Tools & Practices

The tools and practices of organic agriculture include traditional alternatives—crop rotation, manuring, liming, etc.—long recognized as important to a sound production system. They also include more contemporary practices and materials that research and keen observation over time have contributed. The following list of tools and practices is not intended to be comprehensive, though the primary options are addressed. Note, too, that each farm operation will employ its own combination of tools and practices to build a working organic system. There is no simple cookbook formula for combining them in “ideal” proportions.

One basis on which to evaluate the tools or practices one chooses for an organic operation is whether or not they contribute to biodiversity—biodiversity being one of the principal characteristics of a sustainable organic agriculture.

Crop rotation, cover cropping, farmscaping, companion planting, and intercropping are outstanding examples of practices that contribute to biodiversity. They therefore contribute to the long-term stability and sustainability of the farm agroecosystem. Composting and manuring likewise contribute to biodiversity but, since the diversity they promote is mostly in soil biota, it is rather less obvious to the casual observer.

On the other end of the spectrum are practices such as tillage, cultivation, thermal weeding, solarization, and plastic mulching. Such tools significantly reduce diversity in the field and tend to move the system in a less sustainable direction. This, however, does not necessarily make these practices a bad choice.

Organic farming has often been called natural farming, as it tries to mimic the processes of nature in producing crops and livestock. However, the analogy goes only so far, since most agricultural systems are characterized by a struggle between human and nature, each with a clear notion of what plants and animals the land ought to support and in what proportions. The farmer is typically in the position of “holding back” the natural succession of plant and animal species through the use of diversity-reducing tools and practices. The ideal is to bring about an agricultural system in which the long-term direction emphasizes diversity and sustainability. Among the best visualizations of this ideal are those emerging from the Permaculture movement.