Earth Day

written by

David Fischer

posted on

April 22, 2022

Someone told me one time that every day is Earth Day at Fischer Farms.  I think they were just tired of hearing about how my ryegrass builds our soils.  As you all know, we do take great pride in how we’ve built our soils over the years with our farming practices.  You can see in the graph how a large percentage of US Cropland continues to erode.  As you travel across the Midwest you will see large fields that have been plowed last fall and left to the weather all winter.  Many of these farms are flat and have large reserves of organic matter but still are eroding every year by fall tillage.

The last 10 years I have seen the thought process that we don’t just have to reduce erosion but we can actually build our soils emerge as a mainstream way of thinking in the farming community.  The old notion that it takes hundreds of years to build 0.1” of top soil are replaced by farmers practicing rotational grazing and practices that can build 0.1” of top soil in a year. 

So the positive is that our thinking is less of an outcast crazy approach and closer to center of the road.  We may still be driving on the shoulder but at least we are getting there! 

One last call for requests for letters of support.  Fischer Farms is applying for a large USDA grant that will reduce our farming and processing costs and thus make our meat prices more competitive to conventional meat prices.  Please reply to this email and send us some quick thoughts on how you buy meat from Fischer Farms because you and your customers want to purchase meat that is raised sustainably!

Ryegrass

sustainability

sustainable farming

top soil

soil health

USDA

More from the blog