Farmers find out how woodlands can be turned into businesses
http://www.rivercottage.net/NewsEvents/Default.aspx

(Originally published in the Midweek Herald, 2nd January 2008)

Park Farm, the headquarters of River Cottage, has hosted a successful,
one day event on the topic of managing farm woodlands for wood fuel.

More than 35 woodland owners and managers from the Devon, Dorset and
Somerset border area attended the event, organised by The Silvanus
Trust, Working the Woods and Forest Fuels Limited. Funding was
provided by Natural England and the Forestry Commission under the Farm
Demonstration Programme for the South West.

"Many farmers and landowners don't manage their woodlands, because
they think there is no money to be made in them," said Will Frost, of
The Silvanus Trust.

"This event gave farmers a better idea of what woodlands can produce
and where new markets for the wood are coming from."

Richard Down, farm manager at Park Farm, warmed up proceedings with
the demonstration of a recently installed 50kw log fuel system,
part-funded by the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Sustainable Development Fund.

Local machinery supplier Halse of Honiton gave people the opportunity
to see new firewood processing equipment up close.

Woodlands are seen as among the most neglected parts of farms and,
other than supply the farmer with the odd log for the farmhouse, have
remained largely untouched.

But small farm woodlands can play an increasingly important economic
role on the farm in the form of wood fuel, coupled with environmental
benefit - if undertaken in the right way.

Speaker Dave Rickwood, of Forest Fuels, said: "Many farm woodlands can
produce significant volumes of wood fuel. The log market is probably
the most cost-effective for small, mainly broadleaf woodlands, whereas
the timber potential of many under-managed blocks of conifer may be
unlocked by the emerging wood fuel market." 










--

My greatest speech to the peasants
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em7LWuP0T7Q

pam the SPAMMERS send an email to enquires@urfreesim.co.uk



England / Angelic Upstarts 

The red in the flag is the blood that was spilt
In the way that your forefathers tell
And never a country has been so great
The stories Britannia could tell 

I never want to live my life
Away from the golden shores
There's never a country in the world
With the scent of an English rose 

England oh England a country so great
A land that's so fair and so true
There'll never be any colours like
The red the white and the blue 

Whenever you go to a far off land
There's something goes with you
The pride and the joy and the love that comes
For your mother of red white and blue 

You could never be born under a flag that's like
The one of the Union Jack
St.Georges spirit has never died
It all keeps coming back

Here's an interesting post on the facts and figures of self
sufficiency. This exposes the lie bullies like Webster and Moody
spread that we cannot exist without factory farming advocates like
them!

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/greenspree/2007/07/17/self-sufficiency/
How much land do you need to be self sufficient? Again inspired by Red
State Green’s recents posts I decided to do some research on my own.
Prior to this, in a comment on “A matter of national security”, I used
some somewhat high output figures I found on another site that
basically said about 0.11 of an acre would be all that is required for
a family of four. I decided to find some better numbers and also
instead of just going by 2000lbs of food per year per preson, use the
recommended portions of the CanadaFood Guide.

Assuming everyone followed Canada’s food guide, and using chicken for
meat and dairy alternatives and/or trading or somehow offsetting the
cost of purchasing some of the food, this is how I see it breaking
down (weights of food taken from
http://www.stambaughfamily.com/equiv_1.html):

Food Guide per adult male:

10 servings (1/2cup) of vegatables and fruit. Lets say your servings
are 1 cup of tomato, 1 cup of spinach, 1 cup of carrot, 1 cup of
cabbage and 1 cup of potato. That corresponds 74kg of tomato, 50kg of
spinach, 55kg of carrot, 110kg of cabbage, and 83kg of potato per
year.

8 servings of grain products. Lets use 4 servings of oats and the
equivalent in flour of four servings of bread. That corresponds to
21kg of oats and 20kg of wheat flour per year.

2 servings of dairy. Lets assume soy drink, 1 cup ea. or approx. 23kg
of soya beans per year.

3 servings of meat and alternatives. Let’s use chicken for all three
(75g ea.) That’s 82kg per year.

More after the fold.


These calculations when applied to food guide amounts for an adult
female and two 9-13 yo children result in:

222kg of tomato
150kg of spinach
165kg of carrots
330kg of cabbage
249kg of potato
71kg of oats
68kg of wheat
138kg of soya
246kg of chicken

Outputs per acre for these crops, taken from various sources and
hopelessly approximate (there are no authoratative datasets that I can
find but I mostly used the following site:
http://www.gardensofeden.org/04%20Crop%20Yield%20Verification.htm),
shape up to the following space requirement for our fictional family:

0.044 acre for tomato
0.030 acre for spinach
0.019 acre for carrots
0.053 acre for cabbage
0.036 acre for potato
0.070 acre for oats
0.024 acre for wheat
0.145 acre for soya
0.006 acre for chickens (minimum, not free range and not counting
space for growing feed, if required)

That equals 0.427 acres, not too bad, about 0.1 acres per person. Of
course, it doesn’t make sense to try and grow EVERY part of your diet
your self, the 0.145 acres for soya for milk alternative is a little
excessive and trading with a local dairy farmer might make more sense.
Without the soya and say doubling the chicken as a trade for the milk,
you get 0.288 acres! The space required to grow feed for your
chickens, might increase the total to about 1/3 of an acre, but using
even a small portion of your land to produce a more valuable commodity
like say more tomotoes could easily cover the costs of buying feed
from another grower. This does not count feeding table scraps peeling
to you chickens which they love and reduced the need for grain feed.

So it seems by this simplistic exercise that a maximum of 1/2 an acre
should give you everything you need to be self sufficient food wise.
Of course, there may be higher yield crops out there and this does not
take into consideration mixed gardening which can increase output per
acre as some crops can use the same piece of land during different
times of year. Nor does it take into account the possibility of using
permaculture and greenhouse techniques to boost productivity.

Realistically, a family of four growing just their vegetables on about
1/4 acre (about a 100'x100' plot) would be a huge amount of their food
supply and quite manageable if you were willing to put in the work! Of
course city dwellers and some suburban homes may not have a 100×100
plot to work with, but those of us who do should be taking advantage
of our resources. From a cost standpoint the food costs for these
veggies (using Strong’s Market prices):

222kg of tomato $483.96 + taxes
150kg of spinach $1584.80 + taxes
165kg of carrots $178.20 + taxes
330kg of cabbage $283.80 + taxes
249kg of potato $323.70 + taxes

For a grand total of $2,854.46 + taxes, I don’t know about you but for
a few hours (or more) a week and the cost of a few packets of seed and
tools, I’d say it’s a pretty good return.









--

My greatest speech to the peasants
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em7LWuP0T7Q

pam the SPAMMERS send an email to enquires@urfreesim.co.uk



England / Angelic Upstarts 

The red in the flag is the blood that was spilt
In the way that your forefathers tell
And never a country has been so great
The stories Britannia could tell 

I never want to live my life
Away from the golden shores
There's never a country in the world
With the scent of an English rose 

England oh England a country so great
A land that's so fair and so true
There'll never be any colours like
The red the white and the blue 

Whenever you go to a far off land
There's something goes with you
The pride and the joy and the love that comes
For your mother of red white and blue 

You could never be born under a flag that's like
The one of the Union Jack
St.Georges spirit has never died
It all keeps coming back