Can an organic market garden without motorization be viable through holistic thinking? The case of a permaculture farm

Summary

In industrialized countries, innovative farmers inspired by permaculture holistic principles claim to design market gardens only based on manual labor. We carried out a case study on one of these farms to assess in which extent this approach could make it possible for a commercial organic market garden to be viable without motorization. Our work showed that these market gardeners implemented a wide range of strategies embracing ecological, technical and commercial dimensions to increase their production on a small cultivated area and the added value of such production. On a cultivated acreage of 1061m2, they were able to create a monthly net income between 882€ and 2058€ depending on sales and investment levels. Theses incomes were generated with an average workload of 43h per week. Such economic performances demonstrated that these initiatives can be viable. However, the studied approach excluded growing manually conservation crops such as potatoes. Further investigation should be carried out about the way manual and motorized market gardeners can collaborate to build together a satisfying commercial offer.