Designing Sustainable Small Farms

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Fig. I adapted from Permaculture Two by Bill Mollison. Copyright© 1979 by Bill Wilson. Reprinted with permission from Tagari Books, P.O. Box 96, Stanley, Tasmania, 7331, Australia.

In this issue's mini-manual, the executive director of the renowned New Alchemy Institute tells how to create your own
permaculture plan.

Conventional agricultural ecosystems (i.e., farms) are inherently fragile: Their productivity can be sustained only if fossil fuel subsidies, in one form or another, are employed as inputs. Most farms entail, as well, other very serious environmental costs. Clearly, we need to create new food raising systems that will conserve soil, water, and nutrients ... minimize the use of fossil fuels, chemical fertilizers, and synthetic pesticides ... and lead to regionally self-reliant food systems.

Alternative farming practices-known variously as organic, biological, or bio dynamic methods-come closer to meeting such a criterion of sustainability. Nationwide, an estimated 30,000 farmers now rely on crop rotation; animal manures, legumes, green manures, mechanical cultivation, mineral-bearing rocks, and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and tilth, supply plant nutrients, and control insects, weeds, and other pests.

Although the expanding organic movement is a positive development, in the final analysis agricultural production will be maintained only if farms are designed in the image of natural ecosystems, combining the knowledge of science with the wisdom of the wilderness. Natural ecosystems are extremely resilient and use only renewable sources of input. They have, for thousands of years, demonstrated high productivity, an impressive ability to maintain environmental quality, and quick adaptiveness to natural disturbances. Hence' they can be used as architectural and botanical models for designing and structuring our agroecosystems.

This is the approach of permaculture, the term coined by Australian Bill Mollison to describe the concept of a self-sustaining, consciously designed system of agriculture. Permaculture takes the practices of organic farming one step further, applying natural principles to design a self sustaining food-, fiber-, and energy-producing ecosystem. By weaving together the elements of microclimate, annual and perennial plants, water and soil management, and human needs, the permaculturist forms an energy-efficient, low-maintenance, high-yielding, and intricately interconnected system. The philosophy, as summed up by Mollison, is one "of working with, father than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation, rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.)

Although permaculture setups are still in the experimental stages, I believe that-with some modifications-these concepts will form the backbone of a truly sustainable agriculture. At the New Alchemy Institute in Massachusetts, we're redesigning our entire 12-acre site in order to test the economic performance of a small farm that employs biological and solar resources as its main production and management inputs. Anyone with a small parcel of land-be it a homestead plot that simply meets the food needs of a family, or a farm that must generate income-can share in similar research by completing and implementing their own designs, and reporting on those components that perform well and those that don't.