Iffin I was 20 years old.. :-)
We need GMOs to feed the world like a fish needs dry land. A controversial farmer in California is proving that a veritable bumper crop
can be had using new farming methods that don’t require GMO pesticides,
herbicides, or even weeding, and require 10 times less water than the
average farm. The best part – he earned $100K per acre last season
without even harvesting all of his land.
What kind of super-fertilizer allows Paul Kaiser
to grow so much food on a mere 8 acres? Lot’s of rotten food scraps and
rotten plants – otherwise known as compost. And he uses loads of it.
He uses farming practices both old, and
cutting-edge-new so well that agricultural specialists from University
of California at Davis who have tested his top soil can drive a
four-foot steel pole all the way through his fields. This, as opposed to
most parts of California, where it would hit infertile hard-pan in less
than 12 inches.
Last year, Kaiser’s farm located in Sonoma
Valley, CA grossed more than $100,000 an acre, too. This is ten times
the average for most farmers of this area, even in lucrative
wine-country.
His farm is no mega-farm, either. At just under 8
acres, he is beating even other large organic farms because the soil is
still so damaged in other conventional and organic farms alike. He is
certainly out-performing Big Ag methods of farming as his unique farming
practices have turned the soil into a goldmine.
Kaiser follows what he calls the 3 main rules of soil health: Keep roots in the ground as much as possible, keep the soil covered as much as possible, and disturb the soil as little as possible.
Kaiser follows what he calls the 3 main rules of soil health: Keep roots in the ground as much as possible, keep the soil covered as much as possible, and disturb the soil as little as possible.
Kaiser also doesn’t plow his fields (which means
a lot less work) and he uses around 10 times less water than his peers.
His neighbors still run sprinklers, but he waters for about an hour a
week, using almost exclusively drip irrigation. This means that while
California is still recovering from a drought, most farmers are watering
the air – since most of the water is lost to evaporation. Kaiser is
watering – how novel an idea – just his plants.
So much more and pictures..
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