organic planet A Year in the Life of an
Organic farming practices are in use on approximately 4 million acres in the United States and 30.4 million acres globally. It is unlikely that any organic farmers are growing vast acreages of commodity crops such as corn and soybeans, but there are many successful large organic farms. Like chemical farmers, organic growers also start with a seed. Or, rather, many different kinds of seeds, because most organic farmers have learned that raising a diverse array of plants (and animals) is much more effective and efficient than growing just one crop. The organic seeds they use are purchased either from inde- pendent and (when possible) organic seed sources or they’ve been careful- ly – lovingly, even collected from the previous year’s crops. After all, seeds are an organic farmer’s investment in the future.
The organic farmer chooses her crops based on what she knows will grow well in her climate and region,
Organic Farmer
what her customers want, and prob- ably what she loves to grow, because farming is not a life you choose to make tons of money. Organic farming is a decent living because you make enough money, and you feel pretty good about doing it.
She plants her seeds in soil that is rich and healthy from years of good care. She might use a trac- tor to plant her seeds, or, if she is forward-thinking, a “roller-crimper,” or cover-crop roller, but she avoids driving machines on her soil as much as possible since that compacts the soil, causing runoff and erosion. This saves fuel as well as time.
Her tractor may not be a flashy new model, but she would rather keep it than take on any debt. In her line of work, debt can make the difference between profit and loss. She uses her tractor for all sorts of things around the farm, and if her tractor can’t do a job, she pays a guy down the street who has a bigger tractor to come in by the hour.
by Maria Rodale
She doesn’t need to buy synthetic fertilizers since every few years she treats her fields to an application of compost, nature’s fertilizer. She might buy additional compost if she doesn’t have enough, or she could trade with other farmers or even pick it up at a municipal recycling center, although she has to be careful not to inadvertently add any toxins since her farm will be inspected every year by a government-sponsored certifier to ensure that her fields are truly organic.
Depending on the weather, she may or may not need to water her crops. Her soil is spongy and holds a lot of moisture. If she does irrigate, she can use less water than chemi- cal farmers have to, since the soil retains more water. The water that does run off is less polluted than that from her chemical neighbors’ fields. To further prevent runoff and ero- sion, she plants windbreaks (which the birds and bees also love) and adds swales6 to her fields to catch the valuable soil that runs off.
Knowing nature as well as she does, she knows that weeds will like her good soil just as much as her crops do, so she applies mulch to prevent the weeds from growing. This might take the form of a plastic sheet, straw, or leaves. If she is a particu- larly forward-thinking organic farmer, she planted a cover crop that is now compressed into mulch. But weeds do grow, which is why she hires people to help her weed and em- ploys other forms of manual cultiva- tion to keep them under control. She tries not to till the soil to either plant or weed because she knows that doing so leads to erosion and com- presses the soil. She also remem-
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