It All Comes Back To Manure

We need all of our farmers.  I firmly believe that. Trial and error and ten years of trying to learn how to manage something  resembling a farm has taught me that no one can wave a magic wand and make a professional who can wisely manage natural resources, operate and maintain machines, fix buildings, design and construct infrastructure, supply field labor, deliver lambs at 1 AM,  fix a leaky kitchen faucet, push a teenager to get the  chores done and drive an 11 year old to hockey. We need all of our farmers because they know something about everything.

When I came back from the ACORN conference in Halifax last week, pumped full of information until it was leaking out of my pores, I called on a young farmer in my neighborhood to share the information I'd learned with him.  You see, one of the things I learned at ACORN was that this potent and highly concentrated input needs to be spread around.  It's no good just keeping it in a bag in the barn.

So we talked about soil and seeds and fertility for about an hour when this young conventional farmer said, "You know, I've been looking at it.  And it all comes back to manure". He'd just this year produced the best corn crop he'd ever had by loading up his soil with manure from his cows instead of buying in chemical fertilizer.

In 1969 an oil well blew out in the Santa Barbra Channel and flooded our beaches with crude oil.  It was an environmental disaster that created the first Earth Day. The students of the new environmental sciences, our "alternative" neighbors and people all over the world woke up and saw that we were making a mess and something had to be done about it.  Lines were drawn. The politics of the environment were born.  Many good things came of that movement but something went wrong.

Santa Barbara County is an agricultural area on the coast of California that also has fishermen and oil production. We have old cowboys from families that go back to the Spanish and Mexican land grants of the colonial era.  These families worked to manage grazing and pasture for beef and tended their lands responsibly for generations. They weren't ready for the kind of people promoting Earth Day in 1970. When the lines were drawn around the ecological movement, these "descendientes" excluded themselves and there was no effort made to include them in.  That was a mistake on both sides.

When I was 24, I volunteered to help work 350 head of range cattle on a family "brush ranch". I met a rancher  who was the descendant of people who had worked that land for 130 years. The owner had been educated at UC Berkeley.  This was not the red-neck cowboy I had imagined. And in fact I later learned that our University system had been supported by families like his so that their sons and daughters could get a first class education in their own state and bring that education back home to the farm and their communities.  It turned out that that old cowboy was the one who lost the family ranch a few years later. I know for a fact that he later died of a broken heart. I was at his memorial with his stetson, his riata, his work saddle and his family who no longer had the home their grandfathers and grandmothers built.   

The young farmer I was visiting last week was interested in the material I brought back from Halifax on soil science. We started talking about biological farming.  And we talked about an old man in our neighborhood, recently departed, who farmed naturally all his life.  Not because it was the thing to do, but because it was something he'd proven over a lifetime.  The young farmer and I talked about bringing up seaweed from the shore for mineral supplement to feed the fields.  And we talked about pellet fertilizer. The young farmer thought for a moment.  "The old man said, 'You don't need to put that "hail" on the field.  Everything you need is right here.  We never put that stuff on and we always had a good crop'."  The old  man put kelp and manure on his fields and rotated his crops.  "It all comes back to manure"        

We need our farmers. All of them. The young farmer and I have listened to and learned from "Los Viejos" - the old ones. When we lose a farmer we break the chain of generations of knowledge on the land.  And as the young farmer and I can tell you - it's a long hard row to hoe getting it back. But the old men still try to tell us, "Don't lose what we worked for. Nature is giving you everything you need right here".  
         

The Philosophy of Lawn Mowing and the Sweetness of Summer.

Happy Canada Day! Summer is finally here on the island!  Warm temps, gentle breezes, mosquitos and black flies and of course GRASS.

Coming from a place where grass grows in the spring rain of March and April and then goes golden brown for the long, hot, dry, summers (unless irrigated with imported water) I still find it amazing that it grows like crazy here. Acres and acres of the stuff! Big beautiful lawns and well kept yards are a source of local pride and regular mowing on PEI.  You'll observe the Provincial flag even features trees and grass.  I make note that the lawn tractor is missing from heraldry. Surely an oversight.  But the flag does include the Royal Lion of England. So we welcome the Duke and Duchess, William and Kate, to our fair island this week! No doubt there will be a frenzy of mowing to prepare each and every venue for their visit.  In fact, there should be a photo-op of the duchess riding a lawn tractor in shorts, a tank top and a big floppy hat.

In the days before mowing machines your yard literally had to be cut by hand with a scythe. So a small yard with a kitchen garden made sense.  The rest of the ground was turned over to livestock and cropping.  Animals stayed close by and fed on the grass.  Easier to manage and watch over. And more productive too.  Large expanses of closely cropped grass are an artifact of a time when sheep grazed about the manor home (where your daddy or mine mucked out the barn and mum washed the clothes of His Lordship). It was a sign of wealth. Having good land not planted to the margins with food says, "well mate, you must be doing alright". Perhaps that explains our desire for a suburban lawn watered by a river 300 miles away or 2 or more hours a week driving a  mowing machine.  We're all just sort of keeping up appearances - at a huge cost. Weird, isn't it?

Our two "hay burners" burned through last years hay harvest over the winter.  And they are more than willing to go out on the grass every morning.  They really don't care where the grass is, so we've taken to moving the electric fence every few days to where the grass is rich and then turn them loose to do what they do.  Which is eat...and excrete.  It's a lovely combination of feeding, mowing and fertilization in one step. And as I reported last time, the chickens too are doing their part in the war on grass, bugs and spreading fertilizer as they go.  You can't beat mother nature for operating in a closed system.

Even so I just can't seem to stay off the lawn mower.  I just can't help noticing how nice things look when they're all trimmed up. But you know, I think I will put sheep on the front lawn around the house this summer - just to try them out on the job. It's funny that the mower works until it's empty and leaves wasted grass and energy behind.  The animals work until they're full, taking in energy and leaving behind valuable fertilizer for greener grass. It just seems more sensible to let the animals do the work and earn their keep. Besides,
it's picturesque as hell.    

And speaking of picturesque, here are Toby and his buddy Owen making ice cream on the front porch for Canada Day.  We bought  lobster suppers at the Murray Harbour North Community Hall and then enjoyed home made vanilla ice cream made even sweeter by the hand cranking of children.  Making home made ice cream in an old freezer is a ritual passed to us by our parents and grand parents.  It now passes to our children as part of the celebration of summer!

Free Range Chicken? Pastured Poultry is Better.

From Mother Earth News:

What is the true definition of free-range chicken?

The United States Department of Agriculture offers this definition:

FREE RANGE or FREE ROAMING: Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside.

But “allowing access” doesn’t mean much. A small door in a barn with thousands of chickens technically gives chickens an opportunity to go outside, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll have access to grass (it may only be a concrete slab). For chickens to produce the most healthful and flavorful eggs and meat, they need to be able to eat a variety of green plants, seeds and bugs. Unfortunately, you can’t tell how the chickens live by reading the package in a store. I’d encourage you to find a local farmer who raises poultry on pasture.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/ask-our-experts/free-range-chickens.aspx#ixzz1QQfyp8hk

This is a picture of a cornish cross hen who is free ranging - on our pasture!  It doesn't take much imagination to see the difference between this and the legal definition of "free range chicken" where birds may leave a barn of thousands of birds to range "freely" on dirt or concrete.  To allow our chickens to range like this while protecting them from the local foxes, raccoon and coyotes, takes a special operation and creates unique benefits to our chickens and customers. This is what most people think "free range" means.  But often, it isn't.  We respectfully leave it to individuals to decide whether or not they eat meat.  For some we offer a fine variety of organic produce. For others we offer a method of raising chicken that produces a truly natural product.         

The birds arrived a day old from the hatchery in mid May and were kept in our barn under heat lamps and cover until they began to grow, then they were allowed more space to range on the dirt floor.  Our cool, wet spring kept them in the barn longer than we'd planned, but we felt the nights were too cold for the young birds to be outside with no heat source.  These chicks were given fresh grass cuttings and dandelions (salad) along with certified organic feed and a plate of light sand/gravel from our fresh water creek, along with fresh well water to drink. Annie appointed herself guard dog of the birds and took a genuine interest in their care.  (for those who are skeptical, let me just say our dog "mothers" everyone).                

So what are the benefits of pasture raising chickens? Well, these birds followed grazing sheep and horses who spent a short time (no more than three days) on each fenced section. When we put the birds out several weeks later, these small grasses were going to seed.  So the birds have free choice - prepared organic feed grain or wild grass seeds and greens, bugs, slugs and whatever else comes their way.  They are kept in a pen on the pasture day and night and are moved to fresh grass every morning.  They leave behind lots of high quality poop....that will grow more grass.  And since they don't live on the same ground every day, they always have clean ground on which to graze and rest.  We have fewer than fifty birds in a pen that is 12 x 10 so there is no crowding, plenty of roof cover and we even adjust the side covers for wind break or ventilation as needed.  There are studies that will explain the naturally low fat/ lower cholesterol and flavorful meat that this method produces.  We just think it's better to raise healthy animals naturally for food. 

And so, here are our pastured chickens foraging freely as nature intended.  We started with a small batch to make sure we could give our best to our chickens and our customers.  We're adding a second run this year for the fall. We'll put a few in our freezer and will be selling the rest fresh on the day they are locally processed.   If you'd like to place an order on Prince Edward Island, Canada, please visit John Quimby on facebook.


Thanks!     

Harvesting a Local M.E.A.L. - It's Time to Farm!

It's Time to Farm
I planted seeds this week.
Spring is the most optimistic season.
Seeds are faith and hope and life in the future.
Planting made me feel righteous and peaceful and quietly determined to thrive.

A Local M.E.A.L.
Last week, many of us were inspired in Charlottetown by the combination of speaking about and listening to others discuss local food and our commitment to a way of life that serves everyone on this island.  A Local M.E.A.L.(Meet Eat And Learn) was a very satisfying serving of networking, tastes of local food and 10 presentations by and for all of us who like to eat locally and live well!  Please follow this link for more: http://alocalmeal.wordpress.com/. A video of each presentation will be made available through the link.
Here's mine:


A Local M.E.A.L. - John Quimby from nick battist on Vimeo.


I'm excited to mention as a follow up to "A Local M.E.A.L". that I am working with my son's fifth grade
teacher to create a presentation called "Farming in the Classroom" which will feature 3 hands-on project
demonstrations related to local food production and farming. We will be planting and growing seeds in a local school. We will be integrating the results of these student projects into our spring planting on the farm so  students will know that their work is included directly into our farm and will produce food that is available to their families. We want to teach that they aren't just consumers, they can be farmers too!  I'll be sharing more details and photos. This is really an exciting opportunity.      

Here's a Really Good Find!
I've mentioned before that we are increasing the number of open pollinated varieties that we buy, plant and harvest seed from.  Our goal is to always be able to grow non GMO, organic food from our own seed bank.
And I recently found a great resource online.  600 organic/open/heirloom tomato varieties are being offered at: http://www.tomatofest.com/  Our order was filled and returned promptly and I'm pleased now to refer them to you for this spring.

What's So Great About 600 Tomatoes?
As I browsed the choices I realized we could have exactly what we wanted for each of our seasons and customers. I got a small but super early variety (55 days) for our visitor and restaurant customers plus canning for our own needs. A flavourful French slicer for fresh summer eating,  An East German cherry for salads, the dusky and smoky Cherokee Purple for exceptional flavor, and a legendary Italian sauce tomato to mate with our garlic, basil and oregano in pasta and pizza sauces. And Gary Ibsen and Dagma Lacey threw in a bonus package of "Black Cherry" tomatoes for us to trial.  That's the beauty of bio-diversity friends.  You can find a seed for every need.

Local Organic Eggs and Chicken
I also placed orders this week for chicks to raise into laying hens and fresh meat birds this summer.  This is new to us and I'm relying on Joel Salatin's, "Pastured Poulty Profits" to guide us through brooding and pasturing our very small flock this year.  We are certified organic and so our chicken and eggs are already approved to be the only organic product I know of in our neighborhood.  But this is our first attempt!  So we'll need your support when the time comes for us to accept orders for organic eggs and chicken.  If our customers will help us by investing with us, we'll be a regular supplier of fresh, local, healthy, pasture raised, inspected by ACO and certified organic product. We're working for the gold standard in pasture raised meat birds and eggs.

Our chickens will be the primary customers for the organic pasture we nurture and the organic feed grains that we grow here this year.  All of this requires a substantial investment in seed, livestock, machines, time and labor. And we're adding time to teach our children to be part of the work raising chickens for your table. So a new generation will be learning how to grow feed and raise high value food while earning a share of the profits from our neighborhood poultry business. In other words, we're one of several small family owned businesses recreating the small mixed farm model that fed generations of PEI families and trained generations of good PEI farmers.

Your support,  through buying our product,  means that you are investing in your local food security as we keep and carry a small family farm on PEI into the next generation.                        

News Links:

Food Inflation Kept Hidden in Tinier Bags

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/29shrink.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1301403749-7DIP1Gd6QRGZ0J9pMxtiLA

JQ's Final Thought:
Demand-Side food security requires that consumers believe someone or something will always be able to deliver a sufficient and uninterrupted supply of food at a price they can afford over their entire life span.
Supply-Side food security means that you know and support a variety of local producers who put healthy, natural food on your table for generations.

Connecting The Dots: Climate, Energy, Global Markets and Food Security

This spring we'll be tackling some pretty heavy decisions to increase and sustain productivity on our farm.
I'm looking ahead to a lot of work and investment to grow, market and hopefully improve our ability to serve a few more of our neighbors in PEI.  It feels good to know we have the chance to add a bit more fresh food to our local supply from our very small farm.

In the mean time I'm reading more and more alarming news from a variety of sources on the current state of affairs in our world.  And I wonder again, as I often do, about the disconnect in the media between the dots (and sometimes "dotty") individual news headlines. It's the big picture that should be getting our attention.

This thread started for me when I heard a news item on the radio letting me know that my local fast food restaurant in Eastern Canada would not be able to serve me tomatoes or peppers because of unusual cold weather in California and Mexico. Hmmm.  

That item hit the news on the same day that oil prices broke 100 a barrel again. We know that the price of oil will continue to rise through spring and summer (driving season) and we know that this will impact consumers and producers alike. We also know that as long as petroleum prices are high, we simply can't grow our way out of economic trouble by using cheap energy to do most of the work. Hmmmm.

We also now know that the same financial houses that created the mortgage backed securities that caused the recent financial panic (a pox on them all!) have also created long term investment strategies in basic food commodities on a global scale. The result has been rapid increases in the market price for staple grains and cooking oil and these increases have hit consumers in the rear pocket and the stomach.

"Beginning in late 2006, world food prices began rising. A year later, wheat price had gone up 80 percent, maize by 90 percent and rice by 320 percent. Food riots broke out in more than 30 countries, and 200 million people faced malnutrition and starvation. Suddenly, in the spring of 2008, food prices fell to previous levels, as if by magic. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has called this "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions.”

 - Johann Hari

Hmmmmmmmmm. Pretty ominous.  But we still don't see the whole picture.

Here is how I connect the dots in these three otherwise unrelated stories. First of all, the shortage of tomatoes and peppers.  This is the second year in a row that there has been a shortage of tomatoes caused by changes in average climate.  Last year (also in the first week in March) it was reportedly caused by frost in Florida. This year, it's frost in California and Mexico.  This is a direct result of climate change.  Argue all you want about normal variables. Farmers don't like risk and they know what the normals are. The fact is that this year and last saw major climate related impact on food crops in the US, Australia, Russia, and Pakistan. And even though a few peppers on your sandwich or a tomato on your burger might seem trivial it is in fact a climate change food shortage in your face. The farmers who lost crops designed to put a tomato on your Whopper will now be calling in their bankers, their crop insurance and their governments for help to avoid bankruptcy. Some probably won't survive losing their investment.

Today's increasing energy costs are about to make the situation worse during the growing season in this hemisphere.  Most people probably don't know that the chief ingredient in our food supply is oil.  Our dependence on fertilizers and chemicals, farm equipment, livestock feed milling, water pumping, trucking, air freight, cargo ships, processing, packaging, refrigeration, storage and delivery are all tied directly to the price of oil.  This dot in the matrix is a big one. Food prices are going up in North America. Major grocery chains are already announcing a 5% increase here.

But why are food prices going up so fast when market supplies in oil and commodities are sufficient and demand is relatively stable?  Let's check in on those wacky, irrational investment markets again:

According to a study by the now-defunct Lehman Brothers, index fund speculation jumped from $13 billion to $260 billion from 2003 to 2008. Not surprisingly, food prices rose in tandem, beginning in 2003.  Hedge fund manager Michael Masters estimated that on the regulated exchanges in the U.S., 64 percent of all wheat contracts were held by speculators with no interest whatever in real wheat. They owned it solely in anticipation of price inflation and resale. 

So there you have it.  Climate change, energy costs and global commodity speculation are now playing havoc with your ability to afford, "what's for dinner". The risk of economic disaster for global food producers is tied directly to wobbles in the global climate.  And market speculators in oil and commodities are engaging in risky behavior that would make an Amsterdam sex worker faint. The "invisible hand" of the market is dope slapping us with lower wages, higher food prices, a wobbly climate and general nausea caused by a growing sense of insecurity. It's a combination that is already driving stable governments and solid financial institutions off a cliff.

So what can we do about it? Well I don't think the answer is some crazy Communist agrarian revolution where we move hedge fund managers to the farm and make them eat kale. I believe that there are healthy free market alternatives here and around the world that you can invest in. And your investment will help stabilize the big picture.  This is the final dot.

It's time to go and meet your local farmer. Buy into your local commodity market. Stop exchanging a higher portion of your income on low value energy dependent processed and packaged food "products". Live like rich people do. Look to make your profit on the higher quality and higher value food available directly from a wholesale producer. Make an investment in shopping and learning to prepare better meals for yourself. If the current system does not sustain you then don't sustain it. Stop feeding your food dollars into speculation and greed. Start eating healthy meals produced by people you know who will be there when you need them. You'll feel a whole lot better!

Shopping for Food Security - Part 1

    

The farm sleeps under a blanket of snow as we plan our seed orders.     

A Word About Seeds.
The French word for seeds is semences.  Yes indeed the French have brought our fundamental need for thriving procreation to the very ground under our feet. Earthy hmmm? Even in the garden, the French are intimate with making food and, of course, making love.

Well then, let's consider what the world would be like if only 5 percent of males were eligible to impregnate all of the women. What would be lost? In fact that is what we're facing in our food supply today. Seed diversity and the basic needs of humanity are overlapping in some interesting ways.

Organic Farmers Cover the Cost of Seed Diversity. 

Each year we're obligated by our certification process to buy organic seed whenever possible.  Ordering organic seed supports organic farmers.  But there's more to it than that. This requirement also drives the market of supply and demand to preserve non GMO and non hybridized varieties. This gives us a larger, wider and more dependable supply of clean seed to buy and plant. Organic farmers are investing in having a bank of seed genetics in the market.

Organic Seed is Harder to Find and Usually More Expensive.
One complaint from consumers of organics is that the product is more costly.  This is true in the short term.
We can prove that fresh, clean, nutritious food is more valuable. But higher seed cost is directly related to what it costs to grow, harvest and market that value. As more organic producers enter the market, prices should come down even as food value improves.

Open Pollination and Seed Saving

An open pollinated variety of plant will breed true from it's own seed. So if you plant an open pollinated variety of beans or squash or peas, you can save the seeds from this year and plant more next year.

Open pollinated plants are not owned under patent law, they don't revert to earlier strains and they are proven under specific climate and soil conditions.  When we order organic open pollinated seeds, we can grow 2 marketable crops - produce and seed - and have clean seed to plant the following year. There is natural selection in this process. Seeds that are sound and strong thrive.  Those that aren't, don't.  You should know that not all organic seed is open pollinated.  At Dunn Creek Farm we are making a business decision to open a savings account with our own seed bank.    

   
Seed Diversity = 600 Tomato Varieties, Not 5. 
When we shopped for tomato seed this year, we found a grower offering 600 hundred varieties of heirloom, organic tomatoes that he and his partner produce themselves.  Some had been staples in American seed catalogs a hundred years ago.  Some had been locked behind the Iron Curtain for decades.  All had been common in market gardens in a variety of regions and conditions.  Few are being commercially grown today.       

The Hazards of Limited Diversity
When you see tomatoes in the supermarket, you are seeing about 5 varieties now commonly grown for market.  They are red.  They are firm.  But they are not selected for taste or nutrition.  There are better tomatoes to be found.  But you probably can't find them in your market. And that's not all.  Now that most of the people of the world are dependent on a handful of grains, vegetables and plants for survival, it's not hard to imagine that a plant pandemic could detonate like a bomb in the global food supply.  We need a viable market to keep the alternatives on hand. And this is where today's consumer comes in.  In part two, we'll consider how the grocery shopper decides how much bio diversity there is.  

Some of our Seed Sources this year:


Hope Seeds - Organic Vegetable Seeds & Organic Garden Seeds
Vesey's Seeds