| Integrated Farming - By Shannon Iris
A radical shift is needed to restore health and vitality to cultivated lands; an alternative which will provide a multiplicity of healthy, natural products and build (not break) relationships on the land.
Integrated farming is based on the rules and guidelines by which nature operates. For example waste from one organism/process is food/nutrient for another, keeping in mind that the processes of nature always leave something behind. That which is left behind can be considered a link in the chain…..viewed from two different perspectives..…output (waste) of one organism/system OR input (nutrient) for another organism or process. Eliminating the concept of waste from human design will revolutionize all industry and begin to reverse the trend of human devastation on the planet.
LBCS is working steadily toward integrated farming on the La Boca Ranch. Following is an example of how an integrated farm operates and the potential imagined for La Boca. Let’s begin with the chickens. Housing chickens over a pond, a farmer can utilize the chicken (meat), eggs and the waste stream/outputs involved in farming chickens. Done correctly, the output/waste stream from the chickens is the input into the aquaculture system. Fish crops become a value added product and bring a good price at the market. Fish manure dredged from the pond is used to fertilize crops and pasture. The crops produce food and the agricultural residue remaining from crop production such as oat, wheat straw, sunflower stalks and hulls, orchard trimmings etc. can be used as a medium for growing medicinal and gourmet mushrooms. Highly nutritious, and having many medicinal properties, the unconventional crop grows fast and can draw a sizeable value added profit. The ag. residue used as mushroom substrate is transformed into a high quality supplemental livestock feed in the process. Mushrooms decompose much of what cows and other livestock have trouble digesting in ag. residues as well as producing lysine. It is worth mentioning that in third-world countries where poverty and starvation are prevalent, mushrooms are an excellent source of protein and vitamin k and are beginning to alleviate famine in some places. The herds of the pastures are managed according to Alan Savory’s Holistic Ranch Management Practices…….large numbers of a mixed herd are confined in small spaces for very short periods of time. This practice mimics the large herd migrations of the open prairies with animals moving through in large numbers, grazing all plant species (not selectively grazing), depositing many nutrients, trampling them in and moving on until the land has had time to regenerate.
Chickens, housed in a chicken tractor follow the herds to distribute manure. The livestock produce meat, dairy products and a waste stream. Most of the waste stream is left to fertilize the pastures, however, the llama herd at La Boca, depositing all of their waste in easy to harvest piles, fertilize the garden and feed the biodigester. Pigs (and humans) are excellent sources of manure for the biodigester - an anaerobic chamber used to decompose “waste”. The waste stream goes in the biodigester and becomes food for the methanogenic and other bacteria. The products are methane, and a nutrient rich effluent. The methane is used to supplement heat to the greenhouse (other applications would be cooking and heating of homes) and the effluent can be used in many ways.
LBCS would like to implement the development of value added oil (biodiesel) from algae grown in the nutrient rich effluent of the system. Carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) generated in the mushroom growing facility is piped into the algae growing tanks to boost algae production. Large scale application is being carried out near coal fired power plants where CO2 emissions are captured and bubbled through the algae systems boosting production; effectively utilizing a waste stream highly responsible for global warming. Diatoms are algae that dominate the phytoplankton of the oceans but are also found in fresh and brackish water. All of their cells store carbon in the form of natural oils or other polymers from which renewable fuel can be generated in the form of biodiesel among others. The oils are pressed out leaving an algal mush or residue which can be fed to livestock as a supplement or used as mulch in a garden application. Fuel and feed from “waste”. Throw in some worms to compost the kitchen scraps and you have worm castings, a value added product and excellent potting soil for the garden and food for the chickens.
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