A lot of people take organic food production for granted. Many of us think that organic food production is an easy task but in truth, producing organic food products is a lot of difficult work. In fact, organic food production requires much extra hard work compared to conventional food production. Note that organic farms that are certified by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) follow strict farming regulations and rules.
If these farms which are certified as organic by the United States Department of Agriculture do not pass government standards, their certification might be revoked by the USDA and the products could be pulled out from the organic food product market. Moreover, if the violation is made by the farm is serious; the United States Department of Agriculture will impose stiff fines and even imprisonment as penalty. Organic food production will provide you much benefit.
What Does Organic Food Production Entails?
Organic food production requires the use of sound farming practices like crop rotation, use of green manures, animal manures, and cover crops to fertilize the soil. Since organic farms are totally prohibited from utilizing chemical fertilizers to improve production, these farms must use natural matters to keep the soil fit for planting. Crop rotation is very important to make sure that the soil retains its fertility.
According to experts, planting the same types of crops all over again for consecutive cropping season can result in depletion of the natural fertility of the soil. Once the soil is no longer fertile, organic food production rates go down. To make certain maximum farm productivity, many organic farm owners follow a particular inter cropping cycle each year.
Organic farms need to use biological control techniques to manage weeds and protect their crops from insects and diseases. Since pesticides and herbicides cannot be used in these organic farms, it is important to institute control measures to prevent harmful attacks. Placing nets over vegetable plots is one of the most generally used ways to avoid insect infestations on vegetables.
When it comes to organic livestock production, things could be very harder. Since the organic food production rules and regulations and of the USDA discourages the employment of growth hormones and antibiotics to help livestock grow and keep them from diseases, owners of organic farms have to be very careful when handing their animals. The use of rotational grazing is extremely important to keep the animals in the farm healthy. If particular animals become ill, they need to be isolated immediately to avoid contamination of other animals.
When purchasing organic food, it is very important for you to ensure that it has a high quality by looking at the label. So it is very important to the companies to make the label with industrial label printer or Zebra label printer that can make a high quality print of label.