I'm an Urban Farmer Hoping to Inspire New Farmers and Drive Localization Using Regenerative Farming

Hello Steem!

My name is Steven and I recently quit my day job to farm my backyard in San Diego, CA.

I have 19 chickens, 10,000s of red worms, fruit trees, grapes, berries, passion fruit, dragon fruit, and 1/4 acre of space for my farming enterprises. I make my own soil, fertilizers, and brought fertility to my land cheaply and naturally using sheet mulch and cover crops. I detail it all on my D.Tube.

My goal is to teach as many people as I can about regenerative farming techniques and how they can grow healthy food for their family and even make money as a small scale urban farmer. Regenerative farming use no-till methods that focuses on creating the healthiest soil, plants, and animals possible.

You might not be aware, but there are many micro farm and market garden business models earning large gross profits by running very efficient farms, that grow high profit margin crops. Here are 3 amazing growers, their farms, and how they make so much on a small amount of land:

Curtis Stone The Urban Farmer - 100K on a Quarter Acre

Never Sink Farm - Grossing $350k on 1.5 Acres

Richard Perkins - Starting a Farm with No Money

It really is possible to make a decent living on a small amount of land if you utilize an efficient design, a great business plan, and choose ideal crops to grow. Crops that are in demand, have a fast date to harvest, and high profit margin are typically chosen as the major source of income for small urban farmers. It's not for everyone, it's a lot of long hours and you won't get rich, but you will become rich in many other ways I can assure you. Farming has blessed my life in countless ways and I would love to share my story with you.

If you would like to hear my personal journey of how I started farming 6 years ago, please check out the Sustainable Living Podcast episode about me, by fellow steemian @mariannewest. http://sustainablelivingpodcast.libsyn.com/slp-125-urban-farming.
She also wrote a great Steemit post about me and my farm as well. https://steemit.com/gardening/@sustainablelivin/steven-cornett-on-backyard-farming.

As for my Steem activity, I'll be posting a lot of D.Tube videos about my farm, how I constructed it, irrigation, planting, propagation, vermiculture, composting, seed starting, harvesting, ect. blog content about farming, growing tips, raising chickens, permaculture, recipes, agribusiness, ect.

This is a great video to start with that introduces my farm and philosophy

This is my farm tour and Q&A to learn about all the systems of my farm.

Growing food is my passion but I have two higher goals beyond just farming:

#1 I want to help as many people learn to grow food as I can. So they can experience the joy and health benefits of raising their own produce, and if it's right for them, make a living enjoying this amazing lifestyle.

#2 I believe that radically changing our food system can achieve massive economic and social change that will help breakdown many government monopolized services and replace them with legitimate and efficient private service providers. I'm a voluntaryist and believe that we can better organize society through voluntary and private means as opposed to the force, fraud, and coercive system of government that currently organizes our society and monetary systems.

If 100,000s of new farmers start small scale regenerative agriculture businesses it will have many effects:

-Increases local economic growth
-Reduces overall environmental and health impacts of conventional farming
-Localizes community, scales back federal government services by replacing with private
-Food security
-Reduces use of pharmaceutical drugs and many conventional treatments
-Makes government subsidies of agriculture/gmo less frequent
-Reduces transportation of food
-Restores more power and freedom to individuals and their communities

Helping to change our current large scale degenerative food system to a small scale regenerative agriculture system will have a major influence over the future of our world and society. In my opinion, it is the best solution to all of the environmental, health, cultural, and economic crises we currently face. We can use the positive incentives of the market to drive ethical behavior and farm using natural systems that are highly efficient and mutually beneficial to all involved.

You might be surprised to learn that I actually use 0 pesticides on my farm. Birds, ladybugs, hover flies, predatory wasps, spiders, lacewings, ect are my pest control. I always have dozen of species of plants growing on my farm to promote biodiversity, which brings a high level of balance to the micro ecosystem of my market garden. I even make 75% of my own soils, fertilizers, and amendments. I am aiming to have my property be 95% sustainable by the end of the year including feeding my chickens for free using free inputs. Everything I do will be displayed for all to see on D.Tube

Nature is already perfect and we can use its systems to an incredible advantage. Or we can meddle with its perfect systems, destroying it arrogantly in the process. Just like arrogantly intervening in the market is detrimental to the market, intervening in nature is detrimental to nature. These universal patterns and rules of nature apply across all aspects of life. The land is an endless teacher.

Looking forward to sharing more with this awesome community! Happy farming!

-Steven
Nature's Always Right

D.tube: https://d.tube/c/naturealwysright
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/naturesalwaysright
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturesalwaysright/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/naturesalwaysright/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NaturesAlwaysR
Website: http://naturesalwaysright.com/