Overthrowing King Corn
This past Saturday I gave a talk at an event put on by Heifer International. It was a small gathering of people who had come to learn and discuss the principles of agroecology, and I was invited to talk about my own farm and the things I do to try to make it sustainable. More significantly, I was to talk about the ways I worked to make my farm part of the global warming solution rather than the problem. I went through the grazing patterns of my animals, the ways they strengthened the grasses that sequester carbon in the ground, the misguided idea that animal agriculture has to be a net negative on the environment. But at the end I mentioned my one big sin—I buy grain-based feed for my chickens.
This is a common sin.Even Joel Salatin, the hero of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, feeds grain to his chickens. But for an otherwise sustainable operation, using a mixture of corn, soybeans, and other grains is a black mar on my farming. By feeding grains I am participating in the monocultures that I want to work against and the fossil fuel economy that is running on empty. And even more, as absurd ethanol subsidies keep getting doled out, I am becoming a part of the competition between fuel and food, driving grain prices up. What if I could escape grain all together? What if raising chickens sustainably didn’t require feeding grain at all? A solution to this problem is getting more and more urgent as grain prices rise, and I hope that some alternative-minded animal nutrition scientists are working on a solution.
Early on Saturday I was working on the farm with Tim, and we were talking over possible alternatives. I remembered that as a child I had fed a few pet frogs with meal worms that were pretty easy to cultivate. These beetle larvae grow quickly and they are high in protein. We are thinking about creating two big bins to cultivate them.
At the workshop later that night one farmer said that she was experimenting with dried oyster mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms, when dried, have more than 15 percent protein, and they have high levels of vitamin C, B12, and niacin. The farmer was kind enough to give me a jar of oyster mushroom mycelium to get me started.
So we have some alternatives to start working on. But we are still looking for other suggestions. Would earthworms work? What other insect larvae might be good feed sources? The key is that it must cost us little to produce and be able to be produced on our farm. If we find a way out of feeding grain we will have improved our profits, but even more so we will have reduced the environmental impact of our farm significantly. King corn may well suffer a coup on our small patch of land.
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Comments
Ragan, I've been thinking about this too, and I researched earthworms rather extensively, and it appears that the sort of worm that is the easiest to grow in a worm farm is indigestible to chickens. I think I might try mealworms. If you have any other bright ideas, I'd like to hear them. Rashea
Posted by:Rashea |April 28, 2008 3:11 PM
Hummm....I just read about mealworms and it appears you have to feed *them* grain....chicken mash or oatmeal or wheat bran....so, one way or the other, ol' king grain is gonna win. It may take experimentation to find something that will work and not be grain-dependent. Grain is God in this culture. Rashea
Posted by:Rashea |April 28, 2008 3:18 PM
OK...the ol' brain is thinking about other places where people have less grain. I read about an integrated fish-duck raising operation in Bangladesh www.fao.org/docrep/004/ac155E/AC155E19.htm
That seems like a promising thing to look at. I wonder if chickens like to eat fish? Rashea
Posted by:Rashea |April 28, 2008 3:31 PM