What is Organic Farming?

Organic farming uses natural methods of fertilizer production (like compost or manure), techniques such as companion crops, mixed crops and crop rotation, while nurturing predator species to control pests.

In most cases, organic farming generally does away with all forms of synthetic fertilizers, plant growth regulators or pesticides. Use of antibiotics or hormones in livestock is forbidden, while use of nanomaterials and genetically modified plants or animals is shunned.

 

What is Organic Farming?

 

Amongst the earliest proponents and developers of organic farming concepts were Sir Albert Howard, F.H. King and Rudolf Steiner (renowned for biodynamic agriculture). J.I. Rodale began publishing the Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in the 1940s.

Masanobu Fukuoka's book The One-Straw Revolution (find it on Amazon US, UK, IN) is a great starting point. Masanobu's journey from plant pathologist to enlightened farmer is an inspiration to read besides being highly educational.

When compared with conventional farming, organic farms have much lower input costs and their use of water is minimal. But, until the soil being cultivated attains high degrees of health, organic farms tend to initially produce lower yields (~25% lower | SRC: Britainnica.com); and the amount of manual labour involved is high. The direct result of this is that organically farmed produce, tends to be more expensive than conventionally produced foods. 

By 2019, 170m acres of farmland was labelled as organic, but even this impressive scale, only represented 1.4% of all global farmland.

 

Cuban farms - organic farming models for the world

 

Essentials of Organic Farming

Soil Management is pivotal in any organic farming venture. Composting and green manure are vital to improving soil health over time and is a means of replenishing nutrients extracted by previous crops. For compost to be rich in nutrients, a wide verity of organic material such as green waste like de-watered faecal sludge, animal manure and bedding, leaves, hay and weather exposed woodchips may be introduced into a decomposition mix.

 

How to create and maintain soil fertility

 

A number of composting methods exist such as compost heap decomposition which may be carried out at an industrial scale, vermicomposting which uses worm species such as red wrigglers and earthworms to process vegetable and food waste, and fermenting organic matter using lactobacilli.

 

Composting for beginners

 

Crop diversity is a key feature of organic farming. It involves polyculture principles (planting a variety of plants in the same plot) and multi-cropping (planting co-dependent plants together). It also promotes utilizing a variety of genetically different sources for same or similar plants, to mitigate against pests and diseases.

There's a story about how a Japanese-American orchard owner David Masumoto went against the trend of replanting heirloom peach trees with pest resistant verities which produced more attractive fruit which handled shipping much better; instead opting to plant flowers which attracted beneficial insects. Masumoto's orchard still produces the sweetest Suncrest peaches. His book Epitaph for a Peach is a must read (find it on Amazon US, UK, IN).

 

A poly-culture permaculture orchard

 

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a systems approach to creating conditions which allow beneficial weeds, insects and mites, worms and nematodes, bacteria and an assortment of mycorrhiza to flourish. Biological pest management techniques ensure an all-round organic approach is maintained to curtail and mitigate against pests which may harm crops.

Paul Jackson's Organic Pest Control: The Practical Guide (find it on Amazon US, UK, IN) and Jessica Walliser’s book A Natural Approach to Pest Control (find it on Amazon US, UK, IN) make for informative go-tos at any stage of your organic farming venture.

Some of the more frequently practiced methods of organic pest management include

• rotating crops across plots to halt onset of established pests which attack specific crops
• continuously preparing and applying organic pesticides and some acceptable kinds of herbicides
• encouraging beneficial insects to establish themselves in the farm by providing them habitats like bug homes and hedgerows
• allowing weeds to germinate in unused beds and then destroying them before they seed
• remove pest habitats and using barriers such as frost blankets
• inter-planting pest repellent vegetation and encouraging beneficial microorganisms

 

Organic pest control

 

Economics of organic farming

An organic farm (when started from scratch) takes time to become established. Many organic practices like building soil health and pest management take significant trial and error efforts, before micro and local ecosystems become established enough to produce in volume. While not as capital intensive as traditional commercial farming, there is a need for a farmer to be able to sustain through and initial growth phase.

Jon Newton's comprehensive case study and scenario-based organic farming book Profitable Organic Farming (find it on Amazon US, UK, IN) covers scenarios for vegetable, fruit, poultry and livestock; and includes crop and produce identification, financial management, distribution, marketing and ways to measure success.

 

Profitable, High Intensity, No-Till Organic Farming