World Environment Day: Promoting Permaculture

WED 2013

Today is World Environment Day, a time set aside in 1972 by the UN General Assembly to bring worldwide awareness and political action to bear on environmental issues. 

Think.Eat.Save.

This year's theme sounds a whole lot like permaculture: "Think.Eat.Save." It's thinking about how and where you source your food, eating responsibly, and saving our planet's ecological and human resources from the ravages of a wasteful food supply chain. It emphasizes the permaculture ideals of providing food security care for people coupled with care for the environment.

The Permaculture Approach

No More Food Waste

Much of the emphasis of this year's World Environment Day is focused on reducing food waste...one-third of the global food supply generated is wasted...no one eats it, it becomes trash. But in a permaculture system, the food grown is not wasted. What's harvested is eaten, and anything not eaten goes back into the system: something designed into the system consumes it, wildlife eats it or it becomes compost. The methane produced by rotting food in landfills is mitigated in the food forest by the natural decomposition cycles. 

WED 2013 Food Losses Worldwide

Keeping It Small and Local

There's also a lot of emphasis on supporting the small, family and community farms that actually provide most of the food for the world's population. No matter what the marketing of Big Agriculture preaches, they're not the ones truly addressing the world hunger problem. Most of their products go to the most profitable markets in countries that are already food secure, where much more of their food than the world average becomes waste in the production, refinement, shipping, marketing and waste cycle of the food supply chain. Small farms, however, are. Using permaculture techniques to farm sustainably and regeneratively provides food security coupled with environmental rejuvenation.