Importance of homesteading /small farming
Homesteading is a process where one depends on food from a small farm where a farmer can manage it personally. This involves small scale production of farm produce. Here is some of the importance of small farming.
Small farming promotes communities. This is through linking people with the food they eat and the land they live on. This is where you can access the menu on a farm near you are living in, making it possible for you to take good care of the farm. This brings about food with high quality which may be useful for home satisfaction and also for sale to some extent.
When having a high-quality production for sale, you are exposed to the customers hence making good money from your purchase. Small farms also work together to be competitive in the agricultural market. Competition in the market brings an industrial revolution within the country, making the country’s economy grow.
Homesteading also creates job opportunities. This is seen when you have a small farm and the production done on the farm is for sale. When you are exposed to more customers in the market, there will need to increase production on the farm. While increasing the output, you will need people to work on the farm hence creating job opportunities to the people around you.
This enables you to have more products on the farm, allowing you to be exposed to a broader market. This is done when you have a production of high quality. High-quality production is the best since your production will attract all customers; hence ones should prevent having low-quality production.
Small farm improves the health of the land. This is seen due to the diversity of different products that will be undertaken on the farm. When the farmer farms seasonal production, there will be a change of nutrients in the farm, maintaining soil fertility; hence the land is healthier. The diversity of crops also improves the quality of the soil, as different plants will be used to replace different soil nutrients.
As a diversity of the plants replaces the soil nutrients, this saves the farmer from the cost that will be needed to buy required fertilizers on the farm. Variety of the farm also reduces the threat of attack of pests that might attack the farm hence reducing the amount of pesticide that may be required to fight pesticides on the farm.
Homesteading also improves the health of the people. This is when there are seasonal unprocessed food and vegetables. The availability of fresh, healthy food could serve as an alternative. Also, this is done when there is a diversity of production hence the prevention of chemicals to be used in the farm; therefore, having the health of consumers from no risk improving their health.
The small farm helps in the spread of economic risk in the area provided. This is seen when in case there is minimal production in one farm or poor season on a farm. On a small farm, when one of the cases occurs, consumers will be able to consume still as they will get production from the other farms creating a steady flow of distribution.