We are hopeful and grateful for this increased interest and support for the local small farmer. Yet there is a serious disconnect between increased consumer demand for local food and the regulatory system that makes this so difficult. FTCLDF wants consumers to understand just how difficult federal, state, and local polices make independent…
food rights
Regenerating Soils By Grazing Cattle and Pigs
Grazing multiple species provides many benefits, not the least of which is enterprise stacking that allows each acre to create more than one saleable product in the same growing season. Our topic here is how to make multi-species grazing regenerative in the biological sense. We custom graze replacement heifers in front of our pigs, with 37 heifers and slightly more than 100 finisher pigs moving in a leader…
Upcoming Members-Only Webinar: Obstacles and Opportunities in Urban Agriculture
The second live members-only webinar of the year is on Thursday, April 15 at 10 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Central, 1 p.m. Eastern. The topic is “Obstacles and Opportunities in Urban Agriculture” and features FTCLDF homesteader member Aja Yasir, who lives outside of Chicago. Her City of Gary, Indiana accused Aja of local ordinance violations regarding her regenerative agriculture…
How We Regenerate Soils with Pigs
We consistently hear how pigs can’t be regenerative. We would edit that to say this: While pigs don’t fit into the regenerative equation as smoothly as ruminants, we can look for strategies to improve land, even with pigs. When it comes to regenerative grazing, it is useful to look at how pigs compare and contrast to beef…
How We’ve Used Pigs to Restore the Land
I distinctly remember my college ecology teacher telling us that it takes a thousand years to build an inch of topsoil. A thousand years! The statement succeeded in its intended goal, which was to instill in us freshmen a tremendous sense of respect toward caring…