SISTERS, Ore. (AP) If the thought of a farmer patiently working his field
behind a plow and horses floods you with pangs of nostalgia, take heart.
It's on the rebound.
Susanne Burkhart, left, plows furrows as Neal MacCool leads a team of
quarterhorse mules in Rock Creek, Ore.
By Don Ryan, AP
Ol' Dobbin hasn't run the tractors out of the fields yet, but increasingly,
owners of small farmers are finding horse-powered agriculture to be a
workable option to mechanization, financially and in other ways.
Lynn Miller, whose quarterly Small Farmer's Journal caters to horse-farming
and tracks it closely, figures there are about 400,000 people in America
who depend in some measure on animal power for farming, logging and other
livelihoods, and he says the number is on the rise.
While many are Amish farmers in Iowa and Pennsylvania who shun
mechanization, many more are not, and across more and more of America the
sputter and chug of a diesel tractor is being replaced by soft hoofbeats.
Farmers turning to horses say their decision is justified by the bottom
line. They cite soaring fuel prices, the fact that horses can be more
economical on some scales, and the ability of the animals to reproduce
their own replacements. They also say the animals are better for the soil
and can be used in wet weather when a tractor often cannot.
Miller, who farms with horses on his own ranch, said the practice began
spreading beyond Amish communities about 20 years ago.
"When I started 31 years ago there were no companies making equipment for
animal-powered agriculture," he said in his office in this Central Oregon
town in the shade of the Cascade Range. "Fifteen years ago I could count
them. Today I have no idea how many there are, and that tells me that
(farming with horses) is growing."
So, he said, are small farms and the income they produce.
"A lot of middle-age people go into it part-time or headfirst," he said.
"They get some land and four horses and give it a try."
He said some find they are not cut out for it but estimated that 60% to 70%
of those who try stay with it.
"It takes a certain personality. It's a craft, not a science."
By working hard, he said, a farmer with horses can earn triple or more the
earnings per acre than one farmed by agribusiness.
Miller's magazine has about 18,000 subscribers in 72 countries, and he has
a mailing list of about 65,000 for his other journals and books centering
on traditional farming techniques and old data from parts catalogues, some
of them resurrected from a century ago or more.
Most subscribers, even in the Third World, don't seem trapped into using
animal power. "For most of them it is a matter of choice," he said. "They
see it as a viable option."
His catalogue includes reprints of the 1864 book Ten Acres Enough, and its
advice is still good, Miller said. An addendum modernizes some of it, but
the original preface says the book, aptly adapted, "will offer solutions to
most of the problems you are likely to encounter" while chasing the
Jeffersonian ideal of the small farm.
"You are talking about the quintessential agrarian philosophy," said
Miller, who uses horses to harvest hay and other crops on his ranch of more
than 2,000 acres. "It's pure agricultural democratic capitalism."
Ron VanGrunsven farms about 50 acres with horses near Council, Idaho and
has used them for years there and in Oregon's Willamette Valley.
"They're more economical," he said. "They raise their own replacements, you
can train them yourself and raise their feed."
A mare can produce a foal every year or so, and Miller says that properly
trained, one can bring about $2,000 after two years.
A plow horse usually lasts 16 or 18 years, he said at a recent annual
horse-plowing demonstration near Portland. He said he looks after his
stable of nine carefully and that veterinarian bills rarely total $200 a year.
VanGrunsven said a two-horse team and a farmer can plow about an acre and a
half a day if the ground is right and that an acre usually produces more
than enough hay to feed a horse for a year.
"Most of my equipment is not new," said VanGrunsven. "It is from the 1930s
or earlier. It has been repaired and cleaned up. There are people who make
their living doing that.
"The older things were designed so they could be fixed if they broke. When
newer things break they have to be replaced." A farmer with a forge and
anvil can usually mend older things, he said.
"When gas prices went up we had to laugh," said his wife, Anita. "If a bad
international situation comes along, we can still farm."
Miller's magazine is a look at the past with an eye to the future.
A recent issue contained articles on "Russell's Mississippi Work Horse
Workshop," "How to Select a Sound Horse," (there's more to it than you
might think) and profiles of farms and the farmers who work them with horses.
Back issues run the gamut from buying and designing a small farm, diarrhea
in foals, the benefits of small farming, medicating livestock, the
histories of various lineages, horse farming in other countries, learning
to work with horses and more.
Many illustrations are plucked from guides a century or more old, and
haven't changed, or can be altered to include more modern equipment.
Horse farming was common until the end of World War II, Miller said, when
the government and manufacturers started promoting mechanization to soak up
the surplus industrial capacity.
Horses could often be used as downpayments for tractors, "and they went to
the glue factories by the hundreds of thousands," he said.
He credits the gradual shift back to horses in part to a sense of
alienation and a desire for craft-oriented work and farming on a human scale.
"I admit I'm biased in favor of animal-powered agriculture," Miller said.
"I know it works."
He said only a few years ago many thought the return of horse-farming was
"cute," or nostalgic.
"But more people are sticking out their necks and saying it is also a way
of the future," he said.
[Homestead] Horse farming making a comeback,
Gene GeRue, 06/12/2005