While doing some research online on do nothing farming, I had the good fortune of meeting Steve Groff at
Cedar Meadow Farms. Basically Steve is practicing a form of agriculture that seeks to mitigate plowing the land. In effect, it conserves top soil while simultaneously saving gas and human effort. After a few emails, I decided to visit his farm and see how large scale no-till agriculture worked first hand. So last weekend, I took the train home to PA and got into my Honda Civic for a field trip of sorts. I drove some 40 miles Westwards into the agricultural areas of Lancaster County. There were many Amish families inhabiting those parts. Their 19th century horse and carriage lifestyle presented a rather odd contrast with the rapid expansion of suburbia into Lancaster.
After finding the farm, I had the pleasure of chatting with the man. Apparently, Steve's method of farming uses only around 30% of the fuel, and 70% of the fertilizer as conventional agriculture, while still allowing for a single family to cultivate over vast acreages(250). Of great interest to me was the savings in time. According to Steve, he was able to cut down his work hours by 75% due to not tilling the soil while farming. Of course by that time, I was bouncing off the walls to see the actual process in action. So out we went to tour the farm.
Steve is using a form of seeding and cover-cropping that is very similar to those practices described within One Straw Revolution. However, his own interpretation is highly mechanized and thus much more scalable. For example, in OSR, seeds were encapsulated within "earth balls" and scatered into the fields by hand. While Steve's tractor simply carves a very narrow slit about an inch deep into the earth, disperses the seed,and then these two bevel seals the ground up afterwards, thus accomplishing the same purpose with machinery. Steve actually demonstrated his tractor for me, and it was amazing to watch. The process of tilling the soil is highly tedious on both man and machine, I have had the good fortune to experience both. But the act of simply scratching the soil and depositing the seeds seemed much easier and faster to me.
The farm itself uses the principals of natural fertility and continous cover described in One Straw Revolution. Steve has been using a combination of corn and wheat as harvest crops along with vetch/rye and turnips to provide the cover crops and green manure. While touring the farm, I have noticed examples of such continuous coverage. In one field, I could see the remains of corn stalks after the ears had been harvested, and underneath these brown stocks there grew a green carpet of vetch and rye. Along with the crops, Steve also keeps a small herd of buffalos on his farm. It seems to me that this way of agriculture is much more efficient and sustainable to the mainstream method currently in place. Steve mentioned that the difficulties of No-till agriculture was in the transition process. During the first years of transitioning, more fertilizer must be used and harvests could be smaller, thus farmers risk possible ruin in making the switch. After seeing the results of this method, I personally think the government should subsidize this transition process and convert as much of our farmland to no-till as possible.
While doing some research online on do nothing farming, I had the good fortune of meeting Steve Groff at Cedar Meadow Farms. Basically Steve is practicing a form of agriculture that seeks to mitigate plowing the land. In effect, it conserves top soil while simultaneously saving gas and human effort. After a few emails, I decided to visit his farm and see how large scale no-till agriculture worked first hand. So last weekend, I took the train home to PA and got into my Honda Civic for a field trip of sorts. I drove some 40 miles Westwards into the agricultural areas of Lancaster County. There were many Amish families inhabiting those parts. Their 19th century horse and carriage lifestyle presented a rather odd contrast with the rapid expansion of suburbia into Lancaster.
After finding the farm, I had the pleasure of chatting with the man. Apparently, Steve's method of farming uses only around 30% of the fuel, and 70% of the fertilizer as conventional agriculture, while still allowing for a single family to cultivate over vast acreages(250). Of great interest to me was the savings in time. According to Steve, he was able to cut down his work hours by 75% due to not tilling the soil while farming. Of course by that time, I was bouncing off the walls to see the actual process in action. So out we went to tour the farm.
Steve is using a form of seeding and cover-cropping that is very similar to those practices described within One Straw Revolution. However, his own interpretation is highly mechanized and thus much more scalable. For example, in OSR, seeds were encapsulated within "earth balls" and scatered into the fields by hand. While Steve's tractor simply carves a very narrow slit about an inch deep into the earth, disperses the seed,and then these two bevel seals the ground up afterwards, thus accomplishing the same purpose with machinery. Steve actually demonstrated his tractor for me, and it was amazing to watch. The process of tilling the soil is highly tedious on both man and machine, I have had the good fortune to experience both. But the act of simply scratching the soil and depositing the seeds seemed much easier and faster to me.
The farm itself uses the principals of natural fertility and continous cover described in One Straw Revolution. Steve has been using a combination of corn and wheat as harvest crops along with vetch/rye and turnips to provide the cover crops and green manure. While touring the farm, I have noticed examples of such continuous coverage. In one field, I could see the remains of corn stalks after the ears had been harvested, and underneath these brown stocks there grew a green carpet of vetch and rye. Along with the crops, Steve also keeps a small herd of buffalos on his farm. It seems to me that this way of agriculture is much more efficient and sustainable to the mainstream method currently in place. Steve mentioned that the difficulties of No-till agriculture was in the transition process. During the first years of transitioning, more fertilizer must be used and harvests could be smaller, thus farmers risk possible ruin in making the switch. After seeing the results of this method, I personally think the government should subsidize this transition process and convert as much of our farmland to no-till as possible.
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