Organic Farming – Till Or No Till?
We have decided to get this monkey off my back about this crazy controversy with “Till” and “No Till” agriculture and farming. As the organic market is now a twenty billion dollar per year industry you bet their is much controversy over the various methods used in the organic farming world.
He says to till the field and she says “No! Don’t Do It!”, they say “Till It A Little!”, another one says “Till It Every Three Years!”, what to do, what to do? Yes who ever thought that the simple task of plowing and tilling a field would become such an issue in our lifetime?
For those of you who are beginning to use more and more organic products in your diet the no till issue is probably somewhat familiar to you. For those of you just tuning in a “No Till” field is one where crops are grown but the soil is never dug up and “Tilled”, get it?
From our standpoint there are many advantages you would think with “No Tilling” such as reduced carbon emissions from soil erosion as disturbed soil can and will breakdown and release carbons into our atmosphere which may lend a hand in the so called “Greenhouse Effect” which is destroying our planet. The next big advantage to “No Till” farming would be the reduced requirement for all those big “Vroom Vroom”, “Whoosh Whoosh”, “Jingle Jangle”, farm equipment machines that need to be operated to do the tedious tilling. Right there is an obvious savings in emission as those big machines run on gasoline or diesel fuel and burn lots of it. With some setbacks to “No Till” farming now beginning to surface as I figured it would we must make a bold move and know our earth, soil, and air better than ever! Yes I will not make this a five page blog to spare all my friends but will say that what needs to be done NOW is to start making some in depth long term ecological studies and get some more insight regarding the true benefits and drawbacks of “Till and No Till farming”. It seems mother nature is hesitant to offer her secrets with ease and we must take this into account for the sake of our farming future.
Sincerely