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  • From: "Wagbo Peace Center - Tracy Meisterheim" <wagbo AT torchlake.com>
  • To: "MARKET FARM LISTSERVE" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: From the Non-Profit Farm
  • Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:35:43 -0500


Hello,
Last week, our new CSA Coordinator posted a question on this site, and I see
that it has raised some questions about our non-profit farm. Because the
farm itself is only a part of a whole education center, we were able to
include it in our non-profit status. We offer internships, workshops, school
classes and tours, and youth-at-risk apprenticeships at the farm, so it is
as involved with education as it is with farming. We also offer residential
education programs, conferences, retreats and community programs in
sustainable living and nonviolence.

As new Mennonites (that's us, not the center as a whole), our belief in
agriculture was very connected to our belief in peace. As we developed the
plan for the center, we knew that the main project had to be a farm. We
decided to develop a model of small scale, diversified, sustainable farming.
We wanted to offer a working example for others to duplicate on any scale
they chose. The premise of our choice of farming ventures is based on the
land, the seasons, and the need to integrate each project in a
"permaculture" model, utilizing any "waste" products from one activity as a
resource for another and keeping off-farm inputs to a minimum.

Here's our farm description:
- 212 acres in northern lower Michigan, 3/4 hardwood forest, 20 acres
pasture/tillable, 25 acre pine plantation

- 2200-tap maple syrup operation, producing approx. 300 gallons/year.

- 30-share CSA on a 3-acre organic produce garden. We are initiating a
Multi-Farm CSA, in which other local organic farmers can offer "shares" of
their products to our veggie shareholders (products such as eggs, meats,
honey, cut flowers, bread, fish, etc will be offered this summer).

- pastured poultry, 1000 per year which is the maximum allowed in Michigan.
We collaborated with 12 farms to design and build a mobile poultry
processing trailer that each farm can use to butcher their own chickens. It
is the first licensed mobile unit in Michigan. We received funding from
North Central SARE to develop it.

- free-range muscovy ducks

- "permaculture greenhouse" (also funded by USDA SARE)in which we raise our
starter plants for the garden. It is heated with solar collection and
excess heat from 50 laying hens. In the summer the chickens range in a
6'wide x 500' long vegetated run which surrounds two sides of the garden.
This double fence keeps the deer out, allows the chickens to intercept
migrating insects from the field to the garden, and we can throw culls over
the fence for them to clean up. We sell the eggs from our flock (100 total
layers). The other 50 are in an "egg-mobile", free ranging on pasture.

- rough-cut lumber from our pine plantation, which we mill on a WoodMizer
band saw mill.

- Jersey milk cows on a small scale. We keep two cows to hand milk for our
own use and make our own butter for the year (Sally Falon style) from the
summer cream. In all, there are usually about 8-10 cows.

- Belgian draft horses for our garden, syrup and timber work. Both the
horses and cows are kept in rotational grazing.

- hogs in portable pens on pasture.

- rabbits (Californian) for meat and diversity. They are in pens above an
enclosed manure bin. Red worms compost the manure.

- We compost everything - horse manure and hay, sawdust bedding from the
chicken coup, the rabbit/worm compost, cow manure from the calf rotation,
offal from processing chickens, ashes and sugar sand (calcium deposit) from
the maple syrup processing, etc. Every year we have about 800 cubic feet of
finished compost to put on our 3 acre garden.

- 5 bee hives for pollination and honey, and a small (50 tree) apple/pear
orchard. The orchard is surrounded with raspberry rows and asparagus.

So . . . here's how things interconnect: sawdust from the mill goes in the
chicken coup for bedding (no smell in the coup because the high carbon
sawdust balances out the chicken waste), chicken bedding then goes in the
compost pile, then compost to the garden. Slab wood from the mill gets
burned in the maple syrup evaporator, then the ashes get added to the
compost. Sugar sand (calcium deposit) from processing maple syrup goes to
the compost to provide the sugars to keep the microbial action going. Horse
manure and wasted hay goes into the compost each night and horses return to
pasture. Excess milk and buttermilk is fed to the pigs, pigs are butchered
in the fall. Pigs and chickens are moved each day through pastures for soil
improvement (amazing!) and ducks forage and clean up any waste. Chicken
offal is composted. Free ranging bantam chickens eliminate parasites in cow
and horse manure. Rain water is collected from the roof of the sugar shed,
piped into the maple sap holding tank in the off-season, and used for
overhead irrigation in the summer. Raised stone beds surround two sides of
the garden for perennial herbs & flowers, which makes habitat for beneficial
insects in the summer. The chickens run the other two sides, intercepting
insects and eating weeds and culls that we throw over from the garden.
Finished compost from our composting outhouse goes only on flower beds
(non-edibles), and shavings from our woodshop provide bedding in the chick
brooder.

It is all relatively small scale, but the concept of re-investing waste as
resource is what we're trying to demonstrate. We call it Bio-cycling when we
work with kids, but I have recently seen that term used in relation to
vermicompost. (And here I thought we coined a new term!)

We also offer a youth-at-risk apprenticeship program for teens in our area.
One student comes each day, every week for the whole school year and works
with us on the farm. These are kids who are "at risk of violent behaviors".
We use the farm as a vehicle to become a mentor to these kids, and they
develop alot of self-worth by doing things like plowing with draft horses.

We take interns for minimum 4-month experiences in sustainable agriculture.
We are the only two full time staff at the moment, we have one part-time,
grant funded coordinator for the multi-farm CSA project, one part-time
garden manager in the summer, and 1-2 interns every four months.

I realize I have shared more information than was requested. My apologies
for the length. Every time I try to answer a question about our program I
get excited and say too much. It is a mission of love, to be sure. I'd be
happy to discuss things off the list to save space.

In peace,
Rick & Tracy Meisterheim, Directors
Wagbo Peace Center
East Jordan, MI
wagbo AT torchlake.com




  • From the Non-Profit Farm, Wagbo Peace Center - Tracy Meisterheim, 01/11/2001

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