The Beginning Farmer

This morning I came across this video about the Jondle family of Abundant Life Farm. He was a computer programmer for something like 25 years before his wife came across Joel Salatin’s book, “You Can Farm”. So, they talked it over and decided farming was something they were interested in making a change. The whole family ended up moving to Polyface Farm for almost half a year in order to learn from Mr. Salatin himself.

They started with no farming experience and now they are going strong. I guess if anything it is encouraging to see what is possible if you really focus and sell yourself out to the goal. One thing that I should probably admit though is that I wonder who much capital they went into their new farm with. I suppose they probably had more money to work with than a young beginning farmer, but I’ll just look at the glass half-full and believe that it can be done!

So, enjoy this video and let me know what you think.

I am getting dangerously close to being able to announce that we have pigs on the farm, but I can’t quite do that yet (keep checking back for more details soon). I have been reading as much on the subject of pigs as I can get my hands on though and I’m starting to get pretty excited about the possibility of pork for the family and for customers. It looks like we will have plenty of pork available this fall, but more about that later. For now I would like to share an article from the University of Missouri Extension titled, “Forages for Swine“.

This article is from about fifteen years ago, but the information included is timeless. I would say that the authors, Howell N. Wheaton and John C. Rea, give a fairly unbiased assessment of pasture management for pigs. They take time to through out both the positives and negatives and seem to favor confinement farming in some circumstances (I don’t really agree with that), but they also give some great information on what forages really work for pigs.

I think this is a good basic resource for those of us interested in pasturing pigs and I will certainly be turning to it next year when I begin to do some seeding on the farm. I would love to hear from any who is or has pastured pigs … especially if you are planting certain grasses or legumes for your pastured pigs. Hopefully I can give some more first hand information very soon…

One of the many great benefits of being a member of the Practical Farmers of Iowa is that they have their own e-mail List-serv. The e-mail list has hooked me up with potential customers, been a good place to go to when I’m looking for help, and has also been a good source of great research. That was especially true last week when an e-mail came through with a PDF of an article titled, “Benefits and barriers to perennial forage crops in Iowa corn and soybean rotations”. I suppose it is more of a research paper than an article, but it was great nonetheless.

I haven’t had time to tackle all of it yet, but I will share a couple quotes and thoughts from the introduction:

• Basically, things changed around WWII (which has been discussed here a lot). Before that most Iowa farms were very diversified in crops and livestock and had multi-crop rotations in place. Those rotations included forages, something not seen these days.
• Between 1950 and 2004 corn and soybean yields have just about quadrupled. Way to go crop specialists! I assume that means that the amount of money the farmers are making is also increasing…
• But, that is not the case. First of all the number of Iowa farms during that same time period has dropped by more than 50% and the net income per farm (after inflation adjustment) was actually 9% lower in 2001 than it was in 1960. I’m not sure if that changes with $7.50 corn or not, but I’m guessing it doesn’t because all the inputs have also jumped sky high.

It will be interesting to make my way through this paper as they explore the environmental and financial impacts and benefits of switching back to an intensive crop/livestock rotation. They are also going to look at socio-political things that prevent farmers from making the change (I’m really looking forward to that section!).

Of course “The Stockman Grassfarmer” is a little biased when it comes beef finishing and The Food Institute for Food and Development Policy of Oakland, California may have an agenda (don’t we all), but the article from them in the June issue of “The Stockman Grassfarmer” does cause me to wonder. It makes me wonder if the small feedlots (which aren’t very small) can survive, it even makes me wonder if the big ones can survive, it makes me wonder if feeding the ethanol byproducts is a good idea, and it makes me wonder what will happen to our food system in the future if we continue down the path of industrialization and centralization.

According to the article there are seven pounds of waste byproduct from each gallon of ethanol made, also 46% of the byproduct (they call it waste in the article) goes to dairy cattle and 42% goes to beef cattle. This is just anecdotal, but my uncle told me of his neighbor who only feeds eight bushels of corn in finishing with the rest be dried distillers grain (the byproduct/waste). The article reports that by the end of this year the ethanol byproducts will replace one billion bushels of corn in the livestock industry (they make sure to mention that they are tax-subsidized byproducts).

I guess the ethanol plants are feeling the pinch of high grain prices just like everyone else (even with their subsidies) and so are looking for more ways to make money. The newest thing is to combine feedlots with ethanol plants. A new plant in Nebraska has done just that by adding a 28,000 head feedlot and other new plants are planning on adding even larger feedlots.

If this trend continues the ethanol plants will not only be subsidized to produce gas, but also to finish cattle. This would be a major step in the continued centralization of the agricultural world and could effect generations of farmers to come. On the other hand it just may open up more opportunities for locally finished grass-fed beef…

I have pigs on the brain recently! Mostly because I hope to have some pigs on the farm within the week and have been getting things ready for that. Hopefully I will soon be able to tell you about our new Hampshire x Tamworth pigs, but for now I will just report on this great book by Dirk Van Loon which came highly recommended by Walter of Sugar Mountain Farm. I would say he is a very innovative pig farmer, so I was really looking forward to getting into this book. And, I must say it has been worth it so far.

One thing about this book is that it is very practical. It does not spend a lot of time talking about the “evolution” (not a big fan of that word) of the pig or the social/political reasons to raise pigs on a small-scale. Mr. Van Loon just gives plenty of great how-to advice for the complete beginner. While chapter three is about the history of pigs (from the standpoint of domestication), it is told in such a way that it gives great working knowledge to the beginning pig raiser.

A couple of the most interesting things I found in the third chapter were the discussion of pigs as land clearers and the historical information on swineherding. Pigs have natural plows attached to their head, and because of they they are naturals at clearing the forest. One great quote from the book comes from Mr. Zeuner (an expert on domestication). He said, “Pigs prepare the way for man, both in regard to pasturing – for the pig can be followed by sheep as happened in the Bronze Age in Northern Europe – and in regard to agriculture.” We plan on allowing our pigs into the forest, not so that we can wipe out the woods, but so that we can clear some of the thick undergrowth. I am looking forward to seeing what they can do.

The other interesting section was a short couple of paragraphs on swineherding. In days gone by each household would have a few pigs in a yard pen. Then each morning a swineherder would go through town and herd all of these pigs to the woods for feeding … bringing them back in the morning. Can you imagine each house in town having that now? Well, not in Knoxville because we can’t even have chickens!

Chapter four is the essence of the practical knowledge in this book and I couldn’t even begin to share all I like about it without rambling on for quite awhile. But, there is tons of great “how-to”/”this is what you need to know” in this chapter titled, “Behavior and Form”.

I have only read five or six chapters so far, but I think I’m beginning to agree with Walter of Sugar Mountain … this is the book you need to check out if you want to have pigs on a small-scale.

I just thought I would take a few pictures to illustrate why work has been progressing so slowly out at the farm. As always you can click on any picture to see a larger picture.

On Wednesday I had to go out to the farm to meet a guy from the power company (he didn’t show, but the water guy did) and saw a road closed sign. Like any gawker would I went and checked it out. The picture on the right shows why the road was closed. Usually there is no water near this road, but this is a pretty unusual spring. You can also see a vineyard if you look closely in the upper right. There are six acres of grapes planted there and the owner plans on using the huge round barn he built there to host clients. I plan on making sure they have a good supply of fresh Iowa grass-fed beef and pastured pork!

After taking the picture above I told my wife that it was smooth sailing on the rest of the road to the farm. Well, at least it was on Wednesday… But, as you can see from the picture on the left we couldn’t cross the bridge that is usually there. It is no big deal because there is another way to the farm that is of equal distance, but it does give a picture of the flooding. From the high point on our road would could look out over thousands of crop acres that are flooded. I guess that is why 80 plus counties in Iowa have been declared disaster areas.

Finally we made it to the farm. As you can see from this picture on the right it is going to be awhile until we can finish working up the new garden! I think I will just end up putting some pigs in there and letting them do some work and then come through with a tiller. Maybe we can get some fall crops in … and possibly some corn. I guess one positive is that some of the old fence posts will be easier to pull out now.

One thing is for sure. I am very thankful that this is the extent of the flooding that we are having to deal with. So many of our friends and families are having to deal with so much loss. You can check out this link to our local radio station. There are some pictures and if you scroll down there are some videos from the Lake Red Rock Dam … there is some major water moving there.

(A very quick post today … the last day of Vacation Bible School … but, at least this one is earlier in the morning)

(Okay, sorry for the late post again … VBS is really messing with my schedule)

I guess the fields are a little more than slightly damp … most are drenched and many are flooded! That has a few possible impacts to the row crop farmers. First of all there are still a small number of fields that haven’t been planted yet and the mud/flooding isn’t helping in that regard. Secondly, the water covered fields can/will hamper the yield. And finally, because of the extreme flooding many farmers will have to replant their fields. All of the water and flooding has led to corn above $7 a bushel (check out this article).

Of course $7 corn is a good thing for the farmers who have their crops in and aren’t going to have to replant, but it doesn’t help much for those that have to replant or the livestock farmers. And, because our farms have become so focused on a single type of farming (row crops or hogs or cattle …) the pain is going to be felt by everyone … including the consumers.

Because of higher grain prices we are also going to see a drop in the cattle/hog numbers which will in turn cause higher meat prices. So … farmers will feel it … packers will feel it … and consumers will feel it. But, does it have to be like that? What if our cattle were grass-fed? Would that make a difference? What if our farms weren’t so specialized? Would that make a difference.

Check out the article and then lay your thoughts on me!

(another late post … but, there are only two more days of VBS!) I have to admit that I am a talk radio junky. Even as a high school student I would have talk radio on in the car as I drove around town, then when my friends would get in I would have to quick change it over to FM. Pretty much my radio flips between 1040 WHO and 1460 KXNO. I listen to Jim Rome, The Big Show (farm), Rush Limbaugh, Van and Bonnie (local), and Steve Deace (local) all depending on my mood at the moment. But, I like most talk radio … except for Dr. Laura! I can’t stand her voice for some reason…