Ecological Agriculture as an Integral Part of Permaculture

Summary

Ecological agriculture is an integral part of permaculture. Permaculture's which emphasis on whole systems design is heavily influenced by the work of ecologist H.T. Odum. Permaculture refers to “permanent agriculture”but has not been expanded to mean “permanent culture” as it embraces the social aspects that focus on truly sustainable system. Permaculture also focuses on ecological method of design that shapes many practices, including farming. Permaculture is associated positively with ecosystem mimicry, perennial polycultures, agroforestry, agroecosystem design, and agrobiodiversity.Ecological agriculture is truly sustainable – it can regenerate and fertilize the degraded and damaged agricultural soils that cover most of the world, and will allow us to continue producing food on that land indefinitely. Conventional agriculture degrades and depletes the soil, and so cannot continue to feed us, and the “progress” made in agriculture in the last decades has come at an enormous environmental and social cost. Ecological agriculture also have the potential to offer higher economic returns than conventional or industrial agriculture as it gives a combined and continual yield from land, instead of one or two big monoculture harvests per year. And it is much more efficient in energy and financial terms when we consider the cost and embodied energy of conventional farming’s chemical inputs. Ecological agriculture gives us a much better output for our input.This review discusses ecological agriculture as an integral part of permaculture in the light of organic agriculture.