Center for Food Safety | Organic Farming & Soil |

Soil

About Soil

The Soil Food Web

Soil & Farming Practices: Organic vs Industrial

Soil & Climate

Resources

Reports

Media

Organic Farming & Soil

Modern organic farming combines tradition and innovation. Recognizing the value of reduced tillage for soil health, a technique known as “organic no-till” is becoming more popular. Instead of plowing in the cover crop in the spring, a new device known as a “roller-crimper” is used to crush and kill it. Not only is erosion reduced and soil tilth maintained, but the killed cover crop forms a mat that suppresses weeds in the main crop, which is seeded through the mat.

Mainstream farmers are slowly learning from organic practitioners, though they have a long way to come. For instance, the conservation tillage movement was motivated by the core principle of organic agriculture – improving soil quality as the key to sustainable food production. More recently, mainstream growers have become more interested in planting cover crops, which has long been the province of organic farmers. Unfortunately, most mainstream farmers continue to make liberal use of often toxic herbicides, greatly diminishing the benefits provided by these techniques.

Top 5 Reasons Why We Need to Rebuild Soil Carbon Now

This article was originally published on FoodTank on November…

Read More

The Rising Star of the Paris Climate Conference — Soil!

Center for Food Safety’s food and climate team went to the UN’s 21st Conference of Parties - COP21 with shovel-ready solutions and one big goal: to spread awareness of the v…
Read More

Soil: Our Climate Ally Underfoot

One of our biggest potential climate allies is directly under our feet: soil. Healthy, living soil has an enormous capacity to store carbon…
Read More

JOIN

Protecting Our Food, Farms & Environment

Soil

Organic Farming & Soil

Top 5 Reasons Why We Need to Rebuild Soil Carbon Now

The Rising Star of the Paris Climate Conference — Soil!

Soil: Our Climate Ally Underfoot