Calves in the Biodynamic Community
Posted on Mon, Mar 09, 2009
Rebecca Johns takes a walk around a biodynamic, community supported farm.
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Biodynamic Farming is a unique form of organic husbandry inspired by the research of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and founded on a holistic and spiritual understanding of nature and the human being. Planting, harvesting, and other agricultural activities are undertaken at particular times in response to particular phases of the moon, or astrological cycles – as well as the conventional farmer’s concerns of the weather! |
My family and I recently attended a farm walk at Plaw Hatch farm in West Sussex. There are two things which make Plaw Hatch worthy of note – fist, they’re a biodynamic farm and second, Plaw Hatch, together with another local farm Tablehurst (situated next to Emerson College where you can study on the Biodynamic Agriculture Course), are community supported farms. I’d now like to take you on a tour of Plaw Hatch and describe some of the features of biodynamic farming, how community supported farms work and how this could be a model for the future.
Tom Ventham is the farmer at Plaw Hatch – well, one of them, the master farmer of something! The farm community consists of about 16 people including students, apprentices, gardeners, cheese makers, their families, not to mention assorted visitors and long term helpers from all over the world. Tom has been at Plaw Hatch for seven years and is in overall charge of the farm business which consists of 200 acres of grassland, arable and woodland. The enterprises on the farm include a farm shop (everything sold here is biodynamic or organic, although only 10-15% of everything sold in the shop is produced on the farm), vegetable gardens (6.5 hectares including a number of polytunnels), dairy with cheese making facilities, pig rearing, outdoor laying hens and a small amount of arable.
Ploughing:
The rotation at Plaw Hatch is five - six years of grass, oats or wheat, legume and grass. During our visit, we saw one of the farmers ploughing a grass field to plant it with lupins - not part of the usual farm rotation but in that particular field, there has been a problem with docks, a problem Tom said was caused by the general increase in acidity of the rainfall and soil. Docks are full of calcium and so, he argued, the proliferation of the docks was a self-correcting mechanism. To get rid of the docks, lupins, which are also rich in calcium, are being planted this spring and will be allowed to flower (in about July) before being ploughed back in. I think I'll go back next year and view the results...
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Biodynamic farms are self contained, or largely so - this is what every biodynamic farm would aim for, but its not always possible. The land at Plaw Hatch is sloping and wet in places which precludes large amounts of arable so some feedstuffs are bought in. in basic terms, though, the cows in the dairy eat the food from the fields, which those cows then fertilise to produce more feed for cows. Such practise would have been common until the post war period, but with the increasing industrialisation of agriculture, specialist dairy of cereal or beef units for example have become widespread, and with them, the need to buy in feedstuffs and fertiliser.
One of the practices unique to biodynamic farming is the spraying of various preparations. For example, horn manure. This involves burying a horn filled with manure in the ground over winter to absorb various life forces before its removed, dissolved in water which is stirred to a vigorous vortex with a thing that looks like a with's broom, inside a large barrel. This is then sprayed on the field to enhance nutrients and Tom told us you can see the results!
Cattle and Calves
Meuse Rhine Issel (MRI) cows are used at Plaw Hatch as the basis of the 45 strong milking herd because they're even tempered, and content inside for up to six months of the year when there's insufficient grass for them to graze outside. This is also a breed particularly suited to the biodynamic system, as they produce an adequate milk yield without enormous amounts of concentrate feed - which means less has to be bought in again.
Pigs:
Two litters of three week old piglets share a space in the barn. Apparently, they find their own mothers at feeding time. After weaning at about eight weeks old, the sows are reintroduced to the boar and fertility is maintained by this rapid breeding. Meanwhile the piglets will be finished off outside at about six months of age and the meat sold through the farm shop.
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A Sussex bull is used to produce beef steers which eventually go through the farm shop, and the milk is made into cheese and yoghurt or delivered as milk via the farm's own milk round. In this way, the farm is in control of the end product and, more importantly, the prices those products achieve - this farm, like every other, has to survive financially.
Every attention is given to animal welfare at Plaw Hatch - the cows even have their very own back scratcher!
Dry cows are housed with heifers and the bull, and when the calves are born, they stay with their mothers for about three weeks, longer if necessary, depending on the particular cow and calf, before being separated. The calves shown here are autumn born animals, outside the following March and enjoying the first spring grass.
In common with many organic farms, the grassland at Plaw Hatch is under sown with white clover both to fix nitrogen and improve the feed quality for the cattle. As the livestock is rotated around the grazing areas, and the annual rotations of crop type are made, so associated problems of parasites, pests and diseases are minimised.
Hens:
Another of the enterprises at Plaw Hatch is outdoor laying hens. In an effort to provide shade and a ‘natural; area for the 250 hens, various areas around the farm have been planted with orchard trees (apple, plum, pear and so on) and the hens are regularly moved around these areas. Day old chicks are currently brought in to restock the laying population, but there are plans to set up an incubation unti so the farm can raise their own replacements, again reducing the number that have to be bought in.
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Accommodation
As I mentioned earlier, the community of people living and working on the farm is about sixteen strong. Some are housed in mobile homes, others in rather less mobile looking mobile homes and some lucky ones in a beautiful cabin which took just a few months to build (with the help of a skilled volunteer). The small wooden building beyond the main cabin houses the compost loo.
Community Involvement
Plaw Hatch is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project which is a relationship of mutual support between the farmers and those who eat the food they produce, thereby creating support for sustainable farming practices into the future. Community involvement ranges from the local community buying at the farm shop, to attending farm walks, the annual barn dance and barbeque, volunteering on the farm and buying shares in the farm. A co-operative owns the farm business, and shares (which cost £100 each) can be bought in any number, by anybody. Although the co-op members own the farms, they don’t interfere in the management of the business. Plaw Hatch farm has a management team which includes co-op representation, but this is largely under the control of the farmers. The aim is that day-to-day farming decisions are left to the farmers, with the wider co-op only becoming involved in important questions of principle which could be sent o affect the broader objectives.
More information:
Tablehurst and Plaw Hatch Community Farms – tablehurstandplawhatch.co.uk
Biodynamic Association – http://www.emerson.org.uk/www.biodynamic.org.uk
Community Supported Agriculture: http://www.cuco.org.uk/
Written by Rebecca Johns
This article was published in Country Smallholding Magazine – June 2007
To download a copy of the article, please follow this link:
Calves in the Community - Country Smallholding Magazine, June 2007