Agriculture is big business in the Wiregrass. And lately, farmers have been cashing in on their crops.

However, some local growers are breaking from the norm by taking an all-natural approach.

There are two different types of alternative farming.

One is considered to be organic growing and the other is called clean growing. What these two methods have in common is the lack of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Fertilizers and pesticides will sometimes leave a residue, but that can all be eliminated by methods like organic growing and hydroponics.

Hydroponics means water working, and in this case, the water is actually growing the produce.

"It’s not grown in dirt, the produce is actually grown in a medium or as you saw in there, not in a medium at all, just with the water flowing through with the nutrients and the micronutrients that it needs to grow," explains Paula Hennig, an organic farmer from Waterbury Farm in Slocomb.

The vegetables are grown in a controlled environment where water is continuously circulated through channels onto oasis cubes in which they grow out of.

"It’s fresher because its here, it’s local, so you're not getting all the herbicides and pesticides and that sort of thing, which strawberries are a big problem of," Hennig continued.

Another local farmer from Ashford has taken another stand against pesticides and decided to grow organically.

"I wanted to be a little different and I’d rather play with compost than chemicals any day," says William Shirah, an organic gardener from Ashwood Farms.

Compost is also cheaper than the chemicals. And, aside from the health benefits of natural grown foods, there is another incentive: flavor.

“I think that you get better flavor doing it organically," says Shirah.

When you see organic items in the grocery store, you may notice the price is a little higher than other goods.

That is because organic growers cannot produce as much as your typical commercial farmer can and they do lose some goods to pests like insects and mold.

If you'd like to know more about growing natural, an Organic Farming Workshop is scheduled for Tuesday July 29th at The Gathering Place in Headland.

For more information, you can call the Wiregrass Resource Conservation and Development Council at 334-774-2334.