Here at Neighborhood Compost, we’re all about sustainability and supporting local circular farming over commercial farms. But how can you, as a sustainability ally, support it too? Here are some ideas to help you get started.
What Is Circular Organic Farming?
First off, it’s important to understand what circular organic farming is. A circular farm uses residual products from one part of the farm as feed for another.
For example, a circular farmer might give vegetable scraps from vegetables grown on the farm to the farm animals. This way, there’s a lot less waste. Circular organic farms also practice regenerative agriculture to generate renewable resources and preserve soil health.
Farms like these also use animal waste to help fertilize their crops, thus eliminating the need for synthetic pesticides and other harsh chemicals.
How Our Circular New Jersey Organic Farm Works
Neighborhood Compost’s farm practices circular farming in all aspects of how we do things. Though we aren’t a certified organic farm, we do our best to implement regenerative agriculture practices to lessen our environmental footprint and provide quality organic produce.
Here are a few examples of what we do and the benefits that come from our circular farming practices:
We use goats as natural landscapers: Instead of polluting the air with landscaping machines, we use our goats to maintain the land naturally.
We utilize animal waste to nourish the soil: With each step and each poop, our alpacas nourish the soil on our farm — just by living on it!
Our chickens eat compost piles: Composting is a critical part of regenerative agriculture, and our chickens play a large part in it. The composted material our chickens eat nourishes the land and it nourishes them right back. The chickens’ enriched poo allows us to grow organic crops and lessen our greenhouse gas production.
We use enriched compost to nourish our crops: This rich blend of nutrients boosts the plants’ immune systems and helps the plants defend against disease. Because of this, we don’t have to use any synthetic pesticides.
We send all of our leftover fibers to partner companies like ManyMoons to be made into clothes: The remnants of fibers not fit for clothing are used on our farm as natural weed mats and compost pile additions. Our leftovers are their gain, and nothing is wasted!
How Is Our Farm Different From a Commercial Farm?
Commercial farms often grow the same types of things or raise the same kind of livestock as we do, but they do so on a much bigger scale and often use synthetic pesticides to do so. Most of the time, commercial farms focus on a monoculture linear growing approach.
This can deplete the nutrients, whereas we rotate our crops to make the land more biodiverse and prioritize soil health. We’re focused on bringing organic products to you on a local scale and giving back to the earth while we do it.
How To Support Our NJ Farming Efforts
One of the best ways to support local farming is by signing up for our composting pickup program. Whether you want food scraps picked up for your home, your business or your wedding, we’ve got you covered.
We’ll pick up your compost straight from your curb. If you sign up your business, you can even get a tax write-off for it! Your small contribution makes a huge difference for our farm and helps us keep things sustainable.
Come To Events At Our Alpaca Farm
Did you know we host events at our alpaca farm in New Jersey? We do all sorts of fun events, from goat yoga to composting masterclasses to connect with our community. Coming up next is our Alpaca Yoga and Farm Harvest event on September 23rd!
Coming to any of our events helps us to have the money to keep doing what we’re doing to help the environment and provide compost pick-up services. You can also volunteer to help us run these events.
Sign Up For Seasonal Produce Boxes
While it’s nice to have produce any time of year, transporting produce from around the world can create a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. You can help support us and our sustainability efforts by buying our locally-grown produce while it’s in season.
When we pick up your food scraps, we can drop off some of our most recent harvested produce or honey for an additional fee. Keep an eye out for emails from us to find out when we have harvests available, and we can deliver a CSA box right to your door.
In return for your food scraps, you can get fresh, organic produce grown right here on our farm.
Shop Our Circular Store
In addition to all the other things we do, we run a circular store. People create lots of waste every day with the daily products they use, but our NC shop helps mitigate this. You can shop for all sorts of sustainable products in our circular store, like household goods and pantry essentials.
Final Thoughts
By doing all these things, you can help to perpetuate a culture of sustainability right here in your own New Jersey community. We’re here to help our community preserve the environment for future generations.
If you’d like an easy way to contribute to our efforts, start by signing up for one of our composting plans!
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