What is Permaculture?  Originally, the word “Permaculture” was the combination of the two words “ perma nent” and “agri culture” .  Two Australian men named Bill Mollison and David Holmgren coined the term in the 1970’s.  It is an agricultural philosophy that allows us to use the resources that we have around us to their fullest potential.  By observing and learning from our environment, such as how does nature replenish its soil, how does nature protect and conserve its water resources, how has nature adapted to the specific climate of an area, etc…we can learn how to imitate these natural processes in our daily living.  The more closely that we can work with nature, the more likely we are to establish a balance which will provide us with the things that we need without hurting the environment. One of the founding fathers of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, has defined Permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive...

Why Farming System is important  to Sri Lanka? F arming system is an integrated set of activities that farmers execute in their farms under their resources and circumstances to maximize the productivity and net farm income on a sustainable basis. Same time farming systems research is considered a powerful tool for natural and human resource management in developing countries such as Sri Lanka. This is a multi-disciplinary whole-farm approach and very effective in solving the problems of small and marginal farmers. The approach aims at increasing income and employment from small-holdings by integrating various farm enterprises and recycling crop residues and by-products within the farm itself. The need for Farming Systems Approach in the present scenario is mainly due to high cost of farm inputs, fluctuation in the market price of farm produce, risk in crop harvest due to climatic vagaries and biotic factors. Environmental degradation, depletion in soil fertility And ...

The Farm System Any farm is a “system”. This means that it has inputs, processes and outputs, and the aim of this website is to give you an insight into all of these by looking at my farm. The basic output of our farm is a range of crops, so we have an “arable” farm. The alternative farm system to an arable system is a pastoral system – where animals are looked after for animal outputs. On the land that we own and farm, we grow Barley, Wheat and Oilseed rape. On the farms where we work as contractors we also farm these crops on top of spring beans and oats. Here is a photo of wheat – a crop  grow on temperate farms Definition; “Arable” – A farm system that produces a plant derived output. Definition; “Pastoral” – A farm system that produces an animal derived output. Some farms are “mixed” farms, in that they have both plant and animal outputs, but they are less commercial (see later posts) as they do not benefit from the economies of scale (see later posts). Many...

Farming System (FS) Principles and Practices   The Agricultural systems have encountered various kinds of ecological and environmental problems due to the growing pressure of human population on the carrying capacity of land and the productivity. There is no scope for horizontal expansion of land for food, feed and fibre production. Only vertical expansion is possible by integrating appropriate farming component, requiring less space and time while ensuring periodic income to the farmers. The ultimate goal of sustainable agriculture is to conserve the natural resource base, protect the environment, and enhance the health and safety of human population over a longer period, which can be achieved by proper understanding the science behind farming system – principles and practices . This blog on Farming system brings the comprehensive information about the definition and classification of cropping system, plant interactions in cropping system, agronomic requireme...