“Pleasure is also a harvest,” wrote Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture. Bec Hellouin is an expanded garden and not a shrunken mechanised farm. Gardens have always been happy places!

Tomorrow’s farms are likely to perform several functions, in addition to providing nourishment. They will be places of learning, environmental education and health, reconnection of humans to nature, including their own deep nature, while creating social bonds and meaning. Every farm, every garden can contribute in its own way to reconciling people and the biosphere.

In conclusion, the objective of the Bec Hellouin method is to integrate many beneficial practices from various forms of agriculture considered to be among the most productive, in order to create microfarms that function as much as possible as natural ecosystems and produce abundant quality food. This method runs counter to the major trends of modern dominant agriculture, which calls for ever larger farms and more mechanisation. The method is well-matched to smallholder and family farming, to quality products in the spirit of Slow Food, to on-farm processing as well as to short-chain marketing. It is particularly suited to urban micro-agriculture.