Perennial Forage and Cover Crops in Tropical Climates Can Help Solve Many Problems

Many Subtropical regions experience an extended dry season, and this is expected to increase as a trend with Global warming and shifts in climate patterns throughout the world, but cover crops can help.  Left unmanaged, dry soils will have sparse vegetation, be much warmer, and when combined, these conditions lend themselves to massive nutrient losses within the soils impacted.  The lack of soil cover from the lack of biomass subject the surface horizons to soil erosion when hard rains [...]

Organic Agriculture – Is it Really the Answer? What’s the Question?

Having been educated in Agriculture, with a particular focus on Agronomy, I’ve been particularly interested in the ‘Organic’ trend sweeping the politics, economy, and agricultural industry today.  Consumer perceptions of Organic Agriculture as being something ‘new’ to farmers is particularly unsettling to me, and I’m sure, to many of us who have either farmed it or worked with farmers over the years. I thought I’d write about this topic today, so I did my usual search of the internet for [...]

How a Farmer Became a Symbol of the Food Revolution in California

Most-read books on Sustainable Farming and the Food Revolution What would you do if the varieties of peaches you (and your parents before you) grow, are no longer in demand? Image from David Masumoto's Family Facebook That’s what happened to David Mas Masumoto in 1987, when his farm came to a crossroad.  He found that the large volume buyers no longer wanted his Sun Crest peaches.  “An heirloom variety just didn’t have the right cosmetics for the market place…it didn’t get red lipstick-red [...]

Four Reasons why Biocontrol Should be Important to All of Us

Are you thinking going organic? Let’s talk about "Biological Pest Control" Biological Pest Control. A parasatoid wasp lays an egg in an aphid. Photo by Alex Wild, University of Georgia. Since USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) implemented the organic regulations in 2002, the U.S. organic sector has tripled in size to over 22,000 certified organic operations with over $43 billion in 2015 in U.S. retail sales, and over $75 billion worldwide according to data released by the Agricultural Marketing Service's (AMS) [...]

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