Gaining Ground: Making a Successful Transition to Organic Farming - Softcover

9780969585169: Gaining Ground: Making a Successful Transition to Organic Farming

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0969585160 ISBN 13: 9780969585169

Publisher: Canadian Organic Growers

The Gaining Ground: Making a Successful Transition to Organic Farming handbook is an invaluable tool for all farmers interested in organic farming, whether conventional, transitional or organic. The book covers all bases - from soil-building and planting to certification and marketing, revealing an approach that is much more than simply farming without chemicals. Based on interviews with over 80 of Canada 's organic or transitional farmers across the country, this book provides valuable, practical advice and connects you to a national network of organic farmers, the next best thing to having an organic farmer next door. Farmer wisdom is supplemented with a wealth of scientific information from around the globe. "The main barrier was believing that it would work. The biggest change is between your ears." - Pieter Biemond, ON The key tools of organic farming, like weed and pest management, crop rotations and green manures, composting and equipment are addressed in Gaining Ground: Making a Successful Transition to Organic Farming. In addition, it discusses the difficult shift in thinking from an input-output approach to an integrated, whole-system approach based on ecological principles. The handbook includes an extensive list of resources for further reading. "We were trying to produce a good crop but the more chemicals you use the more disease and problems. We didn't seem to be gaining anything. We had a beautiful crop but we spent lots of money and had no return. It seemed to be getting worse. Our motivation was economic and we wanted to create a future for our farm. We now want to show that organic can work and it is the way of the future for farming." - Gerry DeRuyck, MB

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