What does an organic farmer actually do?

The importance of soil

Organic soils contain a lot more soil biodiversity, have a better water holding capacity and usually hold more carbon. This has a positive effect on the climate, but also improves our resilience to climate change. Organic farmers who make optimal use of nutrient cycles and green manure, and who are using little fossil fuel, can even achieve a negative number for CO2-emission, meaning they are actually storing carbon in the soil.

It's impossible to overestimate the importance of healthy soils for the future of mankind; see also www.saveoursoils.com.

Arable farming and fruit growing

In organic arabale farming and fruit growing everything begins and ends with a healthy, living soil. Organic vegetables and fruit are always rooted in the earth. Also when it's greenhouse cultivation. The roots create living microscopic communities with fungi and microbes to release nutrients from the soil at a natural speed. This lead to the best tasting fruits and vegetables.

Mulching

In orchards in dry and sunny area's, like South Africa, organic farmers often apply mulching: this means they spread a thick layer of straw or other plant clippings to make a cover on the orchard soil. The mulch is slowly broken down by soil life and enriches the soil with organic material and nutrients. The mulch keeps the soil moist, prevents weeds and protects the crops from mud splashes.

Crop rotation and intercropping

Organic farmers use crop rotation to keep the soil and plants healthy. Crop rotation means that every year others patches of soil are used to plant specific crops. After a certain number of years, the same crop will return to the same patch of land. Crop rotation has the effect of reducing plague insect and nematodes, manages nutrients and nitrogen, controls weeds. An alternative is intercroping, where farmers plant different kinds of crops intermittently, like in permaculture or agroforestry. In orchards crop rotation is, of course, not possible, so farmers use a form of intercropping, planting green cover between the trees. 

Bees love organic

You may never have considered it, but bees are a farm animal too. They are kept for honey, bees wax and, last but not least, pollinisation of fruit trees and many other crops. Approximately 1/3 of all food on earth depends on pollinisation by bees. Einstein is often quoted for saying: "If bees have disappeared from the surface of the planet, mankind has only 4 years to live." Actually Einstein never said anything like that, but he should have, because it may very well be true.
 
In recent yeas bees have been dying in large numbers. The cause can be summarized as "industrial agriculture". Looking more closely the cause is threefold: large scale use of pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, reduced biodiversity and food sources, and spreading of bees diseases as a result of globalisation. In the Netherlands, honey bees have not occurred in the wild since the 80s. There are hundreds of species of wild bees and they are doing very badly as well. The founder of biodynamic agriculture, Rudolf Steiner, warned for the negative consequences of intensive beekeeping around 1910, when it came up. He predicted that the enthusiasm about it wouldn't last a 100 years.

Organic agriculture tackles at least two of the three causes of bees decline: it provides more diversity and food sources, and does not use neonicotinoids and other synthetical pesticides. Organic and biodynamic beekeepers treat their bees better. In 2012 Nature & More held the campaign "Bees love organic", where 400,000 sachets of organic bee flower seeds were distributed.