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Trisha and Nolan Zachman farm in a small town two hours west of Minneapolis, Minnesota. For Trisha, sustainability means “freedom to really farm how we should be farming,” including being freed from the volatile cost of inputs like synthetic fertilizers. We don’t have to hire multiple people to run the farm.
Temporary grasslands, in the form of fertility-building leys, play a key role in more environmentally sustainable arable systems that don’t rely on costly, fossil fuel-dependent agrichemicals. Species-rich grasslands today cover just a fraction of their former area, with most converted to improved pasture or arable land over the past century.
Soil Health : Advanced soil sensors can measure critical factors like moisture levels, pH balance, and nutrient content, enabling farmers to fine-tune fertilizer use. Farmers saving 30% on fertilizer costs and boosting crop yields by up to 10% are not uncommon with these insights.
Pasture-raised”? Some of the terms used on food labels are official certifications, enforced by the USDA or a nonprofit entity, and the presence of the certification means that the farming operation has been verified in some way for compliance. This certification prohibits the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.
Kava has endured a long history of adversity, said Lakea Trask, a Hawaiian farmer and local activist who cultivates kava and other Native crops for Kanaka Kava , his familysfarm-to-table restaurant in Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island. For Trask, kava is also central to healing Hawaiis post-plantation scars.
Above those temperatures, heat stress causes cattle to produce less milk and decreases their fertility. Payne’s familyfarm is a microcosm of American agriculture’s monocrop past and its changing future. His family was hardly alone in doing so: Along with cattle, corn and soybeans make up the top three farm products in the U.S.,
His mother’s family were dairy farmers, and the land had consisted of pasture and row crop fields. The approaches that my grandfather took to manage the land, and the way my parents turned a portion of it into a homestead, allowed me to watch it go from pasture to forest,” says Crombie. “My
Joseph Fischer, of Fischer Farms in St. Anthony, IN, has substantially reduced the impacts of downpours on his farm by adopting managed rotational grazing and improving his pastures. She has shifted her farm away from the corn and soybean rotation so common in her area, and is instead employing pasture and grazing systems.
While these programs haven’t always been used to make farms climate resilient, they all have the potential to do so—and more funding and specific guardrails specified within the IRA would make that even more likely. Seth Watkins, a farmer from Clarinda, Iowa, was able to save his familyfarm with the help of conservation funding.
Farm Hounds Familyfarms often struggle to stay profitable as agriculture becomes more concentrated. There were 141,733 fewer farms in the US in 2022 than in 2017, according to the Census of Agriculture. full_link LEARN MORE White Oak Pastures uses “radically traditional” farming methods.
I confess to being a recovering engineer, but this is a useful way to conceptualize an invisible process that’s happening in crop fields and in pastures. Our familyfarm in Northeast Iowa with 3% SOM in the top six inches has about 67,000 lbs. It’s the tiny input from fertilizer and seed. Did you spot the missing arrow?
In the US, for example, organic milk producer Albert Straus works with a group of small familyfarms in Marin and Sonoma Counties. Langford Farm, run by Teresa and Charlie Allward, was one of the farms involved in the pilot. Straus feels that “ collaborating with the next generation is essential.”
CalCAN is one of hundreds of sustainable, organic, and familyfarming organizations across the country that is engaged in farm bill advocacy this year. Transitioning to or increasing pasture-based production would also be eligible.
Within decades, a network of dams, levees and canals had dried up the basin, transforming the fertile crater into an agricultural hub. Despite the resilience of family [farms], the mega-trend is undeniable,” says Raudabaugh. These state incentive programs all help to keep familyfarms in business while advancing innovations. “It
Multi-species Cropping—Experimenting with Crop Trials Using 28 Varieties Before Tim came back to the farm, his uncle Doug had been experimenting for a couple of years with winter grazing of multi-species cropping—relying on a handful of different plants—for improved pasture and cattle outcomes. “We
Leadership from the USDA and agriculture schools, like the one at Iowa State University, influence farm methods; but even recommendations to reduce farm chemicals have unintended outcomes. Winter cover crops could mean using less fertilizer and herbicide in the Spring. But farm-chemical exposure is no laughing matter.
The United Nations Environment Programme has pegged the global food system and its encroachment on wildlife habitats, along with its use of fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals, as directly threatening 86 percent of species at risk of extinction worldwide. They worry about the inconveniences it might cause to production.
In 1909, he named the land “Valley View Ranch” — a name that Rod and Beth, along with their children, who represent the next generation of farmers on the family ranch, have preserved and continued to date. “We Soil health, environmental sustainability, and knowledge sharing have all been critical to ensuring the farm’s evolution and success.
As with all programs, NSAC will continue to analyze the RPFSA’s CSP provisions, including a proposed one-time CSP subprogram focused on enrollment of up to 500,000 acres of native or improved pasture land used for livestock grazing in the Lower Mississippi River Valley to address water quality issues leading to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.
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