Alternatives to agriculture 2: permaculture

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.

Agricultural systems are destroying and poisoning the soil, chopping down forests, and producing food that taste like crap. More and more, and stronger and stronger chemicals are needed to keep the systems going. Now they say it can't be kept going without genetic engineering.

Permaculture brings food production to where the people are, and it produces good organic food that tastes like food should taste. Permaculture, more than any other system I know about, could help all the hungry people in the world and could return some sanity to the developed world.

Bill Mollison tells the story about a man who was fined for growing cabbages in the grass verge in the front of his house. Shrubs would have been okay, but not something useful like a cabbage. This is the kind of stupidity that a society obsessed with agriculture (a system for growing money) leads to. Why should modern cities only grow useless plants in public places? During the 2nd world war in the UK every scrap of public land was used for food production. Why can't we do the same thing now? Why do we have hungry people begging in the streets in the richest countries on Earth?

Google permaculture, or check out this video.