permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Subject: Worth Watching
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:48:54 -0600
From: Mike Miller <mmiller@PCSIA.NET>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Here is a young farmer who I think will be a voice for sustainable
agriculture going forward into the future.

For the rest of this article and a a related interview go to the Humane
Society of the United State's web page at

http://www.hsus.org/ace/15790

A short bio snip is at the bottom.

Mike Miller


  By Karen Graham

The way Patty Judge views him, you would have thought Brian Depew actually
posed a threat to her in the recent general election for Iowa's Secretary of
Agriculture. But Judge, the Democratic incumbent, beat Depew, the 21-year-old
Green Party candidate, by more than 400,000 votes.

''That really scares me to think that he took three percent of the vote.
Those people do not understand agriculture and the importance of what we're
trying to do,'' Judge said in a recent Farm News article.

''I think we're losing our focus on who we are and what we do," she
continued. "I'm concerned about people giving him a forum, about people
buying into that kind of nonsense. This is serious business-agriculture is
the bedrock of this state, and we cannot tolerate that. The anti-livestock
people's agenda was to get rid of me, and they didn't get it done. So guess
what, I'm back.''

Depew, a senior environmental science and philosophy double major at Simpson
College in Indianola, Iowa, is a hog farmer who owns 50% of the pasturing
operation on his family's 300-acre farm in Laurens. The hogs are marketed
through Niman Ranch, a family farm co-op that sells natural, antibiotic-free
pork. (Niman Ranch farmers adhere to true animal husbandry rules.) The Depew
farm is certified by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), possibly the
strictest animal welfare standards in place today. Depew also represented AWI
in Poland in 2001 at a variety of press conferences dealing with factory
farming, and then performed on-farm consultations about pasturing. Depew is
an active member of Practical Farmers of Iowa, 1,000 Friends of Iowa, and the
Land Stewardship Project.  ....

Here is a mini-bio from a speech he gave at the Iowa Farmers Union.

      "In the spring of 1997 my neighbor who still raised pigs on pasture
offered to sell 10 gilts that were not bred in time for his spring farrowing.
My father and I bought these ten gilts on a 50-50 basis. We took them
straight from the neighbors to a pasture setup that I built. Our first year
the pasture consisted of 10 worn our port-a-huts, a water wagon, and three
strands of electric fence. The first sow jumped off of the trailer and ran
straight through the electric fence. After wallowing in the ditch for several
hours she was corralled at a neighbors place. My first experience farrowing
sows went relatively smoothly after that. There was the one gilt who didn't
know she was having pigs. She calmly walked around the pen while her pigs
popped out of her and fell on the ground. I gathered up her pigs and with a
bit of coaxing she realized that she was the mother. By the end of the summer
I was convinced that this was the way to raise pigs. With little to no
overhead I was able to sell 98 market hogs that fall.

      At the Practical Farmers of Iowa meeting the following winter I met
Paul Willis. Paul was in the beginning stages of putting together a network
of producers under the name Niman Ranch. All Niman Ranch farmers are
certified by the Animal Welfare Institute, and they raise their pigs on
either pasture or in bedded buildings.

      Since my first summer I have helped to expand our operation to 60 sows.
We have built four hoop buildings, and one other building for winter
farrowing. We still farrow on the pasture every year in May. Managing the pig
operation on our farm has been my employment for the past five years.

      My involvement in the pork industry over the last five years has been a
tremendous learning experience. It has allowed me to be involved in the
family farm at an integral level. It has opened the doors to involvement in
other organizations as well. Last summer I had the opportunity to travel to
Poland as part of a campaign to keep Smithfield out of their country. Joe
Leuter CEO of Smithfield had announced his intentions to do what he had done
here in Poland and the rest of Europe. While in Poland I appeared in press
conferences. These press conferences were designed to educated the people of
Poland about what has happened in the United States with the pork industry. I
also helped a group of farmers construct a pasture farrowing operation while
I was there."