Permaculture has vast advantages over so-called conventional agriculture. Energy savings is the primary one, more efficient use of sunlight and other environmental factors, is another. Energy wise, too, is the fact that although permaculture tends to be labor intensive at first it quickly becomes less and less so. In conventional agriculture the same crop has to be planted each year because a lot of crops come from annual plants. In permaculture the crops come from perennials that are planted once and produce crops for years and years.

Surya (top photo) in his garden showing some of the newer plants he has added and (bottom) Anil, standing in the permaculture "plot" that resembles the nearby jungle in many ways.

In Surya’s case, if you look at the photos, the plot looks wild, like the nearby jungle, and they're similar. The permaculture plot is multi-storied, like a forest, and each "story", or level, in the permaculture site is in succession meaning the trees are growing at their own pace and according to thw way the trees are "designed" genetically. Each story is made up of diverse plants, shrubs and trees all of which produce crops for human and animal consumption. Surya desinged his permaculture to function as a small and complex forest ecosystem. He designed it to "work" for him and he also has to work, as well. His is a very productive production system measured across each story as well as vertically. At the time of this writing Surya is busy teaching others about permaculture and he's still learning new ways to do thing and how to adapt permaculture to Nepal in different ways, in different areas, and for different needs.

For any reader interested in Permaculture there's an enormous amount of information on the web that can be found by searching with Google or other search engines. There's lots of references for Bill Mollison that are informative along with access to his books. Two personal friends of mine, Eric Toensmeier and Dave Jacke, are building a foundation for permaculture suitable for temperate climates and have written a number of books which are also available on the web.