Farm Store Closing

We are making some major changes in our farm to keep the farm profitable and sustainable, and to reduce our work load. We are closing our farm store and self-service egg refrigerator at the end of the year. We have frozen chickens, convenience packs, honey, Everyday Miracles Salve and lamb available as long as supplies last. Next year we will be selling strictly wholesale to stores. We will continue to produce our pasture raised eggs and sell them in the stores that are currently carrying them and will likely add a few new stores.

Next year we will not be raising broiler chickens or turkeys, and we will not have eggs or other products for sale here at the farm.

Earlier this summer we felt that God might be directing us to stop raising broilers and turkeys and stop selling retail here on the farm. We decided to wait until Thanksgiving to make the final decision. As time went along we discovered more and more reasons why we should stop raising broilers and turkeys and close the farm store. We will not list them all, but the main reason is to reduce our work load. Farming is hard work and requires long hours. It is time to make some changes. We do not want our children to get discouraged and feel like a sign I saw recently which said: “Because of the heavy work load, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off!”

Luke asleep instead of playing mandolin
We have felt exhausted like this more than once this year!

Much of “Sustainable Agriculture” is not Profitable Or Sustainable
In explaining why we are closing our on-farm store, I think it is important to explain where agriculture is financially here in America – how we got where we are, and how we as sustainable farmers have been trying to make things work financially.

In a speech given on Oct. 21, 2007, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan explained that the Federal Reserve has been involved in financial engineering in the U.S. using a technique called “Creative Destruction” to move people out of lower paying jobs such as farming, manufacturing, and the textile industry into higher paying jobs such as health care and education. The result has been that farming, which years ago was a profitable business enterprise, has become unprofitable for most farms. (See my article on Creative Destruction in the May 2008 newsletter at: http://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/articles/2008/05/12/creative-destruction-related-to-farms/)

According to the USDA, most farms in the United States earn ALL THEIR HOUSEHOLD INCOME FROM OFF-FARM SOURCES! The USDA’s projection is that the median farm income for 2015 will be -$1,504! In other words, most farms are losing money, not making money. (http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/highlights-from-the-2015-farm-income-forecast.aspx)

Let that sink in. Do you know of any other profession where most of the businesses are not making any money for labor even in the good years? Most of the farmers in America are working for free. Actually, with a farm loss, many are paying to work for “free”. This is ridiculous and is not sustainable. Anything that is not sustainable will sooner or later come to an end. And then where will the food come from? Think of that the next time you see the bumper sticker – “No Farms, No Food”. The thing that so far has kept farmers going is their passion for farming. They love to farm and will do whatever is possible to keep on farming, even if it means farming for free. But sooner or later, the reality of what they are doing will dawn on them, or some event will happen that will force them to stop farming.

As our family evaluated whether we should continue to raise broilers and turkeys and operate our farm store, we realized that something had taken place in the sustainable agriculture movement that we did not see before. Since most farms were not really making money from farming, we were encouraged by people like Joel Salatin, sustainable agriculture seminar speakers, and county extension agents to sell our products directly to the public through farmers markets, CSA’s, and on-farm stores so that we could get the retail dollar for our products. That worked. It enabled farmers to get some money to put toward their living expenses. Other farms have added agritourism to keep their farm going.

What we as farmers did not fully realize is that by selling retail, we were actually adding a new business enterprise to our farm. When a store sells a product at retail price, they have a lot of labor, overhead, and other costs that go along with selling the product. The difference between the wholesale price and the retail price is not free money as many farmers tend to look at it. It takes a lot of time, planning, marketing, and preparation behind the scenes to sell directly to the consumer. What is happening is that the farmer is working for free on the farm to produce food for others, and then working a second job in retail (selling at farmer’s markets, a CSA, or on-farm store) which is actually providing their income.

Selling retail makes the farmer’s work load greater for another reason. The farmer has to have a variety of products to sell if he/she is going to attract customers to their farm market stand, CSA, or farm store. If a farmer had only one product, such as eggs or one kind of tomatoes, they would not sell very much. Each product or vegetable takes time to produce. Because of the limited retail market at each location, the farmer can’t take advantage of the economy of scale like large farms do in reducing the production cost per item. In a Weston A Price, Wise Traditions Magazine article titled “The Real Cost of Real Food”, one man shared how that with his 100 hens he would have to get $11.52 a dozen for his eggs in order to get paid $10 an hour to produce them. (http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/the-real-cost-of-real-food/) Because of the need for a variety of products, some sustainable farmers are producing products at a loss in order to have products to draw customers to their farm or farmer’s market stand. Those loss-leader products represent a lot of labor over the course of a year that never gets paid for, and means that the farmer has to work more even more hours at something that does make money.

Selling retail works, but we have been hearing from many sustainable farmers in the last several months how exhausted they are. They feel like they can never get everything done that needs to be done. Sheri Salatin, who with her husband Daniel (Joel Salatin’s son) manages Polyface Farm in Virginia, stated several weeks ago in a blog post: “I’ve been way too busy this year and to be brutally honest, if every year is going to be this hard, I’m ready to quit. No it’s not been a bad year. No, there was nothing tragic. I’m almost embarrassed to admit, because I know many out there who have had some major health concerns or lost loved ones this year. It has just been one of those years where… Let’s see, how can I explain it? Well, I have a list of things to get done every day and if I don’t plan my day and run it ‘just so’ not everything that I needed to get done that day will get done. And nothing on the list is optional for another day.” (http://polyfacehenhouse.com/2015/11/farm-wife-friday-a-farm-table-discussion/)

In the comments section, almost every response is from a farm woman who is feeling much the same way as Sheri.

What I have shared with you about what is happening in sustainable agriculture is negative and discouraging. I share it to help you understand why we feel it is important to close our retail sales and the extra work load that it creates. But we are not feeling negative or discouraged about our farm. Instead, we are looking forward to the future and staying sustainable. Selling eggs wholesale to stores is a profitable enterprise for us. We are getting paid for our farm labor. The name Jehovah-Jireh means “the Lord will provide”. We feel that one of the ways God has provided for us is by showing us how to make a living from our farm.

We are moving forward. We recently converted our pullet raising shelter into another hen shelter and bought some more organic hens. We are still caring for the same number of birds, and the labor is much the same, but the hens are producing an income whereas raising baby egg layers did not produce an income. The increase in egg income should more than offset the loss of on-farm sales. Our family feels like the light at the end of the tunnel has suddenly gotten brighter. We are looking forward to a break from a very, very busy summer and fall. Closing the farm store and some of our other farm enterprises will enable us to give more attention to the hens so that we can hopefully provide even better eggs for you. We will miss seeing those of you that come to the farm, but you will still be able to buy our eggs and BARC pet food in the stores. We plan to continue to keep in touch with the farm newsletter, and will probably send it out about three or four times a year.

You may also like to read:
The End of Organic Farming Might be Sooner Than We Thought by Cara Parks, Oct. 12, 2015 http://www.refinery29.com/2015/10/94908/small-organic-farm-businesses-unsustainable-agriculture

I’m Not Sorry — A November 2015 blog post by Shannon Hayes, pasture based farmer and author of The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook: Healthy Eating and Good Living with Pasture-raised Foods http://theradicalhomemaker.net/tuesday-post/i-am-not-sorry/

Some local farms that use organic feed and raise broilers on pasture:
Rights of Man Farm, Ijamsville, Md. http://www.rightsofmanfarm.com/index.html
Nick’s Organic Farm, Buckeystown, Md. and Potomac, Md http://nicksorganicfarm.com/
Dayspring Farm, Middleburg, Va http://dayspringfarmva.com/

Winter Garden
This fall we are adding a “Winter Garden” to each of our hen shelters. Previous to this, at the south end of the hen shelters there was a fenced area with wood chips on the ground which we called the picnic area. It was a place where we could confine the hens when the pasture was too wet, there was snow on the ground, or the pasture conditions did not permit the hens to be on the pasture that day. It is an important management tool to keep the pastures from being destroyed. By covering the picnic area with a greenhouse, the hens can now enjoy dry bedding and the heat of the greenhouse on those cold winter days in January and February. In the Spring the plastic on the sides will be rolled up and the roof covered with white plastic giving them a large open air pavilion. Hens, like us, do not like the hot sun in the middle of a summer day. It will provide more shade for them to lounge around in while they wait for the cool of evening to come so they can range the pastures before bedtime.

Hens in the winter garden
The hens are already enjoying dust bathing, scratching and just being in the Winter Gardens.

Meet Your Farmers – Part 2

 Myron

Myron
I grew up in Gaithersburg, Md and have lived in the area since 1970. I have about four years of college, but I never completed a degree, nor have I really needed one. While in college, I worked in an accounting department and discovered that working behind a desk was not for me. I worked for 14 years in the Washington DC area as a finish carpenter and cabinet maker working on high end custom homes and additions. That gave me experience to be able to restore the house on our first farm and the house on our current farm.

I am the farm manager. This year, we have made some changes since we have a lot of good help on the farm. I am freed up from some of the day to day work to put more focus on planning, taking care of the finances, feed formulation for the hens, writing the newsletter, and other management responsibilities. I am a farmer at heart and still spend a significant part of the week working with the guys on various aspects of the farm.

As you may have realized from reading my articles in the newsletter, I love to research various subjects. We have a number of websites where I have published my research. In addition to farming and health related research, I have also done considerable research on spiritual subjects and issues facing the church. I am currently writing a book exposing the rampant sexual abuse of children and other failures among Amish and conservative Mennonites. Cathy and I both grew up in the Mennonite Church, but we no longer consider ourselves “Mennonite”.

I love farming and producing high quality, health giving food. I love learning, and what I am finding about the soil, farming, and how it relates to health, is like an unexplored pioneer frontier and adventure to me. Like George Washington Carver, I keep asking God to teach me and it is amazing the things that He reveals is the oddest places. I don’t feel like I have all the answers, because the more I learn the more I realize that life and farming is not as simple as I thought it was.

Daniel

Age 18

Daniel is our third oldest son and is working full time on the farm. His responsibilities include raising the broiler (meat) chickens, and taking care of the new baby chicks. While all of us guys do mechanic work, Daniel is the one with the most intuitive knack for seeing what is wrong with a machine or motor and how to fix it. It is great to have his mechanic skills here on the farm. He bought a fixer upper tractor and has been working on it and learning a lot about diesel motors. He is also a natural at doing electrical work.

He also built a blacksmith shop that we featured several years ago in a newsletter.

Daniel is musically talented and plays the accordion and sings baritone and bass. He also follows in his father’s footsteps by being a natural tease.

A Sustainable Farm that Isn’t

The hard, heart breaking reality that sustainable farming is not as sustainable as we once thought it was.

My heart ached as I stood at the edge of a field on another farm and looked at what had once been Salatin style pull pens, used for raising pasture-raised chickens. The pens laid smashed together on a pile in the woods. That style of chicken pen is named after the man who promoted the design and method. The pens at one time had been two feet high and 10 feet wide by 12 feet long. The pens are called pull pens because they are pulled across the pasture by moving them one pen length a day. It is a very labor intensive system. Almost every farm here in America that starts raising chickens on pasture uses this method. The method is romanticized and made appealing to new farmers.

A pile of smashed Salatin style chicken pens
A pile of smashed Salatin style chicken pens that had at one time been used for raising chickens on pasture. It represents the smashed dreams of two sustainable farmers, and the unsustainability of what is supposed to be sustainable agriculture.

The pasture where the             pasture-raised chickens had been raised
Turning around from where the above picture was taken, this is the view of what had once been the pasture where the pasture-raised chickens had been raised. The farm was located in Maryland State Park property. After the sustainable farm failed, the land (about 50 acres) has become a wasteland filled with noxious weeds, thorns, and poison ivy. About four years ago the Maryland Forest Service planted it in trees to reforest the land, never to be farmed sustainably again. The last crop that a farm grows is trees. (We have not yet been able to prove to the world that sustainable farming is the answer to feeding the world and that we are more sustainable than big corporate agriculture. We have more work to do.)

The farm, Full Circle Farm here in Maryland, went out of business over 10 years ago. The pile of chicken pens represents not only the labor of the farmers and their wasted funds, but it also represents the smashed dreams and hopes of a man and a woman who had been told that the system that they were using was the answer to conventional confinement agriculture. They thought they were practicing sustainable agriculture that would last and endure long after the conventional, confinement, big corporation chicken houses had gone out of business for being unsustainable.

Little did they know, as beginning farmers, that the method that they were using was not sustainable and that few people who would try it would be able to make a living wage with it. Most of them would quit after a few years.

I am writing this in hope that the many farmers and want to be farmers who subscribe to this newsletter do not make the same mistakes that I made and that Full Circle Farm made. I used to think that it was me that was having the problems and that others were being successful. I kept hearing glowing reports about how great everything was on other farms. But as I have observed things over the years, and from reading articles in Stockman Grass Farmer Magazine, I have pieced together that the profits were not there that those giving the glowing reports made it sound like it was. From my perspective, the reason that many sustainable pasture based chicken farms are no longer in business is not the farmer’s fault, but the fault of the system that they used. If you are experiencing some of these failures, it is not you, it is the system you are using. Chickens will not be super healthy just because they stand, sit, and sleep on the cold wet ground with grass on it 24/7. If we are going to have sustainable pasture based farms and last long after the conventional, confinement chicken houses have gone out of business, we need follow a different method.

There are a number of reasons why pull pens are not a sustainable method of raising chickens on pasture.

  • It requires too much labor for the few number of chickens that the farmer is raising to make a living wage. The pens have to be moved once or twice a day or the chickens will sit in their own filth. If you have 20 inexperienced apprentices running around your farm working basically for free, building and pulling pens is good grunt work to keep them busy.
  • The chickens are not protected enough from the heat, the cold, the rain and wet ground, and from predators. I will not go into details, but it is not a humane method. The death loss is too high. Every chicken that dies represents a loss of profit. The overhead costs and feed invested in the dead chickens are still there.
  • Because of the high labor input, it is difficult to have enough time in a week to raise, process, and market enough birds to be able to make a full time income. In other words, the hourly wage is below minimum wage. That is why most farms using the pull pen method stay part time or shut down. It is not profitable. They have to have off farm income to live on. For a sustainable farm to be sustainable, the labor input has to be low enough for the number of birds raised, to be able to raise enough chickens with a normal day’s work to make a living. Those that have promoted this method of pasture based farming have made it sound like the animals do most of the work. That is not true.
  • Pull pens are a micro version of confinement chicken rearing, only it’s on pasture. The chickens have very little space to move in their small pen.

Likely, unbeknown to the farmers at Full Circle Farm, there was another significant factor that may have contributed to them not being able to sell enough chickens to make a go of farming and be sustainable. The farmer who had taught them the method of raising chickens on pasture had a big name recognition and was illegally delivering chickens that were not USDA inspected across state lines into Maryland to customers relatively close to Full Circle Farm. At that time period in Maryland, Full Circle Farm could only sell their chickens at their farm because their chickens were processed under Federal exemption and were not USDA inspected. People had to go to their farm; the chickens could not be delivered to drop points like the other farmer was illegally doing. It is one thing for a farm to compete with a legal competitor, but it would have been very difficult for them to compete with a competitor with name recognition that was doing things illegally to provide what the customers wanted and taking business away from them.

The black market of illegal pasture raised chickens coming from Pennsylvania and Virginia into Maryland and Washington DC continues. If you are a farmer that is doing this, please stop. If you are buying this black market chicken, please stop. If the illegal chicken and illegal raw milk does not stop coming across state lines, it will endanger the sustainability of all pasture based farms.

For sustainable agriculture to be sustainable, the farmers have to stay in business. As sustainable farmers, we need to look out for each other and help each other and not take business from other sustainable farms by doing things illegally or misrepresenting our products as something that they are not. If you are a consumer, do not hurt the sustainability of the sustainable farms in your area by supporting the big guys (or the little guys) who are doing things illegally or are misrepresenting their products. One of the most common misrepresentations is a farm giving customers the impression that their chickens and eggs are organic when they are actually not feeding their chickens organically and are feeding non-organic feed. Non-organic feed is much cheaper than organic feed. Contrary to what you might think, a pastured chicken actually eats more feed than a confinement raised bird because they get more exercise and because they need to keep themselves warm during cool weather and on cold nights. It is important that the feed is organic.

Sustainable agriculture is a team effort of farmers and consumers. If we do not make sustainable agriculture sustainable, big business, confinement, “pasture raised” animal operations will be what is sustainable.

Related articles from past newsletters on this subject:
Sustainable Farming – The Farmer Has to Stay in Business
Our Quest for a Better and More Humane Way to Raise Chickens on Pasture
Our Quest for a Better and More Humane Way to Produce Eggs on Pasture

For those who are farmers
Here in the United States, much of the information that we have been given about raising chickens on pasture is outdated by 20 years or more. There have been a lot of advancements in the last 20 years that we as small growers have not kept up with. Europe with their free-range chickens, and the larger poultry breeders have a lot of beneficial information for us to learn from. Raising chickens on pasture is a lot more high tech in meeting their nutritional and other needs than we have been led to believe. Small mistakes in nutrition and management can end up costing a farmer a lot of money and may mean the difference between making a living and going broke. Here are some valuable resources that have been beneficial to us:
The following three books available from 5M Books – http://www.5mbooks.com/agricultural-books/poultry-books/poultry-signals-training.html
Poultry Signals
Broiler Signals
Laying Hens

Online Resources:
Ross 308 Broiler Handbook
ISA Brown Egg Layer Alternative Management Guide
ISA Brown Nutrition Management Guide
Hy-Line Brown Egg Layer Red Book – A Management Guide

Grass Fed is Best? A Horror Story From our Living Lab

To hear some people talk, you might get the impression that raising chickens and animals on grass is the secret ticket to success in farming and to health. With grassfed, there will be no more problems and the chickens and animals will excel far beyond conventional farming methods. Any grass is good. All you have to do is get the animals out on the grass, in the sunshine and fresh air.

That is not true.

Before you think I fell off my rocker, I will state that I believe that grass fed is BEST! But, as you will see, not all grass is best or even able to properly sustain life.

I was shocked and very disappointed with the large amount of weight loss that our sheep experienced after only 16 days in the new silvopasture. Two specialists from the Maryland Extension service, had visited the silvopasture just before the sheep were put into the new pasture. They were very impressed with what they called the “high dairy quality” of the grasses and clovers. They were concerned that the forage would be too lush, too rich for the sheep and that they might bloat (their stomachs fill up with gas) . On the contrary, the sheep did not bloat and we were in for a big surprise when we weighed the sheep.
The 54 Adult Sheep : lost (-345.5 lbs.) total in the 16 days between May 14 & 30, 2015. This number included rams (males), ewes (females) with lambs, and year old females that were not bred. Many of the nursing mothers lost 10 to 15 lbs!

The 48 Lambs: gained significantly less than they did the 16 days before they were turned into the Silvopasture:

Gain between 4/28/15 & 5/14/15 (16 days) = 465.5 lbs. an average of .61 lbs of gain per day before being in the silvopasture.
Gain between 5/14/15 & 5/30/15 (16 days) = 209.1 lbs. an average of .27 lbs of gain per day
Weight gain difference = -256.4 lbs.

While these weight losses were very disappointing, they showed how dramatically different pastures can be. Grass fed will not produce healthy animals and poultry if the soil is not built up properly. The main part of our farm, where the lambs gained the most, probably had the same quality of grass as the silvopasture eight years ago when we first moved here. We applied some principles that we learned from Carey Reams and some that we had developed on our own from some of his teachings and it made a dramatic improvement in the pastures. The main concept is that at least 80% of a plant’s nutritional food/energy comes from the air. By building up the soil and foliar feeding the plants with milk and honey, we were able to increase the amount that the plants were able to take out of the air. One of the main things that we did was to repeatedly mow our pastures and let the grass lay on the ground. We have explained this in some of our other articles.

I also need to add that there were also a few other things that likely contributed to the weight loss – over maturity of some of the grasses and grazing too long for the quality of the forage.

What was significant was that on the main part of our farm, the pasture alone, with no grain feeding, produced a weight gain of .61 pounds per day in the 16 days before the lambs went onto the silvopasture. That is exceptional for grassfed only and comparable to grain feeding.

Mike Neary, Ph.D., Extension Sheep Specialist at Purdue University says this about lambs in the 45 – 80 lb range, which was the size of most of the lambs that we put on the silvopasture: “Lambs with high to moderate growth potential that are fed a grain based diet with proper amounts of protein should gain from .5 to .8 pounds per day…
“If lambs are grown on high levels of forage [pasture], then one can expect slower gains than if fed diets with a high amount of grain. Gains for lambs grown on pasture will normally be from .25 to .5 pounds per day.” http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/sheep/articles/feedlamb.html

During the 16 days in the silvopasture, the lambs averaged .27 lbs of gain per day which is at the bottom end of what Neary said is the expected gain for lambs on pasture. However, the results were actually worse than that. During the time that the sheep were in the Silvopasture, it appears that from the amount of weight that the lactating ewes lost, they gave the fat off their backs to their lambs and that is why the lambs gained and did not lose weight like their mothers.

Last week we weighed a few of the ewes and lambs when we were sorting out the lambs to take to the butcher. We were encouraged that they were gaining weight again. Those lambs had gained about .67 lbs a day in nine days. We do not have the data yet for all the lambs.

The lesson in all of this is that all pastures are not the same and will not give the same health qualities to the eggs, meat and milk that they produce. The same is true of fruits and vegetables in the store. They may look beautiful, but be lacking in the nutrition to adequately sustain life.

Sheep grazing what appeared to be very lush forage in the silvopasture demonstration plot.
Sheep grazing what appeared to be very lush forage in the silvopasture demonstration plot.

The soil in the 8 acres in the silvopasture is about as chemical free as it will get. It has been probably at least 20 years since it had any chemicals or chemical fertilizers put on it. It also had not had any animals on it or any farming activity for at least 10 years before the silvopasture was established; therefore, it did not have the immediate negative affects of chemicals or bad farming practices. The forage specialists had recommended the grasses and legumes to plant to reduce the amount of tall fescue grass that was in the pasture. Tall fescue has a toxin in it that negatively affects sheep and cattle. Those grasses and legumes had been planted and looked beautiful as you can see in the picture.

In spite of the problems, I am looking forward to what we will be able to accomplish in the silvopasture. I feel that we have a solution, by repeatedly mowing the silvopasture to build up the soil. We also will be spraying milk, honey, and egg as a foliar spray to increase the photosynthesis and brix (sugar) of the pasture grasses and legumes. In the next three years, I believe that we will see a very significant improvement in the pasture growth and nutrition in the silvopasture, and a significant growth increase in the trees over the trees planted in the adjacent fields.

For me, the silvopasture gave me a reference point that showed that we had indeed improved our pastures from when we first moved to this farm.

Life on the Farm In Pictures


Sheep shearing several weeks ago. The sheep were getting hot with their three or four inch thick wool coats still on.


New kittens and their mother on the porch of Melody’s log cabin playhouse.


Sheep grazing in the silvopasture demonstration plot.

What is the Difference?

Jehovah-Jireh Farm Chicken Grocery Store Free-range Organic Chicken
True free-range, pasture raised Large confinement factory farm chicken house with limited or no access to the out of doors.
Fed fresh ground organic feed with added vitamins Fed organic feed
Practically no ammonia smell in shelter Lots of ammonia vapor in the chicken house
Normal day lighting Artificial lighting 23 hours a day
Small groups (350 or less) Huge groups (10,000 or more
Low stress in small groups High stress in large groups
Clean air Air hazy with manure particles and ammonia
Fresh air and sunshine Limited or no access to sunshine
Plenty of exercise Limited exercise
Fresh daily salad bar (pasture) Basically no greens
Promotes family farming Promotes large corporations
Rural revitalization Promotes urban expansion
Consumer/producer relationship Consumer/producer alienation
Environmentally friendly Same environmental impact as conventional confinement chicken houses

The difference between the two is much more than the “free-range” grocery store label implies. The “free-range” organic grocery store chicken is not much different from conventional chicken, except it receives organic feed and does not receive antibiotics, or arsenic (fed as a growth stimulator!). A door may be open to let a few chickens out to scratch in the dirt.

Meat is much more than a combination of nutrients that we eat. All meat is not the same. We have been conditioned to believe that all meat is the same and that the main difference is the price. That is not true. Even though the nutrients in a downed cow and the nutrients in a healthy beef may analyze in the lab basically the same, the true nutrition is NOT the same! The same is true in the way chickens are raised. Just as we need sunshine, sunshine is important for chickens too. Just as fresh green vegetables are important in our diet, so fresh green vegetables (grass, clover, etc.) are important in a chicken’s diet. It is important that we get exercise to be healthy. So it is important that the meat we eat had the proper amount of exercise to be healthy as well. It is important that we get plenty of fresh air. In the same way it is important that the chicken meat we eat was not raised in an environment where the air was hazy with with manure dust and ammonia. We are what we eat. The way that the meat we eat was raised is important. It has an effect on our bodies. That is why we, at Jehovah-Jireh Farm, go to the extra work to produce a product that is raised in the best way possible.

The Frederick News Post had an article this week about reduction of antibiotic use in food animals. Our farm was one of the featured farms. You might find it interesting. http://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/economy_and_business/agriculture/concern-for-proper-antibiotics-usage-in-food-animals-prompts-groups/article_3d4a1279-938c-5488-a6a6-562e1b55e992.html

The Importance of Recycling Energy, Part 2: How to sequester carbon in the soil

This is a continuation of Part 1 in the September Jehovah-Jireh Farm Newsletter on the importance of recycling energy.

Note: Using organic farming methods to sequester carbon in the soil is an important subject that was presented to our government officials several weeks ago. Since I wrote part one, I found out that Mark Smallwood, the director of Rodale Institute, walked from Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. to hand deliver a White Paper detailing research proving that regenerative organic agriculture can absorb carbon from the atmosphere and reverse climate change. The White Paper is titled: Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change, A down-to-earth solution to global warming. The full text of the White Paper can be found at: http://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change/
Incidentally, Mark Smallwood used to work for MOM’S Organic Market in their main office in Rockville, MD. and also helped us one time to process chickens at our old farm.

 

We today have an important opportunity to make a significant step forward to sequester carbon, build topsoil, control erosion, and feed the world through organic farming. There are many that are greatly concerned that we have irreparably harmed the environment, are destroying life, and leaving future generations with an environmental mess because our excessive use of fossil fuels. Many feel hopeless and that too many people do not care what they are doing to the environment.

There is hope!

Plants to a large extent were the original source of our present day fossil fuels. Plants are also a key element in recycling energy and putting the CO2 gasses back into the soil where they belong.

There are a number of ways to sequester carbon in the soil. What I want to share with you is a simple, easy method that we have used here at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.

In the first seven years here on this farm we have sequestered approximately 325,570 lbs of Soil Organic Carbon on 35 acres. That represents recycling as much CO2 as the yearly output from approximately 146 cars. That was accomplished by increasing the soil organic matter on most of the farmland by almost one percentage point. That is without spreading organic matter or fertilizers other than lime. The only manure was the droppings from chickens when they are on the pasture and from the sheep and cows while they are grazing. The amount of  carbon sequestered is according to soil tests that were taken at the end of 2013. It represents the carbon sequestered in the top six inches of soil, although there has been much more carbon than that sequestered at greater depths in the soil. 

The method that we used to sequester the carbon was letting the grass grow a foot or more tall and then grazing or mowing the grass and letting it decompose into the soil. This is a method that we discovered as we mowed the grass in the American chestnut orchard located here on the farm and observed the significant increased growth of the grass and the increased growth, vigor, health, and blight resistance of the American chestnut trees. Mowing pasture grasses is one of the best, the easiest, and cheapest of fertilizers.

Grasses often have more root mass and depth than the mass and height of grass above the ground. When the grass is mowed from a height of 24″ down to 4″, the roots slough off to correspond to the amount of grass left above the surface. As these roots that sloughed off decompose, they build organic matter in the soil to the depth the roots had been. It is not just the organic matter on the surface of the ground from the mowed grass that contributes to the organic matter of the soil.

Pasture based farming, using rotational grazing and managed mowing, is an important method of sequestering carbon in the soil in a very stable manner. Rodale Institute has proved that the proper organic crop growing methods are also an important carbon sequestering method. It is my opinion from my observations and research that pastures can sequester carbon faster, easier, to a greater depth, and have it more stable in the soil than can be accomplished with organic crop farming methods. That does not mean that sequestering carbon by organic crop farming methods is unimportant; it is important. But what it means is that globally we can sequester much more carbon by raising animals on pasture in pasture based systems rather than growing grain and feeding the animals grain in confinement operations. Plus, the grass-fed meats with higher omega-3 fatty acids are much more healthy for the consumer.  

Typical response of grasses to grazing. Above ground growth is more lateral and roots “die back” to match needs of above ground biomass. Diagram C. Luke 2011 http://www.sonoma.edu/preserves/prairie/management/restoration.shtml

 


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Up to 90% of a plant’s mass is in its root system. What is below the soil is much more important for sequestering carbon than what is above the soil. The plant on the far right has much more root mass than the mass that is in the grass above the soil level. The grass clump on the far left sloughed off most of its roots when it was cut short. The roots can then decompose and build carbon deep in the soil where it will be stable and stay in the soil for a very long time.

The above illustrations show the importance of managing plant roots by grazing and mowing to build carbon in the soil. The roots below the soil are more important for sequestering carbon than the grasses above the soil. This is significant, because it allows us to utilize the grass for feeding livestock and producing an income from the land while at the same time using the roots to sequester carbon deep in the soil, making the soil more drought resistant, reducing rain run off and erosion, and making the soil more fertile.

The depth that carbon is sequestered in the soil is important. Carbon that is greater than 12″ deep (30cm) is very stable in the soil. The Rodale Institute’s White Paper points out the importance of depth in the sequestering of carbon:
“It is likely that current data sets underestimate soil organic carbon stocks in organically managed systems because soil carbon is often measured at plow depth when recent findings suggest that more than half of the soil organic carbon stocks are likely in the 20-80cm depth. Beyond 30cm in the soil profile, the age of carbon increases continuously, much of it persisting for thousands of years.  How carbon acts in this subsoil range is poorly understood, but increasing rooting depth, application of irrigated compost (compost tea), choosing deep rooted grass-legume cover crops and encouraging earthworm abundance are all promising pathways for introducing carbon to depths where it is likely to remain stable over long periods.” (p. 10)

To get the greatest depth of roots in the soil, it is important that grasses be allowed to grow at least a foot or two in height before grazing or mowing. Grasses in home lawns will not be able to contribute much to carbon sequestering because they are never allowed to grow very tall.

One more plus to mowing pastures in addition to sequestering carbon is that it creates a beautiful manicured farm landscape. Beautiful pastoral farm landscapes do a soul good like a medicine. We need to create more beauty around us.
Our charcoal/biochar kiln experiment at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.

In 2009 we experimented with making charcoal to sequester carbon and to build up our soils. Inside this charcoal kiln were five metal 55 gallon barrels filled with split firewood. We made six batches of charcoal to use in the garden and in the chicken bedding. Making charcoal/biochar is labor intensive. In half of our garden, we applied about an inch and a half of charcoal and incorporated it in the top six inches of soil in a three foot wide by 70 feet strip perpendicular across the various rows of vegetables . Unfortunately, we did not see any improvement in growth, drought resistance, or brix improvement to the plants grown in the charcoal enriched soil in any of the years since then. Five years later, there is no noticeable difference in the color of the soil where the charcoal was applied.

Our experiment with biochar was not successful. It does not mean that charcoal/biochar is an ineffective method of sequestering carbon in the soil. The Terra Preta soils in South America show otherwise. Charcoal/biochar is a method that needs more research. 

There is much more to learn about how to sequester carbon and to build topsoil using atmospheric carbon. We want to experiment with increasing the brix (sugar content) of our pasture grasses. By increasing the photosynthesis of the plant leaves, the sugar (and carbon) content of the plant can be increased. The plant sends these sugars to the roots to feed the roots and microbes in the soil. By increasing the sugars in the plant, we should be able to significantly increase the carbon sequestration in the soil.

There is much more that we would like to experiment with to improve the soil. We thank you for your support of our farm in buying our farm products. Your support is what enables us to do these experiments in our living laboratory (the farm).