[goodcompanion]

@jenjudkins 8043 wrote:

Influx and eflux are happening, whether we want it to or not. Sure you can enhance one process or the other, but it seems (to me) egotistical to believe you can control natural law to any great extent.

I prefer to think of it as “facilitating” rather than “control.” Natural law still applies, but I still believe a farmer can work within these laws to make a particular spot on earth bloom, just because I have seen careful individuals do so over decades of work (and starting with extremely average pieces of land, too)

Of course being absolute in this or any other matter is silly, and we can pick away at the extremes of any argument if we want, but I still feel there is perfectly good reason to strive one’s farm to close loops, if you will, wherever it is feasible in order to maximize soil biology and long-term fertility.

Of course the community scale matters too, and I for one care about mine, but not in the same way as I care about land and animals directly under my care.

You could think of the human in this equation as a conductor in an orchestra if you wanted to, trying to shape independent sounds and sections of instruments into something of beauty that sustains human life and spirit. And you know, that does sound egotistical in a way, doesn’t it? But there is also a semantic difference between saying, “I am trying learn and listen in order to be a good conductor someday” and saying “I am a great conductor.”

[goodcompanion]

@Rod 8010 wrote:

What is the difference between owning a small vegetable farm and buying manure from your neighbors livestock operation or buying out your neighbor and doing the two practices yourself and thus qualifying as sustainable.

No difference at all.

To my knowledge, “sustainable” is not a club. If it’s anything, maybe it’s a broad set of principles interpreted differently by each individual. The jury will be out for a long time on what the word really means.

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 7989 wrote:

A major component to that will be a revival of the agricultural community, in other words everyone in the community realizing the role they play in our food web, from the way they use their land, to the way they manage their nutrient stream, to the food products they consume.

Carl

I guess I have less faith than you do that consciousness-raising will do the job, or even a substantial part of the job. It’s so hard for even a tiny group of people (american people in particular, maybe) to arrive at consensus on the most basic of questions. The only real shared experience we all have is that of the consumer–not much of a point of departure.

The agricultural systems I’ve witnessed that used highly complex traditional practices (southern france and morocco) did so simply because that was what was done. Things were done in a certain way and that was that. Most farmers could go on at great length about the “how,” but had limited ability to discuss the “why.” But those systems put food on the table. The beauty in those systems was shaped by constraint. Now some major constraint is coming our way too, so maybe we’ll also get some beauty.

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 7981 wrote:

Although there is an efficiency with the use of large tracts, it by no means is the defining measure of effectiveness of producing food.

Carl

I agree completely. A range war of “farmers” vs. “suburbanites” is not productive. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind what our land ownership structure was before, how it worked, and where we are now, and how we got here.

My guess is that our effectiveness at producing food from plots of all sizes will rise in direct proportion with the severity of our problems. Prior to really severe economic drivers taking hold, a few individuals, some of them maybe calling themselves “farmers,” some of them not, will build up their skill-sets and biological capital, but for a real sea-change I think it will take more than an act of will.

The big turning point in my mind is industrial food becoming more expensive than the cost of producing a local equivalent. I think we are at or near this point. Most producers I know are still adding a good percentage to supermarket prices out of habit, maybe, but it seems to me that a diligent producer could go head-to-head with the supermarket on price now, in many areas, and make a living. That wasn’t the case a few years ago.

[goodcompanion]

@OldKat 7975 wrote:

Erik,
I’m NOT saying people don’t have the “right” to subdivide their land, and I am NOT saying that others don’t have the “right” to buy it; I AM saying that for the food security of our collective society it IS NOT a good idea to do so.

I couldn’t have put it better.

But, the glass-half-full part of me sees some possibility of redemption in the situation. I am already farming three of the plots originally carved off the farm rent free as a service to the homeowners. They in turn can qualify for a tax break as their land is being used on a long-term basis by a farmer as defined by VT law. There is the possibility of the farm regrowing a bit this way.

Another scenario is that if food and energy costs both continue to increase, those who can farm rural land to good advantage will be sorted out from those who can’t, and that the farmable acreage will change hands again.

Interesting that most people do not pay rent to cut hay around here, and some even charge money to cut hay off others’ land if the parcel is small (under 10 acres). An indication of how little value is in the whole idea of agriculture around here.

[goodcompanion]

Geoff,

It’s not a question of what anybody wants or doesn’t want. Nobody is willing the upheaval in global markets that is now occurring. It is a question of seeing change as likely, trying to guess what it will be, and adapting accordingly.

A solar economy is one in which our energy derives from sunshine striking the earth now or recently. All energy ultimately is derived from the sun of course but fossil fuels are ancient sunshine while hay is more or less contemporary sunshine. Up until the industrial revolution all economies, for good or bad, were solar economies in the sense that their fuel and food were produced with the plants and animals alive and at hand at the time. In the U.S. today our livelihoods are largely derived from petroleum, whether we are talking about food, shelter, or clothing. We consume a huge amount of energy per capita mostly in the form of ancient sunshine. I myself am no exception.

Taking the long view of human history I see the last fifty years in the West as an anomaly and I guess that the future will look more like the past as far as the sources and quantities of energy available to us.

As for the openness or closedness of agricultural systems, it is all a matter of degree. And I’d agree that there are limits to what you can accomplish, as an individual or as a community, just by wanting the world to work in a certain way. On the whole, there will not be a closing of loops on a societal level until hard realities compel it. Maybe not even then, who knows.

[goodcompanion]

Thanks, I will look into it.

[goodcompanion]

I totally agree, Rod. In making such exchanges in the community, farmers who have a broader view of sustainability can differentiate between exchanges that are worthy and durable and those that may cause more harm than good, near or far, in the long term.

I also agree that we must work in the economy we have, to a point. What kind of economy will come next, nobody knows. I would guess though that farms that build very local, close, tight networks of exchange will fare better in the future than those who depend on exchanges on a regional, national or global scale. And to cultivate the former type of network requires a kind of deliberateness much the same as cultivating a so-called closed loop farm. Conventional economics usually pulls you in the opposite direction, until it’s too late to change strategy.

So for instance it may be one thing to buy in some hay from a neighbor who has more pasture than stock, while you have more stock than pasture. Quite another to buy in truckloads of hay from Alberta on an ongoing basis because, say, your whole community is a net consumer of hay and there is none extra available. Even if the truckload of hay was cheaper than the neighbor’s hay, a wise farm planner might not wish to depend on it remaining cheap and plentiful forever.

[goodcompanion]

I agree that the closed loop bit can be taken to an extreme. But the virtue in it is that it sets conventional economics aside and strives to think along the lines of natural cycles.

What is the problem of buying in cheap hay or manure if doing so bolsters farm fertility? I would argue that the cheap hay and manure are artificially cheap. In a true solar economy no one would give those things away, or sell them cheap. If your management plan depends on constant net inflow of other peoples’ stored fertility (in the form of manure or hay) you may in fact have a problem if your future supply of these things should cease.

I’m not saying I myself would never do it–in fact my cows are munching others’ cast-off hay right now. I’ve made a compromise for the moment, out of inexperience and convenience, and allowed cheap hay to fill a gap in my planning.

Less of a problem for a home gardener who takes a single spreader load of manure from a draft-powered farm next door, more of a potential problem for a large vegetable farm that can’t function organically without manure from, say, a nearby industrial dairy that composts. While that the industrial dairy may even pay you to take the manure away, it also operates within a house-of-cards commodity economy that can’t be counted on for the future. Taking manure from them substantially involves your farm in a nitrogen cycle that encompasses the labs of cargill and adm, the topsoil of the midwest washing down the mississippi, supertankers with destroyer escorts in the Gulf of Aden, and so on.

By keeping cycles as tight as is feasible, you are also insulating your farm against commodity price swings to a large degree. I’ve noted that table-ready goods swing much less than the commodities you need to produce them.

[goodcompanion]

@jenjudkins 7908 wrote:

Well, I’m not sure those ‘farms’ are being totally up front about how they function. If you buy feed for your animals from off the farm, whether it be hay of grain or supplements and use their manure for compost, you are adding nutrients.

I agree. I would imagine that any farm touting itself as a closed loop farm would not buy in hay or feed but would be self-sufficient in those primary foodstuffs. I myself aspire to be a closed-loop farmer in that regard. However I have never known anyone to refuse to buy minerals for their animals on principle, or lime for that matter.

How about a whole different way of looking at this question. Is a farm a net producer of energy or a consumer of it? Electricity, gasoline, hay, and grain can all be quantified in calories, or btus, or whatever unit we can agree on. Back in medieval europe, farming yielded a slight profit (in energy) which supported all those ladies making tapestries and all those knights clobbering each other with lances. Slight being maybe 5 % energy returned over energy invested (EROIE, an oil industry acronym). The highest EROIE ever documented in agriculture is wet rice farming, something like 25% EROIE, once the system is set up. In other words if China had one billion people growing rice entirely by hand, without any imported energy of any kind, the resulting rice would be enough to support those farmers and 250 million others. Medieval europe supported just five non-farmers for each farmer, which is pretty much what the culture looked like then.

I find that a really thought-provoking way of looking at farm planning and operations. But I don’t have the scientific chops to really break down everything on my farm to inflow and outflow of calories. I wish more people did, then grunts in the field like me would have some clue about whether we can make it in a real energy economy. Without this elaborate accounting to tell you whether you are or are not doing a good job, one just has to work with what economy we have (a ludicrous one), go with your gut, and react to changes in the world as they occur.

[goodcompanion]

The closest thing that I have seen to a vegan farming system that works is Anne and Eric Nordell’s operations as frequently featured in small farmers’ journal. They make extensive use of fallowing and green manure and very limited use of manure. They have also kept fantastic records that have led them to the conclusion that it can be done. I would have to add to that conclusion that it can be done if you are both an incredibly gifted farmer and a very skilled soil scientist. Being neither myself (perhaps just not yet) I am grateful for the slop in the system that a barnful of composted manure provides me.

Apart from that, one can just note that every farming culture that has ever thrived on the face of the earth has used animals’ guts to complete nutrient cycles. Sometimes used sparingly, but always, always used.

Here in the northeast animals are particularly crucial because a lot of land is suitable only for the growing of trees or grass. The soils are too thin and rocky on many hillsides to cultivate crops, but they can be grazed to good effect.

[goodcompanion]

@OldKat 7863 wrote:

Is it possible to “create” nutrients? I don’t know the answer to that; does the use of legumes qualify? Perhaps we are just recycling existing nutrients to some degree.

You can use legumes to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. It’s also of course found in animal wastes. Easily lost and easily replaced, with the help of friendly carbon to keep it stable in organic compounds. In that sense you can lose it and create it all the time, once you get the knack of it.

If I remember my soil science, P and K are both much harder to replace once lost. Other than mining them (phosphates and potash) I think both can be derived from oceanic sources, such as kelp.

[goodcompanion]

I think it’s a very good question. How well you maintain fertility depends hugely on the nature of your practices.

Generally any kind of tillage (disturbance) involves a greater or lesser degree of soil and nutrient loss. The nutrients you can replenish in this particular disturbed area by moving fertility around on your farm, such as composting manure from overwintered livestock and spreading it on this cropped field. Sooner or later you will run out of phosphorous though, or something else–later if you are careful.

It is also generally understood that permanent pasture, managed for grazing, produces a substantial surplus of fertility. This is what makes everything possible. You can have a field of mixed grasses, graze it, then remove the mass of flesh and bone that has resulted from this grazing and ship it off-farm. Plus, take a substantial portion of that animal’s manure and apply it to a different area where you are doing more damage to the soil than you are on your pasture, such as your garden or a grain crop.

The effect of repeated grazing on the grasses, the presence of legumes in the grass mix, and the permanent sod cover allow you to do better than break even by grazing well. You can build and enrich your soil through the action of the sod. Some contend that you can do insanely better and cover your fenceposts with new soil–I don’t know about that, but you can ship steers off your grazing land in a temperate clime year after year and increase fertility as you do so.

This kind of gets into a whole meta-level of caloric and/or carbon accounting, which to me is intriguing but also mathematically daunting. I suppose one rule of thumb would be to ship out as little carbon as you can–better to sell $50 worth of beef than $50 worth of hay. If you grow grain, don’t sell the straw (I’ve been very tempted by this one…). It is all about trying to keep expectations reasonable and working with the limited surplus of fertility a well-managed closed loop will yield to you in time.

I read a book that described agriculture as question posed by the farmer to nature. Maybe in 15 or 20 years you get an answer.

[goodcompanion]

It is just one statistic and tells only part of a story. Probably the “lost acreage” was a combination of:

1. Former farmland subdivided for development, which in Vermont means lots of 10 acres or more in most cases. The land in this case may or may not remain in production, but in any case ceased to be registered with the USDA.

2. Former farmland abandoned but not subdivided, left to grow to forest or brush, and so no longer registered.

This being Vermont, little pavement is involved. But a lot of former farmland has changed hands from families with long histories on their farms to owners of what are essentially huge suburban lots, who generally do not farm their plots and commute to their work. I think you could make the case that the land ownership structure we have now in the state is hugely wasteful of both agricultural land and transportation. All these roads that used to be dirt but now need to be paved so everyone can commute to Burlington at 50 mph.

My farm was subdivided by the previous owner from an original size of 300 some acres down to 110, one house lot at a time. The original core of the farm, which I now own, borders 16 ten-acre lots! None of them has more than a small vegetable garden.

[goodcompanion]

@jenjudkins 7668 wrote:

Pictures please. How much work would the renovations be? Pretty straight forward or would I have to be a ‘Rod’ with more technical skills than I currently possess?:p

I may be able to make new wood parts and tune it up for you, if that is what the machine requires. Probably quite affordably. Message me if interested.

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