What's the buzz about "biological management"?
Some would call it "regenerative agriculture", or "beyond organic", but it's nothing fancy or revolutionary — in fact, it is simply the process of letting Nature run her own course. Just like us, plants require a few key components to survive - air, water and sufficient food - or more specific to agriculture, aeration, hydration and soil nutrition. When a diversity of soil life uses these components in the best way “they” see fit, water and nutrients become more accessible to plant roots, and plants become more efficient users of these inputs. Most amazingly, these favorable conditions allow the plant to reach its optimal operating potential, opening the door for production of more nutritious and better tasting plant foods in abundant quantities. These are the signs of a balanced, healthy and resilient soil ecosystem. Just like us, if the environment is balanced, healthy, and resilient, potential is maximized and possibilities are limitless.
Who we are
The Bionutrient Food Association (BFA) was founded in 2010 as a non-profit, educational organization whose formal objective is to improve food quality through biological management and regenerative agricultural methods that prioritize building soil vitality for better crop nutritional quality, vigor, flavor and yields. The BFA is focused on the nexus between quality and nutrition in the food we grow and eat, with the belief that this is a unifying challenge for all involved in the food movement. However one defines how their food is raised or what is put on their plate, we all enjoy quality. But this is not being overtly discussed, much less examined from an empirical viewpoint. How to best grow quality in its various definitions is the dialogue that the BFA is working to bring forth.
We are 500-members strong, and communicate with an extended network of over 5,000 lovers of food and soil quality. Through our work, we aspire to promote successful models of sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change and to reverse the decline in crop nutritional and flavor qualities attributed to abused soils. Our educational mission is to teach growers biological farming techniques proven effective in building soil health and crop quality, and to raise consumer awareness regarding the relationship between how food is grown and its quality at harvest. Our research mission is to better define benchmarks for crop nutritional quality and to illuminate the causal relationships between soil health, plant health and human health.
What we do
BFA efforts focus on education, resource development and applied research to establish links across healthy soil, healthy crops, and healthy people. Guided by this principle, organizational activities provide a targeted portfolio of information-rich resources providing enriched biological farming course materials, grower resources for quality monitoring and market development, and science-backed recommendations on where biological management is most effective in promoting food and soil quality.
BFA advocates the use of biological management practices – capable of being integrated into organic and conventional systems alike, observed by practitioners worldwide to improve soil quality, sequester carbon, restore soil life, produce crops resilient to environmental stress, match yield potential of other approaches in the presence of limiting resource inputs, and improve food quality characteristics of harvested produce. The benefits of biological farming to growers, consumers and the environment are many, but adoption of the method is not without task.
Join us today in support of healthy soils, healthy communities, and a healthy planet!
Help us make this paradigm change possible and provide growers and consumers with the tools to healthily and sustainably feed the soil, feed the crop and feed the populace. We invite you to explore these links and be an active part of this process through sponsorship and beyond.