permaculture

[jeff <jko@save-net.com>]

Mark wrote:
> agriculture is one of the most
> dynamic and productive sectors in the modern economy.  When viewed on a
> economic productivity basis (which is incomplete, but a good place to
> start) it is phenomenal how much food is produced by so few people.  though
> there is a grain of truth to the idea that we are designing around
> machines, the better way to understand it is that there is a steady
> adapting of the machine to the modern reality of the farm.

I suppose we each see different meaning in words.  What i see is the
old debate about whether to fix/change the current system or
try to step outside and design a better starting place.  It is a long
discussion with some people thinking a few changes will fix things
and others concluding it is beyond repair.

I've always ended up looking a how economics controls
farming decisions and concluding the only answer is to step outside
the system and try a new set of rules.  This would create a new
approach to farming and more cooperative economics.  In other words,
the farmer can be forced to deplete the land to survive.  Long term
the land and local ecology loses.

Most of Permaculture seems to fit this "design a new way of thinking"
mode and not "let's fix farming mode".

> I truly despise phrases like "destroying the land" in contexts like this,
> of forest fires etc.  It isn't being destroyed.  Degraded, imperiled
> yes.  But it's almost always salvageable with simple changes or
> actions.  This kind of talk is defeatist claptrap, breeding more cynicism
> and learned helplessness; not what we need.

The salvage approach puts us constantly in repair mode.  We spend
time tying to fix problems and not inventing sustainable ways of
avoiding the problem in the first place.  Don't we need to do both?
For example, we can spend all our money curing disease and
no effort on learning to live a healthy life.  This results in a huge
industry devoted to solving an ever increasing health problem.  That
is close to what we have today.   It has worked fairly well so far but
long term it will fail.  We will end up spending more and more trying
to fix problems.

Anyway, words like "claptrap" are not going to help us towards
understanding the different viewpoints.

> The thing farmers need is solutions, not whiners and law suit
> happy eco nuts.

What does the world need?   The farmer is just a pawn in a much
bigger game.  When given a choice between profit and degrading
his environment most have chosen to degrade the environment.  Corporate
farmers seem more profit driven than the smaller farmer who thinks
about future generations.  So... given the current trends in farming
i would think we need whiners and eco-nuts.

jeff