With the Grain

When this book was first published in 1977 I suspected, but could not know for sure, that a day would come when increasing populations and increasing costs of producing and transporting food with fossil fuel, fossil fertilizers, and genetic manipulation would cause food prices to rise so high that more traditional production methods- organic, natural, low-labor and local - would begin to rule the economy. Thirty years later, that is exactly what is happening.

Gene Logsdon, Small Scale Grain Raising

Around about the time we were finishing up our grain harvest, midway through July, we had a visit from a fellow Grow Biointensive practitioner down in San Luis Obispo. John DeRosier has a firm grasp of the benefits of the method, having attended Ecology Action's 3-Day Workshop a number of times, and put to use what he has learned. His current passion, though, leads him in a slightly different direction.

Like certain others (myself included) John has been parasitized by the grain bug; the compulsion to cultivate all manner of the edible seeds courses through his system. The difference is that I want to eat my grains and share my enthusiasm while he wants to share the actual grains. I can meet my need by growing my own grain and telling people about it, which is easy enough. But John's calling involves a much larger proposition: growing as much grain as he can.





John's 40 beds of veggies surrounded by a field of grain

Of course, it gets more complicated. Being a proponent of the Grow Biointensive method, he is interested in sustainability. This means turning his back on the world of giant machines and petrochemicals, and working instead on a scale based on human limitations and regeneration of soil. The good news is that operating expenses are minimal: hand tools, a few irrigation supplies, water, and seeds saved from the year before. That is as opposed to tractors, implements, combines, and bills for seed, fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. Find the right market, as in the Community Supported Agriculture format, and you can make a lot of money on a little acreage.
The challenge is that, while everyone was growing grains by hand or by horse 100 years ago, virtually no one in this country is doing it now. So John, through his creativity and drive, is discovering through trial and error the best way to make small-scale grain raising work, physically and economically, in his climate.
To go into the details that John presented to us would be excessive in this post, but the summary is the same as for all farming enterprises: bring creativity, a solution-based mindset, and a love of your land. Add to those a desire to benefit your community, a head full of ideas, and willingness to put the work in and you have a recipe for success on multiple levels. From calculations based on his own experience of time spent per task and yields harvested, he can easily make enough money to support his family and have extra to invest in community grain-processing resources. Because of the smaller scale he can grow an incredible number of varieties of grains, thereby encouraging an appreciation of diversity of grains.
So, to make a long story short, John DeRosier's ideas are an inspiration, and I look forward to seeing the example he is setting for the rest of us aspiring grain-producers. Through his website, WithTheGrain.org, he hopes to post the ongoing process of learning, teaching, failures and successes of his enterprise. (John stands with his millet on the right.)


The quote that begins this post is from the introduction to the second edition of Small-Scale Grain Raising, by Gene Logsdon. I can't stress enough the usefulness of this resource, and we were delighted to find the second edition newly released this year by Chelsea Green Publishing.