Importance Of Ecological Farming
The importance of Ecological Farming cannot be underrated. Ecological farming is a type of farming that emphasises Farming without Chemicals. Its techniques are structured in a way that farmers will depend solely on what comes from the environment in their everyday agriculture, in the feeding livestock, cultivation of crops, and even pest and disease control.
Ecological Farming brings back the synergy of ancient agriculture when GMOs, Nitrogenous fertilizers, and antibiotics didn’t exist. It brings us back to the time when a fish farmer didn’t need to run to the feed shop to buy fish feed when he could use the waste products from under livestock and plants to feed the fish. All techniques put together to meet up to all these above can be referred to as Ecological farming.
In addition to all the points above, Ecological farming has a symbiotic relationship setup, it strives to make everything used on the farm purely organic and methods of farming, safe, to prevent some preventable natural disasters like Soil Erosion and desertification.
You must about Permaculture, Fukuoka, Synergistic agriculture, Messianic agriculture, and biodynamic agriculture. All these are types of Ecological Farming, all having one mind in their techniques. Truthfully after reading this article, you will neglect many presumptions about agriculture and forge towards enjoying the importance of Ecological Farming.
Types of Ecological Farming
To better understand the importance of ecological farming, let’s briefly discuss the types of Ecological farming enlisted above. Here they are:
1. Permaculture
Permaculture is also known as Permanent culture, it is the approach to agriculture from a whole system perspective. Here a Farmer doesn’t just consider a variable in agriculture instead he considers all variables before taking any decision. It is the opposite of modern industrialised agriculture.
Permaculture was first an idea by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978 but now is an internationally accepted agriculture. Some may call it strategic agriculture because it emphasises structure, keeping elements in the right locus in other to be beneficial and benefactor without side effects.
In laymen’s words, permaculture is agriculture that copies the structure of the natural ecosystem not exploited by man. Countries like India and Thailand are at the leading front and are already reaping the importance of ecological farming.
2. Fukuoka or Natural Farming
Introduced by a Japanese Farmer by Masanobu Fukuoka in his 1975 book, The one straw revolution. Natural Farming is a type of ecological farming that takes a design of a closed system where man adds nothing instead he mimics nature. It also resists tilling and technology and surprisingly Mr Fukuoka’s 25 years old farm which took this approach made a better yield than many other farms that used machines.
Most importantly, Natural Farming advises farmers to use the spiritual connection to increase yield. Hereby preventing soil erosion, biodiversity loss and water pollution giving room to regenerative agriculture
3. Synergistic Agriculture/ Gardening
Synergistic Gardening is a smart combination of the principles of Permaculture, Natural farming and Marc Bonfils. Here, the garden is left without tilling, the addition of manure or fertiliser or pesticides. The benefit of this type of ecological farming is that it maintains soil health through plant recycling, selection of plants and mulching.
4. Biodynamic Agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture is very similar to the other types of Ecological Farming. With a serious emphasis on no synthetic fertilizer, pesticides or tilling, Biodynamic agriculture encourages organic farming which is the use of organic manure and compost, and predators to control paste. Although all this, Biodynamic agriculture emphasises reliability in the Spiritual (astrology) than agronomy. Germany, France and Australia have adopted this method and it’s going smooth for them.
The goal of biodynamic agriculture is to avoid any inputs that are brought to the farm. This means no addictives, fertilisers, or supplements. All you do is through astrology understand nature and use the power on the earth by speaking and using some objects with spiritual importance, thereby causing a good yield.
Importance of Ecological Farming
From the brief explanation of what Ecological farming is and the types of ecological farming, we will be able to deduce some importance of ecological farming that we go got by reading through the lines. These are the importance of ecological Farming:
1. Healthier food production
With rising cases of health issues in this generation, thinking from the perspective of “what made our ancestors live longer than us?” won’t lead us far from what they ate and what we eat now. With the absence of synthetic fertilizers, additives and pesticides in ecological farming, the tendency of falling ill with sicknesses associated with bioaccumulation is highly prevented.
In industrial agriculture, Farmers employ all means to make profitable yield in the easiest way possible, thereby leaving lapses to some health hazards instigators.
Eating a little percentage of chemical doesn’t kill but when the percentage of those chemicals become more than your system can digest, it becomes toxic to your body giving rise to inflammation and some cellular disorders.
Thanks to ecological farming, food security is increased as toxic chemicals from fertiliser and the rest are being prevented thereby reducing the chances of Cancer and other bioaccumulation-related diseases to a very low percentage.
2. Cheaper cost of agriculture
One importance of ecological farming that some websites might be shy to say, is the cheaper cost of agriculture. In a type of farming where a farmer doesn’t have any need for fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic feeds, or labour to till the soil, the cost of agriculture becomes cheaper.
In agriculture like Fukuoka and biodynamics where you just have to sow seeds and connect to nature to get feedback, the risk of losing your produce to genetically associated infestations is very less. Now the money that an industrial farmer uses to buy all these inorganic additions like fertilizers can be channelled into expanding his farm.
3. Increase in soil biodiversity
The success in microbiological research throughout this century has informed us about the presence of helpful bacteria and microorganisms in the soil. Now, the importance of ecological farming here is that with principles of no-tilling, a stable environment for these organisms is created helping increase their performance and reducing the amount of death of these organisms during regular tilling activities.
4. Fights climate change
In our world today there are many issues ranging from insecurity to famine but one issue that will persist if we do not flow with this ecological farming and organic farming movement is Climate change. Climate change experts have come up with strategies for managing climate change and they are far-fetched from those used in ecological farming.
Take for instance the heat wave going on in Europe and some other western countries, these are effects of man tampering with nature. Using principles like no ploughing and tilling has been seen to reduce the risk of soil erosion. Studies have also shown that a great percentage of the carbon emitted to the atmosphere is gotten from nitrogenous fertilizers and their factories.
5. Reduces Pollution
Environmental hygiene is adjacent to poor waste maintenance. One importance of ecological farming is that with the likes of Permaculture and synergistic agriculture, waste products and byproducts can be recycled naturally on the farm.
Instead of a farmer that has a pig farm and fish farm to bury the waste manure of the pig, He can use that manure to feed the fish. And also instead of the farmer killing himself on how to give his pigs good bone supplements, he can take leftover bones from his fish and feed the pigs. Thereby forming a cycle that is purely organic, wisely economical, reducing pollution and increasing environmental hygiene.
6. Impacts the nutrition of products
Studies have shown that with the reduction of agrochemicals, there is a higher tendency of producing foods that have nutritional content. Take for instance the Fukuoka farm that has been running on this principle of no-addition and the yield has been breathtaking when evaluations are done on their products the content of vitamins, deoxidants and food classes were highly supplied in them more than the industrially farmed products.
7. Prevents extinction
GMO advocacy all over the world seems good but there are some side effects that if not considered will leave a farmer in tears in the nearest future. Yes, with GMOs some plants are highly productive and resistant to diseases but consideration of gene-associated diseases have should be considered. Thereby becoming an importance of ecological farming as ecologically farmed plants don’t use GMO seeds in their cultivate
Conclusion
The importance of Ecological Farming cannot be underrated from its health benefits, nutritional benefits, and climate friendliness to its environmental benefits. Countries like Germany, India, Japan, France, and Australia have been practising ecological will be the best testifiers for this article. And with your discretion check the countries that have a higher population of healthy people, old people, and even higher food production you will see that these countries are all championing them.
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Also Read: How to start a farm with no money.
