How to Grow Food Security

What does real food security look like? It’s not stockpiling tins or waiting for governments to fix broken systems—it’s designing abundance right where you are. In this episode of Discover Permaculture: The Podcast, Host Geoff Lawton sits down with Sam Parker-Davies, Ben Missimer, and Eric Seider to explore how permaculture transforms anxiety about the future into empowered action.

Watch the video episode here.

Key Takeaways:

00:01:09 – 00:02:00: Food security isn’t about stockpiling tins; it’s about designing ecosystems that continuously produce abundance.

00:11:57 – 00:12:26: There’s a big difference between feeding people and nourishing them—true food security is about nutrition, not just calories.

00:14:12 – 00:15:03: Nutrition can come from small, diverse systems; calorie crops are bulkier, but permaculture widens the range beyond rice, wheat, corn and soy.

00:44:15 – 00:45:26: Peri-urban agriculture—farming on the edges of cities—can bridge urban diversity with rural productivity and strengthen food security.

00:45:26 – 00:46:29: We could meet all human nutritional needs on just 4–6% of the farmland currently in use.

00:58:07 – 00:58:29: Permaculture designs for abundance—not just for ourselves, but for people we’ll never meet.