7. The scientific interest of permaculture

The aim of this introduction to permaculture was simply to present, briefly but not too briefly, permaculture, its foundations and principles. The main difficulty was to do so objectively and clearly, without hiding the controversies and criticisms it arouses.

At this point, it's worth asking how permaculture can and should be of interest to scientific research today. The first reason is pragmatic: it would be unreasonable to pretend that this movement doesn't exist. It may be seen as a temporary media bubble. But there's no denying that the current success of permaculture resonates with the concerns of many farmers and citizens about the eminently important question of how we should think about agriculture and food and, even more generally, how we should live and be in society in a world threatened by climate change, the erosion of biodiversity, and the rarefaction...