Darren J. Doherty presents an overview of the design considerations and implements of his Broadacre Permaculture practice.
He explains how the intelligent design and management of agricultural landscape, through its ability to rapidly regenerate the topsoil that most effectively sequesters atmospheric carbon, is a prime strategy in repairing humanity's relation to the biosphere.
Keyline Design is a complete design system for landscapes. It is applicable to both rural and urban areas. It is a unique combination of water conservation and soil building, with great appeal to both farmers and ranchers, as it has the ability to build and regenerate degraded soils rapidly, and sees the use of grazing animals as beneficial to this process.
Keyline systems were developed in Australia during the 1950’s by P.A Yeomans (www.yeomansplow.com.au & www.keyline.com.au) as a response to increasing desertification, erosion, fire & climate variability he observed on the Australian landscape as it related to agriculture.
Yeomans book Water For Every Farm, The Keyline Plan is an seminal work describing a set of principles and techniques based on a holistic approach that works with natural patterns to restore and increase the depth and fertility of the soil, while increasing its water holding capabilities.
Yeomans realized that conventional agriculture totally ignored the biological aspects of the soil. He created a “sustainable agriculture” system before the term was coined, and for the first time in human history, methods were developed that could produce rich fertile soils in relatively short periods.
A permanent & lasting agriculture, Yeomans believed, must materially and financially benefit the farmer, and benefit the land and soil.
Keyline Design integrates earth dams & ponds, contour strip forests, and a special cultivation technique using the Keyline plow, to infiltrate water into the soil efficiently and hold it on the land as long as possible.
Water harvesting strategies employed by Keyline Design provide drought-proofing for farms with very low maintenance using gravity fed irrigation systems, with a huge reduction in water lost to evaporation. In contrast, up to 80% of water is lost to evaporation using conventional overhead sprinklers.
Farms using Keyline Design have amazing records of deepening the topsoil by 3-6” in 3 years, in contrast to nature’s process, which can take hundreds or thousands of years.
The term Keyline comes from the reference to a “keypoint” on the watershed, which is the interface between collection and distribution of water on the landscape, where ridge meets the valley.
Keyline is a philosophy and technique that doesn’t pit the needs of farmers against environmentalists trying to protect wildlife and fish habitat, and with carbon sequestering techniques used, helps to address aspects of global warming and climate change.
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