Amazing, eye-opening answer. I am a farmer in from Finland and our climate quite suites grain production along with grazing cattle for proteins. Respiration in the last two seasons has been less than 300mm (may-august). The thing that gets me is that no, it doesn't really make sense to keep grain as the basis of our food system globally. Thanks!
It's well worth investigating the reasoning behind our reliance upon grain for our civilization today. It has much more to do with economics than with dietary needs, imo. Grains are readily adapted to very large scale mechanized production, result in products with a long shelf life/storage period that can be transported absurd distances. Those are economic drivers and dependent upon cheap and abundant energy. They aren't motivated by what makes up a healthy human diet. An enormous portion of our grain production doesn't even go to feeding people directly, but to animal feed, producing human food as a secondary byproduct and with another layer of both loss in production and environmental impact from the methods of production (CAFOs).
Well, there would always be the approach of Masanobu Fukuoka ;-) I think we need to be open to different systems and not only go the direction of 'food forest'. Grasslands are highly efficient when you look at all the herding animals in nature
@Karalevsky Borzoi Don't know if your coment is sarcastic. But yes, probably this would already be a great improvement. However natural farming is going further than that and the philosophy is not really compatible with big ag.
@Karalevsky Borzoi Thank you (already was preparing for a difficult discussion ;-) I agree, we have to work with the people already doing farming and there already is a lot happening in that direction with regenerative farming.
@@baslerpacman that transitioning of commercial ag. to permaculture-kind of land stewardship (with ecological restoration and bringing more people on tha land) is what i am thinking to do around here, in the Central Valley region (California, USA)
This is good, real knowledge. Common Gardening's main solution is just throw water at it. In a continental drought, the only real solution is resilience through water efficiency~ Historically ancient books that celebrate bread come from desert civilizations where it was actually an improvement over what they ate before, but so many areas have better sources of food, and going back to bread because it's celebrated in ancient desert books makes no sense in our modern diverse world~
Thanks for this! I grow oats as a medicine; oats in the milky-oat stage makes a great winter tonic as a tincture. When I look at the space and water required verses the amount of grain harvested, I know that it wouldn't be worth growing as a crop for food.
Thanks for the idea! I eat plant-based and used to drink oat milk, I can just blend whole oats with husks on and then strain everything! This sounds like the only good option for grains in a small piece of land.
Wish Geoff had mentioned perennial grains. Perennial grains have the benefit of 'keeping' the ground covered. No plowing means we lose less topsoil. More topsoil means better water retention. The downhill cascade effect of that is less spring flooding and less irrigation. Very win-win.
Can you give an example of where people are growing perennial grains for food, and it works out to be efficient? One thing i don't see mentioned about perennial grains is the risk of pests and diseases building up (this is more when talk about replacing an annual grain monoculture with a perennial monoculture for the benefits you mentioned)
@@thecurrentmoment Perennial grains are being developed and still "not quite ready for prime time." At this point these would be more of a side crop at best. We do have nut trees for now. Some are good for oils, others are high starch.
@@thecurrentmoment And I'd try to avoid monocultures, period. Maybe grains interplanted between alley cropped rows along with the short Dutch white clover and a few others it might be feasible...
@@b_uppy sounds good Are you aware of the bon file method of growing wheat? It's a bit like Fukuoka did with rice where he used clover as a ground cover . I think this would achieve much the same result as perennial grains, to be honest, aside from the root system which could get a lot bigger and last longer with perennial grains
@@thecurrentmoment Clover certainly helps. Emphasizing nuts and grasses as part of livestock over grain fed/finished and using livestock that fattens readily on a grain free diet, as well as skipping ethanol from corn is where we could get a lot of soil/carbon gains.
My little survivalist hobby garden is focused on answering this very question. The answer is Sunflower tubers (Jerusalem Artichokes) and small heritage pigs that get most of their nutrition from forage (they are penned up, I forage for them, greens, acorns, walnuts etc...) Amaranth, mammoth sunflowers and pinto beans getting an honorable mention. This year I am experimenting with buckwheat and huauzontles. Also, Chenopodium Album produces a lot of nutrition (for both man and pig) with VERY little input, including a lot of high calorie seeds in late fall. I live in central Oklahoma, in the cross timbers, we have long hot summers.
Early medieval Iceland is the perfect example of a dormant-period economy that is perfect for grain. They ate almost nothing but grain and cod, IIRC, it says in Njal's saga. That's why they were always murdering eachother, the nutrients were almost perfect, but in a bad year everyone had to fight about who had to ship out.
Can't believe 3/4 of my diet is energy insuffient. Don't think I will ever get the chance to live like this but I do hope this is the future of humanity.
I admire you so much! Always a intelligent and honest answer! Someday I will take a PDC with you. We need to learn what is better to us and "nature" as a community of multispecies. We need to learn to live as beings tied to the land and not based on what the market imposes. Hugs from Brazil!
Geoff, will u be posting some update videos,on work required to your farm after the recent 100 year flood event,and lessons learned,from observation.LOVE YOURE WORK
You can store grain long term, it is insanely delicious, its a great source of energy and protein, it tastes good, it's easy to mechanise, it has an amazing cuisine...
Try root and tuber plants. George Washington Carver suggested sweet potato flour. Other options are: potatoes, maca, yacon, cassava, cattails (typha) both seeds and tuber, water hyacinth tuber, kudzu, lotus, etc. Non tubers would be: chestnuts, acorns, pecans, african palm oil kernel de-fatted of course. There are also moringa, mesquite, and carob pods. Let your mind run riot, as one would see in a pro-Jacob Zuma demonstration in South Africa.
Nice, potatoes grow here. But I would have loved to hear his thoughts of growing grains in a permaculture system. These places with a long dormant period actually exist ja we need to grow food in one short period for the whole year and make it last.
We grow quite a lot of amaranth, but use it for sprouting .. its a flower seed, and not a cereal grain, in any case. I have a section of yard space devoted to growing corn, and that is the only real grain we grow here - it is the area surrounding our septic drain field, and I can't have any deep-rooted perennials there. We eat some of the corn, feed some to the ducks, and sell most of it for seed; it is a very, *very* rare native heirloom, possibly the most genetically diverse example of _zea maize_ remaining. Growing it in a woodland clearing, on the land where it was first grown, and using as much horticulture as I can in the process has been profitable for us, so far. With two plantings per year, it is a little more than a thousand ears, from a 400 square foot patch. The rest is all zone 1 permaculture food forest with the 8 aforementioned ducks on 1/3 acre to help out with the chores. We sow the corn in blocks, with clover for a ground cover, and early peas. The blocks are made by mining the soil from between the blocks, which is then filled with woodchip to retain moisture, keep adventitious weeds under control, and serve as a walkway. Every couple of years the walkway can be turned over into the planting area, and filled with fresh woodchip, replenishing the OM. Once the corn is about waist high, our small flock of ducks are permitted to patrol the corn patch. At this point, the corn is well enough established that the ducks will not eat it .. but they will graze the clover, nibble on low hanging pea pods and leaves (not the vines), eat competing weeds, slugs, snails, and grasshoppers. Enough peas survive to plant them again next year. The fouled water that they leave every day is used to irrigate the corn blocks (and a few other things .. like the trees that we grow for sale)
Thank you for sharing I’ve been wondering the same about growing grains to use as a good source for us as well as a winter feed for the livestock. I’ve settled with little patches of sunflowers oats and amaranth for now just for the chickens!
In Harmony With Earth agree completely on the hemp seed! I’ve been getting loads of Black Solider fly larvae this year in the compost. I’m going to try a few different ways to see if I can get them into winter to fill in some of that nutrition void.
yes, i considered growing grain in my small garden plot just for the experience, but the yield per area is really disappointing unless nothing can grow there, like no vegetables nor anything of higher value per weight, yeah, you can grow grains and barley at least is more interesting, you can eat it, or use it as animal feed and it grows fast compared to wheat i tried quinoa and corn, quinoa grow not bad qte compared to wheat and barely, corn even more i'm looking for milet or soghum
The drought hitting Western US has got me thinking about variability in weather over years. I think it's important to have some production of a storable crop so that when rainfall goes from 12 inch per year to 4, you still have food.
I've bought myself some heritage native American corns, will be fun to see how they work Then again, most fruits from trees can be dried and stored too, as long as you put in the effort and forethought of doing it
Assuming one’s soil is free of a compaction layer, most plants will go deep enough to find stored water in dry seasons. This is one of the huge benefits of permaculture/soil food web approach to growing.
The highest density of population today and thousands of years ago corresponds to areas of rice production. In ideal conditions you can grow up to three crops of rice per year. Large parts of China you can grow two crops of rice.
In suburban tropics, we mainly grow Cassava and Sweet Potatoes for the calorie rich tubers and the leaves which has decent amount of protein. Other source of calories we grow are Malanga/Taro, Yam (Dioscorea), Banana/Plantain, Coconut and Breadfruit We also grow Pigeon Pea and raise poultry for protein. Our main staple grain, rice, need a lot of water to grow, and you need to dehull it, so it's not quite realistic to grow in suburban area. Maize grain probably more realistic option for grain, since it doesn't need wet/swampy area to grow and easier post harvest process.
Yeah. We've grown small scale dent corn before. Geoff is absolutely correct that processing is a pain. We can raise and slaughter 30 chickens for the amount of work it takes to shell, winnow, nixtamalize, dry and grind two quarts of corn meal. I do think there's a place to develop people powered processing equipment as part of our appropriate technology tool kit.
You're right on both accounts. The fuels may change eventually. I'm not sure what they will do on herbicides. To move in a regenerative way it does seem like a reasonable transition. But it should go further
@@shanemillard608 On that kind of scale, I’d rather go for Pasture Cropping from Colin Seis, he is from NSW, I don’t understand why Geoff doesn’t mention him. However I would use a higher impact with the animals, in the style of Allan Savory ranch in Zimbabwe, where they prepare the soil with the night crawl for 1 week before planting corn.
@@davideforesti7556 Hai ragione in entrambe le tue obiezioni, ma ce ne fossero di agricoltori come Gabe! Nessun prodotto di sintesi per fertilizzare, semina sul sodo, terreni che guadagnano 1% di organico ogni anno, 20 diversi livelli di sfruttamento sullo stesso suolo (crop, chicken, pork, bees, cattle, vegetables, grains, cover crops...). Firmerei subito per 20 anni di agricoltura rigenerativa come la sua, finchè non saremo pronti ad alimentare i macchinari con idrogeno distillato col sole e col vento...
Other than potatoes, what grows in a temperate climate that gives the sort of calories that grains do? I have been thinking about what it would take to be food self-suffcient on my property and besides some potatoes and animal protein, I come back to needing to grow some grains for calories.
Chestnuts, Pecans, Almonds, Hazelnuts - some of the best nut trees are from the temperate climates. Chestnuts in particular have the same nutritional profile as brown rice and on a per-square-meter basis a mature chestnut tree yields more than grains.
You really don't need anything other than fatty meat for calories, but as this other guy said, chestnuts, they also have the added benefit of providing wood
From a nutritional perspective eating a combination of legumes, vegetables and nuts is a little better than eating grains. You could include freshly grown corn as a grain for your own diet. Many legumes like beans keep well and larger beans like Madagascar beans are very easy to harvest. There are legumes that will grow nearly anywhere which is a huge advantage.
Among grains, millets are a better choice compared to rice/wheat. Grow grains that are heirloom open pollinated. Consume grains that are grown around you since they adapt to the surrounding, so can provide appropriate nutrition.
I think this is why we have massive varieties in grains and millets in Maharashtra, India. We get rain for 2-3 months and then nothing for remaining 9 months. What could be the way to organically grow local grain and millet varieties. It really makes up a large chunk of our daily food intake.
Can anyone here tell me about a single combination of crops that would be more efficient than grains nutrition and energy wise that would be doable at the biggest scale (Let's say a country's agriculture industry) while ensuring affordable food for the population all year round ? Because, I don't think there is. Enlighten me please.
Grains. Could there be a more controversial subject,lol. No matter how one feels about them,they are in the class of foods that allows for relative ease of storage and therefore surviving droughts and famines(assuming you store/rotate them regularly)
Wouldn't perennials handle drought/fire/flood/famine/blight better than grains? Not to mention knock-on effects on soil-carbon, soil-moisture and local precipitation that trees provide. Humans crop over a trillion tons of grain per annum, as meat consumption reduces, the price of grain will plummet. If space is limited, grains are the last thing to grow at home - they have a low carbon footprint relative to their calories.
@@dampdoily well, you can store wheat almost forever, so it beats most foods in shelf life. Like Joseph adviced the pharaoh to save grains for those seven hard years. If your apple tree dies, it is dead. No more apples from that tree. And new ones take time to establish. The point in wheat is to store it when you have a good harvest. It may not be the best producing plant when times get tough.
@@hannamaenpaa8929 Grains must remain in their sheath for long term storage..incompatible with industrial ag.. "Joseph my friend, inform us about seven fat cows being devoured by seven skinny cows, and seven green spikes, and others shriveled. I wish to go back with some information for the people." He said, "What you cultivate during the next seven years, when the time of harvest comes, leave the grains in their SPIKES, except for what you eat. "After that, seven years of drought will come, which will consume most of what you stored for them." [GLORIOUS QUR'AN. 12:46-48]
Geoff, I just read that the drought grasshoppers are starting to assemble. Would letting the grasshoppers eat all the foliage lessen the risk of megafires, or would it amplify the effect? Anyway is it better to squish the grasshoppers before they assemble or is it better to let them do their thing?
I would like to grow wheat. Not that we use extreme amounts but in order to avoid the chemical saturated product in the stores. I think there would be great health relevance in doing this. I think it might work better to do it as a cooperative effort with neighbors, though.
I once collated information from various blogs about home-growing wheat. It takes about 1 square meter of wheat to yield two loaves of bread (or 4 pizzas). (It might be just 1 loaf or 2 pizzas, but I'm pretty sure it was 2:4)
@@drekfletch I read several years ago that the typical beat crop gets sprayed with round up the week before harvest in order to kill last minute weeds so the they don't clog the harvesters and they can run faster.. Of course, the product still goes to processing coated in round up. I know it will be a pain, but I do feel strongly that this chemical treatment is the most probable cause of Crohn's disease, gluten intolerance and endocrine failure. Our usage is less than a hundred pounds per year... and that's even with liking home made pizza! I'll need to give your formula a think and see how that works out converting to pounds and space requirements. Thanks for the info.
@@drekfletch from that yield, gvien ~4,000 square meters/acre, then 1 acre would ideally make at least 8,000! loaves! and scything that acre at the harvest time of season would be what? a day's worth of work? especially if done with a few friends/neighbors?
Obviously, one should do what they want... But I would even suggest you stop eating wheat altogether, since it's not really essential for life... I eat bread/wheat maybe once a month in the form of a pastry... I know it's trendy to eat gluten free but there really is no reason to eat wheat or other grains if you can afford better quality food like fish, meat, dairy, fresh veggies, high quality oils and fruits... If you really love wheat, just eat organic wheat products, right?
In the subtropics, it tends to be starchy roots and tubers, ie cassava, sweet potato, and true yams. In south asia, in mountainous climates, rice is also heavily produced, and Bill Mollison partly based his understanding of water management off of historical rice farms. Weird that Geoff didn't mention that.
@@LifesASong00 Thanks for your answer. What do you think about mediterranean climate? For this places i think the only solution is wheat or some cereals like this.
The fact is grain is the backbone of human diet and agriculture. Producing fruits and vegetables although healthy and nutritious can not feed the world unless we turn a large portion of the population into farmers which isnt practical. Furthermore, as you mentioned there are areas which has a cold period of time or dry areas. They cannot rely on ongoing food harvest and grains are essential for them. But something you didnt mentioned is that these areas cover the majority of the planet including, cold, temperate, and even large portions of tropical and subtropical areas of the world. And as you experienced it this current permaculture with all its strengths and benefits is unable to produce enough grains to feed people who arent (sometimes even people who are) living on the farm. The better answer is permaculture isnt the single silver bullet for all the food issues in the world. The honest reality is if all the farmers only turn to permaculture a large portion of the world population would go hungry. Not because permaculture isnt efficient but because not only it cannot address the grain production for global food consumption but is also extremely labour intensive and we wouldn't be able to have enough farmers in this modern lifestyle to feed the population. A fun fact is that wheat is "the largest single protein source" for humans worldwide.
@@stumpyplank6092 1. You cant convince people to do farming just because "you think" there is not enough other jobs around. During pandemic people didnt have jobs but we couldnt get enough fruit pickers. People might be interested in gardening at home or a few days of adventure in the farm but full time farming in such permiculture set up is not a reality for the vast majority of the people. 2. While essential, production and eating best type of quality food isnt the main priority of the people. Food is cheap and available and people rather not to bother with spending too much time to grow it. People just want more money for better house and car and computers and food goes to lower priority, thats why they wouldnt spend all their day time growing healthy food. 3. As George said day even couldnt grow enough grain for their own use. So this system would never be able to produce it for the world population even if there would be more farmers (right now each farmer produces food for 400 people in Australia and our farmer average age is over 55). 4. "Farming could help re-invigorate the nation, preserve the land, become an exercise regime of sorts and it could even be worked into a normal day alongside more efficient office-work practices." Yeah in ideal world but the vast majority of the people wouldnt do that even if they would agree with it. Not practical and wont happen. 5."Oh, and perhaps build much smaller houses on the cusp of the farmlands thus helping solve the housing crisis..." again nice ideas that wouldnt work at all for the vast vast majority of the people.
@@stumpyplank6092 Nope! I am in Australia and we have same problem. I know in the US they have same problem too. So your funny reasons are Thatcher, trains and Eastern Europeans... arent the real reason. The people of the modern world mostly live in the cities and city people prefer the comfort of modern life. People dont work in the farms because its not interesting for the vast majority of the population. They prefer city life. Food isnt the main concern of the people, mostly are happy with the garbage they eat. You can tell your stories for years but the fact isnt the la la land that you are dreaming. You better wake up and see the reality. Things arent the way you think and they wont be like what you would like it to be.
@@stumpyplank6092 I dont really have time for the irrelevant things "you feel". As a scientist, I deel with the facts and the facts tells me permaculture does not address the grain issue and also as a matter of fact there is not enough farmers now and there will be even far less if the expectation would be that people should start all feeding from products made in permaculture. It is just the fact that the vast majority of the people prefer modern lifestyle and comfort of technology. Nothing to do with "migration" not to "neoliberalism" nonsense and no other racist jokes. Sorry mate I have better things to do than arguing over obvious facts.
How to manage insect/rodent in a farm? Is there any specific plant can be use as repellent for fruit flies? Does it need to be plant in a specific ways?
Most people would rather have a sandwich than be a subsistence serf. Also, grains are great for long term storage in case of drought or purposeful destruction of agriculture.
I think that both grains and tubers and roots have their advantages and should be eaten regardless of the climate for diversity and guarantee in case of loss of harvest, the difference is in the proportion that you plant each one, like in tropical climates like mine. I would plant grains in a small amount, just enough to provide an insurance in case the harvest fails and what is close to expiry you eat while storing the newly harvested, if you live in cold climates you simply cultivate in a minority way, although I think which can also be stored for a long time, it's just not as stable as grains, so in that case the proportion would be a little higher.
What replacements are there for bread and cakes, pasta and rice? We eat a lot of potatoes and potato bread but I still buy in flour for bread, cakes, pasta etc.
Ive seen many alternatives for these grain items on many keto recipe websites and apps. I know that riced cauliflower is used as a rice replacement. Coconut and almond flour for breads and cakes. Search for keto recipes and you’ll be busy for weeks.
@@Skashoon lovely ideas...but I can't grow those things here in Northern Ireland. Even cauliflower is tricky I find. We have hazelnuts but rarely get a harvest.
I can not eat any grains they cause my autoimmune disease to flair up. I get all of the carbohydrate that I need from non-starchy veg. Most of which I grow in my garden. I can or freeze all surplus in the summer to see us through the winter months when the ground is frozen.
What do you suggest growing for chickens in warmer areas? People who want to become self sufficient on food are led to buy chickens, because they produce so many eggs. They feed these chickens wheat products.
This is something I keep trying to tell people. People have it in their head that there's not enough land for the billions of people on the planet to be fed. That's true, if we only factor in conventional farming. There is tons of underutilized land that can be used to grow crops other than grain and legumes, and much of the land being used for grain crops could actually be more productive per acre with permaculture, and grain is only being grown there because it has the lowest labor inputs per yield due to automated machinery, not the most calories per acre or most protein per acre.
White goosefoot and Jerusalem artichokes grow like weeds and will keep a few small pigs alive, lean, but alive. Giving me meat and compost with little to no input from the outside.
There's definitely healthier foods to grow and eat. Most of the people eating a lot of grains are fighting or ignoring health problems. Nuts are healthier, easier to grow, and can be used to make flour for breads and whatnot. Most of my grain use is for feeding my chickens.
@@ronniemcmaster8657 "People don't even need breads"!!!! WHAT?! Can you understand grains are the main source of calory and even "the biggest source of protein for mankind" and you say people dont need that?! I was very much right about my first comment.
@@drpk6514 No, you weren't. Most people eat way more calories than they need. It is why obesity and diabetes are so common. It is also why people live so much healthier when on a keto diet.
It depends. Grains have been a staple for humans for millennia. It can be grown nutritiously or not, and prepared well or not. Any food can be crappy, if it's grown with crappy methods, in crappy soils.
@@myronplatte8354 pretty clear that meat is king…to those of us who switch to eating plenty of it. I was fully carnivore for six months. Thats what i would call a staple..try it with grains
@@myronplatte8354actually you are only slightly correct. The Inuit for example were nearly carnivore and so were a few others. Most indigenous peoples ate very high meat diets. None were vegetarian or vegan and none ate as much plant food as we do today.
@@wes4192 The idea that the Inuit were nearly carnivore is a myth that was spread by non-Inuit observers. They actually had a quite varied diet. There are many plant-food heavy cultures. All of asia (billions of people) traditionally eats rice almost every meal. It's just not true that "none ate as much plant food as we do today". Many did.
@@inharmonywithearth9982You are wrong so would have missed the double Jeopardy question. The answer is amaranth drenched in blood from a sacrificed human. Think on that when you are chomping on your next juicy hamburger.
not more than the rest of the world? if rice is the main staple in South and East Asia the same holds true for wheat in the west and maize in much of Africa and latin America
@@Tsuchimursu in the mediterranean we do not irrigate grains. We sow them in november and harvest end of may... we use winter and spring precipitations.
Forgive me, but I don't think this really answers the question? How would we replace the carbohydrate and to some extent protein from grains that currently feeds billions of people? Tree nuts like acorns, hazel and chestnut can work in temperate areas but you would still require a lot of processing (not necessarily bad) to render them edible. Potatoes are still annuals and would also require processing to store them (the inca made flour). Tropical areas would be fine with breadfruit, banana and plantain as well as yam and cassava but I'm not really seeing the solution for temperate climes.
I live in a temperate climate, but there are some things that grow here during the winter, such as fava beans, peas, and brassicas. So if I save some starchy root vegetables I grow during the summer, as well as winter squashes, and add favas or peas, I should be fine. This is all theory, haven't planted the whole area yet to see if I can grow all of my food for the whole year, but I think it's possible. I also save edible seeds for the winter, such as cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkin, chia, and poppy seeds.
I think that both grains and tubers and roots have their advantages and should be eaten regardless of the climate for diversity and guarantee in case of loss of harvest, the difference is in the proportion you plant each one, like in tropical climates like mine. I would plant grains in a small amount, just enough to provide an insurance in case the harvest fails and what is close to expiry you eat while storing the newly harvested, if you live in cold climates you simply grow potatoes and tubers in a minority, although I think it can also be stored for a long time, it's just not as stable as the grains, so in that case the proportion would be a little higher.
I'm confused, didn't you just avoid the question ? Large part of world population lives in cold climate and even desert/dry climate, so whats the solution for them?
Chestnuts, acorns hazel, walnuts, stone pine nuts, hickory beechnut trees. Plant in Silva-pastoral systems as Mark Sheppard has shown at New Forest Farm in Viola Wisconsin. Get his book "Restoration Agriculture" for more info about the system.
In temperate regions: Chestnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, sweet corn, pumpkin, potatoes, cabbage etc and of course lots of meat/eggs/diary and lots of fruit. We are not medieval peasants anymore - we don't need huge amounts of empty calories to sustain us. Meat and vegetables and fruit are an excellent balanced meal for 90% of people nowadays...
@@meso2564 I do not think this is correct - chickens (meat and eggs) and fresh water aquaculture fish are extremely efficient at a smaller scale i.e. in a small backyard or pond. The chickens and fish can eat mostly the leftover vegetable and fruit scraps from the family as well as insects from the garden.
@@cyrusp100 the point is that you need less land if you only feed on plants, anything beyond that will always be too much land, in relation to efficiency it's because they need to consume plants too so they can be eaten! In short, they are efficient, but unless in specific situations where it is not possible to plant, they will not be more efficient, but obviously that doesn't stop you from eating or producing if you want, we don't need to be 100% efficient in everything! Ps: You can even produce tilapia without food, with algae photosynthesis!
The problem I have with the typical modern person's idea of this question, is they're basing it on a lot of ( understandable) ignorance, such as not knowing that cattle don't need to be fed all these tons & tons & tons of grain they're fed nowadays, and pigs, chickens etc. need much less than they are. That pasturing them instead, wouldn't use up the same amount of land probably ( an educated guess ), for a couple reasons, incl. multi-species grazing, less waste and more thrifty animals and the vastly higher grass production which holistically planned grazing brings making the existing pastures, besides any addtl. ones, be way more productive. Add in less of it being paved over for ever more things we wouldn't need then, if we eat and live this way and more locally. Lastly, the assumption that it's part of a normal diet to eat a bunch of refined grains for breakfast and snack on corn chips endlessly. If we were satiated with a nice, juicy 100 % grass-fed burger ( got some from Vance Creek Angus of Somerset, WI recently and it's the best grassfed beef I've ever had, it's AWESOME !!! - I usually live on our wild venison, which is good too) and lots of tasty, fresh veggies, we wouldn't have the munchies.
Well... in my vegetable garden I never planted grains. It is a plain and simple inefficient way to use good growing area. Grains fit perfectly with agro-industry, that is what we should eliminate if we want to heal the planet.
For every square meter of garden space I harvest three different items in a year and I always have something ready, fresh and tasty. Grain is viable in extensive lots of many hectares. I made the count thousands of times, as I was born and still living in a farm.
@@Picci25021973 yes but how many CALORIES does each square meter yield? Unless you are growing potatoes, yam, breadfruit, bananas or the like, probably doesn't yield enough calories to live from just the garden. Grains are only worthwhile on a large scale, I agree. But somewhere there is a grain/starch/livestock farm that is actually keeping you alive.
@@clobberelladoesntreadcomme9920 I grow potatoes, beets, pumpkins, topinambur, legumes, nuts... with interplanting and culture rotation I can assure you I achieve a lot of calories. Calories do not exactly match with carbohydrates. Then, vegetable scraps feed chickens... meat and eggs come from the garden as well. The key is to stack different activities on the same land, and with present time grain culture it is nearly impossible. I also eat grain products, of course... but we have to change our way of eating as well, we'll be soon 9 billions.
@@clobberelladoesntreadcomme9920 Not a good idea to base decisions on calories. You can easily get 3000 calories from a meal in Macdonalds, that does not make it healthy or reasonable to eat there. How about instead of calories we focus on nutritional density, phytochemicals, fiber, and so on? As long as you eat enough calories to support your lifestyle (for some that might be 1600, for others 5000) there's no problem. Idk, that's just my perspective because I don't rely on my garden for calorie content, I rely on it to supplement food for my microbiome, for my wellness. The bulky stuff like dairy, eggs, meat, oils, and so on that supply the majority of my calories, are bought from external source. I suppose it depends how self sufficient you want to be. I can also get dairy from my neighbours.
Buena idea pero he visto la calidad de traducción. Pon atención las dos palabras más usadas en permacultura son swale y mulch. Estas palabras del inglés no tiene equivalentes en el español. Necesitas escuchar los videos del mexicano Eugenio Gras, el colombiano Jairo Restrepo, y el argentino Tierra Martínez. Ambos Tierra y Eugenio son calmados pero Jairo es reactivo como la pólvora.
What's the alternative not covered well, Jeff? Grains in agroforestry systems seems to me to be a brainer. This idea that grains are pore food choice is crazy; they were not just used to feed armies; we have been harvesting grains as staples even before large cities-the way they grown and used now sure wrong. But whole grains are a healthy source of calories; the longest-lived population in the world live on them (blue zones). More examples, please?
The historical record clearly shows that the agricultural revolution ushered in shorter statures, worsened teeth, worse health, poorer quality of life (except for those who rose to power directly in consort with grain production/taxation), and "civilization" (with all of its inequality and whatnot). These are just facts though.
@@cletushatfield8817 inequity is natural. Any lack of inequity in more primative systems is likely due to cave men killing anyone better than them. Ressentiment is sadly one of the most human emotions. I'd say it's felt more than love in some time periods(like our own). I do think everything else you said is spot on.
If you're comparing it to modern ag, the big answer is to stop massively subsidizing harmful practies. Not only does modern ag get free money to be itself, it isn't charged for negative externalities.
Taxing externalities is the versatile solution that scales best, grants to projects submitted by citizens at a state level, local co-op directing profits to projects, auditing soil-carbon levels and paying out per tonne of carbon sequestered, vote with your wallet. I think people would be more ready to change their lifestyle, evaluate their diet and behave ethically if they weren't strapped for cash - so UBI or negative income tax would top my list.
I don't think the government will ever subsidize permaculture so we should brainstorm with that in mind. If you look at the US mid West from space, you'll realize that this whole region is is essentially one big corn and soybean farm. I think starting a permaculture community is vital. People can share tools which reduces cost immensely. Especially when it comes to earth works. I'd buy land right now and start a permaculture farm if I could also afford earth moving machines. A shovel just doesn't cut it.
Grains are the backbone of any civilization and main source of calories... what do you eat mate as your main source of calories? It can’t be vegetables because they’re very low in calories. It’s got to be either meat or fruits which are both much less output (calories) per unit of energy. It seems to me that he’s in denial about the importance of grains and how permaculture will never compete with large scale grain production. Sorry but someone had to point it out.
Exactly, exactly. I was thinking of grains in permaculture. A German man on DW Planet A's agroforestry episode has a row of wheat between trees which he harvests with a combine harvester. He also has chickens. I love the hybrid of industrial and permanent agriculture.
@PaleGhost69 It makes you wonder if those people are allergic to the nuts or the chemicals sprayed on the nuts during growth and/or distribution. Organic stuff still gets sprayed by distributors.
@@PaleGhost69 I think there's more to exposure during early years. Everyone in my region is allergic to mesquite pollen and bermuda grass. These happen to be the most common growing plants here too.
The current consensus as far as I understand it is that humans were able to develop their shorter digestive tract and therefore larger brains because of the invention of cooking, and especially the cooking of meats.
In nature, grains feed the largest herds of animals. Corn is the highest yeilding calorie crop per square foot. People have been growing grains for around 10,000 years, way before industrial agriculture. I don't understand how Geoff can say that they are inefficient? www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-corn-the-worlds-most-important-food-crop/2015/07/12/78d86530-25a8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html
@@thechief762 I should have said the largest flocks eat the grains and the herds eat the grass: ruclips.net/video/q9IiimlYpQ0/видео.html ruclips.net/video/xbyl3C0SBz0/видео.html -Planet Earth - Grasslands
> Corn is the highest yeilding calorie crop per square foot. This simply cannot be true. Sugar cane and many fruit trees/nut trees produce far higher calories per square foot than corn.
Amazing, eye-opening answer. I am a farmer in from Finland and our climate quite suites grain production along with grazing cattle for proteins. Respiration in the last two seasons has been less than 300mm (may-august). The thing that gets me is that no, it doesn't really make sense to keep grain as the basis of our food system globally. Thanks!
This question was the best one I wanted to know about this for awhile.
It's well worth investigating the reasoning behind our reliance upon grain for our civilization today. It has much more to do with economics than with dietary needs, imo. Grains are readily adapted to very large scale mechanized production, result in products with a long shelf life/storage period that can be transported absurd distances. Those are economic drivers and dependent upon cheap and abundant energy. They aren't motivated by what makes up a healthy human diet. An enormous portion of our grain production doesn't even go to feeding people directly, but to animal feed, producing human food as a secondary byproduct and with another layer of both loss in production and environmental impact from the methods of production (CAFOs).
Well, there would always be the approach of Masanobu Fukuoka ;-)
I think we need to be open to different systems and not only go the direction of 'food forest'. Grasslands are highly efficient when you look at all the herding animals in nature
@Karalevsky Borzoi Don't know if your coment is sarcastic. But yes, probably this would already be a great improvement. However natural farming is going further than that and the philosophy is not really compatible with big ag.
@Karalevsky Borzoi Thank you (already was preparing for a difficult discussion ;-)
I agree, we have to work with the people already doing farming and there already is a lot happening in that direction with regenerative farming.
@@baslerpacman that transitioning of commercial ag. to permaculture-kind of land stewardship (with ecological restoration and bringing more people on tha land) is what i am thinking to do around here, in the Central Valley region (California, USA)
and also Marc Bonfils in france for wheat - he does covler for ground cover woth tall heritage wheat varieties
This is good, real knowledge. Common Gardening's main solution is just throw water at it. In a continental drought, the only real solution is resilience through water efficiency~ Historically ancient books that celebrate bread come from desert civilizations where it was actually an improvement over what they ate before, but so many areas have better sources of food, and going back to bread because it's celebrated in ancient desert books makes no sense in our modern diverse world~
Thanks for this! I grow oats as a medicine; oats in the milky-oat stage makes a great winter tonic as a tincture. When I look at the space and water required verses the amount of grain harvested, I know that it wouldn't be worth growing as a crop for food.
Thanks for the idea! I eat plant-based and used to drink oat milk, I can just blend whole oats with husks on and then strain everything! This sounds like the only good option for grains in a small piece of land.
Wish Geoff had mentioned perennial grains. Perennial grains have the benefit of 'keeping' the ground covered. No plowing means we lose less topsoil. More topsoil means better water retention. The downhill cascade effect of that is less spring flooding and less irrigation. Very win-win.
Can you give an example of where people are growing perennial grains for food, and it works out to be efficient?
One thing i don't see mentioned about perennial grains is the risk of pests and diseases building up (this is more when talk about replacing an annual grain monoculture with a perennial monoculture for the benefits you mentioned)
@@thecurrentmoment
Perennial grains are being developed and still "not quite ready for prime time." At this point these would be more of a side crop at best.
We do have nut trees for now. Some are good for oils, others are high starch.
@@thecurrentmoment
And I'd try to avoid monocultures, period.
Maybe grains interplanted between alley cropped rows along with the short Dutch white clover and a few others it might be feasible...
@@b_uppy sounds good
Are you aware of the bon file method of growing wheat? It's a bit like Fukuoka did with rice where he used clover as a ground cover . I think this would achieve much the same result as perennial grains, to be honest, aside from the root system which could get a lot bigger and last longer with perennial grains
@@thecurrentmoment
Clover certainly helps. Emphasizing nuts and grasses as part of livestock over grain fed/finished and using livestock that fattens readily on a grain free diet, as well as skipping ethanol from corn is where we could get a lot of soil/carbon gains.
My little survivalist hobby garden is focused on answering this very question. The answer is Sunflower tubers (Jerusalem Artichokes) and small heritage pigs that get most of their nutrition from forage (they are penned up, I forage for them, greens, acorns, walnuts etc...) Amaranth, mammoth sunflowers and pinto beans getting an honorable mention. This year I am experimenting with buckwheat and huauzontles. Also, Chenopodium Album produces a lot of nutrition (for both man and pig) with VERY little input, including a lot of high calorie seeds in late fall. I live in central Oklahoma, in the cross timbers, we have long hot summers.
Early medieval Iceland is the perfect example of a dormant-period economy that is perfect for grain. They ate almost nothing but grain and cod, IIRC, it says in Njal's saga. That's why they were always murdering eachother, the nutrients were almost perfect, but in a bad year everyone had to fight about who had to ship out.
Can't believe 3/4 of my diet is energy insuffient. Don't think I will ever get the chance to live like this but I do hope this is the future of humanity.
I admire you so much! Always a intelligent and honest answer! Someday I will take a PDC with you. We need to learn what is better to us and "nature" as a community of multispecies. We need to learn to live as beings tied to the land and not based on what the market imposes. Hugs from Brazil!
I did the online PDC and it was great!
Geoff, will u be posting some update videos,on work required to your farm after the recent 100 year flood event,and lessons learned,from observation.LOVE YOURE WORK
You can store grain long term, it is insanely delicious, its a great source of energy and protein, it tastes good, it's easy to mechanise, it has an amazing cuisine...
He spoke about why grains are not a good permacuture decision but didn't get into the alternatives.
Try root and tuber plants. George Washington Carver suggested sweet potato flour. Other options are: potatoes, maca, yacon, cassava, cattails (typha) both seeds and tuber, water hyacinth tuber, kudzu, lotus, etc. Non tubers would be: chestnuts, acorns, pecans, african palm oil kernel de-fatted of course. There are also moringa, mesquite, and carob pods. Let your mind run riot, as one would see in a pro-Jacob Zuma demonstration in South Africa.
Nice, potatoes grow here. But I would have loved to hear his thoughts of growing grains in a permaculture system. These places with a long dormant period actually exist ja we need to grow food in one short period for the whole year and make it last.
We grow quite a lot of amaranth, but use it for sprouting .. its a flower seed, and not a cereal grain, in any case. I have a section of yard space devoted to growing corn, and that is the only real grain we grow here - it is the area surrounding our septic drain field, and I can't have any deep-rooted perennials there. We eat some of the corn, feed some to the ducks, and sell most of it for seed; it is a very, *very* rare native heirloom, possibly the most genetically diverse example of _zea maize_ remaining. Growing it in a woodland clearing, on the land where it was first grown, and using as much horticulture as I can in the process has been profitable for us, so far. With two plantings per year, it is a little more than a thousand ears, from a 400 square foot patch. The rest is all zone 1 permaculture food forest with the 8 aforementioned ducks on 1/3 acre to help out with the chores.
We sow the corn in blocks, with clover for a ground cover, and early peas. The blocks are made by mining the soil from between the blocks, which is then filled with woodchip to retain moisture, keep adventitious weeds under control, and serve as a walkway. Every couple of years the walkway can be turned over into the planting area, and filled with fresh woodchip, replenishing the OM. Once the corn is about waist high, our small flock of ducks are permitted to patrol the corn patch. At this point, the corn is well enough established that the ducks will not eat it .. but they will graze the clover, nibble on low hanging pea pods and leaves (not the vines), eat competing weeds, slugs, snails, and grasshoppers. Enough peas survive to plant them again next year. The fouled water that they leave every day is used to irrigate the corn blocks (and a few other things .. like the trees that we grow for sale)
Thank you for sharing I’ve been wondering the same about growing grains to use as a good source for us as well as a winter feed for the livestock. I’ve settled with little patches of sunflowers oats and amaranth for now just for the chickens!
In Harmony With Earth agree completely on the hemp seed! I’ve been getting loads of Black Solider fly larvae this year in the compost. I’m going to try a few different ways to see if I can get them into winter to fill in some of that nutrition void.
Acorns! They produce a starchy flour and keep for years.
yes, i considered growing grain in my small garden plot just for the experience, but the yield per area is really disappointing
unless nothing can grow there, like no vegetables nor anything of higher value per weight, yeah, you can grow grains
and barley at least is more interesting, you can eat it, or use it as animal feed and it grows fast compared to wheat
i tried quinoa and corn, quinoa grow not bad qte compared to wheat and barely, corn even more
i'm looking for milet or soghum
The drought hitting Western US has got me thinking about variability in weather over years. I think it's important to have some production of a storable crop so that when rainfall goes from 12 inch per year to 4, you still have food.
I've bought myself some heritage native American corns, will be fun to see how they work
Then again, most fruits from trees can be dried and stored too, as long as you put in the effort and forethought of doing it
Assuming one’s soil is free of a compaction layer, most plants will go deep enough to find stored water in dry seasons. This is one of the huge benefits of permaculture/soil food web approach to growing.
Sunchokes.
Jorge, thanks for the questions, I had the same one in mind! :-)
The highest density of population today and thousands of years ago corresponds to areas of rice production. In ideal conditions you can grow up to three crops of rice per year. Large parts of China you can grow two crops of rice.
In suburban tropics, we mainly grow Cassava and Sweet Potatoes for the calorie rich tubers and the leaves which has decent amount of protein.
Other source of calories we grow are Malanga/Taro, Yam (Dioscorea), Banana/Plantain, Coconut and Breadfruit
We also grow Pigeon Pea and raise poultry for protein.
Our main staple grain, rice, need a lot of water to grow, and you need to dehull it, so it's not quite realistic to grow in suburban area. Maize grain probably more realistic option for grain, since it doesn't need wet/swampy area to grow and easier post harvest process.
Yeah. We've grown small scale dent corn before. Geoff is absolutely correct that processing is a pain. We can raise and slaughter 30 chickens for the amount of work it takes to shell, winnow, nixtamalize, dry and grind two quarts of corn meal. I do think there's a place to develop people powered processing equipment as part of our appropriate technology tool kit.
Gabe brown does a good system that can work for grains.
Yes, but it relies on herbicides to suppress weeds, plus it uses expensive machinery that are reliant on fossil fuel for functioning.
You're right on both accounts. The fuels may change eventually. I'm not sure what they will do on herbicides. To move in a regenerative way it does seem like a reasonable transition. But it should go further
@@shanemillard608 On that kind of scale, I’d rather go for Pasture Cropping from Colin Seis, he is from NSW, I don’t understand why Geoff doesn’t mention him. However I would use a higher impact with the animals, in the style of Allan Savory ranch in Zimbabwe, where they prepare the soil with the night crawl for 1 week before planting corn.
I can imagine using animals to do the work would be a great way. I'll check him out
@@davideforesti7556 Hai ragione in entrambe le tue obiezioni, ma ce ne fossero di agricoltori come Gabe! Nessun prodotto di sintesi per fertilizzare, semina sul sodo, terreni che guadagnano 1% di organico ogni anno, 20 diversi livelli di sfruttamento sullo stesso suolo (crop, chicken, pork, bees, cattle, vegetables, grains, cover crops...). Firmerei subito per 20 anni di agricoltura rigenerativa come la sua, finchè non saremo pronti ad alimentare i macchinari con idrogeno distillato col sole e col vento...
Other than potatoes, what grows in a temperate climate that gives the sort of calories that grains do? I have been thinking about what it would take to be food self-suffcient on my property and besides some potatoes and animal protein, I come back to needing to grow some grains for calories.
Chestnuts, Pecans, Almonds, Hazelnuts - some of the best nut trees are from the temperate climates. Chestnuts in particular have the same nutritional profile as brown rice and on a per-square-meter basis a mature chestnut tree yields more than grains.
You really don't need anything other than fatty meat for calories, but as this other guy said, chestnuts, they also have the added benefit of providing wood
From a nutritional perspective eating a combination of legumes, vegetables and nuts is a little better than eating grains. You could include freshly grown corn as a grain for your own diet. Many legumes like beans keep well and larger beans like Madagascar beans are very easy to harvest. There are legumes that will grow nearly anywhere which is a huge advantage.
Among grains, millets are a better choice compared to rice/wheat. Grow grains that are heirloom open pollinated. Consume grains that are grown around you since they adapt to the surrounding, so can provide appropriate nutrition.
Amaranth, spelt and Teff not in your horizon?
Masanobu Fukuoka (one of the fathers of permaculture ) I though grew rice in Japan
I think this is why we have massive varieties in grains and millets in Maharashtra, India. We get rain for 2-3 months and then nothing for remaining 9 months. What could be the way to organically grow local grain and millet varieties. It really makes up a large chunk of our daily food intake.
Can anyone here tell me about a single combination of crops that would be more efficient than grains nutrition and energy wise that would be doable at the biggest scale (Let's say a country's agriculture industry) while ensuring affordable food for the population all year round ? Because, I don't think there is. Enlighten me please.
Grains. Could there be a more controversial subject,lol. No matter how one feels about them,they are in the class of foods that allows for relative ease of storage and therefore surviving droughts and famines(assuming you store/rotate them regularly)
Wouldn't perennials handle drought/fire/flood/famine/blight better than grains?
Not to mention knock-on effects on soil-carbon, soil-moisture and local precipitation that trees provide.
Humans crop over a trillion tons of grain per annum, as meat consumption reduces, the price of grain will plummet.
If space is limited, grains are the last thing to grow at home - they have a low carbon footprint relative to their calories.
@@dampdoily well, you can store wheat almost forever, so it beats most foods in shelf life. Like Joseph adviced the pharaoh to save grains for those seven hard years. If your apple tree dies, it is dead. No more apples from that tree. And new ones take time to establish. The point in wheat is to store it when you have a good harvest. It may not be the best producing plant when times get tough.
@@hannamaenpaa8929 Grains must remain in their sheath for long term storage..incompatible with industrial ag..
"Joseph my friend, inform us about seven fat cows being devoured by seven skinny cows, and seven green spikes, and others shriveled. I wish to go back with some information for the people."
He said, "What you cultivate during the next seven years, when the time of harvest comes, leave the grains in their SPIKES, except for what you eat.
"After that, seven years of drought will come, which will consume most of what you stored for them."
[GLORIOUS QUR'AN. 12:46-48]
@@dampdoily perennials may produce less during a bad season
Thank you.
what about in a maritime temperate climate like Britain, or a more continental climate like Poland or East Coast USA?
Britain has a semi-dormant time, as do those continental climates.
@@ellenorbjornsdottir1166 well we have a thing called winter wheat and winter barley, it grows through most of the winter
Colin Seis and in his work with pasture cropping IS the permaculture answer to grain production.
Geoff doesn’t like to shine a light on other peoples work. He says you can solve all the worlds problem in a garden..as long as its his garden.
The question is: do you eat wheat bread, or oats and you dont grow it, some else does... it maybe hard but it is possible
Geoff, I just read that the drought grasshoppers are starting to assemble. Would letting the grasshoppers eat all the foliage lessen the risk of megafires, or would it amplify the effect? Anyway is it better to squish the grasshoppers before they assemble or is it better to let them do their thing?
Grasshoppers are edible by humans. If not, feed them to pigs, poultry, frogs, crawdads,and fish.
I would like to grow wheat. Not that we use extreme amounts but in order to avoid the chemical saturated product in the stores. I think there would be great health relevance in doing this. I think it might work better to do it as a cooperative effort with neighbors, though.
I once collated information from various blogs about home-growing wheat. It takes about 1 square meter of wheat to yield two loaves of bread (or 4 pizzas). (It might be just 1 loaf or 2 pizzas, but I'm pretty sure it was 2:4)
@@drekfletch I read several years ago that the typical beat crop gets sprayed with round up the week before harvest in order to kill last minute weeds so the they don't clog the harvesters and they can run faster.. Of course, the product still goes to processing coated in round up. I know it will be a pain, but I do feel strongly that this chemical treatment is the most probable cause of Crohn's disease, gluten intolerance and endocrine failure. Our usage is less than a hundred pounds per year... and that's even with liking home made pizza! I'll need to give your formula a think and see how that works out converting to pounds and space requirements. Thanks for the info.
@@drekfletch from that yield, gvien ~4,000 square meters/acre, then 1 acre would ideally make at least 8,000! loaves! and scything that acre at the harvest time of season would be what? a day's worth of work? especially if done with a few friends/neighbors?
Obviously, one should do what they want... But I would even suggest you stop eating wheat altogether, since it's not really essential for life... I eat bread/wheat maybe once a month in the form of a pastry... I know it's trendy to eat gluten free but there really is no reason to eat wheat or other grains if you can afford better quality food like fish, meat, dairy, fresh veggies, high quality oils and fruits... If you really love wheat, just eat organic wheat products, right?
Thanks for this answer. So, what do you base your diet on?
i want to base it on a whole foods, plant based, really local diet, with more potato and corn rather than grain
@@kikikut22 "corn rather than grain" ?????
In the subtropics, it tends to be starchy roots and tubers, ie cassava, sweet potato, and true yams. In south asia, in mountainous climates, rice is also heavily produced, and Bill Mollison partly based his understanding of water management off of historical rice farms. Weird that Geoff didn't mention that.
@@LifesASong00 Thanks for your answer. What do you think about mediterranean climate? For this places i think the only solution is wheat or some cereals like this.
@@pablozelandonii349 that has a hot dormant time
The fact is grain is the backbone of human diet and agriculture. Producing fruits and vegetables although healthy and nutritious can not feed the world unless we turn a large portion of the population into farmers which isnt practical. Furthermore, as you mentioned there are areas which has a cold period of time or dry areas. They cannot rely on ongoing food harvest and grains are essential for them. But something you didnt mentioned is that these areas cover the majority of the planet including, cold, temperate, and even large portions of tropical and subtropical areas of the world.
And as you experienced it this current permaculture with all its strengths and benefits is unable to produce enough grains to feed people who arent (sometimes even people who are) living on the farm.
The better answer is permaculture isnt the single silver bullet for all the food issues in the world. The honest reality is if all the farmers only turn to permaculture a large portion of the world population would go hungry. Not because permaculture isnt efficient but because not only it cannot address the grain production for global food consumption but is also extremely labour intensive and we wouldn't be able to have enough farmers in this modern lifestyle to feed the population.
A fun fact is that wheat is "the largest single protein source" for humans worldwide.
He served up quite a word salad there.
@@stumpyplank6092
1. You cant convince people to do farming just because "you think" there is not enough other jobs around. During pandemic people didnt have jobs but we couldnt get enough fruit pickers. People might be interested in gardening at home or a few days of adventure in the farm but full time farming in such permiculture set up is not a reality for the vast majority of the people.
2. While essential, production and eating best type of quality food isnt the main priority of the people. Food is cheap and available and people rather not to bother with spending too much time to grow it. People just want more money for better house and car and computers and food goes to lower priority, thats why they wouldnt spend all their day time growing healthy food.
3. As George said day even couldnt grow enough grain for their own use. So this system would never be able to produce it for the world population even if there would be more farmers (right now each farmer produces food for 400 people in Australia and our farmer average age is over 55).
4. "Farming could help re-invigorate the nation, preserve the land, become an exercise regime of sorts and it could even be worked into a normal day alongside more efficient office-work practices." Yeah in ideal world but the vast majority of the people wouldnt do that even if they would agree with it. Not practical and wont happen.
5."Oh, and perhaps build much smaller houses on the cusp of the farmlands thus helping solve the housing crisis..." again nice ideas that wouldnt work at all for the vast vast majority of the people.
@@stumpyplank6092 Nope! I am in Australia and we have same problem. I know in the US they have same problem too. So your funny reasons are Thatcher, trains and Eastern Europeans... arent the real reason. The people of the modern world mostly live in the cities and city people prefer the comfort of modern life.
People dont work in the farms because its not interesting for the vast majority of the population. They prefer city life. Food isnt the main concern of the people, mostly are happy with the garbage they eat. You can tell your stories for years but the fact isnt the la la land that you are dreaming.
You better wake up and see the reality. Things arent the way you think and they wont be like what you would like it to be.
@@stumpyplank6092 I dont really have time for the irrelevant things "you feel". As a scientist, I deel with the facts and the facts tells me permaculture does not address the grain issue and also as a matter of fact there is not enough farmers now and there will be even far less if the expectation would be that people should start all feeding from products made in permaculture. It is just the fact that the vast majority of the people prefer modern lifestyle and comfort of technology. Nothing to do with "migration" not to "neoliberalism" nonsense and no other racist jokes. Sorry mate I have better things to do than arguing over obvious facts.
@@stumpyplank6092 Get a life delusional kid. I have no time for your irrelevant nonsense.
Okay, but i live in a cold climate, what do i do?
Good explanation, cheers Geoff
If you are somewhere without a dead season, are there times and places when grain could be efficient?
what about pasture crop grain? Where you pop the grain into pasture?
Thank you
How to manage insect/rodent in a farm? Is there any specific plant can be use as repellent for fruit flies? Does it need to be plant in a specific ways?
Most people would rather have a sandwich than be a subsistence serf. Also, grains are great for long term storage in case of drought or purposeful destruction of agriculture.
I think that both grains and tubers and roots have their advantages and should be eaten regardless of the climate for diversity and guarantee in case of loss of harvest, the difference is in the proportion that you plant each one, like in tropical climates like mine. I would plant grains in a small amount, just enough to provide an insurance in case the harvest fails and what is close to expiry you eat while storing the newly harvested, if you live in cold climates you simply cultivate in a minority way, although I think which can also be stored for a long time, it's just not as stable as grains, so in that case the proportion would be a little higher.
What replacements are there for bread and cakes, pasta and rice? We eat a lot of potatoes and potato bread but I still buy in flour for bread, cakes, pasta etc.
Ive seen many alternatives for these grain items on many keto recipe websites and apps. I know that riced cauliflower is used as a rice replacement. Coconut and almond flour for breads and cakes. Search for keto recipes and you’ll be busy for weeks.
@@Skashoon rice from cauliflower is great but low in calories.
@@Skashoon lovely ideas...but I can't grow those things here in Northern Ireland. Even cauliflower is tricky I find. We have hazelnuts but rarely get a harvest.
I can not eat any grains they cause my autoimmune disease to flair up. I get all of the carbohydrate that I need from non-starchy veg. Most of which I grow in my garden. I can or freeze all surplus in the summer to see us through the winter months when the ground is frozen.
Peas can be ground in to a flour after drying. Only has about a quarter of the calories but twice as much protein per gram.
What do you suggest growing for chickens in warmer areas? People who want to become self sufficient on food are led to buy chickens, because they produce so many eggs. They feed these chickens wheat products.
This is something I keep trying to tell people. People have it in their head that there's not enough land for the billions of people on the planet to be fed. That's true, if we only factor in conventional farming. There is tons of underutilized land that can be used to grow crops other than grain and legumes, and much of the land being used for grain crops could actually be more productive per acre with permaculture, and grain is only being grown there because it has the lowest labor inputs per yield due to automated machinery, not the most calories per acre or most protein per acre.
It didn’t really answer the question. So if you don’t use grain, how do you feed livestock? Are you importing it?
White goosefoot and Jerusalem artichokes grow like weeds and will keep a few small pigs alive, lean, but alive. Giving me meat and compost with little to no input from the outside.
There's definitely healthier foods to grow and eat. Most of the people eating a lot of grains are fighting or ignoring health problems. Nuts are healthier, easier to grow, and can be used to make flour for breads and whatnot. Most of my grain use is for feeding my chickens.
Do u have any simple recipes you can share using nut flours? I don't have nut treets yet but would like to experiment and see how it works :)
And those who think they can replace grains with nuts to feed the world with "nut flour" are delusional.
@@drpk6514 How's that? People don't even need breads, they just want them. There's a difference.
@@ronniemcmaster8657 "People don't even need breads"!!!! WHAT?!
Can you understand grains are the main source of calory and even "the biggest source of protein for mankind" and you say people dont need that?!
I was very much right about my first comment.
@@drpk6514 No, you weren't. Most people eat way more calories than they need. It is why obesity and diabetes are so common. It is also why people live so much healthier when on a keto diet.
Absolutely correct!!!!
I cant wait until kernza gets better
What if you want to brew beer?
Grain is not a high quality food. It’s storability is its most valuable asset.
It depends. Grains have been a staple for humans for millennia. It can be grown nutritiously or not, and prepared well or not. Any food can be crappy, if it's grown with crappy methods, in crappy soils.
@@myronplatte8354 pretty clear that meat is king…to those of us who switch to eating plenty of it. I was fully carnivore for six months. Thats what i would call a staple..try it with grains
@@wes4192 Make you wonder why people are NEVER traditionally carnivores?
@@myronplatte8354actually you are only slightly correct. The Inuit for example were nearly carnivore and so were a few others. Most indigenous peoples ate very high meat diets. None were vegetarian or vegan and none ate as much plant food as we do today.
@@wes4192 The idea that the Inuit were nearly carnivore is a myth that was spread by non-Inuit observers. They actually had a quite varied diet. There are many plant-food heavy cultures. All of asia (billions of people) traditionally eats rice almost every meal. It's just not true that "none ate as much plant food as we do today". Many did.
Amaranth can be grown at the micro stage by the thousands.feed a whole city....
What do you think the Aztec warriors were fed before stirred into a frenzy for battle?
@@inharmonywithearth9982You are wrong so would have missed the double Jeopardy question. The answer is amaranth drenched in blood from a sacrificed human. Think on that when you are chomping on your next juicy hamburger.
ThankQ
Why are people conditioned to be so afraid of a seed head? What’s with all the grain fearmongering?
So all the southern and eastern asians got it wrong !?
not more than the rest of the world? if rice is the main staple in South and East Asia the same holds true for wheat in the west and maize in much of Africa and latin America
Yes - that's why they are destroying their soils at an alarming rate.
Anyway, industrial agriculture produces huge amounts of cheap grain, so much they feed it to cows instead of grass.
Yes, but most of it is GMOs and heavily sprayed with all sorts of toxins, which is why the question was asked
Hi Geoff how can I grow grain in an olive grove. I’m in the Mediterranean.
Sounds like a waste of water unless you really need those grains, assuming your land isn't overly abundant with water
@@Tsuchimursu in the mediterranean we do not irrigate grains. We sow them in november and harvest end of may... we use winter and spring precipitations.
@@Picci25021973 I didn't know that, intriguing!
@@Tsuchimursu yes, it is. Yield is not exciting, but fair.
Forgive me, but I don't think this really answers the question? How would we replace the carbohydrate and to some extent protein from grains that currently feeds billions of people? Tree nuts like acorns, hazel and chestnut can work in temperate areas but you would still require a lot of processing (not necessarily bad) to render them edible. Potatoes are still annuals and would also require processing to store them (the inca made flour). Tropical areas would be fine with breadfruit, banana and plantain as well as yam and cassava but I'm not really seeing the solution for temperate climes.
Thank you!
He just served up a word salad & hoped you wouldn't notice.
Temperate climates have a cold season in which little or nothing grows, so cereals would be appropriate there according to what he says in the video.
@@nicolagiuliani3212 Sure but he makes it sound like this is some kind of rare case when literally billions of people live in temperate climes.
I live in a temperate climate, but there are some things that grow here during the winter, such as fava beans, peas, and brassicas. So if I save some starchy root vegetables I grow during the summer, as well as winter squashes, and add favas or peas, I should be fine. This is all theory, haven't planted the whole area yet to see if I can grow all of my food for the whole year, but I think it's possible.
I also save edible seeds for the winter, such as cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkin, chia, and poppy seeds.
So the future is less grain based foods, more fruit and vegetables and with regenerative and holistic farming more meat. I can live with that.
Are potatoes better than grain?
I think that both grains and tubers and roots have their advantages and should be eaten regardless of the climate for diversity and guarantee in case of loss of harvest, the difference is in the proportion you plant each one, like in tropical climates like mine. I would plant grains in a small amount, just enough to provide an insurance in case the harvest fails and what is close to expiry you eat while storing the newly harvested, if you live in cold climates you simply grow potatoes and tubers in a minority, although I think it can also be stored for a long time, it's just not as stable as the grains, so in that case the proportion would be a little higher.
I'm confused, didn't you just avoid the question ? Large part of world population lives in cold climate and even desert/dry climate, so whats the solution for them?
Grow grain
Chestnuts, acorns hazel, walnuts, stone pine nuts, hickory beechnut trees. Plant in Silva-pastoral systems as Mark Sheppard has shown at New Forest Farm in Viola Wisconsin. Get his book "Restoration Agriculture" for more info about the system.
so what are the alternatives to grain?
Tubers and roots like potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, yams and breadfruit if you live in tropical climates like I am from Brazil
In temperate regions: Chestnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, sweet corn, pumpkin, potatoes, cabbage etc and of course lots of meat/eggs/diary and lots of fruit. We are not medieval peasants anymore - we don't need huge amounts of empty calories to sustain us. Meat and vegetables and fruit are an excellent balanced meal for 90% of people nowadays...
@@cyrusp100 However, basing food heavily on meat ends up needing much more land for subsistence.
@@meso2564 I do not think this is correct - chickens (meat and eggs) and fresh water aquaculture fish are extremely efficient at a smaller scale i.e. in a small backyard or pond. The chickens and fish can eat mostly the leftover vegetable and fruit scraps from the family as well as insects from the garden.
@@cyrusp100 the point is that you need less land if you only feed on plants, anything beyond that will always be too much land, in relation to efficiency it's because they need to consume plants too so they can be eaten!
In short, they are efficient, but unless in specific situations where it is not possible to plant, they will not be more efficient, but obviously that doesn't stop you from eating or producing if you want, we don't need to be 100% efficient in everything!
Ps: You can even produce tilapia without food, with algae photosynthesis!
The problem I have with the typical modern person's idea of this question, is they're basing it on a lot of ( understandable) ignorance, such as not knowing that cattle don't need to be fed all these tons & tons & tons of grain they're fed nowadays, and pigs, chickens etc. need much less than they are. That pasturing them instead, wouldn't use up the same amount of land probably ( an educated guess ), for a couple reasons, incl. multi-species grazing, less waste and more thrifty animals and the vastly higher grass production which holistically planned grazing brings making the existing pastures, besides any addtl. ones, be way more productive. Add in less of it being paved over for ever more things we wouldn't need then, if we eat and live this way and more locally. Lastly, the assumption that it's part of a normal diet to eat a bunch of refined grains for breakfast and snack on corn chips endlessly. If we were satiated with a nice, juicy 100 % grass-fed burger ( got some from Vance Creek Angus of Somerset, WI recently and it's the best grassfed beef I've ever had, it's AWESOME !!! - I usually live on our wild venison, which is good too) and lots of tasty, fresh veggies, we wouldn't have the munchies.
Well... in my vegetable garden I never planted grains. It is a plain and simple inefficient way to use good growing area. Grains fit perfectly with agro-industry, that is what we should eliminate if we want to heal the planet.
Please count how many calories you got daily, on average from your garden and how many square feet of garden space you have.
For every square meter of garden space I harvest three different items in a year and I always have something ready, fresh and tasty. Grain is viable in extensive lots of many hectares. I made the count thousands of times, as I was born and still living in a farm.
@@Picci25021973 yes but how many CALORIES does each square meter yield? Unless you are growing potatoes, yam, breadfruit, bananas or the like, probably doesn't yield enough calories to live from just the garden. Grains are only worthwhile on a large scale, I agree. But somewhere there is a grain/starch/livestock farm that is actually keeping you alive.
@@clobberelladoesntreadcomme9920 I grow potatoes, beets, pumpkins, topinambur, legumes, nuts... with interplanting and culture rotation I can assure you I achieve a lot of calories. Calories do not exactly match with carbohydrates. Then, vegetable scraps feed chickens... meat and eggs come from the garden as well. The key is to stack different activities on the same land, and with present time grain culture it is nearly impossible. I also eat grain products, of course... but we have to change our way of eating as well, we'll be soon 9 billions.
@@clobberelladoesntreadcomme9920 Not a good idea to base decisions on calories. You can easily get 3000 calories from a meal in Macdonalds, that does not make it healthy or reasonable to eat there. How about instead of calories we focus on nutritional density, phytochemicals, fiber, and so on? As long as you eat enough calories to support your lifestyle (for some that might be 1600, for others 5000) there's no problem.
Idk, that's just my perspective because I don't rely on my garden for calorie content, I rely on it to supplement food for my microbiome, for my wellness. The bulky stuff like dairy, eggs, meat, oils, and so on that supply the majority of my calories, are bought from external source. I suppose it depends how self sufficient you want to be. I can also get dairy from my neighbours.
🔥🔥🔥
I am straight, but I love you Geoff.
I’m not sure the is a sufficient answer for countries like Asia where rice is the most reliable source of food.
PONGAN subtítulos en español
Buena idea pero he visto la calidad de traducción. Pon atención las dos palabras más usadas en permacultura son swale y mulch. Estas palabras del inglés no tiene equivalentes en el español. Necesitas escuchar los videos del mexicano Eugenio Gras, el colombiano Jairo Restrepo, y el argentino Tierra Martínez. Ambos Tierra y Eugenio son calmados pero Jairo es reactivo como la pólvora.
What's the alternative not covered well, Jeff? Grains in agroforestry systems seems to me to be a brainer.
This idea that grains are pore food choice is crazy; they were not just used to feed armies; we have been harvesting grains as staples even before large cities-the way they grown and used now sure wrong. But whole grains are a healthy source of calories; the longest-lived population in the world live on them (blue zones).
More examples, please?
Grains are slave food, soldier food. The king was eating beef, chicken, wild boar, fish.
Yeah, we could live fine without grains. One can get all the calories he/she needs from eating a large salad and a half dozen eggs, daily.
The historical record clearly shows that the agricultural revolution ushered in shorter statures, worsened teeth, worse health, poorer quality of life (except for those who rose to power directly in consort with grain production/taxation), and "civilization" (with all of its inequality and whatnot). These are just facts though.
@@cletushatfield8817 inequity is natural. Any lack of inequity in more primative systems is likely due to cave men killing anyone better than them. Ressentiment is sadly one of the most human emotions. I'd say it's felt more than love in some time periods(like our own).
I do think everything else you said is spot on.
@@wes4192 the king was also very much eating bread and drinking beer. Bread was a staple for everyone.
Hey Permaculture peeps - what are some ways we can incentivize permaculure financially?
Economies of scale through growers unions a la Sunkist
If you're comparing it to modern ag, the big answer is to stop massively subsidizing harmful practies. Not only does modern ag get free money to be itself, it isn't charged for negative externalities.
Taxing externalities is the versatile solution that scales best, grants to projects submitted by citizens at a state level, local co-op directing profits to projects, auditing soil-carbon levels and paying out per tonne of carbon sequestered, vote with your wallet.
I think people would be more ready to change their lifestyle, evaluate their diet and behave ethically if they weren't strapped for cash - so UBI or negative income tax would top my list.
I don't think the government will ever subsidize permaculture so we should brainstorm with that in mind. If you look at the US mid West from space, you'll realize that this whole region is is essentially one big corn and soybean farm.
I think starting a permaculture community is vital. People can share tools which reduces cost immensely. Especially when it comes to earth works. I'd buy land right now and start a permaculture farm if I could also afford earth moving machines. A shovel just doesn't cut it.
@@dampdoily excellent!.. some of it (like finances) over my head though (like the UBI / - income tax)
Grains are the backbone of any civilization and main source of calories... what do you eat mate as your main source of calories? It can’t be vegetables because they’re very low in calories. It’s got to be either meat or fruits which are both much less output (calories) per unit of energy.
It seems to me that he’s in denial about the importance of grains and how permaculture will never compete with large scale grain production. Sorry but someone had to point it out.
Exactly, exactly. I was thinking of grains in permaculture.
A German man on DW Planet A's agroforestry episode has a row of wheat between trees which he harvests with a combine harvester. He also has chickens. I love the hybrid of industrial and permanent agriculture.
Shame so many people have nut allergies because nut flour would be a pretty decent halfway point.
Mesquite flour (legume) may be a good alternative. Especially, for hot, dry climates.
@@pthomasgarcia or pea flour too, good for pancakes.
@PaleGhost69 It makes you wonder if those people are allergic to the nuts or the chemicals sprayed on the nuts during growth and/or distribution. Organic stuff still gets sprayed by distributors.
@@ronniemcmaster8657 I have the suspicion it's lack of exposure during formative years
@@PaleGhost69 I think there's more to exposure during early years. Everyone in my region is allergic to mesquite pollen and bermuda grass. These happen to be the most common growing plants here too.
Outstanding lecture.
I am Raw Vegan
Raw Vegan is best.
Meat and grain are the worst food
Im a carnivore, wanna fight?
The current consensus as far as I understand it is that humans were able to develop their shorter digestive tract and therefore larger brains because of the invention of cooking, and especially the cooking of meats.
grow grains... make beer hehe
get rekt Jorge XD
In nature, grains feed the largest herds of animals. Corn is the highest yeilding calorie crop per square foot. People have been growing grains for around 10,000 years, way before industrial agriculture. I don't understand how Geoff can say that they are inefficient? www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-corn-the-worlds-most-important-food-crop/2015/07/12/78d86530-25a8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html
But it isn't really the grains that is being used by grazing herds it is the foliage/leafage.
@@thechief762 I should have said the largest flocks eat the grains and the herds eat the grass: ruclips.net/video/q9IiimlYpQ0/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/xbyl3C0SBz0/видео.html
-Planet Earth - Grasslands
> Corn is the highest yeilding calorie crop per square foot.
This simply cannot be true. Sugar cane and many fruit trees/nut trees produce far higher calories per square foot than corn.