Gabe Brown on Building Resiliency through Soil Health
Farmer, Author Gabe Brown Discusses Soil Health & Diversity Gabe Brown is one of the great bridge builders in farming. No matter which corner of agriculture you come from, or even if you don’t...
View ArticleBook of the Week: Biodynamic Pasture Management
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from an Acres U.S.A. book, Biodynamic Pasture Management, by Peter Bacchus. Copyright 2013, softcover, 160 pages. Regular price: $20.00. From Chapter 3: Organic Soil...
View ArticleBook of the Week: Organic No-Till Farming
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from an Acres U.S.A. book, Organic No-Till Farming, written by Jeff Moyer. Copyright 2011, softcover, 204 pages. Normal Price: $28.00. From Chapter 1: No-Till Basics...
View ArticleNavigating the Dairy Crisis: Hope in Organic Dairy
At a time of profound hardship in the dairy industry, the few farmers optimistic enough to start new cow dairies are going the route of organic dairy. The name of Clover Bliss Farm refers to the...
View ArticleBook Excerpt: Ranching Full-Time on 3 Hours a Day
The book Ranching Full-Time on 3 Hours a Day, by Cody Holmes, provides real-world examples of the success that holistic management systems can create a for your ranch. Using his personal experience,...
View ArticleLeasing Farmland 101
Leasing is a way in and a way to scale. Goodness knows we need as much of this transitional farmland as possible to go to our tribe and not to the corporate industrial tribe. An owned hub is great,...
View ArticleBook excerpt: A Biodynamic Farm
The book A Biodynamic Farm by Hugh Lovel is a practical, how-to guide to understanding the definition of biodynamics, and practicing biodynamic techniques on your farm. An expert in quantum...
View ArticleHow to Establish Dung Beetles in Pastures (and Why You Want to Do This)
I only recently became interested in dung beetles, largely because it has only been recently that we have had any to become interested in. As a rancher, I must create the conditions for dung beetles...
View ArticleBook excerpt: Honor System Marketing by Jeff Mcpherson
The book Honor System Marketing, by Jeff Mcpherson, shows you how to implement honor system marketing into your own operation. It offers multiple honor system examples, and details how to avoid common...
View ArticleGabe Brown on Ecosystem Stewardship
North Dakota farmer and rancher Gabe Brown stands at the forefront of the regenerative agriculture movement. He is perhaps best known for popularizing the concept of cover crop cocktails as a key...
View ArticleTropical Agriculture Conference Topics Range from Greenhouse Gas Management...
BELMOPAN, Belize — Perhaps it was better when the power went out. The lack of microphones forced Ronnie Cummins with Regeneration Agriculture to start Wednesday’s Tropical Agricultural Conference...
View ArticleSuccessful Crowdfunding for Agricultural Pursuits
With bank loans hard to come by, many farmers are looking for alternatives, and one of the new models is online crowdfunding, a form of Internet-based donations, loans and investments. Many of the...
View ArticleCommunity Land Trusts: Gateway to Farmland
The Oakland Institute, a policy think tank in Oakland, California, reports that huge pension funds, university endowments, banks, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and new exchange-traded companies...
View ArticleClay Bottom Farm Turns Lean Principles into Profit
It’s a frigid March day in northern Indiana, but inside Clay Bottom Farm’s hoop house, Ben Hartman is planting onion sets. The work is done quickly with a Japanese paper pot transplanter — a wheeled...
View ArticleBook excerpt: Rebirth of the Small Family Farm
The book “Rebirth of the Small Family Farm” is a concise handbook for starting a successful organic farm based on the community-supported agriculture concept. The authors, Bonnie and Bob Gregson,...
View ArticleBook Excerpt: Talking Chicken
Commonly seen on many small farms now is a reworking of materials at hand to create a brooder unit adequate to house chick lots of fifty to one hundred head until they are three to five weeks of age....
View ArticleAlternative Poultry: Getting Creative
Plenty of today’s small farmers have found productive and profitable means of pasturing chickens and turkeys, but sometimes chicken (or turkey) just isn’t enough. Heritage breeds expand a business’...
View ArticleDealing With Herbicide Drift
The degree to which crops are damaged from drift depends on the level of the susceptibility of the crop, its growth stage, environmental conditions, herbicide formulation, droplet size and the spray...
View ArticlePaper Pot Transplanters for Organic Operations
The paper pot transplanter is a specialized tool in small-scale farming used for high-density plantings of cut greens, scallions and other row crops. They are generally used as a labor-saving...
View ArticleThe Perks of Self-Serving Silage
The site of the heap varies from year to year, so there can be no question of concrete sides or base. And though straw bales might be possible, we don’t use them because they make no difference to the...
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