Introduction
Gardening and climate change may not seem too interlinked. However, you’ll be surprised how big of an effect agriculture has on climate change, even if it’s in your own backyard on a very small scale. If you want to create raised beds for your garden, you can search for “landscape companies near me” and get professionals to build them for you. Let’s check out the environmental and health benefits of growing your own food:
The Benefits
- Reduced carbon emissions – Commercial farming consumes an absurd amount of energy and that’s not good for the environment. A lot of commercial farming goes towards growing carbohydrates and low-cost food for livestock. Rice cultivation alone emits a lot of methane into the atmosphere and so does growing crops for livestock. Both these processes account for 54% of global methane emissions.
Apart from that, commercial farming also contributes to deforestation. Forests are the natural filters of the world that keep carbon emissions in check. However, agriculture has led to deforestation in many parts of the world. That reduces the planet’s overall capacity to keep CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere and pushes humanity closer to doomsday.
When you start gardening at your home and grow at least a portion of your annual consumption, you rely less on commercial farming and have a positive effect on the environment. Moreover, even if commercial farming was transformed and used sustainable ways for growing food with minimal carbon emissions, it wouldn’t help much.
Food grown in commercial farms has to travel thousands of miles to reach your home and that translates to a lot of emissions on transportation. Growing food in your farms helps you cut those emissions and keep dinosaur juice in its liquid form.
- Reduced fertilizer and pesticide use – According to the EPA, commercial farming in the US alone consumes around $15 billion worth of pesticides and $19 billion worth of fertilizers every year. The number of fertilizers and pesticides used for global farming is gigantic. That’s a lot of chemicals that go into your food. Moreover, farms are incentivized to grow one type of crop on the land with these chemicals to exponentially increase yield and maximize profit.
Unfortunately, these practices also harm the delicate ecosystem of soil and deplete it of beneficial microorganisms. They wreak havoc on bacterial and fungal networks that improve the soil and distribute nutrients to plant roots. When the soil isn’t good enough, the food can’t be healthy.
Instead, you can farm your own food and decide exactly what goes into the garden. Most backyard farms are organic farms that use natural methods to enrich the soil and grow food. Your food doesn’t need to have toxins and carcinogenic chemicals. It also keeps toxins away and keeps the land and water free from pollution.
- You’re more connected to nature – Growing your own vegetables and herbs makes you spend more time gardening. This physically connects you with nature as you interact with different kinds of soil and plants. Even if the harvest isn’t good enough, it’s the fruit of your labor and you’re overjoyed every time you get to harvest the produce. The sense of satisfaction is unmatched when you get to grow and eat your own produce. That’s great for your mental health and strengthens your sense of purpose.
Gardening in your backyard is also a labor-intensive process. Adding compost, tilling the soil, uprooting weeds, seeding the soil, and protecting it with mulch and tarp during the cold season. All of these tasks demand a lot of elbow grease and help to maintain your physical fitness even if you miss out on workouts.
- You get to learn new things – Think of your garden as a learning lab at the back of your house. It doesn’t just provide your family with food, but also precious knowledge. You get to learn and teach your kids hours of educational material on nature and how you can influence it to grow your own food.
As you become comfortable with one crop, you’d want to experiment and grow more challenging and exotic veggies. You get to learn how the delicate ecosystem behind your backyard works. You get to learn how you can deal with weeds and pests without using harmful chemicals and instead implement the counter forces of nature like pest-eating ladybugs. It also strengthens your bond with the family and keeps everyone happier.
- Better nutrition – The modern banana, pumpkin, watermelon, tomatoes, and most other fruits and veggies don’t look even close to their ancestors. They have been bred to perfection within the last half a century to look a certain way. Food doesn’t even make it to the supermarket if it doesn’t look aesthetically appealing. However, that has nothing to do with nutrition. Studies show that while calories in your food have increased, nutrition has taken a hit.
You don’t need to put up with that when you grow your own food. Healthy and nutrient-rich plants are grown in healthy soil with all the essential elements and minerals. You can have that kind of soil in your garden. You can go the organic route, adopt low till practices, and use compost to feed your plants full of nutrients and eat healthy food.
- It tastes better – This is a fact that everyone knows and has tested themselves. Food made from healthy organic sources always tastes better. When you choose different plants for different seasons and rotate crops you maintain the soil fertility and grow better and healthier plants with more natural sugars and flavors. When you eat healthier and tastier food, you feel better about yourself.
Conclusion
As you can see gardening and growing your own food can be extremely beneficial to your health and exciting as well. Moreover, it also has a positive effect on climate change. To make garden beds or other changes in your property for growing your own food, you can hire the right professionals by searching for “landscape companies near me”.