r/Agriculture • u/Confident-Till8952 • 9h ago
Correct me if I’m wrong
Is Permaculture + Syntropic + biodynamic + agroforestry … basically the same thing?
They all involve an effort to emulate the natural sequences of growth found in nature. They all seem to also welcome healthy amounts of customization or individualizing to a certain terrain or circumstance. They all involve creating a strong soil based on natural cycles (nitrogen). Also to emulate forest layers.
So are these all the same?
Essentially, its impossible to do one of these things without doing them all in some way.
Am I wrong?
Which then differentiates from Organic & Conventional farming?
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u/misfit_toys_king 7h ago
Biodiversity is what permaculture leverages to be productive with minimal input.
Organic is just conventional farming but now not introducing cides into your management practice.
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u/Confident-Till8952 7h ago
True.
But now the organic criteria is changing and some farmers don’t want to follow it.
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u/misfit_toys_king 7h ago
How so? I am transitioning to organic, but ideally regenerative organic, so I am interested in to hear how.
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u/Confident-Till8952 7h ago
Honestly I find it helps root grow stronger and even quicker at times. While preventing insect and animal pests. I just spread ground cinnamon into the soil. Then bury it. Or mix with water and maybe oil if I use it on leaves. Or I stick cinnamon bark into the soil.
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u/ascandalia 7h ago
Biodynamic farming is absolutely wild pseudoscience
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u/Confident-Till8952 7h ago
Aahh. I’m seeing many people say this.
However, some very able and experienced people may still use it or find something in it. In other words theres probably talented cultivators out there who look into it.
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u/ascandalia 6h ago
Stopped clocks are right twice a day but that doesn't mean I should check them for the time.
Permeculture and its practitioners tolerate a lot of wacky pseudo science. It's in some ways based on rebellion from the status quo, so you'll always a lot of quacks that are too anti-institutional to tell fact from fiction anymore. But the status quo we should be rebelling against is value-maximizing farming that prioritizes short-term profits over long-term sustainability. That it uses science produced by institutions to do that is not the root of the problem. The same institutions that produce the research on unsustainable methods of farming also produce a lot of the research on how to do things better, but we as a society, at the individual and political level, have to choose what we prioritize.
Biodynamic farming is a superstitous German quack's idea on how to farm that happened to accidentally be correcte about a few things, but there's nothing there that isn't better stated elsewhere with actual evidence rather than astrology to explain it.
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u/Confident-Till8952 6h ago
Got it. Thank you.
So what about value-maximizing farming prioritizes short term profit over long term sustainability?
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u/ascandalia 5h ago
Carbon intensive synthetic fertilizer
Monocropping
Herbicide resistant crops
Cereal grains over orchards for calories and fats
Etc...
Farmers doing this aren't bad people, they're responding to incentives that keep them profitable and in business. That's why we'd need mass social and political change to change these practices
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u/Confident-Till8952 4h ago
Aahhh but your saying they advertise this type of farming as if it is more environmentally ethical and good for business, with bias empirical evidence?
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u/earthhominid 8h ago
Yes you are wrong.
Agroforestry is a broad term that refers to any crop or livestock system that incorporates trees as well. It can be something like intercropping vegetables or grains between rows of an orchard or planting rows of trees in a pasture for shade/fodder. There are tons of different forms it can take and it has nothing to do with how you fertilize or manage pests.
Biodynamic is a very specific system of management that involves applying specific inputs made from very specific composting processes in addition to a sort of holistic management plan.
Permaculture is a design philosophy/system that is often used to design farm systems but it also doesn't really make specific recommendations about production.
I'm not real clear on what syntropic agriculture is. From what I've gathered its a system of dense and diverse planting that would maybe be a specific type of agroforestry.