As a farmer, you have access to a lot of fertilizer, especially if you are raising cows, chickens, and/or pigs. If you are only raising crops, then you might be looking for various types of fertilizer to return nutrients to the soil after each harvest and before each planting season. You could go with natural fertilizers, or you could use chemical fertilizers. Here is how to discern the natural ones from the chemical ones so that you not only get the best crop results, but you also protect the environment from potentially harmful chemical agents. 

Read the Ingredients on the Fertilizer Bags

It sounds like such a simple thing to do, but most people are not about to look for or read the ingredients list on a bag of fertilizer. It is actually a very important list because sometimes horticulturists or amateur gardeners are looking for something specific in the fertilizer they use. As a farmer, the ingredient list should be even more important because a lot of crops require very different levels of nutrients from the ground. Ergo, you should be reading every bag to see what is in it.

Natural Fertilizer Only Contains Certain Ingredients That Will Not Harm the Environment

After reading the ingredients, you should notice something very important. Natural and organic fertilizers will only contain the feces or manure of pigs, chickens, goats, and cows or cattle. One or more of these ingredients may be mixed together to get a desired natural "chemical" mix that is just the right amounts of phosphorus, calcium, nitrogen, etc. Some of the natural/organic fertilizers have special mixes of so many parts cow manure, so many parts chicken manure, etc., tailored to get specific results with specific crops. As long as no additional chemical agents have been added to enhance or supplement what is in the bag, you know that you have a natural fertilizer that will not harm the environment. 

On the other hand, if the bag rattles off several chemical ingredients, some with nearly unpronounceable or unrecognizable names, that is a chemical fertilizer. Even if the front of the bag touts the product as natural, you will want to avoid it. A good natural fertilizer can also contain natural/organic components, such as mulched grass clippings or old leaves, but it has to say that on the bag.

For more information about natural fertilizer, contact a company like Nature Safe.