Modern Farmer

FEBRUARY 14, 2025

For decades after the concept of biodynamic farming was introduced in 1924, there was an aura of witch and wizard mysticism and charmingly earnest cluelessness around biodynamic farming. But over the past 25 years, peer-reviewed scientific studies show that biodynamic farming enhances soil quality and biodiversity. Um, okaaaay.

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Farming Farming Construction Harvester 61

Civil Eats

MARCH 11, 2024

This is called shadow microscopy,” says Robb, the co-owner of Compostella Farm in southern Mississippi, bringing the microorganisms into focus. This growing interest in fungal networks on farms quietly challenges the underpinnings of U.S. But working to both protect and encourage fungi on farms is a way to reverse course.

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Farming Farming Crop Agriculture 144

The Farmers Daughter USA

JUNE 12, 2023

Although most of us imagine that it has something to do with swapping plastic straws for paper straw, it’s something that goes much further. Transforming Corn Residue into Renewable Plastic Recognizing the need for sustainable alternatives, researchers and industry leaders have turned to farm waste as a potential alternative.

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Straw Compost Manufacturing Ruralism 52

Kavya Organic Farm

AUGUST 24, 2023

Nitrogen helps with greenery, and potassium helps with plants’ stalks and straws Why fertilisers? Laborious activities like farming, construction, traffic, etc can negatively impact the soil by changing its chemical structure, which is why fertilisers are required to keep the plants intact.

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Manure Compost Straw Fertilizer 98

Civil Eats

DECEMBER 4, 2023

The Rodale Institute , a nonprofit research institution for organic farming, cites that every acre of land farmed with plastic mulch creates upwards of 120 pounds of waste that typically end up in landfill, or otherwise break down into the soil or nearby watersheds. However, no biodegradable films meet the NOP’s minimum threshold.

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Agriculture Agriculture Supply Chain Production 145

UnderstandingAg

OCTOBER 29, 2023

Although no-till implies not tilling at all, many no-till market gardeners still rely on some form of light tillage to create a seed bed or apply copious amounts of compost as a mulch to create a seed bed. Soil prep increases time, labor, and overall farming costs, and potentially increases soil disturbance.

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Crop Cash Crop Seeding Harvest 105

Modern Farmer

MARCH 1, 2024

According to its website, the material decays in controlled composting conditions. Naturally colored cotton, bred by Sally Fox, growing at her Viriditas farm in California’s Capay Valley. It envisions local systems where natural fibers are sustainably grown, processed, sewn into garments and ultimately composted.

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Textiles Manufacturing Production Processing 115

Modern Farmer

MARCH 4, 2024

Besides foraging for fungi adapted to the subarctic environment, taming the stew of toxins required a larger bioremediation strategy, using local willows to concentrate inorganic contaminants such as heavy metals, as well as municipal compost, which added microbes and nutrients to help spur decomposition.

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Cultivation Production Manufacturing Textiles 125

Sustainable Food Trust

JUNE 14, 2023

Over recent years, no-till farming has been widely advocated as one of the ways to make farming more sustainable. It is also one of the paid options under Defra’s Sustainable Farming Incentive. What he could not have known is that the processes he describes, depend, amongst other things, on the action of mycorrhizal fungi.

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Ploughing Crop Yield Farming 52

ATTRA

NOVEMBER 5, 2024

Voices of farm workers, young people in shorts and muck boots and wide brimmed straw hats drift across the fields. I see myriad varieties of vegetable crops one after the other in planned succession–seedlings and vegetative and fruiting–and I can smell the musty earthiness of the compost pile in the center of the field plots.

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Farming Farming Meadow Compost 40