A very sustainable and profitable farm

I just visited a a very sustainable and profitable farm in the Shenandoah valley. (I promise I'm not getting kickbacks for linking it here...) This guy is incredible -- he raises chickens, pigs, cows, and rabbits with 0 antibiotics, hormones, or outside fertilizers and in the process is actually improving the landscape he is on. He also has some great ideas about rural renewal and micro-economies. This is the kind of stuff we need to be promoting -- it's not going to be Monsanto that feeds the world, it's responsible, environment-friendly farming like this.

now that we know the corporate farmers are killing us with their cheap contaminated chinese ingredients and food.

rid of the big box stores and all of us driving like crazy people to get to them.

My sister and I live together, and we downsized to a townhouse in our small town. We can walk to most local merchants and never use big box stores. Our lot is very small, but we eliminated all grass and grow most of the produce we need during the season, with some left over to freeze/can for winter use. It's a great feeling!

We have no trees so lots of sunshine. Also we live across the street from a lake and have LOTS of wind. It would be so awesome to get off the grid!

:hi:

ago by Maurice Kains, still available from Amazon, is a great book with all sorts of useful information - still timely - about living simply and well, in tune with nature and in tune with reality. Congratulations to the Shenandoah farmer, may he prosper and many others like him. This originally was what "Jeffersonian Democracy" was all about.

He does this thing where after the cows have been in the barn for the winter, dropping manure on the straw on the floor, he puts the pigs in. They go looking for the undigested corn bits and in the process aerate the soil. It would be a lot easier in some ways just to get an electric tiller and turn the manure but he likes to use the pigs because as he says "it shows respect for the pig-ness of the pig and gives it an active role in the ecosystem as more than just future food." He talks a lot about how much integrity you should have in the whole food process to be willing to say that your meal is worth taking a life.

did some reading about it and checked it out of the library. We live on 8 acres and have been attempting some small scale organic, sustainable gardening for ourselves. I read the first part and have no desire to continue because I detect a very elitist tone in his writing and he says rural folks are better than city folks because city folks have no output for their income. Like one's time and energy isn't output?

I just don't know if I can pick this up again before it's time to go back to the library.

are interested, along with Temple Grandin, Thom Hartmann and Alan Savory.

http://www.holisticmanagement.org/new_site_05/Internat_gather/Internat_Gather_landing.html

Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town
Albuquerque, New Mexico
November 1-4 2007

From the Ground Up: Practical Solutions to Complex Problems—four exciting days packed with keynote addresses, powerful and educational workshops on the topics that matter to you most, and special events. Whether your focus is land desertification, food security, public lands, meeting consumer demand for organics, or global warming, you’ll exchange ideas with knowledgeable experts and discover the solutions that are working now.

Sessions and Workshops Cover:

* Soil health
* Animal behavior
* Multi-species grazing
* Partnering with Nature
* Taking sustainability to the next level
* International community development
* Global climate change
* Fire
* Drought
* Sustainable genetics
* Working effectively with groups
* Marketing
* Solar dollars
* Diversifying income
* Carbon sequestration

He owns Polyface Farms. I recently read a book of his called, "You Can Farm" and loved it! http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Farm-Entrepreneurs-Enterprise/dp/0963810928 He described all the things you're talking about. It was an amazing book. I think he also has some books about pastured poultry and maybe pastured beef, too. He also writes lots of articles for Countryside Magazine. I would love to try his techniques some day (when I get my farm!) I would love to see farming go back to this kind of environmentally sustainable model that makes the "family farm" a real possibility again.

Here's his website:
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

He's very religiously conservative, but given how he is revolutionizing agriculture, I am willing to give him a total pass, lol. He's a VERY clever farmer.

I wish I had a farm so I could try out his systems. If the $ ever becomes available, I would love to buy my grandparents' old place in NV near GBNP and have a working farm/B&B........sigh.

They are very friendly and they sell GREAT food! He is an inspiration to people like myself trying to farm sustainibly.

-Alec

p.s. He's HUGE! He looks like such a nerd in the pictures but in real life he's built like a brick sh**house!