Ensure sustainability of Permaculture

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- Recycling at the highest level

- Storage of run-off water for extended use

Cultural:

- Removing cultural barriers to resource use - Expanding choices in a culture

Legal/Administrative:

- Removing socio-legal impediments to resource use - Creating effective structures to aid resource management

Social:

- Cooperative endeavors, pooling of resources, sharing - Financial recycling within the community

Design:

- Making harmonious connections between components and sub-systems - Making choices as to where placing things or how to live”

Thus, the potential productivity of a Permaculture system is not only defined by product yield, but also by energy yields, which depend on the quantity and the choice of strategies applied.

Plus, our behavior, knowledge and skills have an impact on yields. While nature is left to its own devices, Permaculture can make a difference in a way that people can intervene and provide the missing elements or even guide the system.

4.1.2 Ensure sustainability of Permaculture

A replicable system must also be able to ensure its own sustainability. In this part, the process of ensuring a system’ sustainability will be explained.

First, a low-inputs strategy must be followed. Outside funds and outside resources must be avoided as much as possible so that to make possible the replicability. Indeed, the more

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dependent a system is towards outside resources, the more difficult it becomes to replicate it.

To implement this strategy, Permaculture farmers must ensure to build a self-reliant system.

Self-reliance and auto regulation are the two keys to considerably limit the dependence on external inputs. Stacia (2005) states that it is a matter of knowing the impact that a high-input strategy can have on farmers and where this dependence can lead. According to Stacia (2005), the method used to produce maize in Malawi in 2005 was destroying the environment and many people were stuck in a ‘Cycle of Dependency’, without being truly capable of getting away of it.

Figure 10: Cycle of Dependency,

Note: reproduced from Permaculture Nutrition training manual, Stacia & Nordin (2003)

1.) New Crop, Maize: Farmers are encouraged to abandon traditional food sources for higher yielding hybrids such

as maize.

2.) Change in diet:

Maize takes over as the crop of choice. Early yields, as toll. As less organic matter is

added back into the nature cycle, more chemical fertilizer is needed to maintain the yields.

5.) More fertilizer, less money: Local farmers are forced to sell off more and more of their yields in order to cover the costs of the increased demand for artificial fertilizer and new seed. Less food ends up

being 6.) Dependent on Inputs

Farmers end up caught in a

“cycle of dependency” used or grown as food crops slowly fades out of memory, and people become locked

even deeper into this detrimental cycle.

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The second point in the process is to encourage multifunctionality. Indeed, Permaculture farmers during their design phase must favor elements – plants, animals, structures – that have more than one function (at least two or three functions minimum). These elements should be used to provide food for people, for soils, for ground protectors, etc. The best example is trees, elements that have serve as many functions at the same time.

Table 6: Principle of multifunctionnality

- Trellis for vine crops living fence

- Shade - Biotecture

Note: reproduced from Principle of Multifunctionality, Brett (2016)

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Thus, trees form an essential component in every Permaculture designed system and must be included to reach sustainability and facilitate replicability.

The third important point of the process is community support and involvement to make Permaculture sites sustainable. The Siyakhana project showed the importance of community in establishing sustainable Permaculture gardens. The project aimed to build a food garden in the center of Johannesburg. The success and sustainability of any project depends first on the motivation and on the involvement of each participant. For this particular project, the involvement was quite considerable. During the project, a participant - whose name was not provided - testified:

“I am a community person, my life is rooted in the community and I always want to know what is happening in my community, so that inspires you to want to do this for the people … it's a commitment which you have in the community” (Participant 3, 2006). Even one of the stakeholder – again, his name was not provided - of the project stated that:’ “Community development is made or broken by the community themselves. Successful projects all have in common a dynamic, motivated community member or members to lead the project … one of the things we decided very early on as an organization was only to work in response to actual community requests for projects and every time, 100% of the times when we receive a request from another organization on behalf of the community - those projects have not been successful” (Stakeholder funder, 2006). The second reason why community is essential is related to the input costs. While input costs should be kept at the minimum, in some situations a Permaculture project requires to invest some money at the beginning to cover the costs. The community can cover these start-up costs. Sometimes, aside from providing funds to the and beliefs representing a barrier to the establishment of Permaculture, while expanding the

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understanding. Two examples can illustrate this statement. The first example is the idea that sweeping the ground around buildings to compact the earth and remove vegetation is synonym of cleanliness, order and good hygiene, while it is actually the opposite.

Permaculture encourages using all areas and planting crops around buildings, while keeping a minimal sweeping to clean the main pathways. The debris would be used as a mulch to improve soil fertility and structure and to provide nutrition for the system. The second example is the belief that only poor people eat indigenous foods. Indeed, many nutritious, healthy and local plant and animals resources are being ignored and forgotten in many countries, while it could benefit the whole population. Blowing away these negative beliefs must be one of the duties of Permaculture, and this can be possible through a thorough education.