Sustainable Farming in Nature's Image by David and Lise Abazs Wolf Ridge Storekeepers and Neighbors Wolf Ridge Almanac Spring 2002

Sustainability? Can a farm be as sustainable as a forest? Can a sustainable farm function within the fluxes and cycles of nature? Can it limit nutrient loss, soil erosion and compaction, and fossil fuel consumption? Can it build its soil and diversity and maintain its capacity to supply food and fiber to an expanding human population? Can a farm like this be profitable? On our micro-farm here in Finland, with our ongoing experiments, we hope to show that the goal of a sustainable and profitable farm is a realistic one. When Wolf Ridge Summer Youth Program (SYP) and Superior Studies classes visit our homestead we first ask them to guess why we chose the name “Round River Farm.” During their visit we explore how that name symbolizes all that it takes to create a sustainable farm. We hope that they realize that such a name can be a useful symbol in many aspects of our lives.

In 1987, we stood on our newly purchased land, a few miles from what was soon to become the site of Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, looking at the brush and rocks that had been a turn-of -the-century Finnish homestead. Even as we watched, the forest was rapidly reclaiming this old homestead, and we imagined recreating it as a farm that worked with nature instead of always fighting against it. Northern Minnesota is not known as farm country because the climate and soil are not conducive to what is typically thought of as farming. In reality, no ecosystem willingly gives way to agriculture; even prairies provide plenty of resistance to being turned into cropland. Our first step was to explore the adjacent forest that was so successfully recovering the work of that first Finnish farmer.

Our surrounding mixed hardwood forest provides a model of environmental integrity and sustainability. Though continually changing, with trees sprouting and dying and animal populations coming and going, its strength as an ecosystem remains constant. Looking at its layers, from the leaf litter and lichens to the shrubs and tall trees, we saw that seldom was the soil left exposed to the elements. We noticed the diversity of plants and animals in our particular piece of forest limited the effects of pests and diseases that ravaged the less diverse areas in our region. Our forest’s example showed us that with only the input of the sun’s energy and the atmosphere’s precipitation, life and growth could thrive and expand as long as the community’s resources were kept in the system.

We understood from the beginning that farming could be an inherently destructive process. The plow slices up perfectly happy soil communities, often inverting the topsoil and compacting the deeper soil in its attempt to out compete the weeds and natural re-growth. Farms typically reduce the biological diversity of an area and usually must resort to chemical input in order to control pests and maintain fertility. With the forest as our teacher, we tried to translate some of its lessons into the realities of farming. We decided to work on the basic forest principles of building strata, protecting the soil from erosion, diversifying plantings and learning how to recycle as much as possible to create a sustainable farming ecosystem.

Our farm plans required open pieces of land and plants that could provide human-consumable food, but we realized we did not have to remove the forest in one big chunk. Little by little, we cleared small sections out of the brushy re-growth, leaving borders and clumps of native trees and shrubs as “rough edges” where the wild and the tame could interact. Orchard trees were planted in the existing sod, interspersed with grapes and clumps of native juneberries and chokecherries. We did this to resemble the forest’s layers and maintain the diversity that makes for a more stable ecosystem. We add ashes from our wood stove and compost from animals (initially bear and moose droppings and later goat and sheep bedding) as well as "waste' from our household and compost toilet. Household grey water from sinks, baths and a washing machine provides irrigation. Mowing in the orchard is done with a solar-powered electric mower or by our goats and sheep.

Most of the work of land preparation on our farm has been done by hand. Originally planned to prevent any damage to our thin soil and avoid use of fossil fuels, it turned out to be an effective way to control the speed of “progress” and allowed us plenty of time to consider how much land we really needed to clear. We enlisted the aid of pigs in this process as well. They provided their own bit of entertainment as escape artists and we experienced first hand how the effects of agriculture can spread beyond the cleared fields as the temporarily feral pigs plowed their way through the forest. At one point, a TV news station heard of the plowing pigs and sent a crew up to our farm to film them in harness pulling the machinery. The crew was a bit disappointed to find them plowing only with their noses, which we thought was amazing enough. The pigs were moved daily to a new piece of ground after having dug the soil to a depth of 10 inches and devoured the weeds and shrubs. Their treat was Wolf Ridge dining hall food scraps (spaghetti and red Jell-O was their favorite.) After the pigs’ land preparation, we followed with pickaxes, loads of manure and cover crops to finish preparing the ground for “farming.”

Cover crops protect the open soil from wind and water erosion and also provide habitat for a healthy soil community, both when they are growing and when they are turned under. Initially, we grow several cover crops to feed the soil. We also incorporate them into a regular rotation once we begin growing crops to feed ourselves. Our six-year rotation alternates plant families to help limit pest and disease build up as well as diversify nutrient pressures from different crops. Soil tests from land prior to the pigs plowing sequence showed less than 1% organic matter and few nutrients. After five years of cover crops, crop rotations and composts we have found the soil to have an amazing 5% organic matter, a clear indication of its improved ability to retain moisture and nutrients and an example of how recycling benefits an ecosystem.

The crops that we produce feed thirty families through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where shares are purchased in the spring and food is delivered throughout the growing season. This set-up allows and even encourages us to grow a great diversity of plants for the benefit of our customers and our farm ecosystem. However, as in all farming businesses, we are exporting resources from the system in the form of this harvest. Some of that lost energy is regained from our CSA members as they return wood ash, eggshells and occasional food scraps. Much must be replaced by other means as well, which is why we import resources in the form of hay and grain for our animals. (We jokingly justify this by figuring we are returning the soil that the glaciers removed, one hay bale at a time.) The addition of these resources into our ecosystem gives us a jump on the normally thousand-year process of natural soil formation.

We look at all the systems on the farm with an eye towards keeping things recycling. Household wastes are used as resources in the form of compost and irrigation. Like the forest, we harvest the sun’s energy on the farm, not only through the growth of the plants but also by meeting our electrical power needs through photovoltaic panels. In addition, we gather wind energy to pump our water. We hope to soon replace our use of fossil fuel for transportation as well.

When Wolf Ridge classes are finished exploring our farming experiments, many have figured out where the Round River name comes from. We have tried to bend all the lines, the one-way flows of energy into circles. Aldo Leopold used the imagery of the Round River, a mythical river from the tales of Paul Bunyan, to describe this: “The (river’s) current is the stream of energy which flows out of the soil into plants, thence into animals, thence back into the soil, in a never-ending circuit of life.”

Can farming be done in nature’s image? We are trying, but it is a work in progress. And sometimes it is just a lot of work, period. To make our lives fit into natural cycles as completely as the parts of a forest is not easy, some may say it is not possible. But the choices we make can take us in that direction, and the result can be as durable and beautiful as a forest. Sustainability can only be measured over time. If our children’s children can still farm and the human and natural community is still thriving, then we have been successful.

David and Lise Abaz have degrees in Intercultural and Environmental Studies. Before settling in northern Minnesota, they worked at various farms around the world. Christmas wreathes are another sustainable product from their farm. They boast ownership of the only whiffle ball field in Finland, MN.