-Pasture raised, better then organic chicken.
This is already in the works. I’m just building an indoor/outdoor brooder area right now. Lots of space and healthy clean conditions makes for good healthy chicks and low mortality. Then I plan to raise them with the “day range” system where they are free to run around and eat grass and bugs in a pasture.
-Grass finished beef.
We’ve already got a cow/calf operation going on our old farm down the road and I plan to set up a finishing operation to produce high value lean, healthy beef.
-Mixed meat CSA
This is only an idea at the moment. But once we get going, I could see producing other types of poultry and pigs, and then try to figure out a system to pre-sell them in some sort of package.
-Passive solar green house
When I heard that northern china produces 80% of it’s own food in the winter time using this method, I realized that it could be done here, and that there could be a great market for local organic produce in the winter. I hope to get started on one this year
-Local organic chicken and pig feed milling
This project is only a few steps off being a reality, and possibly the most profitable one. I’ve already got the equipment. It’s just a matter of setting it up and working out the kinks. This will add a lot of value to the chicken production and allow for less reliance on ever fluctuating feed prices.
-Black soldier fly Larvae.
This is one of the most interesting projects I have planned. And works nicely with the last two listed projects. It’s an emerging field of organic wast stream recycling that is much more direct then composting and has the potential to produce animal feed and bio-fuel from almost all sources of waste organic matter. It’s currently not done on large scale in canada because of the climate, but I would like to work with researchers to try to figure out some of the solutions to that. That’s where the passive solar green house comes in.
-Vegetables!!
Primary food production is extremely important, and I would like to get into it, but as you can see I’ve got my hands full at the moment. So I’m proposing to give someone the land, the water, the machinery, and the compost to do as much of this as they can handle. I just want to learn along with them. And possibly get a few delicious meals out of the deal.
-Off-grid guest cabins
One of our original ideas when purchasing the land was to build a series of off grid, sustainably built, bed and bail type guest houses. And provide info on how they were built and how they work. With a background in custom building, this wouldn’t be too much to accomplish. But since starting to farm, the passion to build has become a little less foreground and I can’t see doing this unless I had some interested parties involved to help. The property has a perfect stream for micro hydro and “Guest Cabins” could make great little houses.
If any or all of these projects interest you, then let me know. The details aren’t important, we have plenty of space to live in or on. And as we should all know, farming takes time and patience. So drop me a line even if you can’t get involved this year, and I’ll keep you posted.
