Prairie Farm Pilot Project - Transitioning from Conventional to Organic Farming

View the project final report

Commodities

• Agronomic: corn, millet, oats, rapeseed, rye, sunflower, wheat, grass (misc. perennial), hay
• Vegetables: turnips
• Additional Plants: trees
• Animals: bees, bovine, poultry, goats, sheep
• Animal Products: dairy

Practices

• Animal Production: feed/forage, parasite control, animal protection and health, grazing - continuous, feed additives, feed formulation, free-range, feed rations, herbal medicines, homeopathy, manure management, mineral supplements, grazing - multispecies, pasture fertility, preventive practices, probiotics, range improvement, grazing - rotational, housing, stockpiled forages, watering systems, winter forage
• Crop Production: conservation tillage
• Education and Training: decision support system, demonstration, display, farmer to farmer, focus group, mentoring, networking, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research, study circle, workshop, technical assistance
• Farm Business Management: whole farm planning, new enterprise development, budgets/cost and returns, cooperatives, marketing management, feasibility study, agricultural finance, market study, risk management, value added
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, habitat enhancement, indicators, soil stabilization, wetlands, wildlife
• Pest Management: allelopathy, biological control, competition, cultural control, economic threshold, eradication, field monitoring/scouting, physical control, mulching - plastic, cultivation, prevention, smother crops, weather monitoring, weed ecology
• Production Systems: agroecosystems, holistic management, integrated crop and livestock systems
• Soil Management: earthworms, green manures, soil analysis, nutrient mineralization, soil microbiology, organic matter, soil quality/health
• Sustainable Communities: infrastructure analysis, new business opportunities, partnerships, public participation, urban/rural integration, analysis of personal/family life, community services, social capital, social networks, social psychological indicators

Prairie Farm Pilot Project is the restoration of a 600-acre conventional farm to a sustainable organic integrated crop/livestock farming unit. We will accomplish this with a boidiverse, holistic, synergistic, organic, sustainable farming plan which is: healthy soil=healthy plants=healthy animals=healthy meat, eggs, and milk=healthy people.