Green Agricultural Practices

Green agricultural practices strive to preserve the environment and produce livestock and crops sustainably. Being truly green is practicing producing as little waste as possible and using as little water as possible. Here are some green agricultural practices that seem out of date but are now crucial to sustainable agriculture. The goal is to maintain productivity and quality while using resources more efficiently.

Crop Rotation

The practice of growing the same crop in the same soil for years will eventually lead to soil erosion and a lack of proper nutrients for the crop in question. Crop diversity can also be employed where a variety of dissimilar crops are planted that take and give back a mixture of nutrients to and from the soil.

Crop rotation can also diminish the occurrence of disease in crops because diseases are crop specific. Many agriculturalists will tell you horror stories of infected crop and losing an entire season’s work. With crop rotation the disease is much less likely to occur and if it does only one variety is lost, not your entire income.

Local Market

By creating a culture where you buy and sell produce locally you can reduce emissions of trucks and ships passing produce back and forth.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

This is considered a four tier system that works to eliminate chemical pesticides and replace them with natural alternatives. First you must determine if any creatures on your farm can actually be considered pests to begin with and if killing them will have ecological repercussions.

Monitoring and identifying pests can give you a major advantage in non-chemical pest control. Once you know what the pests are you can implement your preventative measures. These methods of pest preventions include crop rotation and choosing pest resistant strains of crops.

More invasive measures may include the use of pheromones to disturb pests’ mating seasons or trapping and removing weeds by hand instead of using herbicides.

Improved Water Management

Improved irrigation means using less water when raising crops. This can be implemented with a drip irrigation system. Read more on the revolution drip irrigation can bring to the future of green agriculture.

To adopt any of these methods all you need is some know-how and the proper farming supplies. Learn more about our agricultural directory here and find the agricultural products you need to go green! Get into contact with agricultural services and we will be happy to help.