On our regenerative farm, we use holistic practices that create cycles of energy flowing throughout it. For example, at the end of the season, cows roam the fields and graze the post-harvest cotton plants. They digest the plants and fertilize the field for the next season. The farmers either turn the rest of the plants into the soil or add them to the compost– both return all the carbon the plants sequestered back into the farm. Throughout the season, iterations of this energy exchange happen throughout the farm. Each system we create on the farm emulates those of Nature because Nature knows how to build healthy, thriving ecosystems better than we could ever create synthetically.
Each season begins with the seeds produced in the previous season. We collect cotton seeds from the gin after they remove the fiber, treat them with natural treatments to reintroduce the benefits the fiber would have provided the seed, and plant them in the soil. At the end of each season, the farmers also collect the seeds from the mature pollinator plants and cover crops.
We grow the ingredients for our natural fertilizers and pest repellents. A lot of the farms in the collective have neem trees growing on the edges of the farm– neem is a main ingredient in most of the pest repellents we use. We also make pest repellents with other local or farm-grown ingredients, such as Agni Astra (a mix of cow urine, green chili, garlic, ginger, and tobacco). Our main source of fertilizer comes from the cows that roam the farm.
It is a practice in conservation- how can we conserve all the energy created on the farm to power the seasons to come? This approach requires us to cycle everything on the farm back into the farm. In addition to improving the health of the farm, it is economically practical. Farmers do not have to spend their wages on expensive external inputs- the farm already has everything they need.
Although this approach may seem obvious, it takes a level of geographic-specific knowledge that has gone all but extinct since the advent of synthetic farm inputs. The collective of farmers we work with often have to tap into their memory of how their parents or grandparents worked with land or look to the few farmers in the area that still use traditional farming practices. The practices shift the farmers’ perspective from working on the land to working with the land. We have found that this holistic approach saves money and energy on what’s important: supporting, sustaining, and growing our community and ecosystem.
- By Mairin Wilson
