Permaculture and the Case for Hope with Geoff Lawton

In this conversation, Geoff Lawton offers us something rare: a genuinely hopeful and rigorously grounded vision of how humanity can become a reparative rather than destructive force on this planet.

As one of the world's leading permaculture designers and educators, Geoff has built demonstration sites and trained practitioners across six continents, from the Jordan Valley to the Australian bush. At Zaytuna Farm in New South Wales, he has spent over two decades transforming bare, degraded land into a thriving food forest with 32 bodies of water, hundreds of tree species, and a model for what regenerative living can look like at every scale.

In this episode, we dive into:

• How permaculture redefines wealth, from money to clean air, clean water, clean food, and community
• Why the biggest missing element in modern agriculture is trees
• How soil organic matter holds the key to our water crisis
• What Zaytuna Farm looks like today after 25 years of regeneration
• Why our economy needs to shift from extraction to deposition
• How permaculture projects in Jordan, Hungary, and Spain are proving this works at scale
• Why Geoff believes humanity may be on the verge of a new kind of consciousness

More about Geoff Lawton, Zaytuna Farm, and Discover Permaculture:

Geoff Lawton is a world renowned permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. He took his PDC in 1983 with Bill Mollison, widely considered the “father of permaculture.” Geoff has specialized in permaculture education, design, implementation, system establishment, administration and community development since 1985. Working in over 50 countries, Geoff has taught more than 15,000 students, he established the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia and Zaytuna Farm which is Geoff and Nadia’s family home. As an award winning Permaculture Designer, Geoff’s main aim is to drive the establishment of self-replicating educational demonstration sites across the globe.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.