Let's talk...
As Lewis Carroll once said, “begin at the very beginning, and go on till you come to the end.” I’d like to share, and more, start a dialogue around the What, Why, and How of Hood Family Farms. This will be the first in a many part series as I relay the research, planning, and mindset behind this labor of love. I welcome constructive feedback, fact-checking and open-minded conversation around all of these topics. As a farmer, I’m still a work in progress and am continually looking to grow and develop my skills. I’ll apologize in advance if I mis-state anything going forward, I’m doing my best to represent research and methodologies as I understand them. I hope my passion for this journey comes across in text (in person I can drone on and on for hours ad nauseam, just ask my kids)!
So, what have we set out to do?
We chose to implement a Managed Intensive Rotational Grazing System. The research on MIRG goes back at least into the early ‘70s, with numerous universities having published great research into MIRG, and many, many variations on the theme. Today, Dr. Joel Sallatin is one of its most noted proponents. The Polyface Farm in Virginia is a profitable model of our principles in action. Jim Gerrish and Jim Elizondo teach and publish across North America and have the results to validate their methods. Our MIRG unit is twenty-five acres divided into 10, 2.5 acre paddocks operated according to their collective teachings. I’ve also taken into account two pieces of advice that may seem at odds, but truly help keep my priorities in line with the ever shifting realities of livestock and farming. This first nugget of knowledge came from my friend Chris, “Robin, you have to understand. Your first priority is grass. You have to grow grass.” And the second I will paraphrase from Jim Elizondo: Always choose the livestock over the grass. Missed or lost revenue cannot be recovered, but the grass can recover.
Stage One: Infrastructure
What are the core principles of our design?
minimize capital investment to build - don’t go into debt
minimize labor requirement to build - it’s me and my nephew doing most of the work
minimize expense to maintain - it’s me and neighborhood high school kids doing the work
minimize labor to operate - it has to work for me alone when I am 90 years old and waddling around with cane
the farm has to pay for itself - all out of pocket expenses are covered by farm revenues
I may be an old guy, but I can use a computer like a champ. I started with a breakeven analysis to determine in broad terms how big or small our operation would have to be. Think SPREADSHEET. I use Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreCalc, depending on my mood. The breakeven analysis showed that we would need something in the range of 20-30 acres. Google Earth and plats from the local appraisal district allowed me to analyze the terrain available for installing a MIRG unit. Right in front of our house is a 70 acre field with a good 25 acre block that makes the infrastructure a simple rectangle.
With those analyses done, it was time to go old-school. My preference would have been to use a CAD tool like Solidworks for this next stage, but I am not about to spring for a $7,000 software license (old and miserly)! OnShape, a subscription-based cloud CAD tool hadn’t been developed yet… so, with pen and engineering paper, I began to sketch different designs for the MIRG unit. Each design was then reduced to material and dollars and labor to build. My engineering experience caused me to do a little designing on my spreadsheets, by the way, just to get fancy. With a little forethought, the spreadsheets were not just one-time tools, but are living documents, updated as conditions or ideas change.
I had a blast doing this stuff! It was immensely rewarding to think through and work through each issue in turn and see it become real. But it started with a good map of what we wanted to do and a game plan for getting there.
In the next two or three posts I’ll discuss what we did to put the system into operation. I’ll cover fencing, water, and grass and probably at least one or two other side trails.
Thank you for taking the time to read through my first blog attempt. If you would, please like or share the blog and leave a comment. Have you thought about starting a farm or farmette? If you’ve already got one going, I’d love to hear about your own process!
Cheers!
Robin Hood