Integrated versus Non-Integrated (aka permaculture/polyculture vs monoculture/conventional ag)

This image is beautiful to me:



Note that the integrated system on the left is 70 hectares (about 173 acres), and the conventional or more monocrop/monoculture system on the right is 370 hectares (about 914 acres), though if you read the abstract they mentioned 420 hectares needed for conventional agriculture.

See the image and abstract at A socio-eco-efficiency analysis of integrated and non-integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems in the Brazilian Cerrado based on LCA. The abstract is replete with analyses of inputs required for both systems and the number of Brazilians that will be fed.

This study is from 2018, but certainly there have been more since then.

Edited to add:  carbon farming is not always equal to permaculture/polyculture, though I do think there is some crossover and this abstract fits for both. I just didn't have enough character space in the subject line to include carbon farming, too!

I, too think that image is beautiful!

It easily explains what an integrated system is.

When I first came to the forum everyone was talking about wanting to create a food forest.  I just did not understand the concept.

If I had seen that image back then that it would have explained it so easily.

Anne Miller wrote:I, too think that image is beautiful!

It easily explains what an integrated system is.

When I first came to the forum everyone was talking about wanting to create a food forest.  I just did not understand the concept.

If I had seen that image back then that it would have explained it so easily.

Yes!

My only complaint with the image is that at first glance, the 70 ha image looks similar in size to the 370 ha image. It would be more dramatic (although also a bit more complicated and perhaps less clear) if the image sizes were a bit more relative to the hectares they represent.