On Small Farms, Hoof Power Returns

[XemaSab]

ON a sunny Sunday just before the vernal equinox, Rich Ciotola set out to clear a pasture strewn with fallen wood. The just-thawed field was spongy, with grass sprouting under tangled branches. Late March and early April are farm-prep time here in the Berkshires, time to gear up for the growing season. But while many farms were oiling and gassing up tractors, Mr. Ciotola was setting out to prepare a pasture using a tool so old it seems almost revolutionary: a team of oxen.

Standing just inside the paddock at Moon in the Pond Farm, where he works, he put a rope around Lucas and Larson, his pair of Brown Swiss steer. He led them to the 20-pound maple yoke he had bought secondhand from another ox farmer, hoisted it over their necks and led them trundling through the fence so they could begin hauling fallen logs.

Mr. Ciotola, 32, is one of a number of small farmers who are turning — or rather returning — to animal labor to help with farming. Before the humble ox was relegated to the role of historical re-enactor, driven by men in period garb for child-friendly festivals like pioneer days, it was a central beast of burden. After the Civil War, many farms switched from oxen to horses. Although Amish and Mennonite communities continue to use horses, by World War II most draft animals had been supplanted by machines that allowed for ever-faster production on bigger fields.

Now, as diesel prices skyrocket, some farmers who have rejected many of the past century’s advances in agriculture have found a renewed logic in draft power. Partisans argue that animals can be cheaper to board and feed than any tractor. They also run on the ultimate renewable resource: grass.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/dining/04oxen.html

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Oh, right on. Excellent.

God, I know each generation is born dumb and must relearn the lessons of the last, but please grant this generation the humility to remember the lessons of Gandhi.

The great curse of our current political climate can be described in two words genius worship. We all want clean energy, we all want peace, we all want all kinds of good stuff. But we are also all told not to worry, to go shopping, some genius will come along and come up with all the solutions. Who are we to fix this current situation in this complex world?

Gandhi understood. As an expression of resistance to the British Empire, he told people to burn their clothes made in industrialized England, and sit down with their own spinning wheels and make their own. Of course it was wasteful compared to the industrial plants of England, but that didn't matter. Because it wasn't about cloth, it was about letting people be part of something bigger than themselves. It was about dignity and human worth.

Thus I can say something clearly, here tonight: The solutions to the problems we face will not be found at MIT, by those rooms full of geniuses. They will be found with us, the common people. They will be found with Oxen and good bikes and resilience and character and hard work for a cause which transcends ourselves, just as all those who sat and labored at spinning wheels in India so many decades ago.

[truedelphi]

4. You know something? Much of what Ghandi preached was the exact same

Set of common sense economic principles that guided the American colonists as they revolted against England.

One of their top beliefs was that a nation should create products locally - don't import.

That obne belief, when adhered to means two things

One) there are plenty of local jobs

Two) the local community doesn't have to fear that a foreign nation will lord it over them (Something that is happening to us right now as the rights to our gas and oil is sold cheaply to the Energy Industry in cahoots with our "elected servants." Then we also import from nations far away, and we end up fighting wars to gain ability to have the oil flow here.)

Anyway, I was thrilled to see someone mention Ghandi - and appreciate the photo as well.

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. You sir, are 100% right on.

Local production. I read this book Labor Monopoly and Capital (Braverman) some years ago, and it really got me thinking about this guy Frederick Winslow Taylor, who created and formalized something called "scientific management" around the turn of the 20th century. Basically what Taylor said is that the division of labor creates the maximum output. So say three guys can make 100 pins a day each, it turns out that if one stretches the steel, one sharpens the points and one hammers the head, they can make 900 pins a day together though none of them knows how to make a pin themselves anymore, so dividing labor increase output by promoting specialization. Braverman argued that this idea has PERMEATED how everything is done these days, to bad effect. The book was written from the perspective of labor and worker rights, but the issue is deeper still in my mind.

Basically what I'm seeing is that nature is FAR more "parallel" than our current industrial settings. Nature specializes, but it specializes locally. It has parallel diversity, its far more dual use. When you ask a biologist why nature is this way, they tell you that it is because it is robust, it is resilient and it survives catastrophes. (One told me that lumber companies were planting just one kind of tree, until one kind of pest came and killed their whole forest. They learned the power of diversity quick.) So I really fear that our current way of life is actually really fragile, because of our dependence on remote things. Its also politically fragile: If things are so specialized that an essential item comes only from one special place, its easy for a small group to control us all or mess things up by controlling that place.

But Taylor's efficiency arguments are what we are up against, and they are correct: they make things cheaper. Therefore those of us who advocate for the more local life are up against some serious challenges.

[reggie the dog]

5. i ride my bicycle to visit friends in neighboring towns, even 20 miles

away by bike quite frequently.

[napoleon_in_rags]

10. You rule.

I have commuted for a long time by bike, but not that far. Kudos!

[DonCoquixote]

6. there needs to be

a bit of caution. Yes, there is a bit of genius worship, but we cannot go the other direction and start hating tech either. There is a reason that people live past 40, and that women do not need to carry unwanted babies to term, and it has everything to do with technology, and nothing to do with folk remedies.

[napoleon_in_rags]

11. Its about political awareness amongst makers of tech.

There should be some big picture awareness for the effects of tech on culture. I'll be the first to cheer high tech, so much of it is empowering for individuals. But some other tech not so much, some tech concentrates power in the hands of a few. I think scientists need to avoid myopic views and consider society as a whole: Their goal really needs to be to put tools in people's hands so they can create solutions, not saving the world themselves. Keep the power spread out, it corrupts.

[murielm99]

2. My grandfather farmed with horses.

He was the last person in his neighborhood to do so.

I wish I could ask my father when grandpa stopped farming with horses, but my father has dementia now. I know that by the time I was visiting the farm in the 1950's, they were using a tractor.

[Hardrada]

3. We have a lot of horses and horse teams around here (eastern Iowa)

and I know they are not all for show.

[madokie]

7. Same here. The Amish use them to haul their asses around

pulling their buggies. One horse, one buggy and about a half dozen people in the buggy from anywhere from 8 to 80 YO.

But all things as they are. We used a horse to plow the garden when I was a kid back in the early to mid '50s. Daisy, horses name, would be hell to catch the first time in the spring as she hated that plow but once she was caught she would be fine the rest of the growing season but that first time was a real tussle.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. More than just buggies

It’s not all fun for the animals.
http://www.prisonersofgreed.org/Lancaster.html

[madokie]

12. It just breaks my heart to see how animals are used, er abused