Permaculture Farming

Posts Tagged ‘food’

Urban Permaculture Asheville Tour 1/2

Question: How can I find sponsors to help us in building a self sustainable organic farm?

We will produce gourmet veggies, fruits, and herbs; all organic. I will also makes soaps and bath & body products..
How does a nobody like me find people who want to help? Or people to possibly.. invest somehow?
I was thinking of asking for donations from the public and then keeping track of them and refunding their money with produce, and/or soap..

Answer: Hit the pavement and ask. Develop a business plan and have lots of meetings with wealthy and green people in your region and ask them for money. That said, do know that farms have a horrible return on investment and likely the best you will be able to do dividend wise will be to give the investors shares of food from the farm when it is up and running. And this, my friend, is called Community Supported Agriculture. But with this kind of CSA you will not have a lot of say in how you will run the farm because you will have investors who have every right to call the shots and likely will in order to protect their investment.

The other thing you can do is get a loan from a lender like Farm Credit Services. That is how I got the money to buy my sustainable farm to grow over 75 different heirloom and gourmet fruits, vegetable and herbs here in Ohio 5 years ago.

Strategies for Sustainable Agriculture: Rotational Grazing

Question: Oil/gas dumped in small quantities years ago. What risks are posed today?

We have some land near an oil distribution company, and apparently cost-saving methods of getting rid of oil and gas wastes, and dirt with oil soaked into it, were favored over environmentally beneficial methods. We think some may have been dumped into parts of the pond that we were considering using for irrigation, and though it was years ago and there are healthy fish in the pond, i still wonder if there are risks, especially since we are considering organic/Sustainable Farming.

Answer: A train track that was used in the 1800s has enough toxic sludge leftover to move people living near it. That happened to the city of Skykomish, WA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skykomish,_Washington

If oil was intentionally dumped, you’re lucky that animals living there haven’t been developing deformations.

There are bacteria that will eat up fuel and gasoline, but they are generally used for oil floating on surfaces of water, not in dirt. If you do a google search, you will get tons of different bacteria, but nearly all are experimental, and are costly. Going back to my example, the state is using $50 million to dig up the dirt, treat it, and replace it with different dirt.

Since the area looks clean, it should not be guessed. A professional test should evaluate the area. You don’t want it to end up like Michelle Obama’s ‘organic garden’ at the White house, which was actually toxic with lead and mercury.

Crowley Park Sustainable Organic Farm – Phase I