Checking Into Permaculture

Checking Into Permaculture. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. There is a movement that has been going around for quite some time now of getting back to nature and doing things both simply and sustainably. It's called permaculture and where it will never replace mainstream ag there is a place for it in many communities. Laura Sweany, a Core Organizing Committee Member for the 2010 Northwest Permaculture Convergence says there has been growing interest in the idea. SWEANY: Because there's been so much interest in sustainable living and holistic gardening and low tech food production and food security particularly in urban areas – I don't know whether you heard this but Mike McGinn the mayor of Seattle declared this year of urban agriculture in Seattle which is a big deal for us. This is all dovetailing really nicely to open up the convergence in ways that it's not usually opened to folks who don't know as much about permaculture as people who have already trained in it and are already practicing in it. If the term "permaculture" is new to you, the concept should not be. SWEANY: To explain it simply I could say that permaculture is where you take the science of whole systems design and you apply it to food production. You apply it to energy production; you apply it to social systems that we all experience as human beings in a culture. It's that big. If you're just going to try to scale it down and talk about the agriculture part of permaculture you can look at the word "permaculture" and see that it has two meanings – permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture. For all intents and purposes it appears that it is really a very down to earth and simple form of sustainable agriculture. SWEANY: Because you are using the word permanent there is an emphasis on perennials, perennial food crops. There's an emphasis on no-till methods. There's an emphasis on allowing the natural system to do what it wants to do naturally with as little manipulation by humans as possible so we look to nature to see how nature grows food and then we do our best to create an analog system, would be the technical term, but to do what nature does as human being and by doing that it's easier and healthier for the plants, it's easier and healthier for the soil and it's easier and healthier for the human being. More on Monday. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.