Open vs. Closed System Models. The measure of a living system’s vitality is in the degree to which that system exchanges energy, matter and information with its environment. The vitality of a human being, for example, might be measured by assessing the degree to which that human being exchanges oxygen, carbon and information with the world. In the early years of life a human being is a very open system that exchanges much with the world. As a person ages, transactions slow down. When exchanges stop, a human being becomes, by definition, a closed system and is considered dead.

Whole systems agriculture is modeled on vital, open, living systems. These systems are high in input, high in internal activity and high in output. Most of the schools of sustainable agriculture, including the biointensive school, also claim to model themselves on living systems but at the same time they hold up the ideal of reducing inputs. I would submit that they are doing little more than trying to invent perpetual motion machines because high outputs require high inputs. This is inherent in the Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy. The input-output equation must balance. There’s no free lunch. In the whole systems method, lunch starts with mulch gathered from wherever one might find it. Many will not need to go beyond walking distance of their gardens to get it.

To be sure, fossil fuel inputs need to be reduced and in time eliminated. But if yields are to be maintained, what will replace them? Mulch replaces tillage, fertilizer and chemicals. It smothers weeds and greatly reduces the amount of water needed to grow crops. To some extent it even replaces information because the whole systems farm, fed with mulch, “knows” just what to do. It makes food out of grass and sticks and leaves—theoretically anyway—on pretty much a pound for pound basis. The same elements that go into the garden in mulch can be removed in food in accordance with equations familiar to high school chemistry students.

A major thrust of the biointensive school is to strive for a closed system with respect to the elements of life just as most of the other schools of sustainable agriculture do. Closed systems are, by definition, dead systems. The Whole Systems school strives to emulate vital, robust living systems. To do this the garden organism needs abundant food and in this respect is no different from human beings or any other sorts of living beings.

Intensive Beds. Both practices make use intensive beds but whole systems beds are longer, wider, with sloping shoulders, and raised with soil thrown up from neighboring alleys. Growing on intensive beds has a long history and is not unique to either whole systems or biointensive methodology.

Tillage. Whole systems embraces non-tillage which is in sharp contrast to periodic double-digging (initially to a depth of 3 feet) and sifting of surface soil outlined for biointensive practice. Tillage of all kinds destroys soil organic matter by admitting air which literally burns up soil organic matter. Organic matter has been shown to increase when no-tillage practices are adopted even without off-site additions of organic material. Tillage may give good immediate results because burned up organic matter releases plant nutrients but in the long run it pauperizes the land. Additionally, tillage destroys soil structure (the way soil particles and organic matter aggregate together) and destroys the earthworm passages that allow air and water to move easily through the soil.

Organic and Chemical Practices. Biointensive practice is strictly organic. In whole systems practice it is at the option of the practitioner. She can, for example, use some manufactured fertilizer in the early years and transition to organic when the land is better and her skills are sharper. Glyphosate, generic RoundUp, can be used in a similar way. Much depends on land quality at the start, the convictions and proclivities of the farmer and the amount of labor and money she is willing to invest.

Use of Transplants. Both systems use transplants almost exclusively. Transplants get the jump on weeds and reduce the time a crop occupies the ground before harvesting which may result in increased overall production in the course of a season. It is much easier to manage germinating seeds in a nursery than in the field and the amount of seed used to produce a given crop is greatly reduced.

Detail of Methodology. How to Grow More Vegetables, the classic textbook of the biointensive method, presents the methodology in (what I believe to be tedious) detail. There is a strong suggestion that the practice of these details is a requirement if one is to truly follow the method. I paint with a much broader brush, giving few details, leaving many options to the gardener who can best adjust details to time, place, circumstance, cost and personal skills and preferences.

Mulch vs. Compost. The whole systems method is mulch based with much of the mulch coming from off-site if easily available. In biointensive practice, fertility is maintained by composting on-site materials and plant materials grown on the beds expressly for composting. Composting is lots of work. Organic material must be removed from the beds, composted, and then returned; but we merely throw spent bed growth in the alleys where it is soon crushed by foot and wheel traffic. By importing organic material from off-site, fertility is increased over time. In closed systems, nutrients are cycled around and around, and in time one will run up against Liebig’s Law of the Minimum—that is production will be limited by the least available plant nutrient. This will be the result of nutrients leaving the site by leaching or by being carried away in the bodies or in the waste products of the eaters.

Sources of Income. Ecology Action, the parent of GROW BIOINTENSIVE, is supported by the sale of publications, seeds, tuitions for seminars and workshops, donations, bequests, grants, volunteer labor and perhaps more. Our work here in Madera is supported almost completely by sales at farmers markets which, I believe, is a testament to the efficacy of our model and our method. We’ve held our own for more than 10 years in a climate generally hostile to small-scale farmers.

Acclaim. Ecology Action has justifiably received wide acclaim for its work—particularly for its work in Third World countries while we here in Madera have scarcely received any recognition at all.

Availability of Information. It’s my goal to make all basic information about the whole systems model and method available on our website without charge. If one wants to study the biointensive method, she must buy books ([or, perhaps go to the library) or pay tuition.

Science and Mysticism. The theoretical model for whole systems agriculture was given to science in the 1940s by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in his General Systems Theory. (Click here for a brief biography on Bertalanffy.) The foundations of biodynamic agriculture were laid out in a number of lectures some two decades earlier by Rudolph Steiner, an occult mystic philosopher. (Click here for a brief biography on Steiner.) I think it fair to say, then, that whole systems agriculture is rooted in science, and biodynamic agriculture is rooted in mysticism. The How To Grow More Vegetables book has a section on moon planting and there are other references that seem to confirm the mystical origins of biointensive growing.

Pushing vs. Pulling System Throughput. The Whole Systems way is to plant a half-flat of this and two flats, and so on, so that a smorgasbord of plants are ready to set out at any particular time. Production is driven by input. The biointensive way is to plan the beds on paper, count back on a calendar to determine planting times so that everything will be ready to set out at once. Production is pulled through the system by desired output. The latter is a path beset with peril and complexity, and contrary to Occam’s Law of Parsimony which states, in effect, that the simplest way is best. Also, when everything is planned in advance, no opportunity for self-organization, serendipity, or inspiration can present itself and the outcome can never be any better than what was planned for. An axiom if mine is to “give chance a chance”. Systems thinkers celebrate the unexpected outcomes of self-organization—at least when they work out well. I’m thinking particularly here of various combinations of plants in the bed which has worked to our advantage, i.e., using sunflowers to shade beets in the heat of summer.

Claims Regarding Sustainability. The two approaches are similar in that each claims that about 1/10 acre [2.5 acres = 1 hectare] or 4000 square feet of intensive bed will support one person with a complete caloric ration of vegetable foods. I specify two harvests per year off the same ground which may also be similar to the biointensive metric, but from here claims sharply diverge. The biointensive goal is for these beds to produce continuously, for an indefinite period of time—perhaps "millions of years"—without adding any nutrients from off-bed land other than what might have been required to get the production cycle going in the first place. A key concept is to recycle all nutrients including those nutrients contained in human manure when legal and safety barriers can be overcome.

Although I certainly have nothing against recycling, I think it is overly optimistic to expect the beds to produce continuously without outside inputs. Nutrients are lost by leaching and when produce is sold the nutrients don't come back. The chemical weathering of larger rock particles in the soil into soluble nutrients is a very slow process which would require a much larger land base than just the rock and subsoil beneath the beds—my estimate being 1 to 10 acres of pastoral type land [without the animals] per person off which she gathers at least 2 kilocalories of mulching material for each kilocalorie of food she harvests. [Kilocalories would correspond to pounds or kilograms if water and mineral content are held constant.] In this way whatever minerals are made available from the subsoil beneath the beds and whatever minerals are returned to the beds by recycling are just "gravy" and don't even enter into the sustainable equation of 2 gathered to 1 harvested. Better safe than sorry when it comes to making plans that could make the difference between life or death as we prepare for a post-petroleum future and better to build into our plans a margin of safety.

And when it comes to defining sustainability, I'd be more comfortable measuring it in generations rather than in thousands or millions of years.

This horticultural model would produce 10 times more food for humanity than the pastoral model with animals which I think would enjoy a similar chance at long-term sustainability. Here, 10 to 100 acres would be required for the support of each human being—perhaps much more with poorer lands. A wider range of vegetation can be gathered for mulching material than grazing animals can gather for food. Cattle, for example, don't do well on woody browse or poisonous plants such as milk thistle or hemlock. Bark, as another example, is high in potassium and other minerals too. It makes good mulch but few domestic animals will show much interest in it. On the other hand, animals can gather food over steeper and poorer land than humans can manage so, on these lands herding may be a better way to go.

Good wishes, all. And thank you Tony for suggesting this comparison.