North Pasture Farms Philosophy
Why do we do what we do?
What is a farm philosophy anyway and what is the North Pasture Philosophy?
In farmer speak, this comes down to: Why do we do what we do?
Since we used the big word, we should define it. The definition I like of the word philosophy is: The study of theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience. This is per the Oxford Dictionary and uses too many other big words for my liking so let us break it down.
Our farm is a particular branch of knowledge and experience. What is the theory behind this branch of knowledge and experience?
The word theory means the set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based. This is also from the Oxford Dictionary.
What are the principles on which the practice of this farm is based?
Or again: Why do we do what we do? With emphasis on as broad an understanding of the word ‘Why’ as possible.
My basic thought on farming and how a farm should be run is that the farmer is the steward of the life in his vicinity, especially his farm. This is not necessarily the ‘dominion’ or commanding and using up of the life in his vicinity, but the ‘stewardship’ or helping and guiding as well as commanding of the life in his vicinity. A sort of working with nature instead of a ‘beating into submission’ of nature. His job is to make sure that the life in his vicinity does well and continues and increases its existence.
This starts with my own life and goes all the way up to the people I produce for and down to the microbes in the soil.
It seems to me that there is something (force field?, thing?, super being?) that is causing all life forms to ‘want’ to survive. I try to leave the discussion of higher forms of motivation such as God to religions. I am not going to get into whether there is a God or not, or what God wants. That is up to each person to decide for themselves. Way beyond my pay grade.
Rocks don’t have life in them and as far as I can tell don’t care if they survive or not. Microbes, Plants, Insects, Animals and Man all have a desire to survive. This includes life forms that cause disease, weeds, stinging insects and criminal people. I can pretty easily see that they all want to continue their own life and increase their type of life. We can talk about suicide and self-harm in a different article but first I need to figure that out myself. I never said I was going to solve all the problems of the universe in one article. This is a farm philosophy and I am not Socrates.
All life has a certain right to its own life. All life also has a certain duty to fulfill its purpose and enhance the other life in its vicinity. Its purpose seems to have something to do with its exchanges with and support of the life around it.
It seems to me that the purpose of a microbe in the soil is to take non-living minerals, water, and other chemical compounds and through its actions turn those minerals, water and other chemical compounds into more of its own kind and to enhance the other life in its vicinity. Even ‘harmful’ microbes take part in all of this.
Then we get to the plants. It seems to me that a plants purpose is to take minerals, water, chemical compounds made by lower forms of life and similar forms of life plus energy from the sun and change them all into more of their own kind and to increase the survival of other life forms in its vicinity. Plants give off carbon compounds into the soil and microbes use those carbon compounds to enhance their lives. In return the microbes in the soil do certain actions on minerals in the soil and make those minerals available for plant use. Plants grow and higher life forms eat them and enhance the survival of the whole shebang. Higher life forms trample the seeds of plants into the earth, thus increasing the survival of those plants. The same goes for seeds or fruits the plant produces. The animal comes along, eats the seeds or fruits, scatters them around, tramples them into the dirt where they can sprout, poops them out etc. Some plants are moved around in the bellies of the animals that ate the seeds and then grow in the piles of poop the eater leaves behind. Some seeds attach themselves to my clothes and then drop off or are pulled off later in different locations.
Versions of the same thing happen all the way up the line to the farmer and the person eating or using what the farmer produces. The person buying and using our products has something to do with the whole show just as the microbe does.
In our case, the farmer moves his cattle to fresh patches of grass periodically (mostly daily) so that the cattle get a chance to eat fresh grass every day. In our case, the farmer keeps the cattle off the areas that have been recently eaten so that the plants in those areas get more of a chance to grow up and propagate themselves without being continually chewed off. The trampling and eating of plants brings about more growth as well as increased plant matter for the microbes in the soil to use.
It is a sort of circle of life but it doesn’t really look like a circle to me. It looks more like a big mass of life connections all working together. It is true that a shortened version of the mass of connections working together would continue without people using what we produce but it would not work nearly as well. If there were nobody buying our stuff, we would quit and just farm enough for our own use. That would greatly decrease the number of connections and amount of life in the whole shebang. Without consumption at the top of the pyramid, things like the grass would produce enough to reproduce and then go into a sort of hibernation. A field that is chewed off and regrown several times in a summer produces MUCH more carbon into the soil and life in its vicinity than a field that is allowed to grow up, produce its seed heads and then go into hibernation. I don’t KNOW if the same is true with the microbes in the soil but suspect it is so.
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No worries,
SV