Organic Farming Classics
Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 4:57PM While you nudge your cool season plants along through the dark winter months ahead, draw inspiration from some of the classic titles on the organic farming movement. Natural farming isn’t a new concept of course. Some of these books are based on direct observations of simple farm cultures in the east that, though sustainable methods like combining vegetation and animal manure to create humus, have maintained or improved soil fertility on tiny parcels of land that have been farmed continuously for thousands of years. Other works illustrate how organic methods like sheet composting green manure crops, restored modern era farms that had been rendered sterile by the use of chemical farming techniques, and abandoned. By the time you’ve put all these classics back on the bookshelf, you’ll be heading for the garden to create your own story on sustainable agriculture!
An Agricultural Testament
Sir Albert Howard
A British agricultural officer’s first-hand account of the sustainable farming methods used by local populations in India, recorded by between 1905-1931. Throughout the book, Howard notes and emphasizes the role of humus in maintaining soil fertility. He established the principles behind rapid decomposition, creating the technique for composting now known as the Indore Method.
Pleasant Valley
Louis Bromfield
The story of how Bromfield – a Pulitzer Prize winner, and author of thirty major books – used only natural methods to restore a lifeless 1000 acre tract in Ohio, previously referred to as ‘Poverty Knob’, to one of the most productive farms in the county. Pleasant Valley, along with Malabar Farm, and From My Experience, became pivotal works that spread Bromfield’s visionary ideas on sustainable farming around the world.
The City Forest
Percival Yeomans
The most influential Australian in the natural farming movement, Yeomans developed key line farming ; a method of harvesting and spreading rainwater on farmland, and cyclical grazing to use pasture as a green manure crop, and increase the organic matter level in soils. Like other influential natural farming figures, he envisioned a sustainable system of agriculture where soil fertility would steadily improve over time.
Silent Spring
Rachel Carson
Carson’s work raised awareness about the long term effects of pesticides like DDT, and questioned the chemical farming movement that was falling under increasing scrutiny during the 1960’s. Silent Spring was praised by both mainstream readers, as well as those in the organic farming movement as a well timed warning on the dangers of chemical farming.
Humus and the Farmer
Friend Sykes
Sykes’ classic account of how he restored a 750 acre, depleted property in England that had been farmed for over 4,000 years. The previous sixty years had seen one farmer after another walk away from the farm’s lifeless soil, only to be renewed by mixed leys of green manure crops that increased microbial activity fertility in the soil. Sykes sheet composted animal manure along with cover crops, encouraging and celebrating the presence of earthworms that aerated and further fertilized the soil.
The One Straw Revolution : An Introduction to Natural Farming
Masanobu Fukuoka
A microbiologist turned farmer, Fukuoka’s use of the giant Japanese Daikon radish to improve soil fertility by drawing subterranean minerals to the top soil was similar to Bromfield’s use of alfalfa to achieve the same result. The book emphasizes the importance of achieving success in farming only by maintaining a state of balance with nature. His revolutionary methods of successive, crop planting to control weeds and pests, and farming using only simple hand tools, drew the interest of farmers, hippies, scientists and media reporters from over the world.
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