science

Wild farming

Wild farming is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wild farming rather than just read about it. In short: Wild farming is a growing alternative to "factory farming" that consists of planting crops that are highly associated and supportive to the natural ecosystem. This includes intercropping with native plants, following the contours and geography of the land, and supporting local food chains.

Key takeaways

Wild farming belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wild farming to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wild farming from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wild farming is a growing alternative to "factory farming" that consists of planting crops that are highly associated and supportive to the natural ecosystem. This includes intercropping with native plants, following the contours and geography of the land, and supporting local food chains. The goal is to produce large crop yields, while still promoting a healthy environment. Wild farming is a backlash against the dominance of factory farming which is a dominant factor in the food industry and has a 'myth' that industrial agriculture is more efficient. Up until the mid 20th century, agricultural crop yields relied on natural inputs such as rainfall patterns, natural soil resources, recycling of organic matter, and built-in biological control mechanisms. Currently, agricultural practices have been conventionalized to include large monocropped fields and the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. Avoiding the conventional farming practices, wild farming adopts many practices from sustainable agricultural systems such as agroecology, permaculture, forest farming, and greywater systems.

Principles The four basic guiding principles of the wild farming movement are:

Direct managers to develop long-term vision for future of landscape Basic recognition of ecosystem processes. High value on biological diversity. To consider the quality of life of the community as well as the self.

Organizations The largest organization involved in the study and promotion of wild farming is the Wild Farm Alliance (WFA). The objective of the WFA is to implement a vision of a “healthy, viable agriculture that helps protect and restore wild Nature”. The WFA has created a platform that other farmers, farming organizations, and conservation groups can adhere to. The WFA fights for the rights of the small-scale farmer who does not rely on the techniques of factory farming. Their platform has been endorsed by 74 organizations across the U.S., and the types of organizations include communities of sustainable farmers, California Certified Organic Farmers Foundation, conservation groups, advocacy groups, and suppliers of organic/sustainable food. The WFA helps spread education by sharing success stories of farmers around the nation. For example, the WFA website contained a story of a farmer in Belgrade, MT who was raising sheep. To protect the flock from predators like wolves, they raised a guard llama with the sheep; because the llama grew up with the sheep they bonded and the llama protected them from native predators.

See also Local food Locavore Biodynamic farming

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wild farming

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wild farming claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wild farming before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wild farming ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wild farming

In research: Wild farming appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wild farming in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wild farming is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Agriculture by type, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wild farming outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wild farming in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wild farming means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wild farming out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wild farming in simple terms?

Why does Wild farming matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wild farming?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wild farming.