Traditional mixed-use farms have always been managed, in one manner or another, as production ecosystems.  Viewed as an ‘ecosystem’, known inputs (solar energy, water, nutrients, minerals, fuel, equipment, soil amendments, seed, animals, etc.) and outputs (grain, forage, hay and straw, vegetables, fruits, nuts, animals that provide eggs, milk and meat - and manure with spent bedding) are balanced through processes of recycling nutrients back to the land.  Producers (plants) and consumers (animals and people) ultimately rely on decomposers (bacteria, algae, fungi, actinomycetes and micro- and macro-invertebrates) in the soil.  What is crucial in organic systems are healthy biological processes and recycling of water and nutrients that are managed in a stable and balanced production ecosystem.

Use of petro-chemical inputs over the last 80 years or so, in form of synthetic pesticides and herbicides, hormone enhancers, and antibiotics, etc., resulted in astounding gains in quantity of production and control of pestilence, but often at the expense of widespread environmental degradation of soils, water, air and some production quality.  Today, biotechnology represents a further challenge that results in a bewildering array of environmental, social, moral, ethical and economic concerns.

Contemporary organic agriculture is not a return to old-fashioned farming methods, but is farming based on ecological principles.  This involves not only avoiding use of petrochemical-based and questionable biotechnological inputs that can degrade water and soil, disrupt ecosystem dynamics, and contaminate gene pools, but also building healthy relationships between trophic levels using proven organic techniques and applied ecological principles.  Organic agriculture recognizes that ‘everything is connected to everything else’, that ecosystem diversity controls pests and disease, and that nutrient recycling and composting is fundamentally necessary for ecosystem health and optimum soil fertility.  Crop rotations play a central role in controlling pests and disease and optimizing soil fertility, water is carefully managed, and proper tillage and cultivation based on both technique and timing are fundamentally important in managing the farm production ecosystem.  The laws of biology and principles of ecology on the farm, or anywhere, do not change but our understanding and application of them continues to evolve.  Organic agriculture begins with the management of healthy, productive, biologically-active soils and the conservation of soil resources.