PDC23-19 Diversity is key

Your reminder is that nature never does mono-crop, the agricultural monocultures we produce invite problems and challenges, we must get beyond these simplistic systems. Add to that the extra stresses and uncertainties of erratic and super charged weather and it is clear that we need to embrace the teachings and knowledge from agro-forestry and in this session we are gong to be doing a deep dive into some of the more established examples of both agroforestry and food forest systems.

Perennial plants such as trees contribute to resilience in many ways, offering soil building and soil stabalising, as well as shading and offering habitat to beneficial species, potential predators to your pests and other problems. With a diversity of plants comes a diversity of yields, diverise in form, in function and over time as well.

Permaculture design is steering you away from ‘farming’ to developing forage systems which can be continually producive and build year on year. This is much more rewarding in the longer term than annual systems, and tilling soils every year.

The examples I am showing this week are drawn from temperate systems, in UK, but you can model and map these on to a tropical pattern quite easily, swapping unfamiliar species for ones you know and are familiar with, where you are.