Syntropic Agriculture

What is Syntropic Agriculture?

Syntropic Agriculture appears to be Silviculture based using the Permaculture principle of succession. It espouses a mix of timber and food crops creating its own form of food forest.

Syntropic Farming was created by the Swiss geneticist and farmer Ernst Götsch, to help farmers learn how to read the natural strategies of regeneration and translate then into farming interventions. It is a practice that respects and mimics nature. For Syntropic Agriculture practitioners it is quite clear which natural aspect is to be respected – life‘s tendency to accumulate and organize energy, which is expressed in the form of greater diversity and complexity, just like a natural forest does.

Syntropics will rapidly regenerate soil and increase diversity. A food forest is syntropic.

One would clear the ground and augment the soil with compost and BioChar. Then start with a variety of ground crops like potatoes and continue to quickly plant fruit trees and lumber trees to serve as the high canopy.

Once underway, the aim is to use aggressive chop n drop techniques to provide a substantial surface mulch to increase fertility and preserve soil water.

Syntropic systems are designed with the succession of the environment in mind. All land will move toward producing a forest as the end result of its evolution  – we manage this to combine our designed end state and that of nature.

The trick here is to manage the progress of succession to produce a viable result.

Succession will evolve the soil as well as the plants. A better soil will produce a higher yield and managing the species will provide the desired yield.