Spinning a Good Farm
Thanks very much to J - one of our faithful blog readers and comment maestros - for letting us know about this one!
I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole ‘urban eco agriculture’ (or whatever you want to call it) notion quite a bit as of late (links to follow) and am always interested to learn about projects and businesses that relate to this idea.
‘SPIN’, an acronym for ‘Small Plot Intensive’, is a fascinating model for small-scale organic farming developed by two Canadians, Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen.
Here is an exerpt from their bio page:
Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen initially started farming on an acre-sized plot outside of Saskatoon 20 years ago. Thinking that expanding acreage was critical to their success, they bought some farmland adjacent to the South Saskatchewan river 40 miles north of Saskatoon where they eventually grew vegetables on about 20 acres of irrigated land. “This was a site to die for,” Ms. Vandersteen said. “It was incredibly beautiful, but the pestilence was incredible too! We couldn’t believe what the bugs and deer could do. Not to mention the wind.”
“We still lived in the city where we had a couple of small plots to grow crops like radishes and salad mix, which were our most profitable crops. We could grow three crops a year on the same site, pick and process on-site and put the produce into our cooler so it would be fresh for the market.”
After six years farming their rural site, the couple realized there was more money to be made growing multiple crops intensively in the city, so they sold the farm and became urban growers. “People don’t believe you can grow three crops a year in Saskatoon,” observes Vandersteen. “They think it’s too much work, but the truth is, this is much less work than mechanized, large-scale farming. We used to have a tractor to hill potatoes and cultivate, but we find it’s more efficient to do things by hand. Other than a rototiller, all we need is a push-type seeder and a few hand tools.”
Three crops a year in Saskatoon?! Keep in mind, it’s in zone ~2 - also known as tundra (joke).
We are in zone ~5 here in southern Ontario so needless to say that makes me sit up and take notice.
Here is another interesting blurb:
“For aspiring farmers, SPIN eliminates the 2 big barriers to entry – sizeable acreage and substantial startup capital. At the same time, its intensive relay growing techniques and precise revenue targeting formulas push yields to unprecedented levels and result in highly profitable income.”
In 2003, its first year of operation, Somerton Tanks Farm, located in northeast Philadelphia, the fifth largest city in the U.S, produced $26,100 in gross sales from a half-acre of growing space during a 9 month growing season. In 2005 gross sales increased to $52,200. So in just three years of operation Somerton Tanks Farm achieved a level of productivity and financial success that many agricultural professionals claimed was impossible. And it is providing a way for independent farmers to once again have a viable role in the food production system that has tipped too much in favor of large scale mass production agriculture.
More than $50,000 in sales for a half-acre plot? I’m certainly no farming expert but that strikes as pretty astonishing, and also speaks volumes as far has home food production capabilities go!
I definitely want to learn more!
By the way, here are links to a couple of their prototype/test farms if you are interested: Somerton Tanks Farm & Wally’s Urban Market
And of course, be sure to check out the main SPIN Farming site as well.
Other Semi-Related Sherpa Posts:
Sauron Has an Eye For Good Stories
Suburban Food Production - Growing Your Own Is Not As Hard As You Think!
Edible Estates - Bye Bye Lawn, Hello Dinner!
Technorati Tags: organic gardening, organic vegetables, organic agriculture, green gardening, eco gardening, urban agriculture, sustainable living, food production, vegetable garden, gardening, SPIN farming
Written by Bentley on January 16th, 2007 with
6 comments.
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Bentley
andrew
Rachel
#1. January 17th, 2007, at 10:08 AM.
Great post Bentley. There have been many studies showing that small scale decentralised farming is more productive than conventional agribusiness, but prying this large-scale system out of the hands of corporations isn’t an easy task. We need the government to stop giving advantages to large agribusiness (subsidies) and start promoting the more sustainable little guy. In the meantime, grass roots movements like this are the kind of inspirational examples that could get noticed by an objective government - if we had one…