The structure of permaculture landscapes in the Philippines

Abstract

Abstract. Flores JJM, Buot Jr. IE. 2021. The structure of permaculture landscapes in the Philippines. Biodiversitas 22: 2032-2044. Biodiversity plays a crucial role in sustainable agriculture. Permaculture is a design philosophy that values this role as it consciously integrates diverse components into the farm landscape. The purpose of the study was to characterize the general structure of permaculture landscapes in the Philippines and identify the landscape components that comprise its farming systems. The research was conducted in 12 permaculture farms in 11 provinces in the Philippines in 2018. Aerial photography and farm inventory were employed for data collection. A crop diversity survey was conducted using a modified belt transect method with alternating 20 m2 plots within a 1 ha sampling area. Full enumeration of plant species in each plot was performed to determine species richness and samples were manually counted to compute for the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index. Results of the study showed that permaculture landscapes were organized into six spatial zones: ‘house,’ ‘garden,’ ‘grazing,’ ‘cash crops,’ ‘food forest,’ and 'wilderness.' It was identified that each zone contained components belonging to six categories: abiotic, biotic, man-made structural, technological, socio-economic, and cultural. 'Biotic' results showed that all sites recorded high species richness (>20-65) with the highest found in Glinoga Organic Farm with 65. Aloha House in Palawan had the highest diversity with a score of 0.311. An analysis of the ratio of plant species per plant category showed that the vegetable/cereal crops dominated the landscape in 50% of sites. While 20% were characterized by tree/fruit-bearing crops. Perennial species were the most abundant in all sites with 75-95% of the total plant species. In conclusion, permaculture provided a design framework for restructuring our agricultural landscapes into diverse and productive ecosystems for human settlement and food production.

Fighting the hunger games through permaculture: a scoping review to inform urban planning

“…The initial idea of permaculture as a food system design evolved toward permaculture as a holistic system design approach, as presented in Figure 1. This tool has been applied in developing countries globally over a period of 50 years, e.g., in Malawi (Rivett et al, 2018), South Africa (Kruger, 2015), the Philippines (Flores and Buot, 2021), Zimbabwe (Didarali and Gambiza, 2019), and India (Fadaee, 2019), albeit to a limited extent, but has not remained stagnant. Across the world, permaculture evolved from being used as an intimate small-scale food-growing practice for private application into a practice that is recognized for its wide-reaching pertinence within systems of various sizes, types, and scales.…”

“…These systems are focused on creating sustainable, resilient, and productive farms by working with natural processes rather than relying on synthetic inputs e.g., pesticides and fertilizers (Grant and Yasue, 2017). Agroecological systems evolved from the concerns regarding traditional or conventional agricultural practices that can trigger inter alia the loss of biodiversity , monocropping , and/or soil degradation (Grant and Yasue, 2017;Flores and Buot, 2021). According to Grant and Yasue (2017) and Ferguson and Agroecology is a holistic method that applies ecological and social notions to agriculture to create more sustainable and resilient agricultural food systems (Grant and Yasue, : and Krebs and Bach, : ).…”

“…. Sub-theme : permaculture for landscape design Flores and Buot (2021) have explored the structural characteristics and components of permaculture landscapes in the Philippines. They identified six zones (in line with Babac and Belic, 2018 study in 2018 which is discussed in Section 3.4) that are common across 12 permaculture sites.…”

Exploring innovation for sustainable agriculture: A systematic case study of permaculture in Nepal

“…Amongst human endeavours, the most fundamental and essential is agriculture. Agricultural frameworks that have been intensified can produce vast amounts of food, but their long-term viability is in doubt [ [1] , [2] , [3] ]. The idea that agricultural systems would need to adapt is widely acknowledged as climate change continues to dominate the scientific debate.…”

“…Intensive farming techniques have grievous ramifications for the environment and society overall [ 1 , 4 ]. Permaculture, as an alternative to large-scale agriculture techniques, furnishes an international network with a solutions-oriented approach to sustainability, with the goal of “designing and developing sustainable communities in harmony with natural ecosystems” [ 3 , 5 ]. Permaculture has been acknowledged as a new ecological paradigm of sustainable practices in an assortment of fields, including environment, organic farming, forestry, agriculture, landscape, engineering, and city planning [ 6 ].…”