Percival A. Yeomans

March 17, 2022 Global Earth Repair

P.A. Yeomans (1905 – 1984) was an Australian inventor known for the Keyline System for the development of land and increasing the fertility of that land. Keyline design accounts for the natural formation of a given landform and maximizes the water storage and fertility. The keyline plow lowers the soil horizon and creates deep channels where water can permeate. His Keyline principles or concepts (Keyline Design) have been adopted by farm owners in almost every country in the world. Yeomans’ Keyline concepts are now part of the curriculum of many sustainable agriculture courses in colleges and universities across the world.

As a mining engineer and gold assayer, Yeomans had developed a keen sense of hydrology and equipment design. Upon his brother-in-law’s death in a grass fire, PA Yeomans assumed management of a large tract of land he later named Nevallan in New South Wales. Here he developed improved methods and equipment for cultivation. His designs won him The Prince Philip Design Award in 1974.

Yeomans’ work has also been adapted by for sociological, psychological, and in some cases, even pseudo-religious purposes. As cities expand, some of the farms he experimented on are being reclaimed, controversially, as suburban housing developments. Yeomans’ name is regularly evoked on talk-back radio as a key to solving the social and ecological crisis of the Murray-Darling water allocations. And from our own point of view, we see Yeomans as providing an alternative historical model for regenerative Land Art.