Permaculture offers more than just sustainable gardening techniques; it provides a holistic framework for designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic natural ecosystems. At its heart, it’s about creating systems that are not only sustainable but truly regenerative – actively restoring and improving the environments and communities they are part of. This naturally extends into the realm of economics, challenging us to think about how we create livelihoods that nourish both people and the planet. In my experience, integrating permaculture principles into our economic thinking opens up pathways to build resilient and genuinely sustainable ways of supporting ourselves and our communities.
What is regenerative economics in permaculture?
For a long time, ‘sustainability’ has been the buzzword. But I find that just sustaining things isn’t enough, especially when faced with degraded landscapes and fragile economies. This is where regenerative economics comes in. It’s an approach that aims to actively heal and revitalize our natural, social, and economic capital. Unlike traditional economic models that often prioritize short-term profits while ignoring the environmental and social costs (what economists call ‘externalities’), regenerative economics seeks to create systems that enhance ecological health and community well-being alongside financial viability. The World Permaculture Association highlights how conventional systems lead to problems like pollution, soil erosion, and social inequity by failing to account for these wider impacts.
The current global food system, as detailed in analyses like those from the Really Regenerative Centre, exemplifies the flaws of the dominant model. It contributes significantly to soil degradation, biodiversity loss, pollution, and immense food waste, all while concentrating power in a few corporations and failing to ensure equitable food access. Regenerative economics, particularly through the lens of permaculture, offers a fundamental alternative.
Permaculture ethics as an economic foundation
Permaculture’s core ethics – Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share (or Return of Surplus) – provide a powerful ethical compass for designing regenerative livelihoods. Earth Care pushes us towards economic activities that restore soil, water, and biodiversity. People Care emphasizes that our economic systems must support individual and community well-being, ensuring fair conditions and access to necessities. Fair Share encourages us to distribute surplus resources equitably and reinvest them back into the system (both ecological and social) rather than endlessly accumulating. These ethics guide us away from extractive models towards ones that build shared, lasting value.
Building resilience: Ecological and economic foundations
Learning from nature: How permaculture boosts resilience
Resilience – the ability of a system to withstand and recover from shocks – is crucial for sustainable livelihoods, especially in our changing world. Permaculture design excels at building this resilience. As the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes, diversified agroecological systems are inherently more robust. For instance, after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America, farms using agroecological practices like agroforestry and cover cropping retained 20-40% more topsoil and suffered lower economic losses compared to conventional monocultures nearby. This highlights how mimicking natural diversity enhances a system’s ability to bounce back.
Insights from ecology and economics, such as those explored by TABLE Debates, confirm that diversity, adaptability, and resource reserves are key to agricultural resilience. An OECD report further identifies capacities like preparation, absorption, adaptation, and transformation as vital for farms facing shocks like drought. Permaculture practices directly cultivate these capacities through careful observation, planning, diversification, and building healthy ecosystems.
Socio-economic stability through permaculture
Ecological resilience translates directly into socio-economic stability. By diversifying crops and integrating elements like animals or agroforestry, permaculture practitioners reduce their vulnerability if one element fails. A significant benefit I’ve seen, and which research confirms, is the reduction in input costs. A study in South Africa and Zimbabwe found that permaculture offered significant income contributions (over 40% on average for participants) partly because it emphasizes using local, renewable resources. The study, published in Sustainability, noted that over 70% of participants had shifted from chemical to organic fertilizers, leading to cost savings and increased profitability.
This is particularly vital given the immense pressure on global resources. The World Food Programme (WFP) reports that a staggering 42% of the world’s productive land is degraded, directly impacting the livelihoods of around 1.5 billion people, often the poorest who depend heavily on these lands. Regenerative approaches like permaculture offer pathways to restore these ecosystems while building local economic strength.
Designing regenerative livelihoods: Strategies and tools
Financial permaculture in practice
Moving beyond just the ecological design, ‘financial permaculture’ applies these principles to economic structures and resource management. As outlined by resources like Perennial Solutions, this involves both process and content. The process often uses participatory methods like World Cafe or Open Space Technology – techniques designed to harness collective intelligence and creativity within a community for designing local financial systems. Facilitation is key here to ensure inclusive decision-making.
The content draws on diverse knowledge, including permaculture design, economics, and business development. It often incorporates Holistic Management, a framework developed by Allan Savory for decision-making in complex systems, particularly useful for setting shared goals and managing finances within a community or enterprise context. Financial permaculture explores innovative investment models too:
- Intimate Investing: Small, trust-based peer-to-peer investment groups (like Solari Circles) focusing on shared values and local projects.
- Microcredit: Small loans, often community-funded, to help start local enterprises (e.g., Grameen Bank, Kiva.org).
- Crowdsourcing: Platforms allowing entrepreneurs to pitch ideas and raise funds from a wide audience (e.g., Kickstarter).
- Ecosystem Investing: Directly investing in the ecological assets of a permaculture project (trees, soil health, water systems) recognizing their long-term value creation potential.
Cultivating diverse income streams
A core tenet I always emphasize in permaculture design is creating multiple functions for each element and multiple elements supporting each function. This applies to income too. Permaculture Design International stresses establishing diverse income streams for true long-term self-reliance. This could involve stacking enterprises on a single site – perhaps combining market gardening with educational workshops, value-added products, and agritourism.
Commercialising perennial systems like food forests is another promising avenue explored by Perennial Solutions. Finding the right mix of crops suited to local conditions and markets is key. Erik Ohlsen’s work, highlighted by Bioneers, demonstrates how a for-profit permaculture business (‘Permaculture Artisans’) can effectively scale up regenerative work, provide fair wages, and create meaningful livelihoods while restoring landscapes.
Global initiatives and overcoming hurdles
Supporting smallholders and communities
Building regenerative livelihoods often requires support structures, especially for vulnerable communities. Organizations like the IDEP Foundation work to build capacity in permaculture for sustainable resource management. Similarly, the WFP’s initiatives focus on restoring degraded lands and water sources, which directly supports food security and creates assets for communities. These efforts align with permaculture principles by enhancing local resources and skills.
However, smallholder farmers, who produce a significant portion of the world’s food, face immense financial fragility. As the UNDP IRFF notes, less than 1% of climate finance currently goes towards smallholder resilience. Compounding this, 80% of smallholders globally lack formal insurance, rising to an alarming 97% in Sub-Saharan Africa. This leaves them highly exposed to climate shocks. Research highlighted by J-PAL shows that access to climate-resilient seeds, water management techniques, and financial tools like credit and safety nets are crucial for building resilience.
Addressing the challenges
While the potential is huge, implementing regenerative economic models based on permaculture isn’t without challenges. The South Africa/Zimbabwe study identified high labour requirements, pest and disease issues, and knowledge gaps as significant hurdles for practitioners. Accessing markets that value regenerative practices can also be difficult, as farmers often compete with heavily subsidised industrial food systems, a point raised by the Really Regenerative Centre. There’s also the risk of ‘greenwashing’ or co-option, where large entities adopt the language of regeneration without fundamentally changing their practices.
Furthermore, as explored on sites like Free Permaculture, there’s a deeper challenge in shifting away from the dominant capitalist mindset focused on accumulation. Truly regenerative systems may require us to rethink our relationship with ownership and value itself. Some argue that permaculture principles might even be inherently anti-capitalist in their focus on cooperation and closed loops rather than endless growth, a perspective discussed in relation to social economy enterprises.
Case studies in regenerative livelihoods
Community-led regeneration
Inspiring examples show what’s possible when communities embrace these principles. The Perennial Solutions resource details projects like Nuestras Raices in Holyoke, Massachusetts. This community organisation used permaculture design to develop a 30-acre farm project serving low-income residents, effectively ‘stacking functions’ by integrating farmer training plots, agritourism, and interconnected businesses to maximize synergy and community benefit. Similarly, the Hohenwald, Tennessee project used participatory financial permaculture processes to develop local, regenerative business plans in areas like natural building and green enterprise incubation.
Viable business models
Erik Ohlsen’s journey, shared via Bioneers, provides a compelling model for a viable regenerative business. His company, Permaculture Artisans, demonstrates the ‘Fair Share’ ethic by providing living wages and focusing on large-scale ecological restoration projects (water harvesting, soil building). He argues that a for-profit approach can sometimes achieve more tangible regenerative outcomes than non-profits, generating the resources needed to scale up impact. His founding of the Permaculture Skill Center further addresses the knowledge gap by providing career-focused training, directly building capacity for more people to earn livelihoods within the regenerative economy.
Conclusion: Nurturing an economy of place
Building sustainable livelihoods through regenerative economics and permaculture means shifting our focus. It’s about moving away from extractive, globalized systems towards what the Really Regenerative Centre calls an ‘economy of place’ – one rooted in the health of local ecosystems and communities. It involves valuing ecological and social well-being as highly as financial returns. Exploring alternative frameworks, like the Islamic Gift Economy mentioned by the Institute for Regenerative Livelihoods, can also offer valuable ethical perspectives.
I believe the transition requires practical skills, community collaboration, innovative financial tools, and a willingness to challenge conventional economic assumptions. While challenges exist, the potential for permaculture to help regenerate not just landscapes but also local economies and livelihoods is immense. By applying its ethics and principles thoughtfully, we can design ways of living and working that truly care for the earth, care for people, and ensure a fair share for all, building resilience for the future.