Permaculture is an ethics based design science that uses systems found in nature to produce food and resources in a resilient way using minimal to no inputs. It all started back in the late 1950’s when Tasmanian native, Bill Mollison, had an idea. Mollison had studied Australian’s ecosystems for decades. In the late ‘1950s he eventually became disenchanted with modern humans and the negative impact they were having on the environment and he retreated back to Tasmania to be a hermit and to study rainforests.
Bill Mollison
While studying the rainforest Mollison developed his little idea into really big idea and when he returned to society in the early ’70s he settled into academia and developed the permaculture concept with his student David Holmgren. Mollison and Holmgren published Permaculture One in 1978. While the techniques for permanent agriculture was nothing new, indeed some have been in practice for thousands of years, what was new was the structuring of them into a design science.
Up until Permaculture One, no one had attempted to apply design principles to agriculture. The book had radical ideas about self-sustaining food systems, but it wasn’t clear yet how to actually implement them, much less at commercial scale. Over the next decade Mollison taught permaculture and sought methods to scale, where Holmgren took his own path towards one seeking solutions for homesteading and sustainable living.
In 1988, Mollison published the Permaculture Design Manual which answered all the questions about implementation in any climate. Mollison passed away in 2016, but the permaculture dream lives on.
While many people implement permaculture design to their own homestead or subsistence farm, it’s more rare to find commercial examples, especially in the United States. Most successful permaculture enterprises succeed with an educational component, but not many farms strive to compete in the traditional American commercial space.
Right here in Tamworth, NH there is one such permaculture farm having a go at it. Again & Again Farmstead is a for-profit enterprise with a farm-scale manufacturing component which sets it apart from the rest. Owners, Amy and Ethan Sager’s unique value proposition is to use permaculture as a way to rapidly make agriculture land from land that is traditionally not considered agricultural and to share the resulting wealth.
One of the biggest challenges for New England is the lack of access for new farmers. Much of the legacy farmland in New England is either unaffordable, held up in family estates where the current generation no longer wants to farm, sold for housing development, used for non-farming related commercial enterprises, or is simply depleted from years of synthetic chemical use or with PFAs from dodgy 20th century practices such as using wastewater treatment sludge as fertilizer.
Small farms remain the backbone of New England’s self-sufficiency, but access issues for new farmers is threatening the New England farming tradition. If there was a way to turn some of the affordable land no one wants to farm into fertile land quickly and efficiently, then opportunity will follow.
Again & Again Farmstead is a farm which produces food and resources while producing most all of their own inputs. Everything they produce to build fertility, they make extra for sale. This model allows gardeners, homesteaders, and small farms alike to purchase soil building, sustainable resources like biochar, wool pellet fertilizer, and liquid plant foods.
Stop by their tent full of curiosities and food. If you have a garden question feel free to hit them up for an answer while you are there.
