Restoration Agriculture: Real World Permaculture for Farmers by Mark Shepard
ISBN: 978-1-60173-035-0
Publisher: Acres U.S.A., www.acres.com
Reviewed by Craig Soderberg
This book offers a healthy, easy, economically viable option to families who want to live a more self-sustainable lifestyle by growing their own food. Shepard defines restoration agriculture as the process by which we accomplish ecological restoration and agricultural production simultaneously. Shepard also demonstrates the viability of a farm based on permaculture principles by providing some helpful information on tree spacing, plant yields, and grazing techniques. He also suggests a recommended number of cows, hogs, turkey, sheep, chicken, and geese per acre.
Shepard has been doing permaculture since the mid 1990's, and has turned an old deteriorating cornfield into a productive property with fruit trees, nut trees, fruit shrubs, berries, vines, mushrooms, animals, and bees. His findings give me hope that there truly is a different way to feed large numbers of people in a way that builds rather than destroys soil, is comparable to annual agriculture in caloric yields, is superior nutritionally, requires far fewer fossil-fuel based inputs, and is better for people. The type of thing he is doing seems to be the foundation of a localized economy that empowers the common person rather than enriching elites.
I have always felt that perennial agriculture (farming which focuses on plants that don't need to be replanted each year) would be easier since it would not require as much work as traditional conventional agriculture which does require continual replanting. Shepard calls conventional agriculture "agriculture of eradication" since the entire plot or field needs to be continually dug up and replanted.
Farming has changed drastically recently. In less than one lifetime, farms went from being self-contained ecological production systems, to debt-ridden, input-dependent "agri-businesses" that soon required massive government subsidies to keep them afloat.
Conventional agriculture is plagued with the following problems: the need for continual tillage, reapplying herbicide, pesticide, fungicide and fertilizer. All of this makes more work for the farmer. Other problems with conventional agriculture include: soil compaction, loss of organic matter, erosion, chemical contamination, flash floods, and the rising cost of fossil fuel for farm equipment.
The benefits of a perennial system (permaculture) are reduced cost in seed, gasoline or diesel fuel, and tractor maintenance, along with drastically improved soil, minimal tillage, greater capacity for photosynthesis, and an astonishing diversity of yields over a greater period of time. Permaculture still produces all the carbohydrates, proteins and oils that we need for our food. But it is much easier to manage and maintain since it does not require repeated tillage, replanting, reapplying fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides etc which are necessary with conventional agriculture. Once established, the input costs of a perennial restoration agriculture system approach zero.
The first six chapters of Shepard's book outline the present reality of conventional agriculture and why permaculture is needed. The remaining ten chapters get into the specifics of how to establish and manage restoration agriculture.
One interesting part of the book was Shepard's description of how Monsanto creates genetically modified food and the dangers of the whole process. Shepard notes that when spraying insecticides on crops, not all of the insects will die. A very small number will survive. The ones that don't die could possibly have the genetic make up that renders them immune to the poison being used. They could then reproduce and pass on this pesticide resistance to their offspring. Continued insecticide use kills the insects that aren't resistant and all that are left are the pesticide resistant insects, the superbugs. The same process applies to bacteria in livestock. Antibiotics that were perfectly effective at "controlling" disease a few decades ago are no longer effective because of the developed resistance and new antibiotics need to be invented. Similarly weeds become immune to herbicides.
Our modern agriculture that relies on annual plants, planted into an eradicated ecosystem in vast seas of uniformity, actually creates new strains of insects, viruses, and new forms of herbicide-resistant weeds. It is actually creating weaker food plants and stronger pests and diseases. Modern agriculture has forced the breeding of plants that can only exist in weed-free environments that will only thrive when bathed in dangerous chemicals.
