Horse Farming
Slightly more than two weeks ago I went to Horse Progress days in Ohio. I think I mentioned it in a blog here, at least to the effect that I was attending. For those that are not familiar with the event, it is a get together of folks that farm with horses, having as the main idea an exchange of ideas and learning some of what we have lost in our knowledge. I believe their were 11,000 people in attendance on the Friday I was there, a large number were Amish, but not all of course. One amazing thing was the folks that I ran into up there that I knew from here locally.
One of the greater reasons that I attended was that Lynn Miller, author and publisher of Small Farmer’s Journal, was doing a presentation. A topic that he has spoken of in the past was why horse farming? Of course largely in the past the folks doing horse powered farming have been motivated by one of two things: A restriction of usage of certain types of equipment based on religious believes or just a general eccentric pleasure of a small number of folks that just enjoyed doing things in a slower pace with old fashion ways. Anyway, Lynn thinks that with the current conditions in both world markets, gas prices, and a turn toward more local food is going to be a driving force such that in the next couple of years to where we see a huge growth in the number of smaller sized horse based farms, an exponential growth according to Lynn.
To elaborate, Lynn, like many of us, believes that a huge part of the driving force will be the energy crisis that we are currently facing. The crunch on fuel prices is not going to go away, it is instead going to get worse. Keep in mind, that one the largest input costs that a modern farmer has is energy costs or products that have high energy costs. Diesel fuel, gasoline, and fertilizer to name just a few are the kinds of things I am talking about. Right now, it has worked for the bigger farmers to afford these huge input costs, because right now the additional demand on corn for ethanol has pushed up the price on all the major grain crops. However, that demand is likely to level off some in the coming years as other crops are used for ethanol and the over all price drops and the prices keep going up on the inputs the farmers are going to feel a squeeze. The smaller farmers that are a more traditional in nature are already feeling the pinch from the higher input costs. Lynn seems to think that the cost of fuel alone will start to push a lot of smaller farms to horse powered traction.
Lynn further believes that the smaller farm will become more of a functional need scattered about across the country. This will be coming from the fact that the expense of trucking produce and grains across the country is quickly inflating the cost to the consumer at a rate that is going to start to make that impractical for the consumer to continue to afford such items. This will of course then lead to many smaller farms closer to the end market that are producing those foods. As that move takes place, there will of course be a higher demand on said local foods to be produced in natural ways, with minimum to no chemical inputs (less energy required right there) and what better way to produce naturally then with horse powered traction.
Lynn also thinks that given the current situations that have occurred with the food system in the last few years there will be an even greater move towards smaller farms. I can see some of this occurring, with recent years problems over Spinach, tomatoes and onions, but I don’t think this will have as a large effect as the fuel will have on it. The idea of local grown food is one that I have suggested as taking of this problem more than one time. Of course that also means eating food that is grown seasonally in your local for the most part as well. And while I think there will be some movement toward additional small farms to come about because of this one, I don’t think that it will have the same impact that Lynn thinks, especially in comparison to that of the energy crunch.
One last thing though, and on this one, I have to admit I was rather disappointed. After Lynn gives a seminar speaking about the wonderful values of farming with horse power and how there will be a huge movement in that direction and that we need to be ready for the massive influx of farmers that are going to interested, I walked out to see a horse-drawn haying demonstration. Now I fully expected to see any baler to likely be driven by horses have some sort of fore-cart with an engine to supply the power, though I do hear of at least one company that has a model that can do the job from a ground drive system. However, I severely disappointed to have seen every piece of equipment being pulled with the exception of one rake, having an engine mounted PTO fore-cart of some sort. So much for using less fuel int the process – the net effect of that is more fuel to put up more hay to feed the horses that are then pulling the tractor that is then pulling the hay equipment – minus the horses, minus the need for the extra hay, that much less fuel used. I don’t think this really fit well with the kinds of things I have read in the past nor do I think it was really in tune with most of his message – though one has to keep in mind, he was a guest speaker not the organizer of the met.
