Mar 9, 2020
Peter, with his wife, Maureen,
and two children live in a fairly remote section of the Kikapoo
valley in Wisconsin. Peter's entrance into farming, as you'll hear,
came from -of all places, academics. I much appreciate how Peter
was able to enter an environment like that, utilize it to grow in
his understanding of the world around him, and then apply enough
critical thinking to find a lifeway that diverged from any
pre-determined course, but fit within his ethics and his new
understanding of the world around him.
Critical thinking and clear vision leading to bold
action, with that much on the line, is rare. But as you'll see, the
bravery and competence are paying off, as they build a farm and a
life on it in a way that is maximizing soil and biomass
accumulation, ecosystem function, biodiversity, and human
flourishing.
Peter is someone I've learned a lot from, and who's teachings
and descriptions have helped me gain an understanding of the
landscape around me that I interact with daily. I'll give you one
example that didn't even come into the discussion recorded here:
Its a simple concept, and for many its a hard pill to swallow: At
some point in the past, Peter has described efficiency and
resilience as inversely correlative: Any redundancy would be less
efficient than having a simple way of achieving a goal, but more
resilient.
This of course can explain phenomenon we see from
diversity on the landscape, to our marketing portfolio. It is more
efficient to raise one thing on a land base, at least in terms of
time, equipment and management. But it is more resilient to promote
diversity in the landscape -both for the humans and the other
players in the ecosystem. Or if you think about having one six
figure account, or one hundred four-figure accounts, its more
resilient, but less efficient to move your products to 100
customers, who almost definitely won't all leave you at the same
time. In a sense, efficiency can be a trap -something you
need to achieve a certain level of in order to create a marketable
product. But also something that can tempt you to seek out greater
and greater efficiencies -until you've got tens of thousands of
animals in barns. As you explore it further, you realize that
the exceptions to the rule aren't as many as you would have hoped.
This isn't hard to understand. But this is among the many ideas
that Peter has explained to me that help me to build a framework
around what I'm doing and try to conceptualize the most resilient
lifestyle, while being adequately efficient to make a living.
That's just a piece of thinking that Peter has given me, but one we
don't even touch on in this podcast. Up ahead we talk all about the
ecological basis for Peter's farm and farm name, what he's
producing, how he's producing it, and how he and Maureen are
building a loyal customer base despite the challenges of being in a
remote section of the upper mid-west. We go deep into some of
his constraints with cold winters, hay buying, shipping meat, and
his CSA program, which was the inspiration behind my own CSA
program that has become the centerpiece of our farm's retail
presence.
Peter and Maureen:
Mastodonvalleyfarm.com
Mastodonvalleymedicinals.com
Instagram.com/mastodonvalleyfarm
Me:
grocefamilyfarm.com
Instagram.com/grocefamilyfarm