Ecnerwal wrote:
In article
,
Billy wrote:
I thank you for introducing me to Permies;
http://www.permies.com/. What groups does Jay Green post in, or is
it just Permies?

Several farming and poultry sites; when I was researching the use of
fermented feeds, his stuff came up in several places since he's
someone who does it and posts about it.

Be aware that permies is somewhat prone to being what its owner wants
to hear - minor discussion is allowed, major disagreements vanish
into thin air, leaving only what he agrees with (not even a "post
deleted by moderator" message.) I thought more highly of it before I
saw that happen a few times. I haven't been back much since then. I
prefer to talk with grown ups, or wise children.

I like tree and bush crops and "permanent agriculture." When lazy and
efficient are the same thing, I'm all for that kind of lazy.

permaculture-with-a-capital-P seems to be more about paying money to
take courses to get certified to teach courses that you charge people
money for so they can get certified, in my somewhat jaundiced view. I
don't find it all that compelling, though it has produced some
materials I think worthy of a read, so long as I'm not paying an arm
and a leg for them, or required to believe (or pretend to believe)
everything in them...but there are also good books on the subject
that predate the certification-mad folks.

I would really like to see a credible estimate of two things:

- The cost efficiency of wide scale permaculture, that is what would food
cost compared to conventional agriculture a) on the market today b) taking
into account long term costs of pollution etc, which almost never figure in
our 'costs'.

- Whether it can really be sustainable in a closed system. The best
examples that I have seen still use considerable external inputs. The answer
is to this is in part tied up with how you define the system's boundaries
but the dedicated are claiming that boundary is and ought to be at the
property boundary - in which case I wonder if it is possible.

David