perennial culture

Perennial cropping systems have to be the mainstream agriculture of the future. Why? Try this mental exercise: go to the nearest agricultural field, walk into the middle of it with a spade in your hand and imagine trying to cultivate it all. If you think that is a ridiculous idea, you might be right, but we could be faced with this within the near future as fossil fuels become scarce and expensive, once demand exceed supply again.

What do I mean by again? To my mind, it is quite clear that the real reason for our current recession is that the high oil prices of 2008 were caused by the flat-lining of supply. In other words, global oil production capacity had peaked at 85m barrels of crude per day, but the demand was for more. An age old rule of supply and demand means that when something is in short supply, the price goes up; that's what happened to our global oil supplies and it tipped the world into the biggest recession since the 1930's. The bad news is, as soon as we emerge from recession and demand picks up, we will hit the same phenomenon all over again.

To get back to our field (I wouldn't want to leave you standing there too long), we might not have the energy resources to plough, drill, feed and weed it in the way we have grown accustomed to. When “experts” talk about food security, they inevitably go down the route of increasing productivity, higher yielding GM crops etc, whilst being seemingly unaware of the major issue of the amount of energy required to produce that food. Current agriculture has an average energy input (in calorific terms) of ten units of fossil energy to produce one unit of food energy: a crazy imbalance, the correction of which should be central to our economic thinking, yet which doesn't currently feature at all.

The trouble with our global economic system is the almost universal reliance on just-in-time supply chains. That is true for our energy, too (in the UK we hold less than a weeks reserve of gas). When things go wrong, it takes only a small cog to break a big machine. So right now, we are used to monster-sized tractors with towering implements, which can turn in an old crop, tilth, fertilize, spray and sow a new one in our field in half a day. Imagine doing that with your spade! It would take you years, you'd miss the crop season and probably die of depression. Ah, you say, we'd have to go back to horse and plough, and so we might, if we had the horses, ploughs, and skilled ploughmen to use them. Fields used to be smaller for a very good reason; they were human scale, suited to the size of area that a farmer could deal with within a reasonable time-frame. And of course, in those days the population was less than 1bn people, much easier to feed. No, troubled times are looming.

Another thing I touched upon there, we have become a population that is almost completely de-skilled when it comes to anything practical, never mind the considerable art of feeding oneself from one's own produce. Prior to the industrial revolution, about half of the population worked in agriculture, nowadays, it's around 2%. We simply don't have the skills to jump back into wide-scale self-sufficiency, yet that is perhaps the task ahead.

I have written elsewhere about forest gardening and agroforestry, but it is worth repeating a few pertinent facts:

Harvesting perennials is much like hunter-gathering, but we can do it without the primitive bit. Actually, it's a pretty smart way of living; traditional hunter-gatherer communities have more leisure time than almost any other type of society. That's why if we went back to early forms of agrarian agriculture we might be missing out on a smarter alternative. Sure it means a change of diet and habits, but we've got that coming to us, whether we want it or not. Better to be ahead of the curve, planning for a different future. It doesn't mean that we'd never cultivate annual crops; that is perhaps not possible in a temperate climate, but we should not be relying on an annual agriculture as we do now.

The great thing is, if you have a garden, allotment, or access to some community land, you can do something about this for yourself, now. You don't need to wait for government to do something (they won't, or it'll be too little too late). You can re-skill yourself, learn to grow veg, plant productive plants that give you good landscapes with a crop yield, and if all our fears come to 'naught, you've got great skills and a healthier diet and lifestyle! But I think you'll need them before too long, and your neighbors will be glad of your skills, foresight and your contribution to a new community, where people matter because they make a real difference to everyone else's quality of life.

Where to start? Look around your garden at the plants you already have; you'll probably be surprised to learn that several of them have something edible or medicinal about them (where do you think your medication will come from when the petrochemical industry is on its knees?). Maybe search out more useful plants and gradually replace those things that are not too useful (some plants feed us on a soul level, and that's important too!). Think about your veg growing. If you have very little space, think about hydroponics, stacked vertically (on a balcony, perhaps). See what's happening in your community; are there organic gardening clubs, or a transition town movement? Don't try to do it all on your own, you'll feel too isolated. Put your name down for an allotment, perhaps. The greatest thing about all this, as I've said before, is the sense of self-empowerment to be had from taking control of what can seem like a global disaster. The best thing to come out of future changes will be the re-awakening of community and the power of people. Be a lifeboat-builder, but make sure you've got plenty of provisions and a good crew.

Hmm, and you thought this article was going to be about perennial vegetables? I will write one soon, promise. Perennial culture is about far more than just the food we eat, but that is a pretty important place to start. Of course, some will claim that I'm writing about permaculture, but this is not a fringe affair...