In article ,
Rick wrote:

is that organic and permaculture methods fall behind on grain
production, but do better with other crops. It seems likely that for
the forseeable future many farming methods will be required to sustain
a growing population at affordable prices while minimizing damage to
the eco system.

Square one is to deal seriously with the "growing population" issue, but
mother nature will do that eventually if we don't - it's just going to
be much messier her way.

Grain is not really all that "permaculture" in nature, being (with few
exceptions) the seed of an annual grass. Perennial wheat seems to be a
subject of current research; It likely gives "less per-acre per-year"
than annual wheat, as is typical of crops which have means other than
seeds to carry on their genetics, but it also would not require annual
tillage fuel, and soil loss from tillage and resulting wind and rain
erosion. It may also need less fertilizer, and it offers the ability to
use it for forage or hay as well as for grain, evidently.

Real permanent agriculture is not based on producing the same crops as
annual agriculture, but (in large part) on producing end products using
many tree or shrub based crops which you won't really find in a
grain/annual based system. ie, it's not about growing corn.

As one fairly well researched and formerly common example, raising pigs
on fruit, locust beans and acorns (which they gathered themselves)
rather than on corn (maize, for the wider world) trucked to them in the
delightful (I jest) facilities that are common now. For a decade or so
there was even research into breeding better honeylocust for forage and
even human consumption, but that was cut off (and cut down) something
like 60+ years ago. The land with the trees growing on it also produced
a sizable hay crop. Cows fed the beans as forage had increased
butterfat, etc...

(_Tree Crops, a permanent agriculture_, J. Russell Smith, 1950)

There is ongoing but slow work in increasing domestic (USA) hazelnut
(filbert) production east of the rockies. Problems include breeding past
eastern filbert blight. Also, getting farmers to think about growing a
crop that stays put and does not yield a great deal for several years,
which is a hard sell for anyone carrying debt.

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