What is Biointensive Farming?

Tell me more about biointensive farming. I hear the term from time to time, and I want to know more. From what I gather, it's a way to grow a lot of food in a small space. Is it sustainable? What kind of people would benefit from this method the most? Where does it belong in the greater permaculture picture?

I've had a glance around the Grow Biointensive site. Very interesting stuff.

Anyone here have personal experience with this technique?

I just noticed that Permies has a Biointensive Forum!

This is a new concept to me, does anybody have a rundown on this technique and why I would possibly want to consider utilizing it?

Nice catch, Timothy. This (biointensive agriculture), from what I have just read, is human scale agriculture. How to get a whole lot of production from a minimum amount of land, sustainably. Now I have research to do on this wonderful and drizzly morning (we are dry here). The deep double digging is very interesting, I have hard soil when the year is dry. There is much written about tillage, when, how deep and how to provide a refuge for soil life. According to some, tillage should be only in the top 4 or so inches, The soil beneath is left undisturbed and the roots of crops will burrow their way down and loosen the soil below. It is a slow process here to get roots going down in hard soil for farm crops, weeds do much better. A couple of renowned soil experts tell of the need for deep tillage (ripping) from time to time to make the topsoil and subsoil connection. The double digging technique mirrors this.

I have been using some Biointensive growing techniques for years, especially to grow root crops in my heavy clay soil. If you're interested, you might want to check out the book by John Jeavons entitled How to Grow More Vegetables. Here's a video that explains the double digging technique:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BTwQyNtpaE