No-till no-herbicide farming system in trial since 1981
This is just the start: applied ecology makes money and saves the planet.  Grow &quot;food forests&quot;, practice <i>regenerative</i> agriculture, make money.  It&#x27;s fun and feels great.  You can start right where you are.<p>Reposting a comment I made a few weeks ago:<p>A brain dump:<p>I&#x27;ve been investigating a few systems of agriculture.<p>- There&#x27;s Small Plot INtensive (SPIN) which is specialized for market
production, emphasizing minimizing labor and maximizing market crops.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spinfarming.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spinfarming.com&#x2F;</a>  (Be aware that these folks are selling their
system as a course, and this is a sales site not an info site.  You can
get the details from reading carefully and watching the videos that
practitioners have made.)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.transitionculture.org&#x2F;2011&#x2F;09&#x2F;05&#x2F;spin-farming-basics-a-book-review&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.transitionculture.org&#x2F;2011&#x2F;09&#x2F;05&#x2F;spin-farming-ba...</a><p>Quitting Your Job To Farm on a Quarter Acre In Your Backyard?
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=SJx1SPClg6A" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=SJx1SPClg6A</a><p>Backyard Farming: 2 Year Market Garden Update of Nature&#x27;s Always Right Farms
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Zpn1oGkQrrg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Zpn1oGkQrrg</a><p>Profitable Farming and Designing for Farm Success by JEAN-MARTIN FORTIER
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=92GDHGPSmeI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=92GDHGPSmeI</a>
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themarketgardener.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themarketgardener.com&#x2F;</a><p>Neversink Farm in NY grosses $350,000 on farming 1.5 acres (area in production).
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=u5IE6lYKXRw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=u5IE6lYKXRw</a><p>- Then there&#x27;s the &quot;Grow Bioinstensive&quot; method which is designed to
provide a complete diet in a small space while also building soil and
fertility.  They have been dialing it in for forty years and now have a
turn-key system that is implemented and functioning all over the world.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;growbiointensive.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;growbiointensive.org&#x2F;</a>  (These folks are also selling their system,
but they also have e.g. manuals you can download for free.  I find their
site curiously hard to use.)<p>-  Permaculture (which could be called &quot;applied ecology&quot; with a kind of
hippie spin.  I&#x27;m not a hippie but I&#x27;m sometimes mistaken for one.) and a
similar school (parallel evolution) called &quot;Syntropic&quot; Agriculture.<p>Both of these systems aim to mimic natural ecosystems to create &quot;food
forests&quot; that produce crops year-round without inputs (no fertilizer, no
irrigation.)  The process takes 5-15 years or so but then is
self-sustaining and regenerative.<p>For Permaculture I find Toby Hemenway&#x27;s (RIP) videos very good:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tobyhemenway.com&#x2F;videos&#x2F;how-permaculture-can-save-humanity-and-the-planet-but-not-civilization&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tobyhemenway.com&#x2F;videos&#x2F;how-permaculture-can-save-hu...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tobyhemenway.com&#x2F;videos&#x2F;redesigning-civilization-with-permaculture&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tobyhemenway.com&#x2F;videos&#x2F;redesigning-civilization-wit...</a><p>There&#x27;s a very lively and civil forum at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;permies.com&#x2F;forums" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;permies.com&#x2F;forums</a><p>For Syntropic agriculture:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;agendagotsch.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;what-is-syntropic-farming&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;agendagotsch.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;what-is-syntropic-farming&#x2F;</a><p>(FWIW, I find Gotsch&#x27;s writing (in English) to be impenetrable, even
though I pretty much know what he&#x27;s doing.  Anyway, his results are
incontrovertable.)<p>I&#x27;m afraid I don&#x27;t have a good link in re: Food Forests and eco-mimetic
agriculture yet.  This &quot;Plant Abundance&quot; fellow&#x27;s youtube channel might
be a good place to start, in any event it&#x27;s a great example:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;channel&#x2F;UCEFpzAuyFlLzshQR4_dkCsQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;channel&#x2F;UCEFpzAuyFlLzshQR4_dkCsQ</a><p>- If you really wanted to maximize food production and aren&#x27;t afraid of
building insfrastucture (like greenhouses and fish tanks) there&#x27;s the
(sadly now defunct) Growing Power model:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Growing_Power" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Growing_Power</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=vs7BG4lH3m4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=vs7BG4lH3m4</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jV9CCxdkOng" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jV9CCxdkOng</a><p>They used an integrated greenhouse&#x2F;aquaculture&#x2F;compost system to produce
massive amounts of food right through Milwaukee winters.<p>- Then there is the whole field (no pun intended) of regenerative
agriculture, e.g.:<p>&quot;Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets
of Soil Health&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A</a> and &quot;Symphony
Of The Soil&quot; Official Trailer -
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=zXRNF_1X2fU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=zXRNF_1X2fU</a><p>This is very much non-hippie, very much grounded in (often cutting-edge)
science (ecology, microbiology, etc.) and ecologically and <i>economically</i>
superior to artificial methods (e.g. Brown makes money.  It&#x27;s actually
weird that more people aren&#x27;t adopting these methods faster.  You make
more money, have fewer expenses, and your topsoil builds up year-on-year
rather than washing away in erosion.)