From a seminar I attended several months ago in Omaha.
"Permaculture Principles are based on close observation of nature, traditional sustainable agriculture systems earth sciences and common sense.
There are 10 primary design principles:
1) Diversity
Aim to integrate a variety of beneficial species of food, plants and animals. This builds a stable and interactive polycultural system which provides for human needs and also the needs of other species.
2) Edge Effect
There is more life on the edge where two systems overlap. Systems can then access the resources of both. Use the edge effect and other natural patterns you observe to create the best effect. There are no straight lines in nature.
3) Energy Planning
Place things in a permaculture design to minimize the use of energy (your own and fossil fuels). Also, utilize the energy and resources you have both on-site and from outside as effectively as possible. This also saves you time, energy and money.
4) Energy Cycling
In a natural system there is no waster or pollution- the output from one natural process is always the resource for another natural process. Recycle and reuse your local resources as many times as possible within your polycultural system.
5) Scale
Create human-scale systems. Choose simple, appropriate and effective technologies. Do as much as you are able. Start small and take achievable steps to reach your goal successfully. Create groups which enable people to feel they can actively participate, be involved in the decision making and feel a connection to and ownership of the process.
6) Biological Resources
Use natural methods and processes to achieve a task. Find things in nature (plants, animals, microbes, etc.) that enjoy doing the task and minimize the inputs required from outside. This creates a healthy system and healthy people.
7) Multiple Elements
Support each vital need and essential function in more than one way.
8) Multiple Functions
Everything has many uses and functions. In permaculture we aim to design so that every element performs at least 3 functions.
9) Natural Succession
Work with nature and the processes of natural systems. Facilitate natural growth and help to accelerate it naturally.
10) Relative Location
Every element is placed in relationship to others so they can benefit each other. Create supportive environments by placing things together which help to develop a self-sustaining system, which replicates a natural ecosystem. From a functional perspective- those things used together, place together. This allows more efficient use of a space and minimisation of your energy in utilising these resources."
4 comments:
To what degree has our short-term behavior, following the economic dictum that "people respond to incentives" (money), led to long-term degradation? Theoretically, topsoil preservation should be a high priority to a farmer wanting to maintain the long-term value of land. Instead, we are seeing widespread loss of topsoil (like with flooding in Iowa last year).
So many of the costs appear to be externalized rather than internalized (overnutrition leading to dead zones in the Gulf, etc). The costs to biodiversity and edge habitat are not often made very real to the farmer, but together we can see the harm.
Wendell Berry's vision of loving his neighbor means internalizing a lot of these costs, therefore lowering his production (in terms of money). Is it a hopeless case to encourage internalization? And if we regulate, can we do so without be onerous and unequal?
Trying to think like a "social economist" here :) which is what I think you are.
I think this question, in it's broader forms is one of the great questions for humanity.
How much do incentives and/or penalties change behavior and how much should be brought to bear to change behavior, if not heart? You see it when teachers are distrustful of behavior modification techniques for their students, church folks who want 'culture' to change first because you cannot legislate good behavior, and the police who have a certain level of 'acceptable crime' (which society accepts as well). After all, too much prosecution leads to rebellion.
I do believe that culture needs to change regarding 'internalizing' loving our neighbor.
You might say that our 'incentive' structure is already in place in the US, it is just in the wrong place. We have all sorts of taxes, laws, and tariffs that encourage one thing and not the other. It encourages agribusiness and lowering food costs for US consumers.
I hope that more is eventually included on the labels of the items we purchase. If we purchase a shirt, we could know that the cotton was grown in _________, organically, with crop rotation, harvested by people making a living wage, loomed & sewn by people making a living wage, etc. I don't know that this will help change people's hearts however.
Also, what do you mean by regulation being 'unequal'? How would you try to help people internalize 'loving your neighbor'?
Well, I was thinking regulation in the sense of using political means to ensure/promote a more just society. However, the tool for justice itself can be corrupted and the regulation adds to the brokenness.
Libertarians have rightly pointed out some regulations that have done more harm than they set out to correct. I believe that sometimes we get it right, and we can in the future... hopefully. But in some cases you also have big corporations pushing for regulations in the name of "safety" when the real interest is to raise the cost-of-entry for small/medium entrepreneurs. I know a small, local farmer who's had enough of that (http://www.hammerstead.com/)
I think regulation is just another set of carrots/ STICKS that lawmakers use to create incentives.
I agree that in certain industries, there seems to be oligopolies that control the market and control the agenda for the lawmakers.
But I´m also not set on doing away with regulation just because of the constant mantra of libertarians towards ´unintended consequences´ or that the ¨regulatory solution is worse than the market problem´
sorry for your farmer friend. there are lots of cases like his (also think of recent proposed legislation to cut out small time producers on sites like etsy, by making rules too onerous to stay in business.)
There are neat little graphs in economics that can show specific market failures where government help is necessary. I don´t know if these are acted upon...since they are largely theoretical.
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