Can Permaculture Transform Industrial Agriculture?...But there are people practicing permaculture, or permaculture-inspired farming, on a commercial scale. Typically that involves some level of adaptation and simplification from the archetypical permaculture food forest. Now Rafter Ferguson, a doctoral student from the University of Illinois, is setting out to conduct a study of permaculture farms across the US, studying what works, what doesn't, and how permaculture techniques might be adapted and scaled up to take a significant dent out of the farming system as we know it...
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/can-permaculture-transform-industrial-agriculture.html