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pstarr
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 Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 9:54 pm Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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Plants require solar radiation for photosynthesis. You can not trap radiation. Glass and all greenhouse glazings reflect or absorb a certain amount of that radiation back into space. So greenhouses are less efficient than good old air for growing plants.
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pstarr
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| Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:00 pm Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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| Ludi wrote: | | Regarding permaculture and biointensive as low-energy technology to solve the land use and water shortage issues, both these technologies have advantages. Permaculture is a high-yield system which provides habitat for other creatures, biointensive can produce many times the yield as conventional systems for a fraction of the land, water, and energy use. It's been estimated if we turned to biointensive in place of conventional agriculture, we'd use only about 4% of the land surface for our needs, versus the current 40-60%. |
the advantage to permaculture is that is can be employed on a small scale and that it takes advantage of information rather then brute chemical force. It is a technique that allows individuals and communities to recycle nutrients and thus get off the industrial paradigm. But it is not substitute for conventional agriculture. Only localization and complete nutrient cycling is.
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Ludi
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:05 am Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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| pstarr wrote: | | the advantage to permaculture is that is can be employed on a small scale and that it takes advantage of information rather then brute chemical force. It is a technique that allows individuals and communities to recycle nutrients and thus get off the industrial paradigm. But it is not substitute for conventional agriculture. Only localization and complete nutrient cycling is. |
Sorry, you confused me here.
This sentence: | Quote: | | It is a technique that allows individuals and communities to recycle nutrients and thus get off the industrial paradigm. |
seems to me to be saying the same thing as this sentence:
| Quote: | | Only localization and complete nutrient cycling is. |
But between them you put | Quote: | | But it is not substitute for conventional agriculture. |
Is not community and individual action "localization"? and isn't recycling nutrients "nutrient cycling"?
So why is permaculture, a localized system for nutrient cycling, not a substitute for conventional agriculture, if localization and nutrient cycling is a substitute for conventional agriculture?
What am I missing/misunderstanding? I hope you'll clarify.
Thanks.
I've spent a bunch of years studying permaculture, so I'd hate to think there's something I'm really not understanding about it.
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pstarr
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:47 am Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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Ludi, permaculture is not substitute for conventional agriculture. We can not live the way we do and expect to be bailed out by a mere change in agriculture technology. Permaculture demands land reform, community structures, and nutrient movements that can not be implemented in our current suburban/urban infrastructure. Without animal pasture and (and perhaps human) nutrients I don't really believe that backyard gardens could support our nutritional needs year after year.
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Doly
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 2:52 am Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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| pstarr wrote: | | I don't really believe that backyard gardens could support our nutritional needs year after year. |
I never thought the idea was living out of backyard gardens, rather that backyard gardens could be used to supplement the diet. |
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EnergySpin
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 3:09 am Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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| pstarr wrote: | | the advantage to permaculture is that is can be employed on a small scale and that it takes advantage of information rather then brute chemical force. |
Pstarr I'm sincerely curious about the meaning of the phrase in bold. What kind of information are we talking about?
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pstarr
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:05 am Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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| Doly wrote: | | pstarr wrote: | | I don't really believe that backyard gardens could support our nutritional needs year after year. |
I never thought the idea was living out of backyard gardens, rather that backyard gardens could be used to supplement the diet. |
I was responding to an occasional perceived (on my part) notion that permaculture was another magic bullet--this from the luddite left rather than the techno right. I too studied permaculture and I know that it is not a simple solution in isolation. there still is not enough land in cities and suburbs to feed their own population and the land might be too fragmented for important grazing and grain.
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pstarr
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:12 am Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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| EnergySpin wrote: | | pstarr wrote: | | the advantage to permaculture is that is can be employed on a small scale and that it takes advantage of information rather then brute chemical force. |
Pstarr I'm sincerely curious about the meaning of the phrase in bold. What kind of information are we talking about? |
directed irrigation, animal components, nutrient manipulation, intercropping and companian planting, mulching, thinning and prunning are techniques that can be applied to individual plants or plots to radically increase production. They require intensive hand labor and involvement and are no easily scaled up.
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EnergySpin
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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| pstarr wrote: | | EnergySpin wrote: | | pstarr wrote: | | the advantage to permaculture is that is can be employed on a small scale and that it takes advantage of information rather then brute chemical force. |
Pstarr I'm sincerely curious about the meaning of the phrase in bold. What kind of information are we talking about? |
directed irrigation, animal components, nutrient manipulation, intercropping and companian planting, mulching, thinning and prunning are techniques that can be applied to individual plants or plots to radically increase production. They require intensive hand labor and involvement and are no easily scaled up. |
Thanks 
Basically one applies specialized knowledge about a particular cultivar, to raise yields by adopting manual methods. This is certainly "information intensive".
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Last edited by EnergySpin on Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Ludi
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:03 pm Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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As it turns out, pstarr, I absolutely agree with you. Permaculture can not be practiced on a sufficient scale under our current social organization. I've certainly never claimed it could. I have consistently held the position that in order to solve our current problems our social organization needs to change. I have never wavered on this point. Permaculture is not merely an agricultural method, as you know if you have studied it, but a vision of a different way of life.
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Ludi
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:14 pm Post subject: Re: Efficient Water Management Practices in Agriculture |
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I somewhat disagree with pstarr's characterization of the information used in permaculture. Permaculture is much more about observing natural ecosystems and adapting and emulating them to mutual advantage.
Bill Mollison, who invented the word and the concept, says this
"Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.
Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms."
Permaculture: a designers' manual
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