The Synergies at Synergy Farm

In our family, we like to practice what we preach. My wife (she’s the semi-retired president of CorningWorks, a health care consulting firm in Palo Alto, California) and I have a long-standing interest in biointensive organic farming that goes back to the 1970s, when the guru of this highly productive method, John Jeavons, had his research gardens in Palo Alto (he’s now in Willits, CA). We also happen to believe that small organic farms are a key to long-term agricultural sustainability in this country, and elsewhere.

So when Susan and I began to think about the next phase of our lives (it’s hardly appropriate to call it retirement), we decided to see if the biointensive method, which is tailored for small subsistance farms and backyard vegetable gardens, could be scaled up to a small market farm. The chief advantages of biointensive farming are that it builds topsoil rather than depleting it, and it is very sparing in the use of land, water, energy and expensive technologies (it’s mostly done with hand tools). Not surprisingly, the biointensive method is extremely popular in land-and-resource-poor third world countries. Yields in biointensive agriculture typically average more than four times as much per acre as in conventional row agriculture.

So now we are in the San Juan Islands, Washington, where we are in the third year of developing Synergy Farm, a diversified year-round farm on the remaining 16-acre core of what was once a 100-acre dairy farm dating back to 1902. (Before we bought it, the farm had been a bed-and-breakfast for over 20 years.) We now have 168 planting beds (each measuring 100 sq. ft.), plus nine small mobile greenhouses (or high tunnels), 25 removable “low tunnels” made of plastic hoops and clear plastic covers that serve to protect our winter vegetable beds, some 50 compost piles (a key element of our growing strategy) and a variety of other activities – pastured broiler chickens, laying hens, a berry patch, a small orchard, and guest sheep in our pasture. So far, everything we produce is sold directly to local islands residents, first through the local farmers’ market and, more important, through our busy on-site farm store.

Of course, all modern farms benefit from various forms of synergy. For instance, there is the “symbiotic” relationship between human workers and their various tools and technologies. Or take the symbiosis between plants and various micro-organisms (such as nitrogen fixing bacteria and fungi). Or what is generally referred to as “companion planting” – pairing up plants that have mutually beneficial effects on one another (say, bush beans and strawberries, or borage flowers and tomato plants). Or consider the nutritional synergies in mixed greens, like our salad mix or braising/stir fry mix, with varying combinations of lettuces, kales, chard, mache, mizuna, tatsoi, arugula, beet greens and the like. According to USDA data, a salad or stir-fry of mixed greens may contain five times as much calcium, four times as much iron, 12 times as much vitamin A and six times as much vitamin C as an equivalent amount of head lettuce.

On our farm, there is also a synergistic “loop” in the relationship between our chickens and our vegetable gardens. Our chickens are fed greens from the gardens twice each day (which greatly enriches their eggs). The chicken bedding, laced with manure, is periodically cleaned out and put into our compost piles where, several months later, the finished compost is distributed in our planting beds to enrich the soil as we transplant our next vegetable crop succession.

Our chickens also benefit from a form of nutritional synergy in their feeding regime. It’s well known that, when corn and beans, or peas, are consumed together, they yield approximately one-third more useable protein than if the two are ingested alone. (The two kinds of vegetables have complementary amino acid constituents.) So we feed our chickens a mixture that we call “chicken granola” -- one-third each of cracked corn and cracked peas, plus a high-protein “starter” mix that is normally fed to baby chicks along with molasses and water. The chickens thrive on it, and so do the customers who consume our high-grade organic eggs.

A final example of synergy on our farm is our farm store. Many farmers have small on-site farm stands to sell their produce. We have gone a step further with a larger facility where we also offer a range of other local islands products: beef, lamb and pork, goat cheese, honey, herbs, syrups, ice cream and various orchard fruits in season. The result is a much higher volume of customers with a broader range of shopping needs and a greater opportunity for point of sale purchases. In marketing circles it’s called “co-location,” a variation on the synergy principle that is also utilized by modern supermarkets and department stores, as well as by the ever-growing number of shopping malls.

Thought for the day: It’s not true that old dogs can’t learn new tricks. For one thing, they have to learn how to be old dogs. And if you don’t think that’s a big deal, just wait.