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by seotut2 2165 days ago
The juxtaposition of diesel tractors and permaculture seems a bit weird to me. Wasn't the point of permaculture to make it more sustainable, less resource intensive and less environmentally destructive? If you already have tractors and heavy machinery, intensive agriculture is within reach.
3 comments
minerjoe 2165 days ago
Zepp Holzer is the master of this dichotomy.

The thought is that Humans have already used (abused?) machinery such as bulldozers and chainsaws to drastically reduce the water holding capacity of the landscape, and our task is to use these machines in one big push to drastically improve the water holding capacity of the land permanently and then to not need to use them any longer.

See any of Zepp's large scale projects. He has been successful, and failed a few times, in projects all over the world with some amazing transformations.

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cheeseprocedure 2165 days ago
The permaculture community emphasizes the concept of “appropriate technology,” which depends on context but generally means “seek simple/low-impact approaches.”

If you’re building large low-input beds that could last for a decade or more, a tractor might be an appropriate tool given your local constraints vs. a crew of horses/humans and a great deal of time/energy.

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mahaganapati 2165 days ago
To your point, I would say that the machinery has a negligible impact compared to the benefits of permaculture, and if makes permaculture more productive without greater risk, then it seems good. That is, we shouldn't have some kind of Luddite purist view of permaculture - it should be practicable. Things like this help to break the stereotype that permaculture is just hippies chanting in a field that conventional agriculture proponents seem to believe and do perpetuate.
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foxhop 2165 days ago
Affirmative, use the best tools for your context, especially when those tools were used to destroy the natural system that used to be there. (My land was filled with stone and gravel with 4-6 inches of soil ontop using machines...)

Use any means nessasary to move the current system into one that will self-renew and self replicate.

That's permaculture. Set into motion a permanent self-renewing system!

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