Why permaculture?

[Ludi]

If plough agriculture can be practiced sustainably for thousands of years as in China, why practice permaculture?

[matto]

Do you mean with their rice padi's?
There is a constant inflow of nutrients coming into the system with padi culture and its the reason why it is the most long served form of agriculture on the planet.

[Ludi]

I just used China as an example showing that plough agriculture has been practiced for thousands of years so why is permaculture better? I'm looking for an argument of why we should practice permaculture instead of plough agriculture.

[matto]

Because every other agriculture has failed... Look at what used to be the Fertile Crescent in the Middle east, where agriculture was born. The Mayan dynasty went the same way. All of the major civilisations have failed after a few hundred years besides padi culture, and now we have a globalculture walking down the same path. The indigenous know that polyculture is the best defense against uncertainty, and this is why Holmgren, et al, lend a lot of their ideas from traditional agriculture.

Check out http://www.permaculture.org.au/files..._centuries.pdf

[Ludi]

Thank you. I posted this because someone at another forum was arguing that plough agriculture is sustainable because it has lasted thousands of years in some locations such as China. I'm interested to see permaculturists' response to this argument, and may link to this thread if that discussion continues.

[Pakanohida]

Because every other agriculture has failed... Look at what used to be the Fertile Crescent in the Middle east, where agriculture was born. The Mayan dynasty went the same way. All of the major civilisations have failed after a few hundred years besides padi culture, and now we have a globalculture walking down the same path. The indigenous know that polyculture is the best defense against uncertainty, and this is why Holmgren, et al, lend a lot of their ideas from traditional agriculture.

Check out http://www.permaculture.org.au/files..._centuries.pdf

Wow, thank you for the reading material!

[pebble]

Thank you. I posted this because someone at another forum was arguing that plough agriculture is sustainable because it has lasted thousands of years in some locations such as China. I'm interested to see permaculturists' response to this argument, and may link to this thread if that discussion continues.

I have a couple of thoughts. One is, what is meant by 'plough agriculture'? We would need some very specific examples, with detail, of the situations in China where this has been in operation for thousands of years. What the Chinese in those areas practice might not be what people on other parts of the world think of as 'plough agriculture'.

Secondly, permaculture is the application of appropriate technology within a design whose purpose was sustainability (amongst other things). Just because most use of ploughs is unsustainable, doesn't mean it's not possible to have a pc design that includes plough use (i.e. if the Chinese do have a sustainable plough culture, they may be practicing that within a form of permaculture). Again, we would need to know the specifics. Pc isn't a list of do this, don't do that. It's about the relationship between all the things and whether those relationships are sustainable.

[Ludi]

Agriculture in the Middle East was also an example of plough agriculture having been practiced a long time. Pointing out that it seemed unsustainable was called "nit picking."

[mischief]

I recently got the book 'Farmers of forty centuries', because I had heard that Chinas' methods had been sustainable.
One thing that staggered me was the sheer volume of compost that was made, looked after and put on the fields and how they used humanure for fert as well.

According to Fukuoaka, ploughing isnt neccessary and he had managed t get very good results without it.


One thing that really saddened me was that through being efficient without completely understanding the effects was where the book said that when trees were cut down for firewood, every bit of it was used-every branch,trunk,leaf and ROOT, so as to not be wasteful of anything.

In effect destroying the eco system they got the trees from.
We now know about coppicing so hopefully this will never happen again.

[matto]

Agriculture in the Middle East was also an example of plough agriculture having been practiced a long time. Pointing out that it seemed unsustainable was called "nit picking."

Did they not think the effects of salt build up after irrigation to be unsustainable? Also the rise and fall of populations over time has more to do with how they were abusing the soil rather than being conquered by the Sumerians or the Romans... and where are they today?