Permaculture’s Potential to Foster Food Sovereignty:

A Case Study of Zimbabwe and Malawi

                                                 by Anwen Baumeister

When food is simply viewed as a commodity that can be bought and sold rather than the means to a deeper connection to society and the environment, we need to reevaluate our food system. When the increase of profits and control over means of production for agribusinesses results in a destruction of the smallholder life, we need to reevaluate our food system. When consumers and smallholders no longer have the right of choice over their own food, and when one billion people are hungry, we need to reevaluate our food system (Wittman et al., 2010: 4). There is something missing in the way the current food regime seeks to feed the world. The thing that is missing is people. From the crusade to change the psychology of the peasant, to the increased agricultural mechanization that ends rural lifestyles, to the constant food advertisements meant to change the way consumers view food, there is a strange lack of humanity in our food system. However, in the midst of all of this, rises resistance and alternatives. There is a growing awareness of the unsustainability, both socially and environmentally, of our food system. From this awareness comes movements like food sovereignty or agroecological practices like permaculture. These movements are fairly new but may offer great potential solutions to revolutionize how we grow food. This paper seeks to address whether or not permaculture can offer a technical package that fosters food sovereignty to diverse communities and environments. It will do so through a comparative case study analysis of permaculture projects in Zimbabwe and Malawi. The implications of this research show a strong connection between permaculture and food sovereignty that may be built upon in the future.

The Links Between Permaculture and Food Sovereignty

The word “permaculture” was coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970’s and they are considered the fathers of permaculture. Bill Mollison (1994) defined 5 attitudinal principles in his book Introduction to Permaculture. The 5 attitudinal principles are: the problem is the solution, the yield is theoretically unlimited, work with nature not against, everything gardens, and least change for the greatest effect. David Holmgren (2002) defined 3 ethics principles and 12 design principles of permaculture in his book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. The table below demonstrates these principles.

(Holmgren, 2002)

All of the 12 design principles foster two main concepts of permaculture, which are resilience and self-sustainability. The 3 ethics principles balance care for the earth and people with a philosophy of giving what you can and taking what you need. The 5 attitudinal principles offer a lens to view permaculture as a design that is in harmony with the whole system. The attitudinal, ethics, and design principles are what comprise the technical package that permaculture offers. Outside literature shows that permaculture has proven to provide resilience and self-sustainability among ecosystems, and this paper seeks to determine whether or not this resilience and self-sustainability are also extended to the communities that practice permaculture in order to create the foundations for food sovereignty.

Food security was first defined by the UN in 1974 and redefined by FAO in 2001 as “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (Patel, 2009: 664). Food sovereignty was first defined by La Via Campesina in 1996 as an alternative to food security, arguing that food security has failed to address the social controls of food. They define food sovereignty as a precondition for long term food security (Patel, 2009: 665). La Via Campesina’s definition will be used in this paper:

“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems…Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations” (Patel, 2009: 666)

It fosters a rights-based approach to food. Food sovereignty advocates argue that the design of our food system is currently in the hands of privileged elite and that it is the right of everyone to define our food system (Patel, 2009: 667). The movement asks for food to no longer be seen as just a commodity, but rather as a key factor in social relations (Wittman et al., 2009: 4).

In “Agroecology and Permaculture: Addressing Key Ecological Problems by Rethinking and Redesigning Agricultural Systems”, Mark Hathaway begins by explaining why conventional agricultural practices destroy conditions for food sovereignty. Industrial farming relies on chemical inputs, which creates dependency of the farmer on the agricultural industry and also depletes the soil of essential micronutrients. While it boosts output when first applied, many worldwide yields using industrial methods are slowly decreasing due to a destruction of soil fertility (Hathaway, 2015: 5). From the green revolution came high yielding varieties of different crops such as wheat and rice. One high-yielding variety of wheat produces 40% more wheat but requires 3 times more water. This is not uncommon, and many high-yielding varieties are actually less efficient in the absence of additional water and chemical fertilizers (Hathaway, 2015: 9). These are a few examples of why conventional farming is not sustainable for farmers or the earth.

Permaculture then enters academic literature as an alternative agricultural practice that works to fix the problems that conventional agriculture has created. Permaculture is a sustainable design method that copies systems found in nature. It looks at the whole system and creates a design in which each part of the system contributes to the long term sustainability of the whole (Hathaway, 2015: 15). It is meant to be a closed-loop system and self-sustaining once implemented that contributes to rather than destroys the surrounding environment and society. It utilizes crop rotation, polyculture, integrated water management, and perennial crops to create such a system. It is cited as a method that returns control of resources to communities and breaks dependency on external resources, which are key factors in food sovereignty. A permaculture system such as a forest garden can feed up to 25 people per hectare, which is two times more than possible using industrial agriculture techniques and offers more diversity in food (Hathaway, 2015: 19).

One article, “Permaculture as Alternative Agriculture” by Bert Peeters, analyzes permaculture as being a possible solution to create food sovereignty in the Philippines. It cites monocropping, deforestation, and mechanization of agriculture as the causes of the Philippine food problem. The study draws on a permaculture site in the Philippines, the Cabiokid Foundation, to answer whether or not permaculture can solve the country’s food sovereignty problem (Peeters, 2011: 423). Peeters argues that while the total output of one crop in a polyculture system will be less than that of a monoculture system, the total output of a polyculture system will be larger and more resistant to natural disasters and pests. This increased resilience within the agricultural system equates to increased resilience of the permaculture farmers (Peeters, 2011: 428). The Cabiokid Foundation began in 2001 on 6 hectares of land, surrounded by nearby monocropped rice paddies and fish ponds. The founders started it with the realization that change in food sovereignty could only come from within. The Cabiokid Foundation views it as an internal process where farmers make the rules for themselves rather than have the rules made for them (Peeters, 2011: 433). It has been successful in providing a space in which the farmers are active participants in their own livelihood work, allowing them to create a design that is suitable to their particular lifestyle and environment (Peeters, 2011: 433). While this paper does not provide conclusive evidence tying permaculture of the Cabiokid Foundation to food sovereignty, it does show that permaculture provides farmers autonomy in what and how they grow food.

In the article “From Seeds to Syndicates: Explorations in Collective Actions for Food Sovereignty and Resiliency in Guatemala”, Christina Marie Ariana Bielek analyzes links between permaculture and food sovereignty in Guatemala. Once again, the results are not conclusive, however this paper offers many key theoretical lenses. Bielek argues that permaculture follows Antonio Gramsci’s idea of a subaltern organization creating a movement for self-determination. It is also closely related to the philosophy of political ecology that the environmental and socio-political conditions are interdependent (Bielek, 2011: 58). The design practice of permaculture that focuses on how all elements work together to make the whole also spill over into the social realm where permaculture fosters collaboration and cooperation among actors (Bielek, 2011: 59). These ideas are part of what this paper seeks to address and potentially prove or disprove. Bielek introduces environmental NGO GERO, which came into Guatemala to aid with the agricultural situation but ended up charging $800 per person for permaculture workshops. This acted as a huge barrier and made agricultural knowledge once again hierarchical and privileged. Permaculture activists left jobs at GERO for this reason and formed the Ay Mayon collective, which aims to create resilient permaculture models in a horizontal political structure (Bielek, 2011: 65). This shows that while permaculture can be a grassroots movement working against western, hierarchical knowledge, this is not always the case.

While the literature on food sovereignty is vast, the literature on permaculture is limited and the literature linking permaculture to food sovereignty is almost none. There is currently no published research that seeks to measure permaculture’s impacts on food sovereignty. What the current research does point to is that permaculture has the ability to produce a higher quantity and diversity of food than conventional agriculture and it is more environmentally sustainable. It also suggests that permaculture movements that are grassroots and initiated from within are more effective than top-down, development movements.

Research Methods and Design

This paper will use a comparative case study analysis to answer the research question. The method of a comparative case study analysis was chosen in order to create general answers to a causal question. Additionally, the research question is unable to be answered in a controlled environment and the context of each case is critical in the analysis of outcomes. The methodology of a comparative case study follows UNICEF’s peer reviewed methodological brief titled “Comparative Case Studies” (Goodrick, 2014). The methodology followed is shown in the table below:

(Goodrick, 2014)

        The key evaluation question is the research question regarding whether or not permaculture offers a technical package that fosters food sovereignty to diverse communities. Another key evaluation question is how the similarities and differences in each case study impact the results. The purpose of the paper is to provide an analysis of impacts of a certain agricultural practice and the potential implications of these impacts for the future. The initial theory that this paper proposes is that permaculture does offer a technical package that fosters food sovereignty to diverse communities because it has the ability to extend its resilient, self sustaining design to not only the agricultural realm but also to the community sector. Two case studies have been selected, located in Zimbabwe and Malawi. These case studies have been chosen on three criteria: 1) sites where agricultural production was threatened due to the lack of means of production, 2) sites that experienced high rates of hungry and/or malnutrition, and 3) sites where community-based permaculture (more than one family unit involved in the permaculture project) was implemented. These criteria were chosen because these initial conditions are required in order to holistically determine the effects of permaculture on food sovereignty.

        The Zimbabwe case study comprises of an hour long documentary of a permaculture project with live footage and interviews of the farmers involved as well as an analytical paper of the project. The Malawi case study comprises of a 295 page research paper that was written for partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy. It, too, contains direct quotes from interviews with farmers as well as quantitative analysis. This paper’s analysis will include a comparison of the key dimensions of each case study as well as how similar or different patterns and outcomes found between the studies can be explained. It will utilize a mixed methods approach of both quantitative and qualitative analysis where appropriate.

This paper uses the definition provided by Via Campesina in 2007 in order to measure food sovereignty. In order to measure “the right of people to healthy food” (Patel, 2009: 666), the quantity and quality of food will be analyzed. In order to measure the “ecologically sound and sustainable methods” (Patel, 2009: 666), the environmental effects of the projects will be analyzed. In order to measure the “right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (Patel, 2009: 666), the paper will examine whether or not permaculture provides farmers the means of production to their own agriculture systems and if it allows them a choice in defining their own farming practices. In order to determine “new social relations free of oppression and inequality” (Patel, 2009: 666), the paper will examine the social relations that the permaculture projects foster. The fifth step of the case study methodology provided by UNICEF, “consider and test alternative explanations for outcomes”, will not be conducted due to the lack of case studies that could serve as alternatives to the current two case studies. There are very few case studies on permaculture, and the two in Zimbabwe and Malawi were the only studies that met the three criteria listed above. This lack of data availability limits the scope of analysis and the diversity of situations that could be compared.  

Zimbabwe Overview

        In the district of Chikukwa, Zimbabwe, a community-based permaculture project began in 1990. Gillian Leahy created a documentary showing the transformation of Chikukwa as a result of the project. It begins by introducing the land history, stating that colonial governments took much of the land that the Chikukwa people owned. Most of the land was used for forestry by the colonial government. After this, much of the land still owned by Chikukwa people was cleared for crop farming and cattle grazing. Soil erosion soon ensued, making the land unable to support crop farming. The people of Chikukwa experienced high rates of hunger, malnutrition, and disease (Leahy, G, 2013). The documentary then introduces Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust (CELUCT), which is a project initally aimed to turn the situation around for the 7,000 people living in 6 Chikukwa villages. CELUCT came together by a rising concern in the villages about the environmental situation of their land. The project is permaculture focused, and teaches people to produce more food for their own consumption rather than for export. The project has succeeded and the people of Chikukwa now have more than enough food to sustain themselves (Leahy, G, 2013).

Zimbabwe – Quantity and Quality of Food Supply

        In the documentary, both Leahy and various villagers report high levels of hunger and malnutrition in Chikukwa prior to the project. 20 years later, both report low levels of hunger and malnutrition, attributing this huge change to the permaculture project (Leahy, G, 2013). Each family has a vegetable garden and animals that provide food year round. The crop rotation design of permaculture ensures that there is constant food supply each month. The cropping fields, which grow basic carbohydrates, also produce even when there is a drought. When farmers have excess of one type of crop they process it, such as making mango juice, or sell the excess at the local market. Additionally, in an interview, one of the founders says that the project is not just about eating enough food. It is also about food education and nutrition. The diversity in food, as shown in the table below, provides high levels of nutrition. One group of villagers started a community garden centered around nutrition because the children in that area were initially malnourished. They report that the garden has allowed the children to eat until they are full and become healthy, and has successful combated malnutrition (Leahy, G, 2013). Chikukwa is in the Chimanimani District which comprises of 5 wards, including Chikukwa. Households in each ward were surveyed for monthly status of food security for 12 months in 2011. The table below shows the average percentage in the other 4 wards in Chimanimani in comparison to Chikukwa. There is a stark difference in food security between the two, showing the relative success of the project in ensuring food security (Leahy, T, 2013).

Foods Grown in Permaculture Farms That Are Mentioned in Documentary

Zimbabwe - Environmental Effects

        Before the project, many springs in Chikukwa had dried up and the environment was degraded. The first permaculture project was to restore the springs by planting indigenous trees around the gullies to retain moisture in the soil. The documentary shows pictures of the area before the project, and describes it as “eroded hills, exhausted soils, only a few trees left standing, like a desert in the dry season, no feed for cattle, and land unable to support healthy crops” (Leahy, G, 2013). Photos taken 20 years later in 2010 show drastic changes and an abundance of trees and green fields, and one farmer says that the change is very visible. The chair of the water committee explains that her job is to make sure that water is used in the most efficient way possible and ensure that the taps are turned off when not in use. Permaculture has had a visible success in improving the environment in Chikukwa.

Zimbabwe - Means of Production and Choice

        The permaculture project in Chikukwa came from the villagers and for the villagers. Permaculture was not benevolently “given” to them or “forced” upon them, rather each farmer has taken up permaculture practices voluntarily. In an interview, the chief of Chikukwa says that he supports the CELUCT project because it gives people the information and resources to grow their own food. Additionally, families harvest their own seeds and do not have to buy seeds on the market. Land is privately owned through customary land ownership, therefore farmers already had control over this essential means of production (Leahy, T: 25). Leahy points out that many other development projects see development as moving African farmers from subsistence farming to export-oriented farming. This project focuses on subsistence and therefore makes the farmers less dependent on outside forces (Leahy, T: 11). One founder describes the system as a home to home exchange and farmer to farmer training. Individuals hold different knowledges about farming and environmental practices that they share with the community, which creates a wealth of collective knowledge. This knowledge comes from within rather than dependency on outside information. Permaculture has allowed farmers to have increased control over their mean of production such as knowledge, seeds, and organic fertilizers.

Zimbabwe - Social Relations

        Every decision in CELUCT is a joint community decision, and it is a democratic organization. There are committees within CELUCT, such as a permaculture education committee and conflict resolution committee. In an image of leaders from each committee meeting together, there is about an equal number of men and women, and each committee contains various age groups. This supports the equal, horizontal relationships that may be a necessity of food sovereignty. One villager says that permaculture acts to “strengthen the rules and regulations of our community” (Leahy, G, 2013). Julious Piti, a project founder describes that neighbors will come visit him to get knowledge, skills, or vegetables and share many things with him in return. He says, “it was like joy as we shared the experience”. He continues to say,

“Permaculture is a system of living for me which takes in cognisance to natural resources and everything that surrounds us living in harmony...And socially, you’ll make peace at the end of the day...You see, the principles they link the whole community...and everything will live in harmony, and produce enough for each other” (Leahy, G, 2013).

This quote supports the hypothesis that permaculture principles extend past the garden into the community.

Malawi Overview

        In the Lilongwe Rural District in Malawi, Ph.D. student Abigail Conrad uses a mixed methods approach to determine whether or not “smallholder farmers [can] use permaculture to improve their household food security given cultural and structural constraints to the adoption and use of permaculture practices” (Conrad, 2014: 8). Although this research focuses on food security, its data can be used to analyze food sovereignty as well. In Malawi 78% of adults are smallholders, 47% of children under 5 years old experience chronic malnutrition, and life expectancy is 54. Many farmers grow maize for export, using industrial agriculture practices. However, many do not produce enough for subsistence and do not have access to diverse foods, therefore suffer from malnutrition and food insecurity (Conrad, 2014: 3). The main causes of malnutrition in Southern Africa are protein and micronutrient deficiencies, which are a result of the current food system’s focus on cereal production. Conrad studies farmers in Lilongwe Rural District who practice conventional, high external input farming versus those who practice permaculture farming in partnership with Malawian permaculture organizations Ulimi Centre and Everlasting Harvest (Conrad, 2014: 8). The study consists of 44 households made up of nuclear families. 16 of those households are permaculture farmers and 28 of those households are conventional farmers. The Ulimi Center was founded in 2009 by foreigners and Malawians and provides permaculture training and aids in local implementation (30). Everlasting Harvest started in 2003 by the Smiths, a family from the U.S. who came to Malawi for the U.S. Peace Corps. They employ locals to conduct community outreach and run the demonstration site (Conrad, 2014: 32). Conrad finds that permaculture does increase food security but questions whether or not permaculture can provide social changes.

Malawi– Quantity and Quality of Food Supply

        All permaculture farmers report improvements in access to food, and permaculture farmers also have higher food security and diet diversity than the conventional farmers (Conrad, 2014: 43&247). A reason for this improvement in food security is increased agrobiodiversity and year round cultivation (Conrad, 2014: 246). The tables below demonstrate the increased diversity of food and nutrition of permaculture farmers as compared to conventional farmers as well as their food security scores.

(Conrad, 2014:191)

(Conrad, 2014: 254)

Malawi- Environmental Effects

        Conrad’s research does not focus on the environmental impacts of permaculture in the Lilongwe Rural District, however her research indicates a positive correlation between the two. 60% of permaculture farmers report improved soil fertility and 40% report improved ability to deal with the changing climate (Conrad, 2014: 226). Additionally, permaculture increases agrobiodiversity, reduces dependence on nonrenewable inputs, increases tree coverage, and promotes soil and water conservation (Conrad, 2014: 227). The table below demonstrates the difference between permaculture and conventional farmers in their environmentally beneficial practices.

.

(Conrad, 2014: 186)

Malawi- Means of Production and Choice

        Permaculture farmers report many livelihood benefits that permaculture provides them as a means to building adaptive capacity. The benefits include decreased food purchasing costs, diversified crops sold, diversified timing of harvest, and lower agricultural input costs, all of which decrease farmers’ market dependency (Conrad, 2014: 227). However, as Conrad points out, while permaculture does provide farmers with certain means of production, it does not necessarily provide access to all productive resources. These include land, credit, and infrastructure (Conrad, 2014: 280). The land system in the district includes customary, private, and public land tenure, and land can be taken away by chiefs or the government (Conrad, 2014: 173). Some permaculture farmers are planting on rented land, and do not have tenure security. The permaculture farmers began using permaculture techniques voluntarily, and the adoption decision was “based on their personal experience and perceptions and often conditionally decided to adopt permaculture in order to test and further evaluate it” (Conrad, 2014: 159). However, some conventional farmers reported barriers that prevented them from adopting permaculture. These include limited knowledge about permaculture, limited land ownership, limited time/labor, and social stigma about permaculture (Conrad, 2014: 163). This shows that while permaculture adoption was voluntary, not all farmers had the ability to choose permaculture. On the other hand, one permaculture farmer Agogo Chisale says, “It’s freedom, to plant the way you want” (Conrad, 2014: 292).  Some farmers, like Chisale, do find autonomy through permaculture.

Malawi- Social Relations

        The permaculture projects in the Lilongwe Rural District have a mixed social impact. 94% of farmers report their sources of permaculture education as including informal sources, such as sharing information with friends or neighbors. 56% report formal sources, such as NGO training (Conrad, 2014: 147). This shows a relationship between permaculture and sharing. Sharing food is extremely important in Malawi, and some scholars blame the famine in Malawi in 2001/2 on the decreased social network resources at the time (Conrad, 2014: 113). Conrad describes one farmer, Amayi Sesani, sharing here surplus passion fruit harvest. The surplus that permaculture provides may act to strengthen social network resources and foster a sharing culture. However, Conrad also writes that the permaculture projects mostly affect the household level, and do “not address the powerful social, economic, and political systems that structurally constrain farmers” (Conrad, 2014: 274). Additionally, she points out that most permaculture organizations in Malawi are in the development sector, which comprises of top-down, North to South, hierarchical knowledge (Conrad, 2014: 42). Both Ulimi and Everlasting Harvest are founded by foreigners (and some Malawians in Ulimi’s case) who provide examples of a“better” way of farming to local Malawians. This does not point to social relations free of oppression and inequality that food sovereignty implies.

Comparison of Permaculture Projects’ Effects on Four Measurements of Food Sovereignty

        In both Zimbabwe and Malawi, the permaculture projects have successfully improved the quantity and quality of food supplied. In both cases, the families practicing permaculture techniques have seen a measurable increase in their access to food. This reinforces outside literature that permaculture fosters food security and also shows that food security via permaculture can be met in various situations. In both Zimbabwe and Malawi, the projects have also successfully had positive impacts on the environment. In particular, both projects have improved soil fertility and water conservation. This also mirrors what outside literature has to say about the environmental benefits of permaculture. The project in Zimbabwe has provided means of production and allowed choice of farming practices. The project in Malawi has provided some means of production and allowed some choice. This difference is most likely caused by land tenure. All of the farmers in Zimbabwe individually own their land through customary land tenure. In Malawi, there is a mix between customary, private, and public land ownership, and some farmers do not own or have access to owning land. Permaculture has not affected this lack of access to land ownership, and land is a critical means of production. Additionally, the difference in choice of farming practices between the two cases is most likely caused by the difference in social settings and the difference in land rights. In Zimbabwe, no farmer has reported barriers to permaculture. However, in Malawi, some have reported barriers due to land access and lack of resources. Such resources, like information and social support, are not lacking in Zimbabwe because of the Chikukwa peoples’ extremely close community ties that the farmers in Malawi do not exhibit.

The permaculture project in Zimbabwe has created equal relationships based on permaculture principles while it has not in Malawi. This is most likely because of the nature of the permaculture projects. In Zimbabwe, it was started by the local people and for the local people, and the permaculture organization CELUCT is democratically run. The two permaculture organizations in Malawi are partially or completely run by foreigners and are hierarchically run. This difference fosters much closer community ties in Chikukwa as compared to the Lilongwe Rural District.  Every person is an engaged, active agent in the project. These strong community ties that come from a grassroots project in Chikukwa allow permaculture principles to extend past the garden and into social relations. Because of the top-down nature of the permaculture projects in the Lilongwe Rural District, permaculture is only able to affect individual households and gardens rather than the whole community. The foreign, developmental nature of the projects have not provided the space for permaculture principles to move past the agricultural realm. This mirrors the ideas in the Philippines and Guatemala cases that permaculture projects aimed to create food sovereignty must be initiated from within. Additionally, drawing back to Gramsci’s idea of subaltern organizations, the outside NGOs of Ulimi and Everlasting Harvest do not allow for self-determination.

Conclusion

        This research shows that permaculture can provide a technical package to foster food sovereignty in diverse environments depending on the nature of the project. It does provide improved quality and quantity of food and positive environmental impacts. It can provide control over means of production and choice in agricultural methods with some political barriers such as land rights. It can provide equal relationships based on permaculture principles if the nature of the project is initiated and run by the whole community. Future studies should be done on the long term impact of permaculture projects on political movements like land tenure movements. Also, the fourth measurement of food sovereignty used in this paper is the most radical, and some definitions do not include equal societal relationships as a basis for food sovereignty.

The findings of this paper show the potential for the food sovereignty movement to use permaculture as a concrete method to change the food regime. In this way, it can be seen as a slow, peaceful revolution. However, it also shows that permaculture may not always be successful in this regard if it is not initiated by and created for the community that it is directly affecting. When permaculture is a true grassroots movement, it can democratize the local food system and allow farmers to gain control over their means of production. Further, like political ecology theorizes, it can change the socio-political system by changing the environmental system. There needs to be greater research on the relationship between permaculture and food sovereignty and more case studies to offer additional data. When mainstream practices seem to be failing, alternatives need to be taken seriously in academia. This research is just the beginning of what could prove to be a promising future between permaculture and food sovereignty.

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