Science > Gardening

ATTN! Quick questions for organic gardeners!

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Skyfarmr:
This sounds like such a fun job!

A few terms I've been reading and hearing about is "sustainable agriculture", which  incorporate organic agriculture, permaculture, agro-ecology, holistic farming practices. 
The Leopold Institute is a great place to get some more details: http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/
NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Project has many too: https://attra.ncat.org/fundamental.html

Permaculture (also polyculture, aquaponics) is a type of sustainable agriculture that I've been hearing more about... it's quite fascinating and has very old roots.

From WIKI  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

--- Quote ---Permaculture is sustainable land use design. This is based on ecological and biological principles, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect while minimizing wasted energy. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants. The ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all part of the picture. Inhabitants’ needs are provided for using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter and infrastructure. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to other elements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another. Within a Permaculture system, work is minimized, "wastes" become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored. Permaculture principles can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.
--- End quote ---

I've seen stories of these small farms where space is limited.  Chickens roost above a fish pond, whose droppings,etc, feed the fish in part and the water from the fish tank is used to water/fertilize a garden that  grows vegetables and chicken feed.  That's soooo cool! Nothing goes to waste, and chemicals are kept to a minimum, and land is conserved.... making it sustainable.

There's more key words and links on that WIKI page if you'd like more details.

seekr:
Some key words for sustainable husbandry are:

Pastured; but this is becoming obsolete due to the public associating it with pasteurized

Grass-Fed; is taking the place of pastured

Also look up "Chicken Tractor"  :huh: it's not what comes to mind at first  :P

 

Stay away from "free range",

Organic eggs are produced by hens allowed access to pasture on a daily basis. This discussion is about Raising Chickens in the form of true family farming on a small scale, not what the deceptive term "free range chicken eggs" means to the commercial factory poultry farm.


The USDA allows that "certified organic" and "free range chickens" chicken eggs can be labeled as such as long as there is an access door. It does not have to access any pasture, with bugs and grass, dirt only is allowed.


The reality is that these chickens can and are being raised in a overstuffed huge poultry house with many hundreds of chickens in tiers of coops stacked 3 or more high. All the operation has to do is put a small access door to the outside.


It does not matter if the chickens cannot actually access it unless they are in the very front, and even then they will not get a blade of grass when they make it out. Label or not, they are not free range, happy chickens in any sense of the term.


The chickens are still fed the animal by product grain as before the legislation. So the point of the consumer paying higher prices for better fed and cared for chickens and eggs has been a failure.

_http://www.eatwild.com/   Look through this site. You can find farms in your area that practice the sustainable husbandry. Many of these farms will have a website and plenty have a blog, that tells about how they do things. Most will welcome a visit to the farm to see how things are done. (by appointment of coarse)  Also there are some "farm forums" that discuss these things, I'll try to get a few more links and post later...

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