The Farm as Natural Habitat 205someone told him about the zone of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, 7000 square
miles depleted of marine life because of excess nutrients flowing down the Missis-
sippi River from the Corn Belt, I doubt if he would be surprised.
It is understandable that people accept these trends as the destiny of agricul-
ture if they cannot clearly see alternatives. But there is an alternative – another
trend – that could produce a landscape of farms which are natural habitats rather
than ecological sacrifice areas.
A strong minority of modern farmers, like Dan and Muriel French, have not
turned their farms into factories nor abandoned their chosen profession but are
instead leading agriculture in an entirely different direction. Their creative initia-
tives to make farming more economically sound and environmentally friendly are
producing benefits for them, for society at large and for the land. The trends of
these models are toward independent farms supporting families and communities
while restoring biological diversity and health to the land.
Using an ecological approach to management decisions, these farmers are
restoring a relationship between farming and the natural world that improves the
sustainability of both. This relationship makes the farm a natural habitat. It is a
natural habitat for humans in that it is a healthful and aesthetic place to live and
earn a living. The farm is a natural habitat for the crops and livestock because they
are able to use ecosystem services for fertility and pest control rather than fossil fuel
and man-made chemicals. And the farm is a natural habitat for native plants and
animals, a refuge that encourages biological diversity along streams, in pastures
and along uncultivated edges.
Farming Practices for Natural Habitat
Farmers themselves do not talk about turning their farms into natural habitats. It
happens as a result of the way that they choose to farm. Many farmers became
interested in changing their practices in the 1980s, particularly during a period of
low prices, high production costs and minuscule profits. A number of newly
formed farming organizations around the country helped them lower their use of
purchased inputs, such as chemical fertilizer and pesticides, and develop more
environmentally friendly practices. For example, the Land Stewardship Project
(LSP) in Minnesota began to hold workshops and field days about the practice of
management intensive rotational grazing. This involves dividing a pasture into sec-
tions or ‘paddocks’ with electric fences and allowing the animals to graze each area
intensively for a short period of time before moving them on to another area. In
conventional grazing, livestock roam freely in an open pasture, often overgrazing
some areas and causing erosion.
Management intensive rotational grazing roughly mimics grazing patterns of
migrating buffalo herds that preceded European settlement on the plains and prai-
ries, but domestic livestock return to graze an area much sooner than did buffalo.