Farming, both as a means of livelihood or a hobby on the side requires immense patience and meticulous care to yield results. You truly only reap what you sow, hence a good deal of effort must be put into what you do sow. In this article, we have explored some ways for you to up your farming game.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty it is beneficial to keep in mind some healthy farming principles.
- Productivity: A good farm should be able to produce food in abundance.
- Economic Viability: A good farm should be self-sufficient while providing proper wages and fair working conditions for those who work in it. It should help boost the region’s economy as much as possible.
- Environmentally friendly: A good farm should be environmentally responsible and should maintain the fertility of the soil and the surrounding environment for future generations.
You can maintain these principles by following proper farming practices like
- A healthy farm would have uncultivated land around as buffer to keep the nearby waterways from getting polluted and it also becomes a home for helpful organisms.
- Crop Rotation and diversity is a key to maintaining soil fertility. It also helps a farmer grow crops throughout the year since some crops grow only at a specific time of year. This can be an invaluable source of income should one of the crops fail due to unforeseen circumstances. Healthier soil, more variety of crops, reduced needs for pesticides and higher profits are some of the benefits of crop rotation and diversification.
- Integrate livestock with your crops. This is beneficial for both. A well-managed pasture can increase your crop yield by a significant margin all while maintaining biodiversity. The manure from the animals becomes a natural fertilizer for the crops and this maintains the soil fertility. Proper integration of animals into the farm can open up the market to alternative crops and enable more complex crop rotation cycles.
- When the soil is bare, it is beneficial to plant cover crops. Cover crops can reduce soil erosion, improve soil fertility and the water holding capacity. Plus it acts as a natural weedicide by keeping weeds from growing.
