I visited the farm of one of the sellers at the Market. His name is Ben, and he is the owner of Dawnbreaker Farms. He does not explicitly refer to his business as permaculture, but I think it matches the description quite well, although his farm is largely comprised of livestock animals, and we did not see any examples of permaculture practices with livestock animals in the documentary or in One Straw Revolution. When Ben told me that livestock was the best agricultural practice we can be doing for our planet, I was a bit taken aback as I gave up meat almost exclusively due to its devastating effects on the environment. He then began to explain his “regenerative practices”, which I now think must be very similar to permaculture. He uses a grazing practice that mimics nature. He based his practice off of the fact that animals naturally move around while grazing, and their trampling and defecating creates a dynamic system that creates extremely fertile soil. The organic matter is a huge contributor of essential nutrients for the soil. Ben considers himself a farmer of micro organisms rather than a livestock farmer — his primarily goal is to grow microorganisms, and the livestock products are sort of an added bonus that stems from the process. He uses a number of different grazing animals because he said the more diversity of species you can stack in a single pasture, the more equal the grazing will be and the better the land ecosystem will be.

I was very interested in his method, and it made me consider possibly eating meat again from sources such as his farm. However, I think with the number of meat-eaters on Earth and the limited arable land that we have to go towards large grazing pastures, I think it is unrealistic and unsustainable to rely on his strategy on a global scale. Some of the featured forms of permaculture in the documentary, such as the rooftop gardens, seemed like a more viable option to be implemented on a wide scale. The rooftop gardens was probably my favorite permaculture practice we learned about because it makes SO much sense. Rooftops provide so much open space that cannot be used for any other function. Turning every rooftop into a garden could have a profound impact on food security, sustainability, AND employment opportunities!

On a final note, could algae cultivation be considered permaculture? In Introduction to Permaculture, Bill Mollison writes: ““The aim is to create systems that are ecologically-sound and economically viable, which provide for their own needs, do not exploit or pollute, and are therefore sustainable in the long term.”

“Permaculture uses the inherent qualities of plants and animals combined with the natural characteristics of landscapes and structures to produce a life-supporting system for city and country, using the smallest practical area.”

I feel like macroalgae cultivate satisfies all of these requirements! Perhaps I am an aspiring permaculturist.

Mollison, B. C., & Slay, R. M. (2011). Introduction to permaculture. Sisters Creek, Tasmania, Australia: Tagari Publications.

In one of my other environmental classes, we started the semester by discussing where environmental science fits in terms of its academic field: is it a social science, a natural science, even humanities? But more and more, that seems like a pointless debate, because environmental science encompasses far more than any single field, and to restrict it to solely lab applications or policy proposals or a feature in stories and media is not only unrealistic, but also harmful to the field as a whole.

When I first started studying environmental science, we began with a very scientific foundation — the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the water cycle, atmospheric chemistry. Then we moved on to ecology, and gradually as I came to college, I was exposed to more of the human side of environmental issues through climate change, agricultural processes, and human health issues. But after reading The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukoka and (re)watching Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective, I’ve come to hold a different view: permaculture principles and philosophy ought to be the foundation of studying environmental science. Only after first and foremost delving into its ideas and practices should any student continue on to take classes in biology, chemistry, ecology, the humanities public policy, or any other environmental topic.

There are several reasons for this, but I think that the most important one is: taking a holistic approach from the onset ensures that students will be able to apply and contextualize the information they learn later on without having to piece it together for themselves after the fact. When I learned about the nitrogen cycle back in high school, it was hard to muster up any enthusiasm, but if I had known about its importance with regard to soil health and sustainable farming, that extra context would have added a layer of depth and value to what I was learning (and I might have actually remembered it.)

But while it is important to be able to apply scientific principles in environmental contexts, I would argue that it is the human aspect that brings richness, urgency, relatability, and meaning to these topics. It is one thing to go one step further with the nitrogen cycle and understand what it means for soil and farming, but it is another thing entirely to be able to think about those topics in an even broader context through discussion of food security, history, agricultural practices, human health, socioeconomic disparities, and applications in rural, urban, and even suburban contexts. And in a sense, it becomes a loop — permaculture helps us learn to study the environment by looking at all of its parts together, but permaculture in itself is the practice of taking this holistic view of the world. Environmental causes are human causes, and they cannot be dealt with by compartmentalizing their causes and effects. In this way, environmentalism becomes a story not of individual pieces of the puzzle, but of a complete, vibrant picture that captures the complexity and interconnectivity of these issues.

One of the aspects about class that I found most intriguing this week was our discussion of permaculture and how it could potentially be the way forward in the agricultural sector. Masanobu Fukuoka in The One Straw Revolution discusses how he had resisted the “natural way” of farming for an alternative and using the indigenous plants of the area. However, what peaked my fascination was when we were discussing how to change farming to more of a permaculture type of global agriculture. In my view, this will not happen anytime soon and will not influence large-scale corporate agricultural.

Agriculture produces more food than the world can consume but as we move forward with an increasing number of humans living on earth, food will become even more vital. The continent of Africa has the most room for growth, and as economies and technology develop in the third world countries, infant mortality will decrease and general health will rise. The UN has reported that the number of people living on the continent of Africa will double by the year 2050.With the spike in population growth, it will be even more imperative to be able to feed all of the people across the world. While the idea of permaculture is a great concept on a much smaller scale would be a terrific idea, the notion that this could be extrapolated across the globe is not feasible. The growing population of the world will already stress the amount of food that we can produce and the switch to permaculture will not remedy that. Instead, I believe that a hybrid between big agriculture and permaculture should be the philosophy moving forward.

One of the worst things that is happening in agriculture is that the technology of some of the more prominent companies such as Monsanto has caused there to be a revolutionary arms race between plants and weeds. With the “Roundup Ready” seeds that have been introduced, meaning that the plants are immune to the chemical roundup to treat weeds. These seeds were supposed to assist in eliminating weeds, but they have actually caused the weeds to develop a resistance to chemicals. Thus, Monsanto has created what has been deemed the “superweed” that cannot be killed by chemicals and can wipe out an entire crop. I thought that when Fukuoka described the barley and white clover growing in the fields as natural barriers for the weeds that this could be the solution. Coming from an extremely rural area, I began thinking if this would be possible in almond orchards, corn, tomatoes and other fields. I began contemplating and the more I could imagine putting in these plants to deter weeds from destroying crops. This has already started to be done on our family farm as we have begun to plant wheat between the rows and just let it control the weeds. Also, we do not harvest the wheat and let it decompose and create soil hummus that Fukuoka describes.

I think it is important to recognize that this is not a choice we have to make in favor of one over the other. Instead, to see it as a joint effort that can help restore indigenous plants back into the ecosystem and to allow agriculture to be able to produce more and more food for a growing population.

After reading a few of my classmate’s blogs, I saw a common call for humans to return their lives back to nature. Colin asserted that people must experience nature to truly appreciate it, while Kendall reflected on the value of living simply and “in tune” with life and nature around us. I believe these two thoughts go hand in hand, and that nowadays, Americans stray further and further away from understanding the land. From city dwellers to elite businessmen and even to college students who spend most of their time inside, people are losing sight of the incredible and unsurmountable goods and services Earth provides – not that we humans create.

Back in the 1850s, farmers accounted for over 60% of the American labor force, whereas now only 2% of Americans are directly employed in agriculture. This only describes people actually working on farms, but the percentage of citizens living in rural areas has similarly declined dramatically from about 30% in the 1920s to 15% of the population in 2014. Now I’m not saying everyone should move to the middle of the country, buy a plot of land, and figure it out, nor would that be sustainable, but nothing in a city really compares to the value of living near or working on a farm.

My high school actually had a five acre garden plot on the land, which educated students through multiple means. Every student ventured to it at some point, whether through school-wide tree planting and bird nest building initiatives, semester long volunteer shifts, or an 8-week summer internship. And personally, I owe all of my environmental interest that have developed over the past two years to that little farm.

Without the live pigs that I visited, gave feed to, and which eventually ended up at our dining hall, I would not have gone vegetarian so soon. Without the opportunity to build and populate a top-bar hive with 10,000 bees during my senior spring, I doubt I would have discovered what remarkable creatures honeybees were – and the major implications their population decline . Their hive dynamic, the fact that all worker bees are female, and the major impacts they have on human food production blew me away. But with that, I also learned about the pesticide and habitat threats, along with the implications that honey bee population decline would have for the future of our crops. Thus sparked a shift in mindset from appreciation to preservation.

But most importantly, without the hands-on experience last summer, I would not have learned what I did about and from the earth. Waking up at 7am for a laborious three hour shift, we would seed, trellis, transplant, and harvest plants, remove weeds by hand, cover crops to prevent pests (rather than use a pesticide), and harvest five kinds of flowers to make bouquets. The diversity of crops and skills I acquired, even if they do not completely align with Masanobu Fukuoka’s, taught me the amount of hard work, care, and understanding needed to produce fresh food. Oh, and by the way, the asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and raspberries I ate straight from the plants were by far the best tasting produce I’ve ever had.

Again, I do not mean to say that everyone should become a farmer, nor is that the intention for my own future (I don’t think anyway…), but working with land gives you an understanding of nature like no other. So to everyone – I urge you to get outside. Feel the sun’s rays illuminating and warming your skin. Dip your bare feet into a pond, or listen to the birds tweet on your morning walk. Return to our roots, return to nature. Listen to the Earth and you will find life.

Sources:

“Farm Population Lowest Since 1850’s” https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-lowest-since-1850-s.html

United States Department of Agriculture

When I eat a meal, I seldom think about the origin of my food or why it appeals to me. As Masanobu Fukuoka pointed out in his book One Straw Revolution , we are drawn toward a lot of food by our brains – he points out that we all too often “eat with our heads” (145). We continually eat certain foods that are far out of our reach because we have been conditioned to believe that we need them. In the book he uses fish as an example – the fish that live in deep water such as tuna and yellowtail require much more effort to obtain. For these trophy fish, fishermen have to sail out far, using a lot of fuel for boats. Usually, they will spend the majority of their day out in the deep sea with little reward. On the other hand, as Fukuoka notes, the fish that live in shallow water (think anchovies) are equal or better in nutritional value and require far less effort to attain. However, since birth, societal norms trained us to like the more expensive, nicer food, rather than the easier-to-obtain but “lesser-in-quality” food.

In order to make food more sustainable (or even beneficial), we need to forget these norms and stop eating with our brains. Fukuoka characterizes this with the term non-discriminating diet. In short, this involves eating foods that come to you naturally, like food from local forms or from your own crops. It also involves not thinking ahead as much about what to eat in the future. As Fukuoka puts it, we have to follow our instincts when it comes to food, which means always seeking out natural, close-by foods.

The benefits of such a diet are two-fold. First, we eliminate a lot of transportation cost by eating locally grown foods. As Amanda pointed out in class, most bananas (which I eat often) do not come from the United States. In fact, as this article points out, none of the top 10 suppliers of US bananas are from within the US. This implicates millions of gallons of oil yearly spent on exporting the bananas to the US – and this is only one specific food. Second, if we pursue such a diet, we come to eat healthier and more naturally. By only eating foods that are locally grown, we stop purchasing exported foods from large factory farms that are loaded with unhealthy chemicals and pesticides.

The best part is – it’s not that hard! We just need to think more consciously about our plates, and where the food came from. Great places like the Duke Campus Farm are stepping up to the plate to help with this – we just need to be on their team.

One Straw Revolution is an important read because it is not just a book about farming, it is an analysis of the human condition and the perils facing an increasingly technological and globalized world. Masanobu Fukuoka uses farming to exemplify the problems we are creating for ourselves. He notes, “but all I have been doing, farming out here in the country, is trying to show that humanity knows nothing” (Fukuoka, 19). Technology is seen as a tool to make our lives easier, but as the world gets more and more entrenched in the constant use of technology and the constant need to have more and more of it, it becomes more of a burden on our lives than a tool to make our lives better.

Technology and technological development is vital to the current industrial agricultural system. Instead of looking for natural solutions to problems, technology is used to ‘solve’ problems and thus makes even more problems that new technology is needed to ‘solve’.  Agriculture and agricultural technology has become a constantly revolving door of problems and solutions that lead to new problems. Fukuoka’s “do less” approach to farming highlights how agricultural technology has shifted from an aid to a burden on farmers. Industrial agriculture farmers have become inextricably tied to the technology that the system demands. They work tirelessly and pour increasingly more money into these technologies for modest outcomes and profits.  Fukuoka stresses the need for us to see systems as a whole, and be able to recognize when technology is not a benefit but a burden.

A class I took explored the current agricultural system and how it is draining farmers and creating wealth for large companies.  We saw how with the rise of increasingly more complex GMO, fertilizer, and pesticide technology, large agri-business companies are profiting while the farmers suffer. GMO seeds can be created to be resistant to certain pests and have higher yields, but the farmer must buy new seeds every season, and the various associated sprays and technologies to go along with it to get the desired results. They pour money into these new seeds, fertilizers, sprays, and the pockets of GMO companies like Monsanto, and yet Fukuoka sees similar yields with much less monetary and labor input. With low food prices and the high cost of seemingly necessary agriculture technologies, industrial agriculture farming is not longer a feasible means of income. As a result, increasingly fewer farmers own increasingly large monoculture farms.

One of the tenants of permaculture is trying to understand nature through observation. It seems strange that after much development within the scientific field that would let us observe nature in more complex and innovative ways, we have used our new access to science to create technologies harmful to our environment. It would make more sense if through science we concluded that farming and agricultural production is best when nature can run its natural course. But that would be actually understanding science. Instead, Masanobu Fukuoka in The One Straw Revolution highlights the hidden bias within the scientific method. There is a underlying assumption that we know what is best and must find alternative ways to fix environmental problems. As Fukuoka says, “The irony is that science has served only to show how small human knowledge is” (29). As it turns out, our very own actions result in larger consequences like tilling the ground which depletes the oxygen supply or spraying pesticides that kill predators and create insect problems. The truth is that humans do not understand nature enough to prescribe medications to fix it.

Masanobu Fukuoka describes the way he allows nature to act on its own. While it requires no unnatural prescriptions, it requires a lot of energy, patience, and knowledge. When we let nature do the work on it own, we create a regenerative system. This regenerative model is much more efficient than the sustainable one, which aims to use technology. With a technological mindset, our goal is convenience through mechanization. However, such processes like grinding rice into flour will break down grain into its byproducts and we lose all the important nutrients (166). Afterwards, the sustainable model forces us to produce dietary supplements to reenter the necessary nutrients into our diets. Part of sustainability is trying to maintain things at a certain level. However, instead of trying to fix issues all together, we end up recreating technologies to fix our mistakes and sustain our circumstances from getting worse. Ultimately, a model that prioritizes nature to fix and rebuild itself is best.

Citations:

Fukoaka, M. (1978). The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming. New York: New York Review Books.

I believe the mindset of permaculture is essential to adopt when it comes to combatting climate change. Permaculture emphasizes that we should not live sustainably, but instead embrace a lifestyle that is regenerative. We should leave the place we are living on better than it was before we settled there, whether it is our backyard, forest, or our planet.

This mindset goes back to being in touch with our nature, something that Masanobu Fukuoka points out in The One-Straw Revolution. We are a part of nature, and we must integrate with it, instead of continuing to act like we own it. Fostering the idea that nature is valuable and we must take care of it boils down to exposure. We must experience nature, whether it is taking trips, hiking, or living in nature.

It is important to spend time in nature, such as hiking. Link: http://besseggen.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Memurubu_lr_27-1024×576.jpg

In times where urban population accounts for the majority of the global population – 54 percent of the total global population in 2014 – we are less exposed to nature than ever. And I believe it can be hard to care about the immense environmental problem at our hand when it seems like it doesn’t even affect us as urban citizens.

That is why it is vital that we spread awareness, particularly through education. We must educate others about environmental practices and principals, such as Fukuoka did with the students he took in, or create videos, such as the one about permaculture we watched in class.

And the key is that environmental sustainability is not enough. We must leave our planet a better place for our future generations, and therefore we must live environmentally regeneratively.

Rarely do people ever think about where their food comes from or how much energy it takes to produce, however every chicken nugget or lettuce leaf you eat adds to your ecological footprint and plays a role in the devastation of our environment. However far from doing nothing and accepting this fate, it is our job to not only maintain but rejuvenate our environment. This idea of rejuvenation is the basis for permaculture and the idea of “do-nothing” agriculture.

As shown over and over again throughout our modern society, human intervention has caused a lot of our modern problems. As stated in The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, “Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything and every action is a futile, meaningless effort”. This idea is clearly contrary to everything that modern civilization holds true and dear. As a modern civilization, we seek to develop better techniques and more advanced technology in hopes of bettering human life on this earth. However, in reality, they are merely trying to return the earth to its once natural state, a state which they had initially destroyed with their tampering. Fukuoka gives the example of a scientist who “pores over books night and day, straining his eyes and becoming nearsighted, and if you wonder what on earth he has been working on all that time -it is to become the inventor of eyeglasses to correct nearsightedness”.

However why do we as humans not see this destruction before it becomes a problem? Why do we not create a solution as soon as we see a problem? This is because we are too set in our own ways and our own path that unless there is something to force us to change, we will resist it with everything we have. This can be seen when Fukuoka spoke out against chemical pollutants in a conference organized by the Agricultural Management Research Center. This conference met with the purpose of discussing pollution, however, when Mr. Fukuoka stood up to discuss his method of permaculture without the use chemicals, fertilizer, or machinery, he was shut down and told he was “upsetting the conference with his remarks”.

Therefore, while permaculture is a good idea, the first step to making the world a better place is from the government down and to first create an infrastructure in which ideas like permaculture can grow before calling for farmers to resort to permaculture.