Jocelyn Langer – illustratör

In Crop Rotation and Cover Cropping, you can learn some of the thinking behind—and the actual nuts and bolts of—laying out a rotation for your farm. This volume, part of the NOFA guides, covers:Historical roots of cover-crop techniquesThinking beyond this season's cash crop (disease and pest reduction, weed suppression, cash vs. cover crops)What is a good rotation? (mapping the farm, grouping crops, sample groupings)The economics of rotations and cover cropping (organizing your work, reducing labor inputs, land and cover-crop seed costs)Including on-farm examples and detailed appendices.

In Crop Rotation and Cover Cropping, you can learn some of the thinking behind—and the actual nuts and bolts of—laying out a rotation for your farm. 

This volume, part of the NOFA guides, covers:

Historical roots of cover-crop techniquesThinking beyond this season''s cash crop (disease and pest reduction, weed suppression, cash vs. cover crops)What is a good rotation? (mapping the farm, grouping crops, sample groupings)The economics of rotations and cover cropping (organizing your work, reducing labor inputs, land and cover-crop seed costs)

Including on-farm examples and detailed appendices.

What are the advantages of making one''s own compost? Is there really a benefit to using compost as opposed to building soil organic matter through other means? How can the decision about compost making affect a farm''s economics? Part of the NOFA Guides series, this manual will help answer these questions, and is specifically intended to address the conditions faced by organic farmers in the Northeast.

Information on composting techniques, including:

Principles and biology of compostingTemperature, aeration and moisture controlComposting methodsMaterials (additives and inoculants, biodynamic preparations)About costs (site preparation, equipment, labor and time)What do you do with it?Compost tea and other brewed microbial culturesCompost and the law

With extended appendices including a recipe calculator, potting mix recipes, and a sample compost production budget sheet.

There is no simple recipe for setting up and managing a successful organic dairy farm, but this handbook can act as an introduction to important issues in organic dairy production and provide today''s organic or transitioning dairy farmer with an overview of the tools and ideas available.

Part of the NOFA guides. Organic Dairy Production includes information on:

Soils, the foundation of health (manure management)Crop production and grazing management (forage species, pasture management, setting up a grazing system)Livestock (selection, nutrition, winter and summer feed considerations, seasonal milking, habitat, herd health, milk quality)Marketing (selling fluid milk, regulations, facility and equipment, selling raw milk)RecordkeepingThe transition to organic

Features examples from various farms in the Northeast.

The skills of seed saving are vital for small organic food producers and the whole of agriculture. Farmers and gardeners need to be able to produce their seeds as a basic, inalienable way to control their means of production.

Part of the NOFA guides. Includes information on:

Strengths and limitations of hybrid varietiesBefore you grow the seed (selecting varieties, saving seed and improving crops, intellectual property rights)Growing seed (pollination biology, harvesting, cleaning, storage, germination testing)Details on individual crops (amaranth, crucifers, beets and chard, lettuce, cucurbits, corn and small grains, nightshades, root veggies)

Plus detailed appendices including more info on seed cleaning, seed companies, and more.

Why do whole-farming planning? What makes it more effective than other ways of managing farms? The answers to these questions lie in a quiet rediscovery through science that is fundamentally changing the way modern humans see and must manage the world.The goal of this whole-farm planning manual is to reintroduce a macroscopic method of making and testing decisions on the farm and in larger wholes in which we live. This NOFA guide has information on:Lessons from systems science (including tools)Assessing the whole farm (what are we managing? the people, physical and mental assets, money)Understanding the farm ecosystems (the water and mineral cycles, dynamics of the biological community, the energy flow)Choosing appropriate toolsMaking a framework to test decisionsIncluding examples and statements from practicing farmers, and more holistic resources and alternative business models.

Why do whole-farming planning? What makes it more effective than other ways of managing farms? The answers to these questions lie in a quiet rediscovery through science that is fundamentally changing the way modern humans see and must manage the world.

The goal of this whole-farm planning manual is to reintroduce a macroscopic method of making and testing decisions on the farm and in larger wholes in which we live. This NOFA guide has information on:

Lessons from systems science (including tools)Assessing the whole farm (what are we managing? the people, physical and mental assets, money)Understanding the farm ecosystems (the water and mineral cycles, dynamics of the biological community, the energy flow)Choosing appropriate toolsMaking a framework to test decisions

Including examples and statements from practicing farmers, and more holistic resources and alternative business models.

Organic poultry production systems can be sophisticated, technically advanced commercial operations or simple, small-farm add-ons integrated into a more complex agroecosystem. No matter the size or scale, the basic tenets of traditional organic agriculture apply. 

This NOFA guide includes information on:

Organic poultry basicsEstablishing the facilities (housing and equipment, choosing and using litter, outdoor access, brooding, grazing and pasturing)Purchasing and brooding chicksOrganic feed and supplementsPoultry health care in the organic systemManagement challenges (production and culling, spotted shells, yolk color)Slaughter and ProcessingMarketingProduction expectations and economic viability