Here is a video produced by Sean, on the agriculture overview of Factor e Farm:
The bottom line is that resilience in food is not difficult to come by, but it presently requires more energy than we have with 2 full time people – engaged fully in open source equipment development. We are prioritizing technical development, such that appropriate-technology mechanized agriculture makes food provision effective. Our next priorities in terms of the type of generalists we’d like to have at Factor e Farm is 2 more flexible fabricators and the open source agroecologist. The flexible fabricators should generalize in power electronics and CNC controls, and the agroecologics should generalize in agricultural and processing equipment development.
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What ever happened to biochar ?
http://www.openfarmtech.org/index.php/Biochar
It would address many issues that were shown in the video, such as flooding (biochar porosity and water absorption), soil fertility, nutrient management and energy (less application needed). If there indeed is a full-time agriculturalist for Factor E Farm, I suggest first making lots of biochar and applying it to those upper fields.
Research seems to show that “aged” biochar has certain beneficial qualities over freshly made char. In a way then, it’s just like perennial vegetables. Just “plant” it (onto the compost pile, manure pile) and let it ripe until ready for use in the field.
The simplest way to make biochar is using the “nested retort”, also known as “barrel-in-barrel”:
http://www.holon.se/folke/carbon/simplechar/simplechar.shtml
We missed many concepts in the video, and there is a whole list of tasks that should indeed be included and prioritized based on an integrated, long-term agroecology strategy. We welcome additional help in this from people who can help us demonstrate results.
Why not add the deer to part of the harvestable edible landscape.
I believe it’s legal to kill out of season if a “varmit” threathens crops. Not sure though.