Farms

Farms have always needed fertilizer to stay productive over many years. Compost is a great addition to farms and gardens. It builds the life in the soil and feeds plants a healthy natural diet. Modern farms import harsh chemical salts as their fertilizer. A new movement called Regenerative Agriculture uses techniques and practices that build natural fertility in the soil. Compost isn’t a permanent plant food and usually needs to be reapplied after 2-3 years.

Feeding Pigs

Pigs do very well with food scraps from the table and spoiled produce. With lots of protein and fat, scraps from human food are highly nutritious! Large loads of food scraps for big farms are treated with steam to make sure no diseases are carried by the scraps from people’s plates. Feeding your family’s vegetable scraps to your pigs is generally safe.

Compost Bins

Making compost in the garden and from the barn’s waste is a good thing on a farm. With lots of manure and bedding from animals and left over leaves and stems from crops, farms have all the basic materials to make compost. Many farms have tractors with bucket loaders which can turn the compost during processing and load it into spreaders.

Compost Spreader

Using a manure or compost spreader is the best way to get large amounts of bulky materials out to the fields.

Learn More:
Video - Spreader ➚
Video - Compost Spreader on Corn Field ➚

Gleaners

After the Harvest rescues nutritious fruits and vegetables from going to waste and donates them to agencies that serve hungry people in Greater Kansas City.

Their volunteers glean after the harvest, picking what’s left in farmers’ fields and picking up already harvested leftover produce. The majority of the funds they raise helps secure semi-truckloads of donated produce that might otherwise end up in landfills. After the Harvest, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the largest local produce donor to Harvesters—The Community Food Network.