Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities. Sustainable agriculture refers to the ability of a farm to produce fertile soil and healthy livestock, without causing severe or irreversible damage to ecosystem health.
Learn the benefits of a polyculture farm. Growing a mixture of crops (polyculture) helps reduce disease or pest problems. Cropping systems that include a variety of crops (polyculture and/or rotation) also replenish nitrogen and also use resources such as sunlight, water, or nutrients more efficiently.
Building community by supporting local food systems
Learn the importance of supplying local markets. The way that crops are sold must be accounted for in the sustainability equation. Food sold locally requires little additional energy, aside from that necessary for cultivation, harvest, and transportation.
Farm-to-Table Connection
Trace the story of a plant or animal from it's beginnings on the farm to your dinner table in your home Focus on sustainable practices.
Crop Rotation and Soil Amendment
Learn two of the many possible practices of sustainable agriculture: crop rotation and soil amendment, both designed to ensure that crops being cultivated can obtain the necessary nutrients for healthy growth.
Learn the long-term effects of various practices on soil properties and processes essential for crop productivity. Although air and sunlight are available everywhere on Earth, crops also depend on soil nutrients and the availability of water. When farmers grow and harvest crops, they remove some of these nutrients from the soil. Without replenishment, land suffers from nutrient depletion and becomes either unusable or suffers from reduced yields. Sustainable agriculture depends on replenishing the soil while minimizing the use of non-renewable resources, such as natural gas, or mineral ores.
Seasonal Planting and Seed Saving
Learn about planting according to the seasons and seed saving techniques.
Composting
Learn about alternate sources of nitrogen such as recycling crop waste and livestock manure
and growing legume crops and forages that form symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called rhizobia
Irrigation
In some areas, sufficient rainfall is available for crop growth, but many other areas require irrigation. Learn about drip irrigation systems and how they conserve water.
Companion Planting
Learn the benefits of companion planting. When you plant different crops in close physical proximity, they assist each other in nutrient uptake, pest control, pollination, and other factors necessary to increasing crop productivity.
Beneficial Insects
Learn the importance of attracting beneficial insects such as pollinators and predatory insects.
Sustainable Animal Care
Learn ways to practice sustainable animal husbandry. Some of the key tools to grazing management include fencing off the grazing area into smaller areas called paddocks, lowering stock density, and moving the stock between paddocks frequently. Raising animals and plants on the same farm creates a complete circle of life that allows greater sustainability.
Worm Farming
Learn the process of vermiculture (growing worms) and nurturing healthy microbes in the soil.
