Permacultural Organic Market Gardening and Economic Performance

In December 2011 a study of 3 years started at the Organic farm Bec Hellouin, to assess the possibility of creating a full-­‐time activity by cultivating 1,000 m2 employing a permacultural organic market gardening approach. The principles that guide the implemented production methods form what has been called «the method of Farm Bec Hellouin», available on the Farm website. These methods include in particular: • cultivating a small surface area; • the virtual absence of mechanization of labor, interventions being made mostly manually; • the intensification of production on said surface area; • all on a site created by drawing on permaculture principles, principles that could lead to the creation of very diverse places. Halfway through the study, it seemed important to analyze the data collected by us, in order to identify initial lessons. Emphasis was placed on the analysis of the results for the workload and turnover, as these are two important data with regard to the creation of an economic activity. From this point of view, the results presented in this report are very encouraging. In one year, turnover generated was 32,000 euros, for a workload in the gardens of 1,400 hours. This is in line with the initial hypothesis: 1,000 m2 cultivated in permacultural organic market gardening can create a full-­‐time activity. Finally, for this stage, it seemed interesting to compare four perspectives: the views of the scientific director of the study, François LEGER ; the engineer in charge of field control, Sacha GUEGAN ; a member of the Scientific Committee, Gauthier Chapelle ; and the head gardener in the study taking place, Charles Hervé-­‐Gruyer.