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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Humus
  • Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:01:33 -0000


Seems to me that permaculture is a good step in the direction of hunter-gathering. My problem with hunter-gathering in Ireland is that it is not possible. I survived in the Scottish mountains for weeks at a time on what I could find. Hill walking in Irish mountains that were once as rich as the Scottish is severely disappointing in that there are no wild foods anywhere except maybe for a few deer miles away and impossible to stalk. Even the fish on the coast is going.
So to survive it has to be agriculture and developement of permaculture.
john


On Nov 17, 2011, at 9:37 AM, Dieter Brand wrote:

The argument about the superior health of the hunter gatherers is probably exaggerated or based on a small statistical base of a few archeological finds.

See Jared Diamond's article, "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race."
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

or mine, "Is Sustainable Agriculture an Oxymoron?"
http://www.patternliteracy.com/203-is-sustainable-agriculture-an-oxymoron

Not exaggerated. Essentially all the data available show that the shift to agriculture resulted in a huge spike in epidemic disease, shorter lifespan, shrinkage in stature (suggesting poorer nutrition), tooth and bone problems, arthritis, etc. There aren't a lot of sites, it's true, probably no more than 40 or so that cover the transition, but they all show the same thing consistently. We paid a huge price nutritionally for the shift to agriculture (not to mention the loss of freedom, which is far more significant to me).

Okay, I really am procrastinating on writing a tough section of the patterns book. Back to it!

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


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