Introduction

"Permaculture" is a portmanteau of 'permanent agriculture', coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren to describe the integrated system of organic farming they were developing at the time. Since then the word has come to refer to a variety of different techniques and systems for organic farming that have been developed by many different people around the world, even in some cases where the original developer did not use the word.

Some of the systems which have been adopted under the 'permaculture' banner are based in well reasoned traditional systems, or on systems with a well-founded scientific background. However, others are based on nothing more than the dogmatic rantings of obscure authors whose views are much closer to religion and fantasy than fact or usefulness. Often permaculture is presented with a mixture of the two, or with rigid 'ethics' which can obscure the practical significance of the parts that do work.

Arguably, permaculture is not just about organic farming, but rather a set of basic principles that can be applied to the total design of our own, man-made environment, or rather our interaction with the natural environment. This might include things like landscaping, management of lakes and rivers, management of barrier islands, reefs, fisheries and so on. Permaculture can also, to a degree, inform how we build and develop towns, cities, parks and gardens on a larger scale, and how we can incorporate nature into our daily lives.

Permaculture is definitely about food. Not just any food, either. It's about nutrient dense, locally grown, natural, uncontaminated real food. Not just about growing food, but also about what foods are healthy, and how to prepare food properly so that it is not only delicious but also becomes a kind of medicine against all illnesses. Modern processed and preserved foods and foods grown with conventional farming cannot do this, either because the food never had the necessary qualities to begin with, or because they were processed out or cancelled by added chemicals. If you pay close attention, it's a difference that you can both taste and feel in the foods you eat.

This blog is about presenting the fundamentals of the various aspects and techniques of permaculture in an integrated way, and also about exposing ideas related to permaculture which are fraudulent, incorrect or just plain nonsensical. From time to time I'll also present comparisons with conventional practices to demonstrate the major differences and to illustrate why permaculture will be necessary for the future of human civilization (which cannot continue as we know it!).