Permaculture for agroecology: design, movement, practice, and worldview. A review

Rafter Sass Ferguson 0 Sarah Taylor Lovell 0 0 S. T. Lovell 1009 Plant Sciences Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , 1201 S. Dorner Dr., Urbana, IL 61801, USA 1 ) 1105 Plant Sciences Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , 1201 S. Dorner Dr., Urbana, IL 61801, USA Agroecology is a promising alternative to industrial agriculture, with the potential to avoid the negative social and ecological consequences of input-intensive production. Transitioning to agroecological production is, however, a complex project that requires diverse contributions from the outside of scientific institutions. Agroecologists therefore collaborate with traditional producers and agroecological movements. Permaculture is one such agroecological movement, with a broad international distribution and a unique approach to system design. Despite a high public profile, permaculture has remained relatively isolated from scientific research. Though the potential contribution of permaculture to agroecological transition is great, it is limited by this isolation from science, as well as from oversimplifying claims, and the lack of a clear definition. Here, we review scientific and popular permaculture literature. A systematic review discusses quantitative bibliometric data, including keyword analysis. A qualitative review identifies and assesses major themes, proposals, and claims. The manuscript follows a stratified definition of permaculture as design system, best practice framework, worldview, and movement. The major points of our analysis are as follows: (1) Principles and topics largely complement and even extend principles and topics found in the agroecological literature. (2) Distinctive approaches to perennial polyculture, water management, and the importance of agroecosystem configuration exceed what is documented in the scientific literature and thus suggest promising avenues of inquiry. (3) Discussions of practice consistently underplay the complexity, challenges, and risks that producers face in developing diversified and integrated production systems. (4) The movement is mobilizing diverse forms of social support for sustainability, in geographically diverse locations. (5) And scholarship in permaculture has always been a diverse marginal sector, but is growing. 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1 Shifting Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2 Historical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.3 Conceptual Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.4 Permaculture and Agroecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Review Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.1 Systematic Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.2 Qualitative Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.1 Systematic and Bibliometric Review . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.2 Qualitative Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5. Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.1 Substantiation and Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 5.2 Limitations of this Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 5.3 Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 1 Introduction Increasing concerns about the negative impacts of industrial agriculture have generated a vigorous debate over the feasibility of transition to alternative forms of agriculture, capable of providing a broad suite of ecosystem services while producing yields for human use. The transition to diversified, ecologically benign, smaller scale production systems is addressed in the literature of agroecology (De Schutter 2010), diversified farming systems (Kremen et al. 2012), a n d m u l t i f u n c t i o n a l a g r i c u l t u r e ( W i l s o n 2 0 0 8 ) . Agroecological transition must be regarded as a complex, multi-sector project, operating at multiple temporal and spatial scales and involving diverse constituencies (Geels and Kemp 2007; Marques 2010; Piraux et al. 2010). For this reason, researchers have often directed their attention outside of institutional science to document the contributions that traditional and innovative practices offer to the process of transition (Altieri 2004; Ingram 2007; Rocha 2005; Koohafkan et al. 2012; Rosset et al. 2011). Alternative agroecology movements, for example, have been critical in the process of regional agroecological transition (Nelson et al. 2009; Altieri and Toledo 2011) and likely will be in the future (Fernandez et al. 2012; Petersen et al. 2012). This paper addresses the alternative agroecology movement called permaculture and its potential contributions to agroecological transition. Permaculture is an international movement and ecological design system (Fig. 1). Despite permaculture's international extent and relatively high public profile, it has received very little discussion in the scientific literature. The term originated as a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and is defined by co-originator David Holmgren as Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs (2004, p. xix). As a broadly distributed movement with a distinctive conceptual framework for agroecosystem design, permaculture's relevance to the project of agroecological transition has several aspects. Permaculture can function as a framework for integrating knowledge and practice across disciplines to support collaboration with mixed groups of researchers, stakeholders, and land users. Permaculture contributes to an applied form of ecological literacy (Orr 1992), supplying a popular and accessible synthesis of complex socioecological concepts. The design orientation of permaculture offers a distinctive perspective that suggests avenues of inquiry in agroecosystem research. Lastly, these factors are embodied in an international movement that operates largely outside of the influence and support of large institutions, which suggests opportunities for participatory action research and the mobilization of popular inquiry and support (Mndez et al. 2013). The potential of permaculture to contribute broadly to agroecological transition is limited by several factors. Of primary importance is the general isolation of permaculture from science, both in terms of a lack of scholarly research about permaculture and neglect within the permaculture literature of contemporary scientific perspectives. This deficit is compounded by overreaching (...truncated)