Farms’ effect on land decried

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 2

Farms’ effect on land decried

Modern agriculture is the greatest single destructive influence in the world today, according to an Australian permaculturist, Mr Bill Mollison. Mr Mollison told scientists and researchers at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lincoln yesterday that the effect of modern agriculture on the landscape was appalling. “Why pay people to destroy the landscape,” he said. Farming had eclipsed industry as the most destructive influence on civilisation. Mr Mollison, from the Permaculture Institute in Tasmania, is visiting New Zealand to lecture on permaculture and to attend the New Zealand Tree Crops Association’s conference. Permaculture involves the production and conservation of inputs such as energy within a system, and the proper use of end products which could otherwise form pollution. Mr Mollison is a former scientist with the C.SJ.R.O., Australia’s equivalent of the D.S.I.R. Modern farming wasted a tremendous amount of energy, said Mr Mollison. The financial resources injected into farming, such as subsidies, should be used to convert farms into energy producers. One suggestion was to plant palm trees on farms to produce fuel. Farming had resulted in huge mountains of frozen lamb and butter, yet half the world was starving, he said. All the technological knowledge needed to change the present systems was available now. Permaculture had taken on in Europe because of the pollution problems, said Mr Mollison. West Germany was at the forefront because it was undergoing the trauma of losing the Black Forest from the effects of acid rain. Mr Mollison said that Western countries exported pollution by teaching Third World countries modern farming methods, including the use of trickle irrigation and tractors. Yet these Western experts could not even look after their own back yards. Scientists had a social responsibility, but by concentrating their research in one direction they had ignored what was happening around them. However, some scientists were starting to take responsibility for their actions, he said. Others were mucking around with ideas such as nitrogen fixing when there was already a dangerous level of nitrate in foods. An example of permaculture was the raising of chickens next to a glasshouse. The heat generated by the chickens could heat the glasshouse, preventing the need to buy expensive fuel, he said. Domestic houses could be self-suffient for heating and could even become energy producers.