The Rural Voice, 1993-04, Page 32and harvested in the fall. The root is
held in a refrigerated storage facility
until the grower is ready to force it.
It's then planted in a sand bed or
other light -textured soil. The lights
are kept off and the plant is gown in
the dark so it will produce a crown of
new, white, blanched growth from
the top of the root. The resulting
vegetable is very delicate and very
nutritious. "You can prepare it in
many different ways. It tastes very
much like dandelion or asparagus.
Apparently there are places in
Holland that produce it
hydroponically."
He has been introducing his
students to spelt, a wheat -like cereal.
For students from the corn and
soybean predominant areas of Kent
and Essex, he has been encouraging
them to look at forage crops as an
alternative. "There are almost one
and a half generations of farmers who
have never grown alfalfa." Hay for
export can be a profitable cash crop,
he tells his students.
Alternatives in livestock, from
emu and ostrich to wild boar and
onghom cattle are explored. So are
sidelines to increase farm incomes,
Samples of evening primrose oil and seed, and spelt let students touch and feel
these unusual crops, perhaps the first time they've even heard of them.
from bed and breakfast to other ways
of dealing with urban consumers.
Scheifele is excited about the
possibilities for "community
supported agriculture", sometimes
called community share farming. In
it, a farm gets together with a group
of consumers and an organization is
set up where the consumers pay, in
advance, a fee for food that the
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28 THE RURAL VOICE
farmer will grow. It's a system that is
well developed in Europe and Japan
and of interest to health -conscious
consumers who want more input into
how their food is grown. The farmer
must be willing to share decisions
about the running of his farm but if
he doesn't mind that, there is a great
potential. Scheifele points out the
possibilities of community supported
agriculture for young farmers with no
money to start out. They can rent land
on the edge of a city that is awaiting
development, form their community
group and have the money up front to
support the planting and growing of
their crops. A few years of doing this
could help give the farmer the nest
egg he needs to set up his own
operation.
While generally the concept has
been used for vegetables to this date,
there is no reason why it can't be
turned to livestock farming, where
consumers would contract for a side
of beef or a pig or some chickens.
Consumers could also support a
specific tree in an orchard. "It's a
beautiful concept," Scheifele says
because it gets the consumer directly
involved in food production. In some
cases people can even put their labour
into growing the food.
Scheifele's research goes on,
discovering new opportunities and
challenging his students to broaden
their horizons from just corn and
soybeans to other possibilities. His
job, he says, is to plant ideas.
Whether the ideas grow is up to the
students.0