Farming mom: ‘Organic methods made our farm’s environmental impact worse’

Carpooler In Chief, Homework Enforcement Officer, President of Lunch-Packing, Bedtime Efficiency Strategist…

When you’re a mom, you never wear just one hat.

And over the years — as a working mom of two kids; a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and a farmer who’s grown with organic, GMO and conventional methods — I’ve worn them all.

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I see a lot of talk about which farming method is best — organic, GMO, conventional — but we’ve just always farmed. It’s not about one practice or another; it’s about using the best tools from each approach to grow the healthiest crops with the least environmental impact.

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On our farm, there’s a place for any method that helps us farm smarter, and we test every good idea we find — which is why we’ve not only been using GMO Farming since the late 90’s, we’ve also been certified organic.

We first tested organic farming on about 100 acres, hoping to make our farm even more sustainable. But we quickly found that pure organic methods made our environmental impact worse, not better. For one, we had to start tilling our fields again, ripping up our soil and causing more erosion and sediment runoff — a non-starter given our proximity to the Chesapeake Bay.

Editor’s note: Jennie Schmidt is a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and farmer in Maryland.

Read full, original article: Organic, Conventional or GMO? This Farming Mom Tested Them All