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By Luz Ballesteros Gonzalez, NCAT Agriculture Specialist When will it rain again? This blog is produced by the National Center for Appropriate Technology through the ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture program, under a cooperative agreement with USDA RuralDevelopment. How much will it rain? ATTRA.NCAT.ORG.
By Lee Rinehart, NCAT Agriculture Specialist The garden entrance is protected from groundhogs and deer by a mesh-covered wooden gate. Tomatoes planted into a tilled-in rye, vetch, and red clover green manure, May 21. I put in the tomatoes on May 21, 11 days after tilling in the green manure. This year was different.
By Tammy Barnes , NCAT Agricultural Specialist Now, as we enter the hot, dry summer months, is the time to watch livestock water sources for quality. Farm ponds and slow-moving creeks and streams that are enriched with fertilizer runoff and directly deposited manure are the perfect place to find cyanobacteria thriving.
By Tammy Barnes , NCAT Agriculture Specialist Ah, the season of boot-sucking, tractor sliding, truck bed smashing, brown paw-printed kitchen floors, heavy pant cuffs, human swearing mud. Not to mention that no livestock owner wants to see their animals covered in mud and manure. ATTRA.NCAT.ORG.
By Justin Duncan, NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Specialist Recently we held a goat production class out in Luling, Texas, at the marvelous S3 Legacy Ranch. Both “cut and carry” and “chop and drop” allow for nutrient cycling, especially if the goat manure can be collected and used to fertilize the trees they are eating, closing that loop.
By Lee Rinehart, NCAT Agriculture Specialist I’m sure farmers have been using living mulches for ages. He would let the cover crop grow and overwinter and then plow down the following spring for green manure. Periodic mowing keeps it under control and adds a green manure mulch to the crops. Let me introduce you.
By Chris Lent, NCAT Agriculture Specialist I’ve always found ways to turn “waste materials” into useful resources on the farm fascinating. In November 2023, NCAT Agriculture Specialist Eric Fuchs-Stengel and I had that opportunity. On my farm, I tried to reuse and recycle resources as much as possible to close the off-farm input loop.
By Nina Prater, NCAT Agriculture Specialist When I teach about the soil food web, I tend to paint with broad brushstrokes. This is probably because I only learned about the soil food web in terms of the big groups: bacteria, fungi, micro- and macroinvertebrates, vertebrates, and the plants that supply energy to the whole system.
Photo credit: USDA Editor’s Note: This guest post by Michael Happ, Program Associate for Climate and Rural Communities at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, (IATP), discusses how popular conservation programs should focus on small-scale and sustainable farms, not industrial-scale farms. as it relates to EQIP.
By Chris Lent, NCAT Agriculture Specialist When I began to see how unique the growing conditions in my high tunnel are compared to open-field growing, I started to think differently about how to maintain soil health and manage soil fertility for high tunnel growing and season extension. ATTRA.NCAT.ORG.
Contributing authors: Abigail Buta ,and Jessica Levy , and Elena Seeley The momentum to transform food and agriculture systems has never been more urgentor more inspiring. It connects expertise across disciplines to enhance food security, improve distribution, and position Canada as a leader in agricultural innovation.
Contributing authors: Liza Greene , Elena Seeley , and Alessandra Uriarte The food and agriculture movement made incredible strides over the last year—but our work isn’t done yet! These groups are continuing to push for food and agriculture systems that are economically, socially, and environmentally just and equitable.
USDA distributed seeds to farmers for free, encouraging growers to save and share seed and to experiment with any crop that could become economically important to US agriculture. Diverse plants and manure must take their place.
Editor’s Note: This post is the fifth post in a multi-part series exploring some of the key sustainable agriculture and food systems challenges that the farm bill can address. Other posts explore how the next farm bill can tackle issues in regional market development, crop insurance access, and more.
Last fall, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and more than 150 other organizations, including nutrition, sustainable farming, ruraldevelopment, racial equity, labor, and environmental groups, sent a joint letter to President Biden, urging him to prod Congress to pass a new farm bill this year that transforms the US food system.
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