Permaculture is a term coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978, that means both permanent (ie. sustainable) agriculture, and permanent culture.

It's a system that aims for sustainability, reduction in waste, materials used, and energy, and it achieves these goals by mimicking nature, which makes it about the opposite to agriculture (or at least industrial agriculture) we know. And yet permaculture systems are far more productive than agriculture, and they build up rather than deplete soils.

Agriculture is widely lauded as the greatest invention of mankind. It grows a lot of food, and enables us to stay put. It also converts habitats supporting tens of thousands of species into land that supports just one or two. It has enabled the human population to explode to over 6,700,000,000. But what about the other inhabitants of this planet?

Agriculture, as we know it, likes quick turnarounds and long storage times, and doesn't give a damn about taste or quality. Profit is virtually the only criterion taken into consideration.

Agriculture, the way it has developed over the last few decades particularly, is a bad thing in many ways.

Agriculture has failed us. It has produced a lot of food, but it's bland, increasingly genetically modified crap covered in toxic chemicals.