What is sustainable Agriculture, and how does it relate to your urban vegetable garden, guerilla grafting, or homesteading?

I took an Exploring the Small Farm Dream course in 2015. The course was offered through a local conservation organization whose mission was to lend support to the farms of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and that’s how I was introduced to sustainable agriculture. One of the farmers in the program explained how he used a combination of cover crops to suppress weeds and improve the soil. He talked about “green manure,” how he integrated livestock into his farming, and how the healthy soils retained moisture, which lessened his need to water the crops. When the pandemic changed my career path, I enrolled in my community college’s Sustainable Agriculture program that fall 2020. The following spring, I was selected for a farm internship program that taught sustainable crop production methods. Those two programs showed me that Sustainable Agriculture is about much more than simply farming. Read on as I highlight what I’ve learned, and you can judge how these concepts might apply to your own food growing and gardening needs.