What You Need To Know About Organic Food Production

A lot of people take organic food production for granted. Many of us believe that organic food production is an easy task but in truth, producing organic food products is a lot of hard work. In fact, organic food production requires a lot of extra hard work compared to conventional food production. Note that organic farms that are certified by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) follow strict farming rules and regulations. If these farms that are certified as organic by the USDA do not pass government standards, their certification may be revoked by the USDA and their products may be pulled out from the organic food product market. Moreover, if the violation made by the farm is serious, the USDA can impose stiff fines and even imprisonment as penalty.

What Does Organic Food Production Entails?

Organic food production entails the use of sound farming practices such as crop rotation, use of cover crops, animal manures and green manures to fertilize the soil. Since organic farms are strictly prohibited from using chemical fertilizers to increase production, these farms must rely on organic matters to keep the soil fit for planting. Crop rotation is very important to make sure that the soil retains its fertility. According to experts, planting the same types of crops all over again for consecutive cropping season can lead to depletion of the natural fertility of the soil. Once the soil is no longer fertile, organic food production rates go down. To ensure maximum farm productivity, many organic farm owners follow a certain intercropping cycle every year.

Organic farms need to use biological control techniques to manage weeds and protect their crops from insects and diseases. Since pesticides and herbicides cannot be used in these organic farms, it is very important to institute control measures to avoid infestations. Putting nets over vegetable plots is one of the most widely used techniques to prevent insect infestations on vegetables.

When it comes to organic livestock production, things can be quite trickier. Since the organic food production rules and regulations and of the USDA prohibits the use of growth hormones and antibiotics to help livestock grow and protect them from diseases, owners of organic farms need to be extra careful when handing their animals. The use of rotational grazing is very important to keep the animals in the farm healthy. If certain animals become ill, they need to be isolated immediately to prevent contamination of other animals.