Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - RE: stockless farming

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Wiediger, Alison" <awiediger AT Hart.k12.ky.us>
  • To: 'market farming' <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: stockless farming
  • Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 11:27:31 -0500


We believe in the quote from 'New Farm' magazine of about a decade ago
"animals make the farmstead sing". Although we believe it might be possible
to practice vegetable production without them, on our farm of 84 acres, we
have about 60 acres of hills, 15+ acres of woodland, and less than 4 acres
that are flat enough to be considered for cropping (the rest is homesite,
barns, orchard, outbuildings, etc). We grow about 2.5 acres of vegetables
each year and don't have the room to increase fertility solely through
vegetative means. We have grown field corn after a summer of soybeans,
soybeans, winter of hairy vetch/winter rye, all disced in without additional
fertilizer. It made a nice crop - but you could only do that every other
year. We think, too, that it takes the same amount in soil building green
manure crop that you have in vegetable production to do it without animals,
although we continually experiment with living mulches, etc. And, then,
what would we do with all those grassy hillsides ? The cattle and sheep
take advantage of the forage, return manure to recycle nutrients, give us
manure during winter feeding for applying to veggie growing beds, and are a
significant addition to farm income (plus they are a joy to caretake).

Can it be done - probably if you have enough tillable land. But for us, it
is not the smartest way to farm.

Alison Wiediger
Kentucky, USA
http://www.aunaturelfarm.homestead.com

> ----------
> From: Martin Cooke[SMTP:m.cooke AT dcs.shef.ac.uk]
>
> Is anyone out there practising stockless market farming (or what is
> called vegan organics by some)? Here, I mean no inputs of animal origin,
> whether or not they're generated on one's own farm.
>
> As a subsidiary Q, does anyone know of successful attempts at
> *sustainable* stockless farming, where all fertility is generated on the
> farm without animals? I'm particularly interested in the ratio of
> productive to green manure land required. I've seen some putative ratios
> in Coleman's book (1:1 for already fertile land), but does anyone
> practise it?
>
> This question is inspired by a spate of letters which appeared in
> today's Guardian newspaper (UK), including one from a certain Mr Avery
> :-), attempting to link organic food with food poisoning, presumably
> through the use of insufficiently composted animal manure. Not that I'm
> accepting his claims (and don't want to start a debate on them here),
> but its interesting to consider whether vegan organics is beyond
> reproach to the likes of Avery.
>
> Martin
>
> ---
>




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page