Holy holon, Batman!

Written to Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1 by T.s.monk and Thelonious Monk

Thank God, I have my work, but instead of earning money by it, I need money to be able to work; that is the difficulty. I think there are no signs in my work that indicate that I shall fail. And I am not a person who works slowly or tamely. Drawing becomes a passion with me, and I throw myself into it more and more. I do not have great plans for the future; if for a moment I feel rising within me the desire for a life without care, for prosperity, each time I go fondly back to the trouble and the cares, to a life full of hardship, and think: It is better so; I learn more from it, and make progress. This is not the road on which one perishes. I only hope the trouble and the cares will not become unbearable, and I have confidence I shall succeed in earning enough to keep myself, not in luxury, but as one who eats his bread in the sweat of his brow.
- Vincent van Gogh quotes

After much study and discussion, Lone and I have settled on our initial business plan, or perhaps more accurately our proposed revenue streams. This is a process that has evolved significantly since we purchased Fazenda Alfheim in May 2008. We, too, feel that there are no signs in our work that indicate that we shall fail, but we are also clear that the path will not be without trouble.

In order to achieve our goals, financial and other, we have borrowed heavily from the revolutionary work done at Polyface Farms, Joel Salatin's beyond organic farm in Virginia. Specifically, we have recently been focusing on the following two principles, in particular:

GRASS-BASED: Pastured livestock and poultry, moved frequently to new "salad bars," offer landscape healing and nutritional superiority.

INDIVIDUALITY: Plants and animals should be provided a habitat that allows them to express their physiological distinctiveness. Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health.

As regards GRASS-BASED, we recently purchased a cocktail of capim-tanzânia (Panicum maximum cv. Tanzânia) and soja perene to sow in our existing pastures in order to enhance their carrying capacity. This cocktail consists of three parts capim-tanzânia and one part soja perene. The method of application is interesting, too: we will mix the cocktail into the mineral salt that our cattle consume, and they will do the work of distributing the seeds via their feces. As mentioned in Alfheim au naturale, we have already begun the process of moving our cattle frequently, though there is still much work to be done before we can say that we are offering them a salad bar.

In terms of INDIVIDUALITY, hopefully we have already established a pattern of honoring the pigness of the pig etc.

Additionally, we have developed our own holons, derived from the Greek word holos, meaning whole, and the suffix on, suggesting a particle. As defined by Michael Pollan, a holon is:

an entity that from one perspective appears a self-contained whole, and from another a dependant part. A body organ like the liver is a holon …

Our holons will consist of milk cattle and egg laying hens, which produce milk and eggs for the hogs as well as broiler chickens, which help to clean up parasites in the hog areas.

Similarly, the broiler chickens will rotate through our pastures with our cattle and sheep (still in planning), cleaning up parasites and fertilizing the pasture with their high-nitrogen droppings. They will also get 10-20% of their diet from the grass.

The milk cattle will produce approx. 200-300 liters of milk daily, a plan that seems somewhat counter-intuitive when one considers that 'The price of raw milk paid to farmers has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years.' While this is not the case in Brazil, it is still worrying that in US 4,600 dairy farms that have been closing each year for the past two decades and that the number of dairy farmers has declined from 648,000 in 1970 to 60,000 today. Lone and I tend to look at this trend somewhat differently: initially, milk is an easy way to pay our fixed costs and represents a raw material which can be transformed into a number of value-added products as we evolve as farmers. A similar logic applies to our hogs: initially we will sell live piglets, low value-add, but over time we have the option of choosing to develop more niche products, e.g. Prosciutto di Parma or Parma ham.

Lone's capim limão, which we hope to productize at a later date, will be used to demarcate all of the hog areas and act as a natural repellent.

Finally, Flora the sow has recovered so well that she will shortly be returned to the hog area, where we have recently removed the last of the piglets. During her R&R in our makeshift MASH unit, Flora formed a real bond with Chica, another of the smallish piglets that has been at hospital to bulk up.