The Rural Voice, 1980-11, Page 13BY SHEILA GUNBY
All sorts of notions go through your
head when you hear the term "natural
farmer."
Probably someone with a two acre plot
who subscribes to organic gardening
magazines.
But that's wrong. The Natural Farmers
Association of Ontario is a small but
serious group of farmers - - not
gardeners, but honest to goodness
farmers, farming "the old way" - -
without benefit of pesticides, herbicides
or commercial fertilizers.
The organization's 55 members come
from all over southwestern Ontario,
from Collingwood in the north to
Coldstream in the south. They send out a
newsletter at various times through the
year in which their members outline some
of the planting programs they have tried,
their methods of handling manure, the
successes of their crops - - or their
failures.
Recently, they held a meeting at the
Hugh Johnston farm, near Walton. About
twenty-five curious people toured Hugh's
high roughage/low grain ration beef
feedlot to hear about his method of
"direct to the consumer" marketing of
organic beef.
Hugh Johnston has not used weed
sprays for seven years and has not used
chemical fertilizers for 15 years. His
fields are relatively free of weeds.
Spokesman for the group is Herb
Eldridge, an Ethel area farmer who put it
quite simply, "Our purpose is to make
the land self-sufficient."
COMPUTERS TO FARMING
Originally from Saskatchewan, Herb
grew up on a farm where his father
sharecropped. I:e was educated at the
University of Saskatchewan and ended up
in Toronto for ten years as a computer
systems consultant.
But farming always appealed to him.
It took him two years to find a farm.
Being in the computer business, he says,
gave him a tendency to over -analyze.
Money was a limiting factor also, and he
thought he wanted 2700 heat units for
growing corn. He has since decided
growing continuous corn does not fit in
with his farming practises of to -day.
Soil type was one of his primary
considerations in buying a farm, and he
chose soil which is basically Harriston silt
loam. The farm also had a barn suitable
for his purposes.
Herb had done extensive reading on
farming methods and realized even then
that he was oriented toward organic style
farming. He has shelves of books on the
subject and tried not to be too idealistic.
Herb had his 200 acre farm in hay the
first year. He bought a 35 hp. tractor and
purchased a loader. The first few years,
with the absence of weed sprays, the
fields were fu 1 I of weeds, and it has taken
seven years for his fields to be used free
and in good condition.
"I'm just now getting the qualities in
my grains making them suitable for use
as organic flour or grain," he says.
"What I don't use, in the way of
equipment," he says, "is more important
than what I use -- I don't use a moldboard
plow. Soil is more than a medium -- it's a
living organism with distinct attributes
and zones."
Herb feels a moldboard plow disrupts
that system.He uses a rigid offset disc
and maintains an even 4 inch seed bed.
He is just seeing the results of his efforts
and a vast improvement in the structure
of his soil. His main crops are spring
barley, spring wheat and fall rye.
Sometimes, he throws in something else -
like Faba beans or flax just to try them
out.
Herb is particularly proud of his beef
cattle, fed on top quality hay and grass.
He believes his quality of feed results in
healthier livestock. It has taken over four
years to reach the point he is at right now.
He says it takes a lot less feed because of
handling manure, the mainstay of this I
type of farming.
Farmers always want to know the
yields of the various crops another farmer
is getting and Herb is quite willing to
share the information. He doesn't say
they are spectacular but they are im-
proving all the time and his costs for
fertilizer and fuel are minimal, which
represents a great saving.
His barley yielded 50 to 60 bushels to
the acre and is just starting to improve.
The spring wheat runs 40 to 45 bushels to
the acre, grows 3 to 4 feet high and has
quality suitable for flour. Herb manages
to get 150 bales of hay an acre, first cut,
starting around the second week of June,
and 90 bales second cut beginning the
first week of August.
Crop rotation is not listed at the top of
Herb's priorities but then, he's not
dealing with corn grown year after year.
He knows his farm well, how it's made up
of pockets of different soils and he's
managed to deal with trouble spots.
When he first came to the farm, one field,
growing corn continuously, gave him
problems and was under water in the low
spots. But he did not re tile the field.
• .. no chemicals, no commercial fertilizers
its quality.
"You know how it takes 10 slices of
white bread to fill you up," he says, "but
one slice of good bread will do the same
job."
Herb maintains 60 head of Herefords,
plus a Swiss and a Jersey cow for his own
use.
His spring wheat is sold as flour to
health food stores and food co-operatives,
his rye is also sold for flour and as seed to
local farmers.
Herb does not believe in using
commercial fertilizers, nor does he
believe in putting raw manure straight
onto the fields. He always has the manure
composted and worked into the ground in
the fall so it has lots of time to rot. Over
the years, he has learned how much straw
to put with the fresh droppings so the
compost will not be too wet or too dry,
The manuie is put in windrows in the
field and allowed to settle a month or two.
He would like to have time to turn the
compost heap and is seriously con-
sidering investing in a compost -turning
machine.
Work on an organic farm can be just as
tedious as any other farm. Time spraying
fields is nil, but more time is spent
After seven years, handling the soil
differently and planting differently than
the past owners, he has good rich soil that
is neither under water nor washing away.
Now he can drive a tractor over the old
wet spots with no trouble. He couldn't do
that before.
GOOD LAND FOR FUTURE FARMERS
Herb Eldridge feels the average farmer
takes "the easy way out", when he relies
on "experts" for his information, when
he depends on commercial fertilizers and
sinks him money in a weed sprayer.
He feels his, farm is an example of how
you can farm without weed sprays and
chemical fertilizers. Besides that, he uses
less fuel 12y not using a moldboard plow,
by having fewer passes over the field,
and, in turn, Tess compaction. By using a
rigid offset disc as his main piece of
machinery, the land does not have deep
furrows left by a plow. He has an even
seed bed and can get over the land faster.
Herb would like to leave the land in
better condition than when he got it, for
future farmers. He has found this type of
farming suitable for himself and will not
argue how others farm. According to
Herb, "argument solves nothing,
examples show everything.
THE RURAL VOICE/NOVEMBER 1980 PG. 11