Management/stewardship orientation differences in agriculture & permaculture

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#1

If permaculture is viewed as a sub-category of “agriculture”, it inevitably retains a lot of baggage. This default orientation is predictable in a culture dominated by narratives surrounding progressive improvements and tweaks to agriculture—a culture predicated upon agriculture. What happens when the assumptions and internal logic of agriculture conflict with permaculture principles?

One area of tension in recent permaculture discourse seems to be that of orientations toward management and stewardship. This is sometimes bracketed by invocations of Tending the Wild (PDF - 556 pages) and pontification about what “indigenous people did” (or did not do). At its etymological core, agriculture is about commodification, and this is not at the core of permaculture. Agriculture taken to its logical conclusion is a 100% human controlled and managed system that benefits a subset of people with control and management interests, and the logical conclusion of permaculture is a 0% human controlled and managed system that benefits earth and people individually and in general. Please note: that is not to say that 1% or 37% or whatever% management of systems at some stage of the design process are not permaculture. Permaculture is a design process (some say, science), and the design process may involve some management, but permaculture is neither management process nor management science. Rather than infinite involvement, design implies some endpoint. Sure, designs are often iterative, but concocting designs that are eternally iterative is bad design.

The notions of management and stewardship tend (eh hem) to be valued by agricultural societies. However, these are not objective values, and permaculture requires questioning the values of agricultural society.

Feralculture is an attempt to embed and clarify the value of wildness—and end to the requirement for management and stewardship—into the ethos of permaculture. It is not possible to avoid these practices within the current context, but it is possible to shift our orientation toward wildness rather than control.

Defining "feralculture"
#2

I like the idea of designing to end the requirement for “management.” And I think you make a great point, that management, stewardship, tending, etc. are closely linked with the values of agricultural society. Sometimes when I hear rewilder types promote these things a new term, “dewilding,” pops into my mind.

As you know, I’ve been slowly investigating the thinking around “tending the wild.” I’ve made some real progress recently which reinforces a lot of what I’d suspected. With any luck I’ll soon get to crankin’ out an actual article. But yeah, I like what you’re doing with the whole permaculture idea here, rewilding it, if you will.

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#3

In your investigation thus far, have you found any work at the edges of immediate-return and horticulture? My reading hints that non-sedentary horticulturists may be better off (ecologically, socially) than delayed-return HGs, but my thinking on it isn’t as clear as I’d like.

#4

My thinking isn’t so clear there either. I’ve looked at a couple of articles you dug up on mobile horticulturalists, but I’m fuzzy right now on how they might differ from some DR HGs. I get the impression the latter tend to be more sedentary. But I seem to recall reading somewhere some mention DR HGs who were nonetheless nomadic. Haven’t been able to
find where that was. (Well, Berman mentions it in Wandering God (p. 77), but that’s not the source I think I remember.)

Looking at it just a bit differently, there are IR HGs who practice(d) just a smidgeon of what might be termed horticulture or “tending the wild.” I’m thinking, for instance, of the Ju/’hoansi (San Bushmen). They used to set the occasional grass or brush fire, but did nothing else at all in the way of tending the wild. (That alone refutes the myth that all HGs tended the wild “extensively.”) As Woodburn said, “there is some delayed-return activity in immediate-return systems.” I suppose if they did much more in that regard they’d have to be seen as DR. Not sure that helps much. :-/

#5

So… thinking about designing so as to end the requirement for management. In the FAQs I think you mentioned restoration in this context. To what extent do you see this focused purely on habitat/ecosystem restoration vs creating something that is more novel for the express purpose of long term food production?

i.e., are you envisioning creating an food rich area that’s unusually human-food-rich [1], or simply restoring a damaged area? (As a side note, I would assume where you are is relatively undamaged, no?)

[1] I think simply living there as humans may do this to some extent. I have an article I’ll send you…

#6

Wellllllll… This gets into an area where how I would answer personally would diverge from what I think “the group/community is about”. And the group’s node/cluster concept is the resolution.

Personally, on most days, I would rather migrate to areas with higher levels of wild food. I don’t want to be a farmer. This is why I moved back to Alaska for the first node. Other than seasonal gardens, there’s not a lot that can be done in the way of planting trees or other perennials because it’s something like 2a/b in the hardiness zone list.

At the level of the group, I would say, “it depends”. If we happen to end up with property in areas that don’t have access to the amount of wild food at the first node (which, almost nowhere does/will/can), it seems that growing one’s own food via ecosystem restoration is preferable to participating in a grocery store paleo lifestyle. So I guess “restoration” is not meant in a historical way, but in a way of restoring systems that 1) increase biodiversity and 2) increase biomass. To the extent that human food plays a role in 1 & 2, in a permaculture-y kind of way, that’s what I suspect individuals who want to live in those areas/ways and do that kind of work would orient toward.

#7

So I guess “restoration” is not meant in a historical way, but in a way of restoring systems that 1) increase biodiversity and 2) increase biomass. To the extent that human food plays a role in 1 & 2…

Okay, I think I sorta see what you’re saying, but hmm… “Restoration” seems to say something about bringing back to some previous state or returning to a prior condition, or something along those lines. So are you talking here about simply working to restore damaged land that was presumably once viable habitat for HGs so that it can be so again? (recognizing that what it’s “restored” to today may not feasibly/optimally be exactly the same as it was, say, 200 years ago) Or are you talking about those folks, you know, tricking out the land with stuff like food forests that, maybe, can get to a point of needing no more management?

#8

When asked this question before, my response has been something like, “that is a question to be answered by the land”. I don’t think there’s a specific answer that spans the range of possibilities. I personally preference the historical, or its derivative “native species”, lower than biodiversity and biomass. I value life over recreating or maintaining a snapshot of any particular point in space-time.

#9

Well, I was trying to get somewhat away from the snapshot-in-time notion with my comment, “recognizing that what it’s “restored” to today may not feasibly/optimally be exactly the same as it was, say, 200 years ago.” But this now gets into some slippery topics I’m grappling with currently. And for now I’d better get back to that.

#10

I don’t have much to add, other than that I think many folks in the regrarian/restoration ag/broadacre scene are using “restoration” to mean something along the lines of “restored functionality,” by which I mean ecosystem services: nutrient/carbon/mineral cycling, purification of water and air, improved watersheds and aquifers, etc.

primary among those services (at least initially) could be food production, but the ideal to my mind is to undertake it in such a way as to be investing in long term lower yields with little to no inputs vs near term high yields w/lots of inputs. this is more than a simple perennial vs annual dichotomy, as a perennial system could yield a cascade of annual products.

my aim here is to illustrate that restoration need not necessarily refer to an arbitrary historical antecedent (though I think thinking 500, 1,000, 10,000+ years ago is important to track the both the general arc and confounding disturbances of an area).

so long as we’re dealing in semantics, “regenerate” probably has less baggage than “restore.” to my mind, the former suggests boosting vitality whereas the latter implies a prior reference point and a static state thereafter.

#11

I feel comfortable plainly stating that there is definitely no clear path from IR HG to DR HG to horticulture. Typically it’s IR HG to either horticulture or DR HG (or to borrow Binford’s perfect term: “hunter-collector”). The difference between many IR HGs and horticulturalists is far less significant socially than any DR HG society. Rare if ever did any society go from hunter-collector to horticulture and I would say that the Mayans are arguably the only significant case.
Across the board, you can unquestionably state that DR HGs are socially worse off than horticulturalists. Among horticulturalists you typically have equal warfare, but things like slavery and extreme social fragmentation are pretty much impossible. DR HGs, on the other hand, are the ones who built civilizations. Harvesting wild grains in particular leads directly to agriculture (It’s worth pointing out that those DR HGs who were based around a surplus of proteins did build civilizations, but were more limited in the sense that things like salmon runs are more likely to be harmed by attempts to domesticate rather than increased.),

I’ve been working for years on developing a better taxonomy for distinguishing hortis based on starches and grains vs those based on “produce”. The results are vastly different and it is those that relied on starches and grains that made the historically rare case of going from horticulture to agriculture.
As it stands, I still haven’t come up with the best terminology, but the difference is equivalent, in my mind to the IR/DR distinction amongst HGs.

#12

Yes, I tend toward regenerate/regenerative when I’m being conscious of my words. I suspect I use(d) restoration imprecisely for brevity. It seems like “restoration” implies something similar to “implementing regenerative systems”, since we can’t really do the regenerating ourselves. I don’t know though, since @johncfeeney didn’t say exactly where I said it. :stuck_out_tongue: