Review; The Earthcare manual by Patrick Whitefield

[Guest guest]

Here's my review of Patrick's new book, as submitted to 'Growing Green' (the

magazine of the Vegan organic Network- hence the emphasis on the vegan or

otherwise aspects of this work..)

 

TITLE: THE EARTH CARE MANUAL

A Permaculture Handbook For Britain

& Other Temperate Countries

 

AUTHOR: Patrick Whitefield

 

PRICE: £34.95 + p & p

PUBLISHER: Permanent Publications, The Sustainability Centre, East Meon,

Hampshire GU32 1HR, UK

ISBN: 1 85623 021 X

PAGES: 480pp

 

ILLUSTRATIONS: 206 black and white photos, 43 colour photos, 145 line

diagrams & numerous tables.

 

Some critics have said that permaculture is all very well and good for

tropical or desert conditions, but isn't suitable for a cool temperate

country such as the UK. Indeed, many of the major permaculture texts

published up until now have been Australian in origin and thus contained

large sections that have been at best irrelevant to us Brits. At worse they

have led to disillusionment when advice intended for climates far more hot

or humid than ours has been slavishly followed and resulted in failure.

However, all that is set to change with the publication of The Earth Care

Manual, the first fully comprehensive permaculture designers handbook

specifically written for British conditions.

 

And what a phenomenal work it is… Seven years in the making, experienced

permaculturalist Patrick Whitefield has assembled a truly encyclopaedic work

covering virtually every aspect of the physical design of the world around

us.

He leads in with two chapters defining permaculture and it's ethics

(earthcare, peoplecare, fairshares) and principles before looking in depth

at the elements of soil, water, microclimate, energy and materials. The

second part of the book focuses on application- how working with nature can

provide all of our food, shelter and comfort needs in order to live

abundantly and sustainably. In his very readable yet highly knowledgeable

style he covers gardens (everything from the window box and conservatory up

to allotments and community gardens), buildings, woodland, orchards, farms,

local food links (box schemes, food co-ops, CSA, farmers markets, etc) and

biodiversity. Using copious amounts of facts, figures, tables, diagrams,

photos and case studies Whitefield illustrates solutions for every situation

whether urban or rural, looking at mulching, rainwater harvesting,

windbreaks, perennial vegetables, pond construction, biotecture, forest

gardening, coppicing and wildlife gardening to name but a few examples. The

last section of the book is devoted to design skills, providing a step by

step guide to actually putting all this wonderful knowledge together in our

own homes, gardens and landscapes.

 

One chapter I found pertinent was that on farming and food links. Whitefield

isn't vegan himself, but respects the vegan point of view. He acknowledges

the inefficiency of the animal-based diet, pointing out that only around 10%

of the food consumed by farm animals is available as edible meat when they

are killed. He also highlights the untenability of the vegetarian stance,

ie, that it is OK to eat milk and eggs but not meat: " What happens to the

bull calf or male chick which cannot be used for milk or egg production, or

the cow or hen when they are too old to produce an economic yield? Of

course, they are fattened up, killed and eaten. It's impossible to eat

animal products without contributing to the death of animals " … He does go on

to look at the keeping of livestock such as pigs or poultry within

permaculture systems, but this is not a large part of the book and can

easily be skipped by the vegan-organic reader. Or you could actually read

it: I found it very interesting, and it clarified that animal husbandry

within a permaculture context is a million light years away from the

industrialised factory pharms that currently supply the sterile little

packages on the supermarket shelves. Whitefield's own position is " What

matters to me is how much the animal has suffered… Purely from an animal

welfare point of view I'd rather eat an organic steak than drink a pint of

conventional milk " . He also looks at green manure based stockless systems,

acknowledging the work of Elm Farm (although unfortunately doesn't mention

VON), and explores the possibilities of leaf curd as a protein source for

vegans that avoids importing pulses.

 

Also of particular interest to Growing Green readers will be the section on

fruit and nuts. Along with vegan pioneer Kathleen Jannaway, Whitefield

recognises that although nuts are not widely grown in the UK at the present

time, they have enormous potential as a staple food crop; " …there's no

reason why tree crops should not replace annual field crops as our main food

source. That would revolutionise not just our agriculture but our landscape

too. Gone would be the open fields of cereals and grass replaced by orchards

and edible woodlands, with perhaps as many clearings as we now have woods.

Our landscape would cease to be an imitation of the prairie or steppe, and

become an imitation of what it was before we turned it upside down:

woodland " . A vision for the future maybe, but one backed up here with

cutting edge research and practical details on pioneering crops such as

hazels, walnuts, chestnuts as well as acorns (Whitefield advocates selective

breeding for edibility), beech, pine and monkey nuts. For my money the book

is worth the admission price for this chapter alone.

 

Where the book is less strong is in the area of what in permaculture circles

are sometimes called the 'invisible structures'. In other words, the fabric

of social interactions and human connections that will need to be redesigned

if we are to create truly sustainable future societies. Whitefield does

acknowledge that economics (the 'fairshares' ethic of permaculture) is not

his forte, instead directing readers to Richard Douthwaite's excellent

'Short Circuit'. However, despite some valuable acknowledgement of the

importance of developing real 'listening skills' and touching on inclusive

community development techniques such as 'Planning For Real', I would also

liked to have seen a section going into some more depth regarding

'peoplecare'- or how we are to look after both ourselves and each other

properly. Producing sustainable food, water, medicines, buildings, forests

and landscapes is only half of the battle for survival in the new millenium.

To my mind the real challenge for the 21st century permaculture movement is

how to create the 'social glues' that are needed to effectively bind

together our communities. Not just the intentional communities of

eco-villages and progressive land share projects, but also retro-fitting the

towns, cities and rural settlements that most of us inhabit today either

through choice or circumstance. But I'm probably quibbling- the title of

this book is after all the 'Earth Care Manual', and maybe as time goes on we

will see equally mature works addressing these other aspects of permaculture

design. In fact I should be grateful, for if this were any bigger than it

already is it would only cause my bookshelf to collapse…

 

Graham Burnett August 2004

 

 

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