permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 2:35 PM, Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I did NOT say permaculture was "not ready for prime time farming on any
> scale". To clarify, I said permaculture is in need of a lot more time to
> refine it's approach before it can have a significant impact on "large
> scale" agriculture.
>

Not true at all. Having this "significant impact" on large scale
agriculture will probably be delayed or not happen at all because of the
big ag community and the government it owns, not because of any inability
of the permaculture discipline to handle farming on any scale or
permaculture practitioners and professionals putting it to work in farming
on all scales. You do the permaculture community a disservice by suggesting
that it is not ready to be deployed on this scale. Permaculture was ready
for prime time integration with agriculture when it was invented by
Mollison and, before by those practicing natural agriculture methods that
were integrated into the permaculture discipline when it was formalized.

What do you mean about "refine its approach"? Are you talking about the
science or the proponents?

Permaculture does not need more time to develop before it can become a
standardized component of all farming systems. It is all about the
community, professionals and practitioners making it happen or helping to
make it happen.

And, there is a lot more to say about that. The main
> thing being the assumption that permaculture *should* be trying to measure
> up with large scale ag, as if large scale ag is at an appropriate scale to
> begin with (in my opinion it's not), but that's another long conversation.
>

Yes, it is assumed that permaculture should measure up with large scale ag,
Why not?
All farmland should be worked using natural methods and materials and
permaculture, from the start.
It is appropriate for this to happen on any scale of agriculture. If this
is developed for large scale food, biomass, forage and fiber
production it would be of great benefit for mankind and feed the world. To
determine the scale of a particular farming system it is necessary to
evaluate a long list of factors that include climate, soil, landforms,
access to water and soil amendments and existing site ecosystems. You could
also add people to do all the work (and I do not mean unionized migrant
labor working for some subsidiary of monsanto or other entity), tools,
equipment, buildings and machinery.

People farming the rice terraces in Ifugao in the Phillipines have been
using permaculture from the time the terraces were constructed.
I think you could say that is large scale agriculture, that it works
continuously and feeds very many people reliably.

Think POSSIBLE.

LL


-- 
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared/