The enhancement of soil fertility was a crucial value already to the pioneers of organic farming, but the conservation of fertile soil is not always given enough attention. And yet organic farming depends on good natural soil fertility. Exhausted and damaged soils cannot offer the desired performance. The cultivation of soil fertility requires a lot of care.
Many practitioners have developed their own strategies and techniques for the care of soil fertility. They have learnt through observation, and relied on their intuition. Such experience and the knowledge gained via scientific experiments and observations complement each other well.
The Organic Research Centre ORC and the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL produced a basic guide that offers a view on soil fertility from different angles. It deliberately avoids offering universal 'instructions', but rather seeks to provide information to stimulate new thinking about a sustainable relationship to the soil. The booklet aims to stimulate the practice of a truly sustainable culture of a fertile, living soil, based on well-tried fundamentals, as well as on the testing of new possibilities.
The 32-page publication is available as printed booklet for £ 6.00, 7.00 Euro or 9.00 CHF (incl. VAT plus postage) or as free download at www.organicresearchcentre.com and shop.fibl.org. The guide was produced within the Organic Knowledge Network Arable project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union.
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shop.fibl.org: Basic guide "The Basics of Soil Fertility. Shaping our relationship to the soil"