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Its a rare sunny day in January, and about a dozen people gather on a farm in Snohomish County, Washington. The farmer, Brett Aiello of Reconnecting Roots Farm, wants to suppress the weeds around some newly planted fruit trees without disturbing the soil, and hes enlisted some help. Let’s prove that this works.
The word farm was once equated with images of sun-kissed green fields in rural areas. Not only are farms moving closer to urban areas, but theyre also getting creative in how and where they grow produce. Vertical farms take advantage of old buildings and state-of-the-art greenhouses to produce food in a small amount of space.
Ecosystem services are the benefits provided by nature and managed by farmers on their farmland. For example, soil and vegetation on farms remove carbon from the atmosphere, regulate hydrological flows, and shelter pollinators who pollinate crops. Farmers manage these subsidies of nature on their farmland, free for the public.
Until a few years ago, Songbird Farm in Unity, Maine, grew wheat, rye, oats, and corn, as well as an array of vegetables in three high tunnel greenhouses, and supported a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program for over 100 customers. Some farms were able to stop production temporarily while they identified possible solutions.
For more than four decades, the executive director of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (which she co-founded with Robert Swann in 1980) has been tending to a land-use movement in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, driven by innovative ideas for cultivating affordable access to farmland. HVS: Let’s start with the basics.
John Zander’s family has owned a stretch of land along New Jersey’s southern coast for 30 years, but he only recently dubbed the farm “Cohansey Meadows.” John Zander, project manager at Cohansey Meadows Farms in Fairfield Township, New Jersey. Cohansey for the river that runs through it. How can we turn this into an advantage?”
As news of weed killer resistant plants hits the headlines, Patrick Holden reflects on discussions at the latest Oxford Real Farming Conference, highlighting why the plough may not be the worst option when it comes to nature-friendly cultivation. In parallel, Richard Gantlett, who is somewhat of a data geek (I mean that as a compliment!),
When Paula and Dale Boles took over Dale’s father’s farmland in North Carolina, they thought that poultry farming would be a good way to work the land until they were ready to pass it on to their children. Whitley says that Garcés realized that ending factory farming would necessitate support systems for the farmers.
Not all farmland is created equal,” says Jesse Womack, a conservation policy specialist with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). In return, they are paid a yearly rental rate per acre of land enrolled in CRP programs. In 2023, he USDA Farm Service Agency made more than $1.77 It is always overdrawn.”
Outside of Charleston, South Carolina, in the picturesque marshes of the Kiawah River, sits more than 100 acres of working farmland. But unlike neighboring farms that focus on production for faraway markets or keep a single family afloat, the farm at Kiawah River is supporting 185 families who live in the surrounding homes.
Satellite imagery of Topaz Solar Farm, a massive solar installation inland from San Luis Obispo in Central California, depicts an oasis of blue panels surrounded by sun-scorched earth. But also, at the farm scale, I see agrivoltaics as the technology that can maximize our farmers’ and growers’ output from their lands.”
On a drizzly November day, Masra Clamoungou, the farm manager for Small Axe Farm, was getting ready for winter. Small Axe is part of a patchwork of farms east of Seattle, between the pine-filled Cascade foothills and the maple-lined banks of the Sammamish River.
In the months before Patrick Brown was born in November 1982, his father, Arthur, lay down on a road near the familys farm to prevent a caravan of yellow dump trucks from depositing toxic soil in his community. Patrick currently operates Brown Family Farms on the land that Byron worked as a sharecropper once he was freed.
2023 Report Agriculture Highlights By The Numbers ● Denali’s recycling efforts produced enough natural fertilizer to support more than 100,000 acres of farmland and manufactured enough animal feed to nourish over 40,000 cattle across five states. Fertilizer and chemicals remain the largest on-farm expenditure accounting for 17.5%
Local food not only supports the local economy and helps to preserve traditional farming practices, but also offers a range of health and environmental benefits. At Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT), we believe that protecting Iowa’s farmland is essential to promoting sustainable and just food systems.
In other words, farmers lucky enough to produce a high-value product—especially when it’s intrinsically tied to the soil it’s grown in—may be uniquely positioned to help experiment, develop, and de-risk regenerative practices across all kinds of farms. “If If we take this as a holistic system.
flatland of small, half-abandoned towns surrounded by large, mechanized farms. The farms mostly grow commoditiessoybeans, corn, cotton, and rice. The history of how this happenedhow one of the countrys most fertile farming regions became a knot of poverty, hunger, and racial injusticeis complicated and painful.
As director of demonstration and on-farm education for the Savanna Institute (SI) , she knows that agroforestry can be a game-changer in fighting climate change and creating healthier food systems. On the demonstration sites, farmers can see examples of successful integration of trees on farms.
By Cody Brown and Darron Gaus , NCAT Agriculture Specialists Carbon Farm Planning is a rewarding process for producers and conservation planners, as we “dig deep” and find all the potential carbon sinks and soil health practices that can be implemented across the landscape. Image: COMET-Farm and COMET-Planner presentation slide.
In Iowa, unconventional farming—growing crops aside from industrial grain—ranges from soybeans grown and made into tofu near Iowa City to an environmentally-minded O’Brien County farmer who went organic decades ago. The pandemic and subsequent higher food prices have boosted interest in farming differently, several ag experts said.
Check out our companion piece: How to Start a Backyard or Urban Farm—Whether You Own Land or Not As a renter millennial, I wanted to start farming. This is a common sentiment among many student-loan-saddled millennials and Gen Z-ers who want to work with the land but don’t have land that they own to start gardening or farming.
The pet food industry traditionally relies on factory farm byproducts for its ingredients, a practice the industry touts as more sustainable as it produces less waste and cheaper food. Agriculture contributes at least 11 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions , and meat is the biggest contributor among foods. Farm Hounds jerky.
CGI believes that 53% of the UN’s goal for net greenhouse gas reductions can be achieved by these practices that produce more food by increasing soil organic matter and integrating trees into the farming systems. A farm in La Pedregosa, Panama after transitioning to agroecology practices with SHI.
Yet their pervasive use—along with farmland, plastics cover everything from individual seeds to bales of hay and packaged produce—has allowed them to plant themselves deeply in our food supply. All told, annual greenhouse gases released from plastic production, landfilling, and incineration total 850 million tons , or 4.5
He found this disconcerting, not only for himself but the future of small-scale grain farming in California, once known for its golden hills of grain. This specialized, often professionally operated equipment—and all farm equipment , for that matter—can be prohibitively challenging for many farmers to buy and maintain.
A forthcoming analysis previewed exclusively by Grist found that, on average, the amount of time considered unsafe to work outside during a typical 9-to-5 workday will increase 8 percent by 2050, assuming greenhouse gas emissions stay on their current trajectory. This [farm] has been in my family for over 125 years, she said.
At her 6-acre Sakari Farms outside Bend, Oregon, Schreiner employs traditional ecological knowledge to cultivate regional first foods —foods consumed before European colonialization—and passes that expertise down to Native American youth. Spring Alaska Schreiner, owner of Sakari Farms outside Bend, Oregon.
Urban ag is any kind of food production space within a city, inclusive of commercial farms that grow and sell directly to consumers, non-profit farms that serve a broader mission, community gardens, school gardens and even vacant lots turned into thriving personal gardens or homesteads. Oxford Tract research farm at UC Berkeley.
CalCAN is one of hundreds of sustainable, organic, and family farming organizations across the country that is engaged in farm bill advocacy this year. The original farm bill was enacted during the 1930s in part as a response to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and was an element of President Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation.
House Committee on Agriculture as part of a hearing on the financial state of farms in the country , hosted by Chairman G.T. The testimonies presented during the hearing underscored the profound economic pressures and mental health strains experienced by farmers nationwide, which directly impact their ability to secure and maintain farmland.
They’d take a few hundred acres of both leased and family-owned central-Texas farmland—land that for decades had grown row crops of corn and cotton—and give it “what it wants back,” he said. By one estimate, storing an extra 2 percent of carbon in soil would return atmospheric greenhouse gases to “safe” levels.
The price of land continues to rise, grants and educational opportunities can be hard to come by and there’s a steep learning curve for folks who didn’t grow up in a farming family. As we kick off our coverage of Future Farmers, we wanted to hear directly from the people facing these impediments: the young farmers themselves.
Flat, sprawling farm fields fill the screen. She’s also put millions of philanthropic dollars into a demonstration farm in Oregon. Last year, the foundation supported the production of a report on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture , which played a significant role in the national conversation around regenerative agriculture.
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.
Both durable and efficient, with no need for farmland or vast amounts of water, it threatened to leave natural fibers like cotton in the dust. Fashion contributes around 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, second only to big oil. percent of the world’s farmland but uses 4.7 Another big factor is end of life.
From losing seed crops as wildfires rage for weeks, to losing entire crops as a result of erratic freezes, to losing farms as drought dries up available water, farmers’ risks are rising. Farming is also an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers across the country are experiencing climate impacts as a crisis.
Through experience and trials and education, each farm figures out what they can grow and how they can grow it at a price that’s both affordable enough for customers and profitable enough for covering farm operation costs. Coming back to the idea of farming systems, as organic farmers we do an insane amount of management around weeds.
In 2006, they began to look for farmland around Edmonton, but the exorbitant cost of land — in some areas, upward of a million dollars — was insurmountable on teacher’s salaries. Through careful observation of land and climate, Jenna and Thomas have gradually built two cabins, a greenhouse, an organic market garden, and apiary.
As farmland becomes less functional as a result of increasing stresses from drought, floods, pests, and heatwaves, its regulation by diverse organisms becomes ever more important. The question of how to diversify farm production is closely linked with the question of expanding access to land.
Hard truth: we have to use farmland differently Strategic cropland repurposing is the change in land use from an economic activity that produces negative side effects (such as harming people’s health and the environment) to new land uses that produce positive side effects. I believe there is: strategic cropland repurposing.
CONTENT SOURCED FROM THE WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL Written by: Dean Mosiman March 17, 2023 In a first for Madison and maybe the country, an investor group wants to create a new neighborhood centered on low-cost housing, farming, racial justice and wealth building. It will preserve farmland and grow food to feed people.
Co-locating solar panels and crops can protect the crops from extreme weather, but it also produces energy for the farm or other purposes. Top: agrivoltaics are being trialed at Jacks Solar Farm in Colorado. It's like having a mini greenhouse without sides," she explained. Photo is by Thomas Hickey. Credit: Chloride Exide. "
But the epic flooding this past March was simply unprecedented, says the owner of Lerda-Goni Farms. The torrent overwhelmed dams, swelled rivers and crumbled levees, inundating entire farming communities, including Lerda-Goni and a dozen other ranches, and reawakening a long-dormant lake lying beneath the vast agricultural region.
Explore Djavid’s updated guide to carbon footprint calculation, and feel free to reach out to Agritecture for more information on how to create a more sustainable and climate-resilient indoor farm. of the American Farmland Trust.
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