Permaculture: The Paradigm Shift from “Easy” Agriculture to Efficient Agriculture By Alexie Dietz
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f you have ever driven through rural Minnesota, you are probably familiar with this scene: rows and rows of golden wheat, orderly lines of soybeans, and a farm with cows huddled around a pile of hay. The general perception has become that a farm centers around one central crop or animal, farmed by huge tractors for an enormous harvest at the end of the year. However, what would happen if we switched out these uniform rows for a melting pot of trees, legumes, grains and fruit? What if we planted crops that worked together to keep the soil healthy and make the most efficient use of the land possible? These are the principles of permaculture, or permanent agriculture: instead of planting crops in a way that makes harvest as easy as possible, what if we planned out complex agriculture systems to maximize food yield in as little space possible? In a world of constantly increasing human population, we must begin to think
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of how we will be able to feed future generations on the land we have now. To do so, it is necessary to look as more sustainable agriculture options, such as permaculture. When we think of Minnesota farming as acres on acres of corn, wheat and soy, we aren’t far off. According to Farm Journal Media, Minnesota is the “sweet spot” of the Corn Belt, a region in the U.S. that produces high yields of corn. The USDA states that in 2012, Minnesota produced 8,316,822 acres of corn, 7,005,764 acres of soybeans, 1,354,928 acres of wheat (for grain). By looking at these high yields, it seems to make sense that Minnesotans are farming these crops. However, the effects of these monocultures - farms producing only one crop in a farming system at one time - are disastrous. The repeated use of the same crop depletes the nutrients in the soil, leads to the build up of pests and potential plant disease, and requires higher use of pesticides
and herbicides, which can lead to water pollution. Although orderly monocultures are easier to harvest and more profitable since all sales can go to one market, the overall effects are extremely toxic to the ecosystem. In order to ensure that we protect our land for future generations, as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development puts it, “the world needs a paradigm shift in agricultural development from a ‘green revolution’ to an ‘ecological intensification’ approach.” To begin, it is important to recognize that farmers are not to blame for their unsustainable agriculture practices. Rather, it is necessary to look at the agricultural system. As Maclaine Sorden, a graduate of the Aldo Leopold Sustainable Agriculture and Landscape Architecture program at Iowa State University, says, “[farmers are] victims of a framework that is incentivizing destructive behavior”. Monocultures are currently
