Permaculture, Final Capstone Paper 5-26, Hope - Never Ending Food

There are a few practices that a majority of participants employ. Practices that over 50%
of both adopters and non-adopters employ include:
• planting trees for soil conservation
• no burning of organic matter
• inclusion of localized and indigenous plants in food production zones
Also of interest is that nearly 46% (6) of non-adopters included leguminous plants in their food
production zones during the most recent growing season (2006-2007). None of these more
commonly used practices are specific to Permaculture. Tree planting, incorporation of
leguminous plants, and no-burn agriculture have been promoted by other development
initiatives/organizations. For example, deforestation has been cited as a major barrier to
development as far back as the 1930’s when the colonial government completed a series of
surveys on Nyasaland (Berry & Petty, 1992). Since then, in both the colonial and independent
governments, reforestation has been well supported at the policy, extension, and research levels.
In fact, Malawi has the largest man made forest in Africa. It is important to note that while this
assessment calculated the number of participants who have planted trees for soil conservation
reasons, it did not measure the extent to which they have adopted this practice. Additionally, no
respondent indicated having planted a woodlot, as Permaculture theory suggests.
Roughly 70% of participants indicated growing indigenous or localized plants. The
design of this inquiry did not include a methodical categorization of such food plants, but rather
used a quick recall by participants to gain an understanding of what indigenous and localized
participants are intentionally cultivating.
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