The Agricultural Schism: Industrial landscapes and permaculture landscapes

For quite some time now I've been mustering up a post about P.A. Yeomans, a proto-permaculturalist, who lived and worked in 1970s Australia. Hopefully this is one of many to come. His approaches to agricultural land management would be later appropriated by contemporary permaculture founders Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the late 70s, early 80s.

It is interesting that around this time there was a schism in the agricultural movement. On one side there was Norman Borlaug, the father of industrial agriculture, who's work on increased crop yields, would eventually develop the massive global agricultural industry so maligned by people such as Vandana Shiva.

Concurrently to these industrial developments in agriculture, Yeoman's permacultural techniques were being applied globally and were having a lasting counter influence to Borlaug's 'Green Revolution'.

The immediate influence of these two opposing 'Green Revolutions' is the visual impact on the landscape. The rationalisation, homogenisation and pollution of the industrial farming landscapes stand in stark contrast to the organic, shifting and adaptively formed landscapes of permaculture farming. Below is work by Miska Henner of feed lots in Tascosa, Texas in comparison to work by Ian Milliss and Lucas Ihlein documenting Yeoman's farm in New South Wales, Australia. Both farming techniques produce beef but obviously with completely different resultant landscapes.