What is Organic Farming? | Agriculture | Biology | FuseSchool
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What is Organic Farming? | Agriculture | Biology | FuseSchool
As populations have grown, farming practices have become more intensified to maximise crop yields and ensure we can feed the ever growing population. Fertilisers and pesticides are used on crops, and animals may be kept inside in more densely packed sheds to maximise milk yields, or egg production, or speed up the time needed for the animal to be ready to be sent to market for meat.
An alternative to conventional farming is organic farming.
Organic farming currently accounts for about 1% of agricultural land worldwide. It focuses on sustainability and is thought to have less detrimental effects on the environment than conventional farming. This has led to it being proposed as an alternative to conventional agriculture for helping to overcome the climate change crisis we are currently experiencing. The debate continues, as it is not a perfect solution.
In theory, organic farming should not use chemical fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides or feed additives for livestock. It requires the farmer to use more natural alternatives. This results in lower yields, but the farmer can sell their produce at a higher price because consumers believe the produce is of a higher quality.
Instead of fertilisers, manure is used. This recycles waste and improves the soil structure. However, it is smelly and more difficult to apply than chemical fertilisers, and also means the farmer has less control over the mineral content they are putting into their soils.
Crop rotation is used to reduce disease building up in the soils and to strengthen the soil composition. Certain crops, such as the legume family – so peas and beans, fix nitrogen from the air and increase the nitrates in the soil. This makes the soil much more fertile, and so farmers rotate legumes with their other crops. Growing multiple crops is however less efficient and produces lower yields than specialising in one or few crops however.
Instead of using herbicides, weeding is the preferred organic farming technique. This is of course much more environmentally friendly because it is chemical free but it is very labour intensive. Although this does mean more jobs available, which is a great thing.
Organic farming is thought to maintain the biodiversity better than conventional farming because fewer chemicals are used. There are more bumble bees and insects in an area because pesticides haven’t been used. Weeds and non-crop plants can grow as herbicides aren’t used. Biodiversity benefits the food chain across all levels, from the plants up to the foxes.
These are the theories of organic farming, and is how we farmed for the one hundred thousand years before the industrial revolution. It is generally thought that organic farming is much better for biodiversity, and also produces a healthier product because less chemicals are used on it.
In the second video on organic farming, we will look at some of the problems of organic farming, and the reality of what it means to be an organic farm.
Part 2: https://youtu.be/QpkKW45cHaA
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Emma Jagoz’s Moon Valley Farm is a leader in the organic, sustainable food movement, having grown her garden on a single acre into a 70-acre vegetable farm in Frederick County, Maryland.
https://www.moonvalleyfarm.net/
https://www.youtube.com/@moon_valley_farm
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Transcript:
When I tasted the food that I grew it tasted way better than the stuff in the grocery store.
So much of you what you get in the grocery store is hydroponic and it really doesn’t taste like that much. So real soil grown organic food tastes so good and I really wanted to share that with people who didn’t have the capacity like I did at the time. So I
started the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program because I thought it was super cool. I love the CSA concept.
I started in my parent’s backyard in Baltimore County…own organic system plan…. 25 acres in Frederick County. The benefit of having my own land was the ability to invest in infrastructure….We grow crops in two different ways: we direct sow them into the ground and we transplant them. With transplants we can really get a jump on the season, and the weeds, and disease as well, and pest pressure by keeping them in a controlled environment before we put them in the ground.
We have a germination chamber that puts the seedlings at the correct temperature so that we get really good germination. Aand then we grow them out in here. These are all our Peppers we have a bunch of different kinds of herbs here. You can see this fancy kind of Basil is that purple. We’ve got cilantro and lettuces and a bunch of brassicas. So we’re growing an array of specialty crops here. I like to say ‘specialty is our specialty.’ This is our water wheel transplanter. These get filled with water and also some fertilizer. All of those trays that you saw in the greenhouse sit here, and up here, and here. That’s mushroom compost that we get from farms in Pennsylvania. I don’t know if you know that Pennsylvania is the mushroom capital of the world. All of our equipment is set up for this bed system. So all the tractors have the same tire width, so that they fit on either side of this bed. Which means that we can not only prep the soil, and put the compost, put the nutrients, create a bed, transplant, but then we can also cultivate. Bryce: Are you able to reuse a lot of this plastic? Emma: No.
Right now the national organic program does not allow
biodegradable plastics to be used on an organic operation. So we do have to remove them each year and
throw them away in order to keep our organic certification.
We have an apiary here (beekeeping)
They pollinate our crops and so they help us get better yields because more of the flowers are pollinated. They’ve been working day and night on creating new boxes, and making splits, and they’re also catching swarms in the area.
Swarms are really really docile so even though there’s bees all over you you can just walk right into them and they’re not going to sting you because bees only sting to protect their house, but when they’re swarming they’re looking for a new home.
We also invest in our soil, that’s a really big one. By treating our soil like it is the key to human survival, which it very much is. And that does require a long-term approach. We’re able to weather harsher conditions by investing in organic matter and all of the different nutrients that the soil needs to really increase its ability to hold and drain water. It’s one of the most important things I feel like I’m doing taking conventional land and regeneratively farming it and nurturing it back organically is not easy, and that’s the situation this planet is in. Somebody’s gotta roll up the sleeves and do the hard work and that is farmers. Creating a really resilient food system based on our local economy is how we’re gonna thrive in a time of climate change. I just don’t see global pandemics, and supplies chain disruptions, and wars or political strife putting us to continually relying on international or across-the-nation food for our daily subsistence. Now that we’re several seasons in and actually acquiring more land. So we’re on 25 acres, but this year we’re actually going to be on 40 acres, and next year we’re going to be on 70.
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