A series of Florida farms received praise from environmental advocacy groups for their commitment to sustainable, green farming. Project CARE (which stands for community action for a renewed environment) recently nominated several Florida farms, praising their commitment to environmental stewardship and holding them up as examples for the future of American agriculture.
The farms in question enact a wide variety of environmentally friendly practices. One farm, for example, schedules irrigation in the evening in order to minimize water evaporation and maximize efficiency. Some utilize “spoon-feeding” fertilization, a practice that uses significantly less fertilizer in order to minimize waste. Other farmers have invested in computerized livestock care, allowing a computerized system to control temperature, watering, feeding, and maximizing efficiency.
The CARE project, which was started in 2001 by the Florida Farm Bureau and other environmental organizations, recognizes outstanding voluntary resource conservation (including practices that save water, reduce energy consumption, and minimize fertilization).
Efforts to conserve natural resources and build a long-term sustainable agricultural infrastructure are vital, environmentalists claim. Recent reports by the National Research Council, as well as several United Nations studies, have indicated that American agricultural production, as it currently exists, is not sustainable. ‘
Agricultural producers, in order to cope with future ecological changes as well as support a growing world population, will need to focus on resource conservation and green farming. Project CARE, and the farmers and practices that it honors, are an important part of realizing this long-term goal.
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Written by: Justin Ellison / Farm Plus Staff Writer