We have a variety of missions and motivations layering over our 400 acres -- which you can review with the USGS web soil survey. We wish to grow much of our own food, we want to manage our land well, we want to keep our acreage in agricultural taxation, we want some form of sovereignty over our particular farm passion and the hours of our working life, we want to play alongside others in this farming-kind of sport, and/or maybe we just want to pick raspberries at the end of a summer day. To that end, we can divide the farm into not divisions but, more encompassingly, missions. Missions, as a concept, allows us to see the farm as both a whole, coordinated entity, but also perhaps a collection of arm-rubbing neighbors each with their own focus, whatever the case may be.
The Land : To make and maintain the land and farm as the heart and body of the community. To manage our land ecologically well while contributing to our community's human needs -- for food, fiber, fuel, framing, freedom, etc. -- as well as any work for further profit. To do this in a way that nurtures the whole being -- heart, mind, and body -- of those who do the work, and that does not threaten the financial integrity of the community in sum. We will always seek to understand and improve what we get for what we give, recognizing both the merits and the ends of productive efficiency, while acknowledging the real and relative cost of having what we want. That is to say, we will dream and build, and it might cost us, but it cannot cost us too much.
Management : Planning and management of each sub-mission within the whole farm -- vegetables, fruits, staples, hay, sheep, trees, for example -- falls to individual farmers, while visioning, goal-setting, critical examination, and labor falls to the cooperative group. That is, we are each managers of our realm, with the space to nurture our own dream and passion as we manage the day-to-day, but the work is done by and for a collective, with our collective input on the sub- mission and -method. Management can be fluid, with a vegetable manager swapping jobs with hay and staples, given sufficient training and experience. If for whatever reason it seems more reasonable to split and sell each sub-mission into separate business entities that do or do not cooperatively own a set of tools, we can consider that. Beginning as such is also a viable route in some cases. In the meantime, let's begin with the assumption that we find a form of cooperative farming that gives the full balance of being master of one's own ship while also sharing the journey.
Labor : In the pursuit of balance, we encourage less than full-time, multi-hyphenated farmers, be it in-season or out. There is, however, a minimum number of hours in a day or week that one needs to farm to maintain flow and focus, and switching-costs are real. Ten people cannot always do in half a day what five can do in one. Beyond that, You-Pick / PYO should be strongly considered, as a way to increase access to -- and potentially, then, net sales of -- what we have to offer.
The Food Farm : To grow much of what we eat and use -- vegetable, fruit, herb, staple, and more. To limit the scope of our production to what is reasonably efficient and productive, yet to continuously explore the possibility of increasing what falls under that scope. To similarly grow anything for further profit that makes us happy and the world more good and beautiful.
Crops : In real world terms, this means that vegetables, small fruit, tree fruit culinary herbs, eggs, and flowers likely fall in scope, with an eye to staples -- nuts, seeds, legumes, grains, and maybe dairy -- in some small, quiet combine future. For further profit, we may or may not choose to increase our diverse offering (as in a wider-public CSA), to offer a finer PYO selection of crops (small fruit, tree fruit, and pumpkins), or to focus on the larger-scale commercial production of particular crops (such as neohybrid hazelnuts or apples). The choice, at least, comes down to vision and passion, our preference and capability for any particular number of farmers and missions in the community, and the production, post-harvest, and market realities of a particular crop. The potential inclusion of flowers, a non-edible food into an otherwise wholly edible-list, stems from the fact that its tools and labor overlap well with the food farm.
Size : If our market is principally ourselves, then this is how large we would be.
Veggies, Herbs, & Flowers : 1+ acres in crop, potentially flipping back and forth within 2-3 total acres. 40 hours/acre. 1 Manager, keeping it down to 1 acre to start.
Fruit, Small : 1-3+ acres. It is a nice coincidence that a heavy-fruit eater's small-fruit takes about as much space to grow as their vegetables, i.e. 1 acre for just us. We can increase the acreage if we decide to offer a town PYO. 1 Fruit (Tree & Small) Manager + you-pick labor.
Fruit, Tree : 1/2-3+ acres. It is a further coincidence that tree fruit take the half the space as the small fruit and vegetables each take. These are ballpark figures, with annual farm yield and per-person demand bound to fluctuate, but they're workable starting figures. The 1 Fruit (Tree & Small) Manager + you-pick labor.
Potential : Staples, Perennial and Annual : Nuts (hazelnut, walnut, etc.), seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, flax), cereal grains (oat, rye, wheat, barley), legumes. 7-100 acres. Note the range of acreage here. We could lean hard into a neohybrid hazelnut crop or larger nut trees, depending upon what our soil says about that. 1 Manager.
Market : There is a natural impossibility in squaring the circle of crop production and demand. If we grow in excess to guarantee most crops a minimum yield each year, what do we do with the excess? We can 1) sell our perishable products at nearby markets and our less perishable products at more distant markets; and/or 2) process the excess for winter; and/or 3) only harvest what we need, especially for crops which are relatively labor intensive on the harvest-side of things. Each mission will have to find the sweet spot among these -- or more -- options.
The Vast, Productive Remainder : To provide the opportunity for agricultural pursuit and an agricultural life while maintaining agricultural taxation. While these pursuits may in some ways be less directly critical than food production, they are not less important -- especially not to the person who engages in them, but also not to us, as a whole, and our community culture itself. We likely cannot afford 400 acres of land that is not under agricultural taxation, and so these pursuits fundamentally sustain the commons.
Hay : 200 acres of open land, to share with the sheep and the bees and the trees. A local fellow has been baling and trucking all over the east coast, but would take his equipment with him if he does not continue here. Someone else might fill-in. It is up to us to decide how, why, and how much to hay, and if we want to do it ourselves. 1 Manager, <full-time.
Wool & Dairy (Sheep, Alpaca?) : 200 acres of open land, to share with the hay and the bees and the trees. Green Mountain Spinnery in Putney, VT is at least one place for custom spinning. The market after that is up for study. We have a fair-enough structure near the residences for their winter home, 3-sided and open to the south. At 25x50' in size, the numbers fall-out to something like <80 ewes, 40 summer acres + 20 hay = 60 total acres, 400 lbs and $1000+ of wool. There is a barn, open to the south -- though not the broad side -- at 50x75', that could also work. Its numbers might be more like <240 ewes, 120 summer acres + 60 hay acres = 180 total acres, 1200 lbs and $3000 of wool.
A vegetarian dairy is somewhat difficult with cows, due to the tendency to kill the males, or the cost of keeping a potentially exponentially increasing male herd. But male sheep are worth something while still alive. :) The Icelandic sheep breed reads -- I have no sheep experience and am seeking an expert here -- as a potential double-threat fiber & dairy source. The high fat content leads toward butter and ghee; when working toward a local diet, relatively whole food fat sources such as these are essentially impossible in our climate. 1 Manager, <= full-time.
Bees & Honey : 200 acres of open land. We have the potential to manage some fraction of the fields as wildflower meadows for bees that might also be cut and gathered for compost and even bouquets. Honey is not perishable like lettuce, which is a big plus. No market analysis yet done. 1 Manager, < full-time.
Flowers : I dream of a more perennial, often-native flower farm. My CSA folks seemed to like what I offered, which was not-at-all the Floret Flowers bouquet -- as impossibly awesome as she and they are -- but more like a meadow in a glass. (Though I also love roses and peonies, and dream of a rosarian among us.) Flowers are perishable, my taste may not be yours, and beyond our own demand, and perhaps some from the town, the markets are likely distant -- i.e., the market analysis needs to be done -- still, they are a high-return crop that makes people happy. Even if we only grown for ourselves, there is a small business here, but we could have a larger one. I expect it would be part of the commons commons / middleground, but if we made it a PYO crop, then it could fall outside that realm. With only 8 households in the mix, this perhaps falls to the way-side as a full-time component, or gets put into a corner of someone else's plate.
Christmas Trees : I do not believe there is a local supplier of Christmas trees. If the operation is properly sized, the labor and income timing look like a good fit with our other work. Plus, the impetus here is to dream and do before we die, and I'm in love with winter and the holiday season, which means I want to smile at people as I tie up a tree and give them some hot cocoa with my snow-suit on. I don't need to hear how silly it is to grow trees to be cut after six years. :) Cecelia called dibs on managing this, but we all get to be involved.
Maple Sap & Syrup : I have not conducted a survey on maple trees, seeing mostly cedar on my winter visit. They are around, it's just a question of their count and density, if one were to make it a business. There are likely enough trees for sap slurping, and even home or common-house boiling. Making it a business is up to us; though perhaps unnecessary and uneconomical, it is still a possibility. I, personally, would push for some sap (not syrup) sales, if another venture pans out.
Seeds and Trees : Green Things Farm Collective cut-out their seeds division because it wasn't profitable. East Hill Tree Farm is just across the way, from a competitive vantage. But, gosh-darn, I would love to find a way to get a seed-farm started -- likely custom-order by variety including our own research selections, not a true seed company with a catalog. I draw inspiration from Common Wealth Seeds, a visit to High Mowing early into my career, Joseph Lofthouse's landrace seeds approach, and the very nature of the potential for plant health and quality through cultivar choice itself. As to trees, it's hard to read John Bunker's Apples and the Art of Detection, hang-out at the Edible Landscaping Persimmon Festival, read any of Michael Phillips books, or marvel at Badgersett Research's Neohybrid Hazel work without wanting to help spread the good news. Is eating the fruit enough? Is growing it enough? Is selecting or propagating it enough? We should always be conscious of the nature of our dreaming and what will ever be enough, still .... With only 8 households, this venture is also less likely. But girl-howdy, I do dream.
Everything else : Medicinal Herbs, Mushrooms, etc. : There is more that we can do, it is principally a question of available hours, talent, interest, and the understanding that we should not spread ourselves too thin for lack of seeing what then falls out of focus.
A wage proposition and subsidization : If a tenet of this venture is balance, then we are required to pursue a balanced farming life. The rhythm of the seasons are not enough to counter the market realities -- the various unions of the food and economic systems -- which can make it hard for a farmer, alone, to live with freedom from fear, financially speaking. We seek this balance in a few ways : 1) ceiling our hours to a reasonable 30-40h/week in season, while recognizing the clockless needs of a living farm; and 2) flooring our income to something close to a living wage, while recognizing the limits of community subsidization. We, by design, expect that 1) we in other roles, 2) our partner, or 2) community will balance the potential "limitations" of a farming income, so as to preserve a particular approach to farming.
In order to achieve minimum wage we need to 1) produce enough food efficiently enough to 2) earn the value of the money our direct community -- including our partner, if we have one -- pays us. For the non-farmer, this may be hard to grasp, but we need to be righteous enough in our production to earn minimum wage, or something close to it. We must also all enter into this understanding the present market realities of diverse and small-scale farming, and so anticipate and accept the consequences, be it less money in the bank or less diverse farming in the field.