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I've been studying permaculture/regenerative agriculture for a couple years. I think part of the problem is that you will find a broad spectrum of practitioners. From hobbyists, that just apply a practice because somebody else had success with it. To professionals, like Joel Salatin and Richard Perkins, that record everything, perform experiments, and improve process. The professionals are less Mollison style permaculture design and more regenerative agriculture. The basic idea is the same. Work with nature instead of against.

Permaculture as a hobby is just another school of gardening with an eye to efficiency and permanence. You will find as many opinions of the "best" way as there are people. It doesn't help that some practices are very specific to local climate.

Papers on soil microbiome and rhizosphere interactions are the basis of regenerative agriculture practices. If you want to understand how these practices can feed the world I would start there.

PS Now that I have written this, I realize it doesn't really address your criticism. Look towards regenerative agriculture to feed the world over permaculture. While permaculture can be applied at large scale it is more of a homestead practice of planning your land use for efficiency of your own food production.

Agroecology and agroforestry are terms for building ecosystems that provide agricultural output. Something like a nut tree forest with berry understory and mushroom production on rotting logs with farm animals roaming about. An agricultural plot planned to perform as an ecosystem with as many niches producing output as possible.



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