Can permaculture feed 7.5 billion people and counting?

[Finn]

I can see now that all it takes is the right ad campaign! I love shrimp. Squid is fine too. Maybe I'll adjust my attitude and give that grasshopper bread a go.

I think there might be plenty of opportunity to grow many nutrient rich things in the sea as well. Unless it's too full of microplastics already. Microplastics do genuinely scare me.

A similarly unsettling prospect is the effect of increasing atmospheric CO2, which might make our crops turn into "junk food": https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13179

[TheWanderingScholar]

I imagine substituting grasshoppers for things such as flour would free up space.

What I am currently worried about from a geopolitical situation is the Middle-east and Africa, which development wise are at the greatest risk of being negatively affected by CC as they try to become developed economies.

Some scholars even argue the Syrian Civil War was partially caused by climate change itself.

[jennypenny]

How many could permaculture support? 6 billion? 5? 4? Catton says 1 billion but I don't think that's possible short of an asteroid or full blown nuclear war. If it's 5-6 then we're only a pandemic away from a supportable number. I still don't think it's possible though. Permaculture requires a level of planning that humans (so far) have proven incapable of.

[7Wannabe5]

@jennypenny:

I am currently kind of on the fence on whether or not humans are capable of required level of planning. I saw a poster in a school that said something like "If you plan for a year then plant corn. If you plan for 10 years then plant a tree. If you plan for a lifetime then educate a man.- Ancient Saying" A cherry tree lives about 25 years. So, investment in permanent agriculture might not require any more long term planning than investing in education or career.

[daylen]

Does anyone think that a person at the third order of consciousness would be able to learn how to operate a successful permaculture farm if there were several others doing it already in the neighborhood? I am of the impression that it is possible for two-thirds of the population to do permaculture by following the third that innovates and chooses design.

[vexed87]

Thanks all for the thoughtful posts. Lots of food for thought! Fresh water potentially being one of the weakest links was news to me, but not surprising now I think about where most of our staple crops are grown.

I agree, there is a lot of troublesome and wishful thinking in the permaculture scene, but like in any other field, there are those who lack the systems thinking ability and don't know what they don't know about how all our systems are interlinked and dependent on each other. But as some above already mentioned, it's more about the principles than specific examples being presented as solutions, the decentralised and location dependant nature of our responses will be key to our success, there is no poster solution or scalability with permaculture. I guess this is partly the reason why it isn't already taking off, it's hard to do, takes a lot of thinking, and knowledge of living ecosystems we are part of, that will involve a lot of man power, and arguably some of our greatest minds, rather than simply more John Deere horsepower and liberal application of synthetics. Another problem with permaculture is, you don't get to externalise your negative costs to the commons.

It's perfectly possible to ERE without ever eating a single lentil, and the wiser among us wouldn't discount the entire philosophy because one notable overlord shared an eccentric blog post on a lentil-based recipe. In other words, give the love of rocket mass heaters that defy laws of thermodynamics a pass, every group has it's quirks.

I am currently kind of on the fence on whether or not humans are capable of required level of planning. I saw a poster in a school that said something like "If you plan for a year then plant corn. If you plan for 10 years then plant a tree. If you plan for a lifetime then educate a man.- Ancient Saying" A cherry tree lives about 25 years. So, investment in permanent agriculture might not require any more long term planning than investing in education or career.

Indeed, if we could get our collective backsides into gear and send our next generation of farmers on permaculture courses, we might develop some semblance of sustainable agriculture, but that would also require nation state sized political will to move away from monoculture mega farms to more localised and diverse food production systems (necessary for meaningful change). However given the mountain of crises piling up and politicians' preferences for far fetched technological solutions or patching up symptoms, rather than addressing fundamentals, I don't expect there will be much hope of seamless transition to a sustainable food supply, mine was more of a theoretical question.

As for switching to insect protein, that would just delay the inevitable. A sustainable food production system is in itself the only end because the alternative sucks so badly, we'd be forced to give up eventually anyway It will be the natural response to a collapse induced by energy inputs being constrained beyond which a technological society can operate, but I was rather hoping that maybe permaculture principles might avert the collapse of food supply as we slide down the energy peak curve. so it seems the consensus is no, not with 7.5 billion people, or whilst wasting resources and efforts in the name of perpetual technological progress.

I can also see a partial transition to greenhouse agriculture playing out, especially if our natural croplands begin to breakdown, and the calls for reduction in the use of herbicides and pesticides are heard. But the products of greenhouses are expensive. I trust most of you have some idea of how much fresh cut flowers grown in the Netherlands cost here in the UK, they dominate the flower market, but are not cheap. We might be able to splash out on the occasional tomato or leafy salad if we fancy it, but replacing our caloric requirements is another matter! As they are now, they would only be used where where it uneconomical to grow valuable crops in open air. Mass scale greenhouses are only an intermediary solution so long as access to cheap energy can be secured, otherwise it's not a solution any of us would want to bank on long term.

[7Wannabe5]

I agree, there is a lot of troublesome and wishful thinking in the permaculture scene, but like in any other field, there are those who lack the systems thinking ability and don't know what they don't know about how all our systems are interlinked and dependent on each other. But as some above already mentioned, it's more about the principles than specific examples being presented as solutions, the decentralised and location dependant nature of our responses will be key to our success, there is no poster solution or scalability with permaculture. I guess this is partly the reason why it isn't already taking off, it's hard to do, takes a lot of thinking, and knowledge of living ecosystems we are part of, that will involve a lot of man power, and arguably some of our greatest minds, rather than simply more John Deere horsepower and liberal application of synthetics. Another problem with permaculture is, you don't get to externalise your negative costs to the commons.

I agree that permaculture is location dependent, and is in that sense lacks scalability. However, the principles themselves are very scalable and may be universally applied. For instance, I have attempted to apply permaculture principles in a climax woodlands situation and in a modern downtown city hotel. Application of permaculture principles can be attempted with boundary of only a teacup full of herbs on a windowsill, or when considering the entire planet.

Anyways, I agree that any sort of cookie-cutter copy mechanism will not serve to forward the purpose, except to the extent that humans do learn through tinkering. For instance, my attempt at cookie-cutter swale project on my vacant lot was pretty much a complete functional fail, but my acquisition of the knowledge concerning why it failed definitely pushed me towards higher order perspective. IOW, my answer to Daylen's question is that 3rd order level practice/thought can only promote permaculture as exercise towards 5th order practice/thought.

[jacob]

To which degree does permaculture differ from substistence farming? To which degree can a 21st century permaculture graduate from multiple courses outperform a medieval peasant who was willing to walk behind an ox all day? To which degree does scientifically informed planning in the minds of a few garden-nerds surrounded by technology-oriented careerists outperform an entire culture that while based on superstition, etc. is coherent and self-consistent.

I ask because we already know what the European carrying capacity is for the latter. Or at least we have the numbers from back when the soil was better but political organization and medical knowledge was worse. Anyhow ...

When Europe began to have food problems sufficiently to weaken its population enough for the plagues to take hold and run, the population was about 80 million. So that's about 1/8th of today. After the Black Death had run its course it was followed by a period of immense economic growth. Epidemics are like neutron bombs in that they kill the people but let the buildings/farms stand, so after that everybody who wanted a farm could get one, more or less.

Population was quickly run up again and then in 1492 another outlet was found.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

Excellent questions.

To which degree does permaculture differ from substistence farming? To which degree can a 21st century permaculture graduate from multiple courses outperform a medieval peasant who was willing to walk behind an ox all day?

By quite a bit. For instance, here's a bit from the website of Joseph Lofthouse, a landrace gardening expert, who frequently contributes to permaculture discussions.

From 2009 through 2011 I grew about 90 varieties of cantaloupe selecting for local conditions. The first year, I harvested only a few scraggly fruits. By 2011 I was able to harvest about 800 pounds of great tasting cantaloupe!!! In 2011 I trialed more than 100 varieties of tomatoes and 300 varieties of watermelons to find the perfect early fruits for Cache Valley. Only 5 watermelon fruits were harvested. Reminds me of the first year of my cantaloupe breeding program. I trialed around 50 varieties of peas and of snap beans looking for my current genetics.

Other individuals who self-describe as permaculturists may have similar level of expertise in other areas such as soil microbiology, water cache systems, ethno-botany, holistic orchard management, etc. etc. etc. I am an advanced beginner (at best) generalist, so I dabble a bit in all of these topics.

OTOH, very difficult for a practitioner of permaculture to compete with highly efficient modern agribusiness for cash in the market since most humans have been conditioned to eating only about 10-20 species of plants and/or other animals max.

To which degree does scientifically informed planning in the minds of a few garden-nerds surrounded by technology-oriented careerists outperform an entire culture that while based on superstition, etc. is coherent and self-consistent.

Well, first I would note that permaculture does not have a central authority, and I would describe myself as definitely being on the pro-modern science/technology end of the spectrum, so I don't see such a strong dichotomy between garden nerds and technology-oriented careerists. Second I would note that if you spent a season working in a big-box garden center, you would know that we still live in a superstition-based society. Sadly, I must report that there are levels of function below the ground zero suggested by Paul Wheaton in his model.

That said, I would concede that it is not likely to happen unless/until the proportion of well-educated people who ask "What's that?" when I say that I am interested in perma-culture greatly decreases. Might even take about a 50/50 ratio of garden nerds/technological careerists, and since garden nerds can't very well support themselves as garden nerds, this proportion is not likely to be achieved prior to next giant pandemic/war/natural disaster/????

[jennypenny]

I'm definitely not an expert on permaculture ... but if climate change models are correct, will permaculture be a good strategy, regardless of the number of people? Will it work in areas where microclimates are predicted to change dramatically? What I mean is that a permaculture system set up for current conditions might not thrive in the same place in 10-20 years, right? If so, long-term restorative agriculture projects would have to be combined with short-term adaptive strategies to hedge against severe changes to local growing conditions.

[jacob]

@jp - Permaculture strategies would have to be dynamic (Dynamoculture? ) to account for the migration of climate zones. The poleward speed of hardiness zones is something like 5ft/day. However, they are also rather wide (hundreds of miles), so a fixed geographic location would be able to support a given species for a time. A dynamoculturist would have to plan for what becomes possible to grow as it gets warmer and wetter and what becomes impossible to grow because as it gets too hot, dry, floody.

This is bad news for longer lived species, like trees.

For example, I'm in 5b and the Chicago area is expected to get hotter, wetter and swampier. I should avoid relying on plants like kale for my long term plans and consider adding more warm-loving plants which will get easier. Kinda how the world's wine production is shifting northwards while getting eliminated where it's currently at. My parents have been growing grapes for several years producing about 50-100 bottles per year. Even twenty years ago, this was considered foolhardy.

[George the original one]

Climate change creeps up on agriculture. So far it's changing only one or two zones every 30-50 years, so as long as you're not selecting crops at the margin of current climate AND you're not relying on a single species crop AND your sources of seed are not in trouble, then it's fairly easy to adapt.

An example of adaptation is the Oregon filbert/hazelnut industry. Eastern filbert blight found its way to Oregon & Washington orchards in the '90s (I doubt it was due to climate change, but this serves as an example of adaptation). This was devastating because Oregon used to supply 99% of the filberts for the USA and producing trees lasted 70 years! Control consisted of quarantine and tree removal. Fortunately, new filbert varieties were developed that are resistant to eastern filbert blight by 2010 and orchards are being planted once again. At this point, I'm even seeing the rather unusual choice of orchards replacing berry farms. Former grass seed farms are also being converted to orchards. Markets shift, though, so 60% of Oregon filberts are exported (mostly to China) and the USA imports 50% of filberts from Turkey. [Change can be painful, though, in that the new trees are planted closer together with lower canopies and I doubt the old harvesting tools will work in the new orchards, so there must be new equipment?]

[7Wannabe5]

What Gtoo said.

Also:
Principle 9: Use small and slow solutions/Turn problems into solutions.
Principle 10: Use and value diversity.
Principle 12: Creatively use and respond to change.

IOW, permanent should not by any stretch be interpreted as rigid. Any well-planned for the long run system should be robust, resilient, and even anti-fragile Even in a scenario where the effects of climate change took out 3 varieties of 2 species of my tree crops 20 years from now, I would still have a diversity of other varieties and species that very well might be performing better. Also, many structural elements of permaculture, such as hugel-beds, are designed to function well in wider range of conditions, such as both drought and flood conditions. And, even a rendered sterile tree may have served the purpose of anchoring soil, promoting the growth of healthy fungus, providing shelter for birds, filtered shade for edible leaf crops, and could still provide wood for human utility.

I would much rather be 80% reliant on my garden and 20% reliant on conventional sources of food when some major shit hits the fan rather than vice-versa.

[BWND]

@George, Is climate change not less of a factor than soil erosion? The climate may be still conducive to adapting and surviving, but soil erosion outpaces climate change making climate irrelevant. Soil could be one area where permaculture principles in some form are necessary to feed more people.

[George the original one]

I've not looked into soil erosion rates because where I live it's a minimal factor (discounting landslides and topsoil washing away in heavy rains).

[enigmaT120]

Yeah. Not much soil loss around here. Farmers grow cover crops, our rains rarely are so hard they wash soil away. But there's still way too much rain, you wouldn't like it. Fir trees love it.

[fiby41]

We do not have an overpopulation population.

[vexed87]

On the topic of water scarcity:
http://energyskeptic.com/2018/why-world ... shortages/

[jacob]

@vexed87 - The "virtual water" concept is popping up in many places. Countries can/will try to reduce their dependence on water by outsourcing the production of products that require lots of water. Then keep their own limited water supply for important stuff like drinking it. This creates an opportunity for leveraged investing. Buy farmland that uses sustainable or at least marginally cheaper water to sell crops that require a lot of water. E.g. California almonds for exports. Michael Burry (one of the people who predicted the housing/CDO/credit crisis) is rumored to be doing something like this. See end credits in the Big Short movie. Right now we have the water equivalent of that with all water being considered "risk-free".

http://waterfootprint.org/en/water-foot ... ter-trade/

Sustainable water is extremely unevenly distributed around the world---just like oil. Right now, there are very few countries who don't rely on fossil water. Potable water will eventually take over after oil as the contested resource. The areas that have a lot of water will be in the far north(*). Example: Norway, Greenland, and Russia. Also Canada to some degree but the problem Canada has is that most of that water runs north into the Arctic sea, not south where almost all the actually people live.

(*) The far south is all water.

International trade is an issue here. Trade treaties help but countries have been known to shut down exports if they feel an internal crunch to avoid riots. Governments will rather break international agreements than risk the wrath of their domestic hungry voters/masses. On a related note, Canada is very reluctant to start selling water to the US thus setting a precedent even if water is classified as a commodity under NAFTA. (This is an old data point, I don't know if this has changed.)

We'll see how this plays out in our lifetime.

[daylen]

Rainwater harvesting can sustain small-scale, permaculture-like farming in many places. This does not add water to the system, but adding a reservoir flattens the distribution of water supply over the yearly cycle.