SuperChemicalGirl said:
. . . Where's the smiley for getting off my soapbox?
There is no need to get down off that soapbox, SCG.
An old saying was that for many of our ancestors, nothing left the farm that couldn't either fly or walk. Those were multi-talented people! What it meant often was that the farmer had to know how to grow his crops AND care for livestock with those crops as feed thru the winters, at least. (Along with the walking & flying, maybe you could include the
rolling egg.) "Polyculture" they are calling it these days.
The generalized approach meant that there were more things that could go wrong. Specialized production allowed for in-depth but limited knowledge that can lead to business success. Of course, things can go catastrophically wrong when all the eggs are in 1 basket, also.
I was just talking about a potato farmer I know who got into the beef business because of all the potatoes that he had that were not otherwise marketable. Going with his strengths, he just had to start cutting some hay and he put up some decent fencing - altho' if I understand correctly, he rents pasture for his animals and buys feeder calves.
We probably don't have to re-invent the wheel to gain some control over family food production and we can build on what we have had success with. Those successes probably reflect where we find ourselves. As an example: alfalfa grows wild around here in vacant lots. I've wondered how many vacant lots it would take to support how many rabbits
. I remember Hoodat growing things specifically for his rabbits but stopping at a few stands of tasty alfalfa could go along way to turning some plant food into animal protein.
Chickens are a little tricky. When it comes right down to it -- they need a diet very similar to ours. It has to be quite easily digestible, about as high in protein and variable so as to provide necessary vitamins and minerals. We might do fairly well on a diet of chicken feed so, why not carry the chicken feed right into the kitchen and bypass the chicken coop?
Well, that's possible. But, if we could grow a balanced diet for X number of humans but there are only X minus 1 humans in our household . . . we could take that 2 pounds of human food unneeded each day and give it to 5 or 6 chickens. Some thought about supplementing would need to go into the plan if what we have in surplus doesn't add up to a balanced diet for the birds but heading down this road, however far we can take it, could be a reasonable trip
.
Anyway, back to the subject of literature . . . folks like Wes Jackson have decided to leave the specialized study of agriculture and take a more holistic approach to production. His friend, Wendell Berry has certainly written quite a bit on the need to do that.
Okay, that's my little stand on the soapbox . . .
Steve
