On May 30, 8:31 pm, dh@. wrote:

> vegetarians may be healthier, but meat eaters do more for the environment.

http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html

> "Meat does well because it is not highly processed, provides a lot of calories
> and is often grown locally," says Coley. "But obviously it makes a lot of
> difference whether the meat comes from the local farm or Brazil. I live close
> to Dartmoor, where local cabbages and lamb would produce a very different score
> from New Zealand lamb and Kenyan green beans."

"In Brazil alone, the equivalent of 5.6 million acres of land is used
to grow soya beans for animals in Europe. These 'ghost acres'
belie the so-called efficiency of hi-tech agriculture..." Tim Lang of
the Centre for Food Policy. [11]
...'
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/environment/land/

> In a sense, says Coley, we all "eat oil". The ***modern food industry*** is "in many
> ways a means of converting fossil fuels into edible forms. Food is a large part
> of an individual's impact on the greenhouse effect. Many of us could change our
> diets to have a lot less impact."

'Cornell Ph.D. student works the land by hand at Bison Ridge
Farming in harmony with nature

By Lauren Cahoon
Special to The Journal
August 4, 2006

VAN ETTEN - What if every farmer decided to turn off his
machinery and go without fossil fuels once and for all? And
along with that, what if they all stopped putting pesticides,
herbicides and chemical fertilizers on their fields?

What if every gardener stopped pulling out their weeds and
tilling their soil? Chaos, you say? Mass shortages in crops and
foods, gardens choked with weeds? Perhaps so. But Rob Young,
a Ph.D. student and lecturer at Cornell University, has done all
of the above with his small farm - and the business, like the crops,
is growing.

"We just got a new client who's running a restaurant in one of the
local towns - we brought them some of our lettuce and they went
crazy over it .... our lettuce just knocked them over, it's so good."

Young's Bison Ridge farm, located in Van Etten, runs almost
completely without the use of fossil fuels, fossil fuel-derived
fertilizers, or pesticides.

The land has been farmed since the 1850s. Young and his wife,
Katharine, purchased the farm in 1989. Before that, Young
worked as the Sustainable Business Director for New Jersey
governor Christine Todd Whitman. When he discovered Bison
Ridge, Young started working the land even while he was still
living in New Jersey. Eventually, Young and his wife moved to
the Ithaca area so they could start their graduate program at
Cornell.

"We started doing a little gardening... then added more and more
fields .... at first, we just wanted it to be an organic farm" Rob
explained. Running an organic farm is admirable enough, but at
some point, Young took it a step farther.

"I had an epiphany," he said. "I was transplanting beets after a
spring rain, and I noticed how the land felt all hot and sticky -
almost like when you wipe out on your bike and you get a
brush burn. I know it sounds cheesy, but I could feel how that
(farmed) land had gotten a 'brush burn' when it was cleared and
plowed.

"That's when I decided, I want to work with this land rather than
against it."

After that, Young started throwing common farming practices
out the window. He reduced weeding, adding copious amounts
of composted mulch instead and, because of the life teeming in
the healthy soils and fields around the farm, Young lets natural
predators get rid of any insect pests.

No mechanized machinery is used except for the primary plowing
of new fields. In fact, except for driving to and from the farm (in
a hybrid car, no less), no fossil fuels are used in any part of
production. Irrigation of crops is either gravity-fed from an old
stone well dug in the 1800s or through pumps driven by solar
energy. Super-rich compost is used on all of the crops along with
clover, which fixes nitrogen and adds organic matter to the soil.
Crops are grown in multi-species patches, to mimic natural
communities (insect pests wreak less havoc when they're faced
with diverse types of vegetation).

In addition, the farm has a large greenhouse where most of the
crops are grown as seedlings during the late winter/early spring
to get a head start. The entire structure is heated by a huge bank
of compost, whose microbial activity keeps the growing beds
at a toasty 70 degrees. During the spring and summer, most of
the plants are grown in outdoor raised beds - which yield about
three times as much per square meter as a regular field.

"When people visit the farm, they comment on how we're not
using a lot of the land - they don't realize we're producing triple
the amount of crops from less land," Young said. "It is labor
intensive, but you can target your fertility management, and the
produce is so good."

Young's passion for earth-friendly farming has proved to be
infectious. As a student, teaching assistant and teacher at
Cornell, Young has had the chance to tell many people in the
community about Bison Ridge, which is how Marion Dixon,
a graduate student in developmental sociology, got involved
with the whole endeavor.

"I had wanted to farm forever - and was always telling myself,
'I'll do it when I'm not in school,'" she said. But when she heard
Young give a speech about recycling and sustainable living at
her dining hall, she knew she had found her chance to actually
get involved.

Dixon and Young now work the farm cooperatively, each
contributing their time and effort into the land.

"I've had a lot of ideas," Young said, "but the work has been
done by a lot of people - it's a community of people who have
made his happen."

He said that because of Dixon's input, they now have a new
way of planting lettuce that has doubled production.

Although Young and Dixon are the only ones currently running
the farm, during the summer there are always several people who
contribute, from undergrads to graduate students to local people
in the community - all united by a common desire to work with
the land.

"There's personal satisfaction in working the soil, being on the
land and outdoors," Dixon said. "You get to work out, and get
that sense of community - plus there's the quality, healthy food.
.... It's about believing in a localized economy, believing in
production that's ecologically and community-based."

The combination of working with the earth's natural systems and
community involvement has paid off. Over the course of several
seasons, Bison Ridge has grown a variety of vegetables, maple
syrup, wheat as well as eggs from free-range chickens. They have
a range of clients, including a supermarket and several restaurants,
and have delivered produce to many families in CSA (Community
Sponsored Agriculture) programs.

Although small, Bison Ridge Farm has prospered due to its
independence from increasingly expensive fossil fuel. Young said
that, since little if any of their revenue is spent on gas,
advertising
or transportation, it makes the food affordable to low-income
people, another goal that Young and Dixon are shooting for with
their farming.

Although Young and Dixon are happy about the monetary gains
the farm is producing, they have the most passion and enthusiasm
for the less tangible goods the farm provides.

"It's such a delight to work with," Dixon said. "You feel alive
when you're there."

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps...FAID%3D/200608...