Soils and farming

Question from email: 

I recently ran across your blog (which is much appreciated!) while doing research on starting up a farm.


I've got my eyes on some property up in north Snohomish County. Its drainage is similar to that of your property (if I've got you located correctly- east of Cherry Ave. along Hwy 2?), identified as poor: silty clay soil (over 70% of it); from what the soil survey maps tell me I wouldn't be able to run drainage tile.

I'd had my heart on running cattle as the front-end of a grazer-follower operation, but am concerned that the land wouldn't support larger animals.

How does your land hold up to your cattle (four head?) and sheep? I guess the question would also apply with regards to your pigs: I'd have some wooded area to run pigs, lots of rooting; most, however, is wet.


To answer your question there's the farming answer, and then the regulation answer. 

Regulation answer:
The Washington state department of ecology has taken the position that farm land that has not been farmed for 5 or more years and at some point in the geologic past might have been a wetland, and during that 5 year period has wetland plants or conditions appear, is now wetland.  Once they deem your land wetland there is no easy path back to farmland for you.  In my case their first proposal was to give them half (50%) of my land to "mitigate" my grazing of animals and use of wood chips on my property.  I'm in discussion with them and have a court date in October to argue my case in front of the pollution control hearings board, but the best opinions I've been able to get is that I'm going to lose that argument.   So if you're looking at land, even farm land, and it could be deemed wetland, look out.

I'd be certain that it is currently farmed and does not contain wetland plants or indicators.   If it does, and you come to the attention of the department of ecology (in my case they wrote the complaints that they later investigated) you stand the very real possibility that a large percentage of your land will be taken from you in the form of a Natural Growth Protection Area (NGPA), and you will be required to fence it and prevent any use of it forever.  You still get to pay taxes on it, however.  Nice of them. 

I cannot recommend that you buy crossbow to eliminate bushy wetland plants or roundup to eliminate grassy wetland plants and 10-20lbs per acre of good pasture mix tolerant for wet soils, and rent a tractor to apply and till and level and plant that grass seed. 

Farming answer: 
In the river bottoms around here, and in the tidal areas, and diked tidal areas, you'll find a mucky soil interspersed with peat, usually in stripes.  It's very fertile; usually about 20% organic material, and will tend to be acidic.  to grow stuff like row crops you'll have to add lime and not much else. 

In the areas where it's close to the ocean (puget sound) you'll usually find higher levels of sulfur and trace elements, from the seawater that's probably underneath the soil.  This isn't usually a problem, but if you're going to do something other than grazing nothing beats a soil test.  In my case the soil test called for 4 tons of lime per acre to grow corn.

With respect to grazing and rooting pressure from my animals, the reed canary grass that the property is covered in was originally brought in to provide forage and control erosion, and is quite tolerant of pretty heavy use.  It also doesn't mind being covered with water during the wet season, so poor drainage hasn't been a problem.  you'll probably find that the property you're looking at has this same grass.  When it gets older and more stemmy the livestock don't like it as much, so if they're not grazing it down I'll mow it from time to time to prevent it from going to seed head and control weeks.  Thistles are a particular problem on my land. 

The hooves of the cows and pigs do cut the sod, and if it's not growing  you'll have to make a sacrifice paddock to save the turf for the growing season.  I pull the animals off the pasture and put them into a prepared pen from about first frost to mid April.  that gives the   grass enough time to grow to knee length and then I'll rotate the animals around on it. 

With wet pasture you do have to look at your stocks feet more, and watch your parasite load.  the wet grass holds snails and stuff that nematodes (round worms) live in, and that can cause your animals to not gain as fast, so worming is sometimes necessary. 

Viewing the produce department from the bottom up

I have been receiving two truckloads of vegetables and fruits, culled from area supermarket produce departments, and have been feeding them to my pigs.  Each truckload is roughly a full-sized dumptruck worth of food, and in a super market, the fruits and vegetables are often some of the most expensive food.  (Most expensive food:  We hear that all the time by people who complain about subsidized calories present in processed foods, mostly derived from corn.  )

This truckload is pretty typical.  We've all seen this in the average store; the cantaloupes and sweet corn, cherries and broccoli, watermelons.  Watching these piles of food arrive I'm curious if this happens at every supermarket around the country.   Each load I get from just 8 stores is between 3 and 5 tons of food. 

I'm going to figure that there's something like one grocery store for every 2,000 people in the USA.  There are about 300 million people in the USA now.  That means there are 150,000 grocery stores, give or take. 

If every one of those stores are throwing away 1 ton of food a week that's 150,000 TONS of food each week. 

Some of this food has traveled hundreds or thousands of miles. The oranges can't be grown in Washington State.  the papayas -- Mexico, Caribbean, Philippines.  Pineapples?  Hawaii maybe.   The corn has a good chance of being local, some of the vegetables -- tomatoes are probably from a few hundred miles away at the most. 

This berkshire pig is enjoying produce from Costa Rica

I feel like I'm doing my part by keeping this out of the landfill, and I'm glad that the grocery stores are doing their part.  I think that this is a good use of the produce.  I am just a little overwhelmed that there is this much human food wasted in our food distribution system. 

Cheese and price and accessibility and cost: Natures Harmony farm

[Special note:  Tim over at Natures Harmony bans folks that disagree with him on any of a number of topics.  Don't email me about this any more.   So while I'd usually post this comment over there, I'm posting it here so that any discussion won't be axed by Tim.  He writes stuff that appears to invite discussion and then bans everyone who cares enough to discuss it.  Which seems odd, but it's his blog.  And I'm not going to go into his new catchphrase:  "Americas Most Sustainable farm!".  Puuulleeeaase!]

In a recent blog entry, Tim at Natures Harmony asked the question of his readers which I'll paraphrase here: 

Would you rather buy cheese at $28 a pound if the cows are grass fed only, or cheese at $15/lb if they were fed both grass and grain. 
 
I'll note that if Tim does feed hay and grain that his operation will be, in my opinion, identical to this one that I wrote about in an earlier article, at least as far as the diet of the animals are concerned.  Well, maybe not.  I saw no evidence of grains being fed -- just grass. 

This is the slippery slope that's led us to where we are with modern agriculture.  You see, you don't really have to ask this question of the average American consumer.  We've already, as a society, made our choice.  We have chosen the largest quantity of the cheapest food possible. 

So while he's posing this question as if he's doing a favor for his customers, what he's really doing is what quite a few farmers have to wrestle with:  I'd like to make more money, and to do that I can either raise my prices or increase my output.   There's a number of things he could do to increase milk output other than feeding grain, but he's exploring that one right now. 

I am in no way making a judgement about what he feeds his animals, or the reasons he does so.  In an earlier  discussion on his blog (in the comments section), I explained why I seek out surplus food for my pigs and other livestock.  I do it to keep my produced pork  available to the average consumer.  I have no interest in producing a product that only wealthy people can enjoy.  Everyone should have access to good quality food without having to spend every last cent.    I ran across this same basic math myself, and made a choice.  Now I'm curious what choice Tim will make.