My first interest in permaculture came from managing a well designed, 8-acre permaculture small holding in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe. It had been designed and developed by Graham Metlercamp and was simply the most productive and diverse piece of land I have ever seen. It was a no brainer, as they say, I was instantly converted, without ever hearing the word permaculture, or knowing about the principles of ecological design, Bill Mollison or anything, all of that came later. The beauty, productivity and obvious room for nature, a garden plot in surplus with veg, grains, pasture for cattle, milk and cheese, fruit, fish, honey, wine and all with minimal external inputs. It seemed obvious to me that this was the way forward for agriculture: the foundation stone for building sustainable economies is a secure local food supply.
Ok so I was in Africa, and maybe looking at things through a slightly different perspective, an insecure food supply is more commonplace over there and labour much more plentiful. Small scale production without machines and without economies of scale might make sense in rural Africa but not in the over developed West. We fly in our kumquats in from Israel and Brazil, our grain from America our beef from Australia – the global supermarket is ours for the choosing, whilst poor underdeveloped nations have to produce their own food locally and seasonally, the whole world is our supermarket.
US Oil production peak
My first encounters with permaculture were also back in the day when Climate Change was not on the radar as a pressing concern and fears over the energy supply were consigned to the 1970′s; A time when US oil production had just peaked as predicted, in 1971 and was followed by that period when the Arabs got difficult and we experienced a dip in our energy supply for the first time and prices rocketed. Concerns about energy in the late 70′s we so strong even then US President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House, and the family friend who used to run us to school in Wolverhampton every morning in his flash Jaguar went out and bought a Cintroen 2CV energy efficient car. Extreme times and a distant memory.
It was shortly after that moment that North Sea Oil first came on supply, as did Alaskan oil, there was growth in the big Mexican oil fields and Canada got going on production as well. The world fell asleep, in came Ronald Reagan to the White House who promptly removed the solar panaels, calling them ‘un-American’ and Britiain went on a consumer spending spree and road building programme funded by North Sea oil and gas. From that day we started travelling in the wrong direction, at an accelerating pace and we forgot all our concerms over energy and sustainability.
Fossil fuel energy supply model
Right now, all our economic models for consumer led capitalism rely on an expanding energy frontier. All the evidence suggests that we are now entering a new phase in the world’s history, one of a diminishing energy supply, we have passed the peak. I have written a lot about Peak Oil already, anyone needing more evidence needs to go to the Oil Drum or check out some of the resources at Die Off or a visit to the Post Carbon Institute in California. There is an Association for the Study of Peak Oil and numerous other resources out there if you still need convincing.
A quick note here… a friend told me off yesterday, in the context of my making a negative remark about her stopping by a McDonalds food outlet. ‘Your lot are so judgemental/ critical/ smug etc..’ it left me wondering what ‘your lot’ meant. When it comes to the study of Peak Oil it is the senior oil geologists who are sounding the alarm bells. Some of the least radical people around, people who have spent their lives studying geological formations rather than engaging with the global media. What they are all quick to point out is that oil discoveries worldwide peaked in 1961. With the advent of computer modelling, satellite imaging, all the 21st century technology and the amount of oil they are finding is only going down, not only that but the finds are smaller and smaller and further and further afield, under the sea, the ice at the poles and a long long way from market. This means that the net energy yield is also declining, in other words we are using more energy to find less… that is why the curve in the graph falls so sharply. It is this energy descent that we have to prepare for, and the first part of our economy to suffer from the shortage of energy will be farming. Food producion has become a global business, consuming vast amounts of energy to bring produce to market – infact the stat is 10 calories of oil is consumed for each calory of food produced. (Read eating oil)
This new reality is the biggest challenge humanity has yet had to face… many commentators are saying this, maybe climate change or nucelar proliferation may be as bad, but who is keeping score? the point is our food supply has never been more precarious, and this is why I am concentrating on relocalising food production as a key focus for my work this decade. A key focus for Permaculture design work currently has to be centred around relocalising food production.
I apologise to my friend for critiscising her visit to the Golden Arches, we are all caught up in the globalized food supply chain, every time we enter a supermarket or a fast food outlet we are feeding the global oil addiction, its going to be a hard habit to break.
The community garden at Cwm Harry in Newtown is a small part of that work towards relocalising food supply as well as devising and running Permaculture Design Courses, which i do with my project partners Ian and Leslie et al at Sector39. I also have a long involvement in housing co-operatives and fairtrade and development education.
New Project at Pen Y Garnedd.
Its only at proposal stage but I see our next key step is to establish what I am calling the Pen Y Garnedd Permaculture Research Institute, where we are aiming to take on a 24 acre plot where we can scale up some of our ideas and develop a working model for permaculture food production for our area, here in Wales. It is a couple of miles from the village where myself and key colleagues live and we intend it to become a hub for food production and permaculture teaching in our own local food economy.
I will be writing a lot more about this project soon and am keen to hear from anyone who is interested in finding out more or even investing in the loanstock issue. We need to create an many working examples that we can, working with the permaculture principles to build the case studies and examples to tackle the key issue of regional food security.
