Permaculture is a term coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison, an Australian forest ecologist, and one of his students, David Holmgren. It is a contraction of “permanent agriculture” or “permanent culture.”

In ‘Towards a Sustainable Agriculture’ (New Renaissance, Vol 6, No.2 Steve Diver says ‘Permaculture is concerned with designing ecological human habitats and food production systems, and follows specific guidelines and principles in the design of these systems. To the extent that permaculture is not a production system, per se, but rather a land use planning philosophy, it is not limited to a specific method of production. Thus, practically any site-specific ecological farming system is amenable to permaculture.”

The aim is to design and maintain agriculturally productive ecosystems which are diverse, stable, and as resilient and as flourishing as natural ecosystems. Design principles derive from whole systems thinking. It uses these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture, rewilding, and community resilience. Mollison’s original idea was for edible landscapes with the same resilience and stability as primeval forests whilst allowing them to evolve as they see fit. Key techniques include site evaluation is critical to undergo before starting so as to maximise the potential of the relevant location.

I wrote this article for Tim Atkin at Harpers Wine & Spirit Weekly, London, April 2002

You may remember the “Great With Chicken” and “Great With Fish” wine labels pioneered by a leading UK supermarket several years ago. Whether any of these wines really were “Great With” the foodstuffs their labels proscribed is debatable, as is whether any wine can ever be “Great For” chicken, fish, or any other living thing (humans included) in the environmental, rather than purely nutritional or organoleptic, senses. This thought crossed my mind at a seminar on “permaculture” held at Live Power Community Farm in Covelo, northern California in 1999. Live Power is a Demeter certified biodynamic vegetable producer but wanted to discover if permaculture could render its farm practices and use of resources as environmentally friendly as possible.

The term “permaculture” was coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison, an Australian ecologist, and one of his students, David Holmgren. It is a contraction of “permanent agriculture” or “permanent culture.” There are many interpretations of what is meant by permaculture. The Arizona-based Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA), a sustainable farming information center, defines permaculture thus: “Permaculture is about designing ecological human habitats and food production systems. It is a land use and community building movement which strives for the harmonious integration of human dwellings, microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soils, and water into stable, productive communities. The focus is not on these elements themselves, but rather on the relationships created among them by the way we place them in the landscape. This synergy is further enhanced by mimicking patterns found in nature.”

This eco-speak does have singular relevance for wine growers, says Brock Dolman, Permaculture Director of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in California’s Sonoma County. “Vineyards should be one component in a landscape, but often vineyards have no resemblance to the natural world. For example a worst-case scenario of making way for new vineyard plantings would see landscapes containing old growth forests razed. The soil would then be disinfected with methyl bromide [the worst ozone-depleting CFC], fenced off preventing access to mammals like deer, planted with vines and then irrigated with water diverted from other landscapes and fertilized with soluble fertilizer. The irrigation and fertilizing promotes a tremendously non-natural vigour. This attracts insects and fungals which the winegrower necessarily classifies as pests and diseases. These are then controlled with non-natural products, further polluting the land and local streams which corrupts established eco-systems.”

This is where the idea that wine can be “Great With” but not necessarily “Great For” fish comes in. It’s not just chemical run-off from vineyard treatments which affect fish or contaminate the life-forms they feed upon. Flow levels of watercourses are affected when water is pumped out for irrigation. Damming watercourses to provide irrigation during low-rainfall periods also takes it toll if, for instance, salmon ladders are not designed into the dam to allow salmon to migrate to and from the ocean where they spawn.

Research at Oregon State University suggests that in the 19th century a net weight of 500 million pounds (lbs) of salmon returned annually from its Pacific breeding grounds to freshwater habitats in California. Now this annual figure is around only 5 million pounds. But why are salmon so important? “If the land is being well managed, run-off from it into watercourses and the use of the watercourse as a water resource will not harm key species like salmon. Salmon are the canary in the coalmine” says Dolman. “A mature, 50 pound salmon which swims inland from the ocean is bringing back all those nutrients washed from the soil by the rain into the rivers and the sea. Elements like calcium, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, core elements for vines and other native plants which are the base of any eco-system. These and other chemical and mineral elements are returned to the land when the salmon is eaten by bears, mountain lions or otters for example. Research shows that up to 50% of the calcium present in grizzly bear bones is of marine origin. Now we are witnessing watershed starvation, not just through wine growing but through other industrial agricultural practices, too.”

“Watershed starvation has many causes some of which can be subtle” says Dolman. “For instance, wine growers who need to squeeze every vine possible into newly acquired land to placate investors may grub up a thriving riparian habitat just for that one extra vine row. Uprooting this habitat may remove a few potential vineyard pests, like birds for example, but it will certainly remove beneficial vineyard predators. And it will also remove shade from the stream, adversely affecting evaporation rates and water temperatures.” California lost 95% of its freshwater wetland habitat since 1900.

The most obvious cause of watershed starvation is water taken from streams for irrigation. Dolman says “we can make vineyards less dependent on irrigation and maintain crop levels at or near to where they are now by giving vineyards what we call an ‘understorey’ in the form of perennial cover crops, or preferably native natural bunchgrasses and wildflowers. Most cover crops are ploughed out every six months, which alters soil structures, causes moisture loss as the soil is turned and requires fossil fuels to power tractor ploughs. In contrast, these perennial grasses are excellent at trapping rain water in the ground, greatly reducing the need for irrigation. Some species of perennial grass can live for one or even two centuries. Examples native to America’s west coast include purple needle grass (Nasella pulchra), blue wild rye (Elymus glaucus), and california oat grass (Danthonia californica). Allowing a permanent culture, or permaculture, of wild grasses back into the vineyards would strengthen native populations of beneficial insects, and would reduce pressure on native watercourses.” If wines can be described as “Great With Fish”, shouldn’t they be “Great For Fish”, too?…..ends

Bibliography

Dr Immo Fiebrg & Marion Buley, ‘Permaculture and Biodynamics’, Star & Furrow Issue 127 June 2017, p.22-23