Disinformation on permaculture

Hello.

I've read this article by Gail Tverberg.

There's a line that worries me. This is in referrence to the labor needs in the agricultural sector.

Some people hope that a shift to the use of permaculture will solve the problem of the dependence of agriculture on fossil fuels. I see permaculture as mostly a fossil-fuel extender, rather than a solution for getting along without fossil fuels, because it assumes the use of many fossil fuel-based devices, such as modern fences and today’s tools. Also, at best, permaculture only partly solves the inefficiency problem because it requires a huge amount of hands-on labor.

And here again is the misconception that the permaculture is a set of agricultural practices. Let's say it out loud: Permaculture is a design method for ANY human activity with the aim of being sustainable in time and with ethics.

As it is, permaculture can be applied even with stick-and-stones technologies. It could be argued that permaculture might not be able to sustain our current population and lifestyle without the use of the industrial world gimmicks, but permaculture never claimed to do so.
We may be using machinery, and information technologies (IT), and plastic drip irrigation pipes, and all the stuff that the industrial world is providing, but we could do without.

As an example, we can design a house to be efficient in heating, and build it with just axes and logs. It will be labor intensive, but this house will require less energy and resources to build and run because it is well designed, it will be more confortable to the dwellers because their needs have been considered, and it will enhance the social aspects that are needed for our social lifes to thrive, because that, too, is being considered.
We may heat it with very little fuel, using rocket mass heaters, which again, do not require high technology to be built, it's not that difficult to make thermal bricks. We may insulate it with funghi.
A house that is cheap to build and maintain and still provides all that we need is liberating resources for other needs, such as dressing with natural fibers, eating healthy meals and having fun with friends without the need to spend money. All these activities can be designed with permaculture too.

It is understandable that farmers that want to apply permaculture are using machinery and smartphones, since they are living in society, they have to contribute to the State that shelters all of us -this is paying taxes-, and they are asked to provide food for twenty families each farmer. These requirements are not feasible with medieval technology.
But this does not mean that permaculture is limited to that. Permaculture cannot and do not promise eternal growth and wealth, but as long as we stay within the carrying capacity of the system, it gives a methodology for finding sustainable practices for real.

It saddens me to see how the word is reduced to the popular idea that permaculture is just no-till farming with style.

I like to think of Permaculture, as a lot of us views it and practice it, is still a very new-age idea.

How long ago was it that no-till started to 'boom' with conventional farmers and farm manufactures? The 1960s the 'research' started but it took time to work out the processes and sell it to the average farmer. Its stepping the toe into the permaculture puddle so to speak. People on average do not like change. I remember hearing stories about how farmers judged each others corn fields about not seeing any stalk remnants and if you didn't burn them your fields weren't good. The age of dark black soil being exposed to the elements!

I agree, no tilling with a diesel tractor and hundreds of thousands of dollars in machinery is not the entirety of Permaculture. However, the discussion of Permaculture associated to no till might push people into better Permie based solutions. Everyone thought there was only one way to farm for a long time, however now there is another way that can exceed the traditional style's output. Who is there to say there isn't an even better, environmentally friendly, third alternative just waiting to be discovered?

The author's bio states that they are an actuary. I'm going to assume, finding the best in people, that they simply have a 'read the back of the book' understanding of Permaculture and doesn't understand the breadth of what goes into it like many an 'average' person. This just means we have to do our part, if not a larger part, of spreading the good word of how people can incorperate Permie principles in their life.

I'm going to assume, finding the best in people, that they simply have a 'read the back of the book' understanding of Permaculture and doesn't understand the breadth of what goes into it like many an 'average' person

Exactly. Outside our small world, permaculture is little known for what it really is. Gail is a very informed person and even her only knows permaculture very superficially. We have to follow Wheaton advice and infect more brains with the permaculture virus.

Permaculture is a design method for ANY human activity with the aim of being sustainable in time and with ethics.

I agree with all that has been said here.  I would like to also point out that most people probably already use permaculture but don't even know it.
My life has always been super busy, especially after I had my son.  I "stacked functions" before I knew what it was.  

Coffee Maker - I would use my coffee maker to keep a tropical indoor plant warm and moist by setting it next to it.  Also, warm a bottle in tea water
                         created by the coffee maker.  Coffee grounds in the compost bin then into the garden.
Compost bin - I would fill a moveable compost bin then move it and start over.  The old compost bin would be dug into the soil and used as a new
                        garden.

This is but one example of how "not-yet Permies" are already using permaculture techniques.  I have felt very separate from others but when I step back
I can see just how much we all have in common.  Many people want to have to work less.  Permaculture (after initial setup) sets this in motion.  One of the biggest hurdles to more people officially adopting permaculture into their lives, in my humble opinion, is the lack of them knowing "what's in it for them"...and it being pointed out how they can slowly adopt permaculture principles into their lives.

My upbringing and much of my adulthood was in the city.  For the last 10 years I have been more rural.  The lifestyles are very different, yet there are enough similarities for the same permaculture ideas to exist in both.  What was important to me shifted with my lifestyle.  Healthy food, clean air and clean water remained constant.  This can be achieved with permaculture.

Discussing these things with others has been difficult for me.  It has been less so since I shifted my focus to what we have in common.

I've followed Gail for a couple of years now (superficially, I'll admit) and most of the time she really gets it. She understands how much we rely on energy slaves, and how much of our industrial food chain is simply fossil fuels. In her list she talks about how a huge portion of the labour force will have to be rededicated to growing food (and fibre and fuel, although she doesn't mention that specifically).

So why did she miss the point on permaculture?

As everyone here has already pointed out, her Type 1 error was an inability to separate permaculture ethics and principles of design from the way that they take shape in the real world. We're opportunists. If manufactured products like fence wire, electric motors, and water containers are available to me (especially if I can scrounge them for cheap or free and divert them from a waste loop), hell yeah I'm going to use them. But it's always front of mind for me that these things might very well become scarce, expensive, or unattainable for the next generation of practitioners...and there will be lots more at stake for them.

What she misses, in my view, is the way that permaculture seeks to emulate and extend natural systems. We leverage things like biodiversity, edge effects, microclimates, and stacked functions. This is the secret sauce and it means farming smarter, not harder. In the future that she describes, during and after collapse of modern techno-industrial systems, everyone will be relying primarily on muscle power to do essential work and we will have little access to engineered crops and chemical inputs. Who is going to get a better yield: the ones who try to replicate the monoculture factory farm (only with human or animal grunt power), or the ones who tend forest gardens and have a myriad of productive niches supporting one another?

I just might drop her a line and point this out. But I have hay down and it might rain tomorrow, so my manual work will probably take priority. Besides, jumping on the bale box and breathing in the smell is downright fun and makes me feel like a teenager again, and I know that this humble task will endure well past the time that we can't afford to run big tractors anymore...and with the way we've fenced and planted trees, it would be impossible to get the machinery around most of our paddocks now.