Well, maybe not. Yet there are times and places where the use
of a team of horses may well be preferred.
Whether that could ever justify the investment is quite another matter
as is brought out by one of the operators in this item.
I think that they are useful in a
well managed wood lot in the Eastern woodlands.
It is always necessary to skid single logs out through the trees and
doing this without driving a road is sensible.
They are also a best use of
resources at times such as simply pulling a service wagon to support a task.
Yet low powered high torque small
tractors with a short wheel base could do just as well in most cases. Electrics will make this doubly true.
Small farmers crave horse power
6 DEC 2011 7:41 AM
Photo: Donn Hewes
Ask any 5-year-old: Few tools symbolize the farm like a trundling
tractor. In fact, you'd have to reach further back in time to find an equally
enduring symbol: the horse. And while there's little doubt that tractors have
revolutionized farm labor and made farms much more efficient than they were in
past centuries, a growing number of farmers are taking the back-to-the-land
ethos as far as it will go and choosing horses and mules over John Deere.
"Maybe it's a [glimpse] into the future," says Adam Davidoff,
co-owner of New Family Farm in Sebastopol, Calif. Davidoff is 25 and relatively
new to farming; he works with a team of three draft horses to pull various farm
implements that prepare beds, cultivate, plant, and harvest row crops. But he
also sees horsepower as a proactive approach to mitigating negative
environmental changes. Instead of buying manure or fertilizer, farms with draft
animals have a built-in source; they also compact the soil less than machines
-- a big concern for farmers who want to develop and conserve healthy soil for
years to come. He also sees them as a kind of back up plan. "If we have
some sort of a collapse ... draft horses could become a lot more viable,"
he says.
Farmers may choose to lead draft animals for sustainability reasons,
but they quickly learn it also changes the pace of the operation. In sharp
contrast to working with tractors, Davidoff explains that horses slow you
down. "Stopping, breathing, and rubbing their bellies -- just letting
them settle into it -- forces me to take smaller and slower steps." He
believes the horses have had a profound impact on other aspects of the way he
farms.
A farmer who relies primarily on animal power has to cultivate
patience, Davidoff explains. "When you work with horses, you have to let
go of the expectation that you're going to get everything done today." He
works longer hours, but at a slower pace than he would on a mechanized farm --
and he enjoys it more. "None of it's drudgery and dreary," he says.
"It's beauty made extremely efficient."
It's this love for working with animals that Kristin Kimball says is
key. She runs Essex Farm in Essex ,
N.Y.
What began as a labor of love at Essex
Farm has translated into a profitable business. They have a 170-member
community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription service that aims to supply
all of their customers' needs -- from vegetables to grains to meat -- in an
effort to "make the grocery store obsolete." To Kimball's surprise,
she says the horses are a useful marketing tool. "Customers love to be
connected to a place that relies on horses; for us it's been a big selling
point," she says.
Donn Hewes owns and operates Northland Sheep Dairy with his
partner, near Cortland, N.Y. They've farmed with mules and horses for 16 years
and recently started workshops for aspiring teamsters (an old-fashioned name
for farmers who lead horses). Just how many people are moving toward draft
horses and how fast is hard to say, but Hewes says The Northeast Animal
Powered Fields Days annual gathering he attends in Vermont
Hewes sees a common theme among young farmers like Davidoff. "A
lot of people getting into farming today are not coming from an agricultural
background [that could] limit their views of what's possible," he says.
This willingness to try new approaches, coupled with a desire to replace
gas-powered vehicles, might explain the growing reliance on animals.
Another reason young farmers are drawn to the horse and plow is that in
some ways it's easier to use draft animals from the get-go than to make a
change once you're used to relying on tractors. If you start with the
appropriate acreage, farm model, and customers, Hewes explains, you don't have
to transition from a mechanized system that the animals might not fit into. It
also takes significant time to train both the farmers and the animals.
"Unlike buying a new kind of tractor where you can read the manual and the
next day go out and use it, [with horses] you're trying to incorporate a craft
that involves so many layers ... and that can be really challenging for an
ongoing operation."
In many ways, animal power is the ultimate in sustainable farming. And
as the price of fuel goes up, it might soon become a choice that makes economic
sense as well. But in a world where large food retailers are pushing organic
growers to compete on an industrial scale, how do animal-powered farms fit in?
The general consensus is that draft animals fit best on small to
medium-sized farms (10-500 acres), where, slow as they may be, they can be
integrated seamlessly into the larger farm system.
However the future plays out, the relationship between farmers and
draft animals is hard to shake. Hewes says his animals will be in his life
until the end -- even if it means spending his retirement selling vegetables on
the street with his donkey. "If you try and take the animals away from the
farm," he says, "all of us will be going with them."
Ariana Reguzzoni is a Northern California
based journalist covering food and agriculture and an organic farmer growing
veggies and flowers.
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