Subject: [permaculture] Hops production in Germany, small diversified local farms networked as production coops
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:27:39 -0400
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I was just reading about hops production and the move to make it a small
scale local farming option in the US, ass opposed to large scale
production in the US Pacific Northwest. The model is the German one;
they are the second largest producer of hops in the world and it is all
grown on lots of small local farms, 10 to 20 acres in size each.
I think this system of large volume production distributed across many
small local farms is a wonderful idea and worth trying across the entire
US for production of all food, fiber, forage, feed and other economic
crops. Is this the future for American agriculture with higher quality,
fresher, more nutritious ("nutrient dense") foods providing a reliable
supply for local customers who do their shopping at farmers markets (as
most of the rest of the world does), buying groups, csa's, direst sales
and local independent grocers.
The article was in the Independent, a weekly newspaper in Durham NC.
"Hops grow best in the cool climes of the northern latitudes, where they
take root in black loam and bask in summer daylight that can last as
long as 16 hours: England, Germany, the Pacific Northwest. In other
words, not Central North Carolina, with its unforgiving clay, hot and
humid summers, warm winters and, because we are farther south, shorter
day length during the prime growing season."
"The state's farmers would be wise to learn from Germany, Lewis says.
The second-largest hops producer in the world, Germany has an average
farm size of only 10 to 20 acres, far smaller than the vast tracts in
the Pacific Northwest. Germany also uses smaller equipment, more
suitable for the scale of North Carolina farms."
"North Carolina's focus on locally grown crops is reminscent of a time
in the United Kingdom when an intimate relationship between growers and
brewers existed. "The brewer would visit the field and check on the
hops, a true locavore philosophy," Lewis says. "This brings a sense of
community and gets us back to the old way of doing things.""
[permaculture] Hops production in Germany, small diversified local farms networked as production coops,
venaurafarm, 07/23/2012