Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] SPIN-FARMING

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] SPIN-FARMING
  • Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:52:54 -0600


Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms@gmail.com> sent this


SPIN-FARMING
http://www.spinfarming.com/creators/
Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen
Wally Satzewich

Wally Satzewich operates Wally's Urban Market Garden which is a
multi-locational sub-acre urban farm. It is dispersed over 25 residential
backyard garden plots in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, that are rented from
homeowners. The sites range in size from 500 sq. ft. to 3000 sq. ft., and the
growing area totals a half acre. The produce is sold at The Saskatoon Farmers
Market.

Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen initially started farming on an
acre-sized plot outside of Saskatoon 20 years ago. Thinking that expanding
acreage was critical to their success, they bought some farmland adjacent to
the South Saskatchewan river 40 miles north of Saskatoon where they
eventually grew vegetables on about 20 acres of irrigated land.

"This was a site to die for," Ms. Vandersteen said. "It was incredibly
beautiful, but the pestilence was incredible too! We couldn’t believe what
the bugs and deer could do. Not to mention the wind."

"We still lived in the city where we had a couple of small plots to grow
crops like radishes and salad mix, which were our most profitable crops. We
could grow three crops a year on the same site, pick and process on-site and
put the produce into our cooler so it would be fresh for the market."
Farmer's Market

After six years farming their rural site, the couple realized there was more
money to be made growing multiple crops intensively in the city, so they sold
the farm and became urban growers. "People don’t believe you can grow three
crops a year in Saskatoon," observes Vandersteen. "They think it’s too much
work, but the truth is, this is much less work than mechanized, large-scale
farming. We used to have a tractor to hill potatoes and cultivate, but we
find it’s more efficient to do things by hand. Other than a rototiller, all
we need is a push-type seeder and a few hand tools."

Mr. Satzewich points out that city growing provides a more controlled
environment, with fewer pests, better wind protection and a longer growing
season. "We are producing 10-15 different crops and sell thousands of bunches
of radishes and green onions and thousands of bags of salad greens and
carrots each season. Our volumes are low compared to conventional farming,
but we sell high-quality organic products at very high end prices." The SPIN
method is based on their successful experiment in downsizing which emphasizes
minimal mechanization and maximum fiscal discipline and planning.

Brian Halweil, a food issues writer and researcher at the Washington-DC-based
Worldwatch Institute, interviewed Mr. Satzewich and referenced his farming
approach in Eat Here, which documents worldwide initiatives in building a
locally-based food industries.

Roxanne Christensen

Roxanne Christensen is co-founder and President of the Institute for
Innovations in Local Farming. In partnership with the Philadelphia Water
Department, the Institute operates Somerton Tanks Farm, a prototype sub-acre
urban farm that serves as the U.S. test bed for the SPIN-FARMING method. The
farm has received the support of the Pennsylvania Dept. Of Agriculture, the
Philadelphia Workforce Development Corp., the City Commerce Department, the
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and
Economic Development.

Ms. Christensen contends that the separation of country and city is a
bankrupt concept. “As development erodes the rural way of life, agriculture
is creeping closer and closer to metropolitan areas. SPIN-FARMING leverages
this trend in a positive way – by capitalizing on limited resources and
space. Creating Somerton Tanks Farm using the SPIN method required minimal
upfront investment, and it keeps operating overhead low.

"For aspiring farmers, SPIN eliminates the 2 big barriers to entry – sizeable
acreage and substantial startup capital. At the same time, its intensive
relay growing techniques and precise revenue targeting formulas push yields
to unprecedented levels and result in highly profitable income."

In 2003, its first year of operation, Somerton Tanks Farm, located in
northeast Philadelphia, the fifth largest city in the U.S, produced $26,100
in gross sales from a half acre of growing space during a 9 month growing
season. In 2005 gross sales increased to $52,200. So in just three years of
operation Somerton Tanks Farm achieved a level of productivity and financial
success that many agricultural professionals claimed was impossible. And it
is providing a way for independent farmers to once again have a viable role
in the food production system that has tipped too much in favor of large
scale mass production agriculture.

Ms. Christensen’s role at the Institute is to attract and support new farming
talent. "The farming profession has been on the decline – and for good
reasons. The global economy favors agribusinesses, the amount of available
farmland is rapidly shrinking, and family farms are going out of business at
an unprecedented rate. It is not an opportune time to become an independent
farmer."

But, Christensen contends, SPIN-FARMING is a method uniquely suited to
entrepreneurs, and it provides a new career path for those who have a calling
to farm. It is enticing a new breed of farmer who is keenly interested in
matters of principle, but who understands that to have a significant positive
impact, they have to function within the existing system, pushing their cause
while paying their bills.

As SPIN becomes established and is practiced more and more widely,
Christensen says, it will create new farmland closer to metropolitan areas,
which, in turn will produce environmental, economic and social benefits. "It
offers a compelling value proposition."




  • [Livingontheland] SPIN-FARMING, TradingPostPaul, 04/04/2006

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page