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  • From: "Bev and Chuck Henkel" <bchenkel AT conpoint.com>
  • To: "market farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: From the Non-Profit Farm
  • Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 14:01:51 -0600


Would you please send me the information on Internships. I am a
Horticulture Major at a local college and would need an internship to
graduate. We have a farm with pasture based - chickens, turkeys, lamb,
beef, pork, eggs that we direct market. I would like to develop our gardens
further and would like hands on in a situation that does it. We also
compost and use sawdust from a local mill for bedding in the hoop house with
the laying hens during the winter. Thank you. My time for internship wold
be better during the Feb-May period. Bev. Henkel
----- Original Message -----
From: Wagbo Peace Center - Tracy Meisterheim <wagbo AT torchlake.com>
To: market farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 1:35 PM
Subject: From the Non-Profit Farm


> 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
>
>
> ---
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>




  • From the Non-Profit Farm, Wagbo Peace Center - Tracy Meisterheim, 01/11/2001
    • <Possible follow-up(s)>
    • Re: From the Non-Profit Farm, Bev and Chuck Henkel, 01/11/2001

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