Posted on 05/15/2011 7:01:59 AM PDT by bkopto
When farmers Danielle and Matt Boerson realised they could no longer afford to run their tractors, they took the bull by the horns - and ditched them for oxen.
Soaring petrol prices had become so high that the couple, who run an 80-acre farm near Madison, Wisconsin, were forced to get rid of their two tractors, hay baler, plough and rotavator.
So they took a course at the agricultural institute in traditional farming techniques.
'It gave me the confidence that, yes, I could do this', Danielle told the Times. 'It just required a lot of concentration and a firm voice.' Their instructor was former peace core volunteer Dick Roosenberg, 64, who learned the trade while working for the UN in West Africa. He took the skills he had honed back to Michigan and set up Tillers International.
At first the company was aimed at helping Third World farmers harvest in the cheapest way possible.
On the side, he also helped historically-themed villages. But his specialist knowledge is now enjoying a new wave of interest with farmers from Wisconsin to Alaska now joining his courses.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Obama is smiling. Somewhere, Karl Marx is smiling.
Lurching toward 3rd world status......how nice.
And we have to learn it from a Brit newspaper
I agree. We are becoming a third world nation. Replacing tractors for Oxen?!! How in the world is that suppose to be a “good” thing? I guess the kids will eventually ride a pony to school instead of a car like their Pop-Pop did when he was a kid (in Indiana during the Depression).
Mike
Yield per acre? The country cannot exist on 80 acre hobby farms.
I’m surprised he had a tractor for only an 80 acre farm.
Probably tilled the field using a goat.
Could be financially smart, many folks would gladly pay a lot more for “oxen-tilled” farm produce, no doubt.
Freegards
Farming with draft animals, while more time consuming, is VERY profitable. Ask the Amish about it.
“We are now five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America” — attributed to some treasonous Muslim usurper
Obama and his “green” tsars may be smiling, as are assorted agrarian romantics, Maoists and tree-huggers.
And, while, the torments of the after-life aside, the shades of Pol Pot and Mao might be pleased, I doubt Marx would be. Marx despised rural life, which in his day still involved the use of draft animals, and seems to have mistakenly believed his fundamentally anti-human ideas would lead to an industrialized paradise in which worker-owned mechanized collective farms and factories would produce abundance for all.
My father always enjoyed working our garden with a horse, but he knew better than to try to gow a farm full of tobacco without a tractor.
Animals may be great for smaller farms but America cannot survive trying to use animals for their food crops.
The Amish around here make it ok, but their farms arent that large, and their families are large. Plenty of kids to clean the barns ,feed the animals ,and work the farm.
Animals do not sit around when they aren’t working, they require care. Care every day. They don’t just eat grass, they eat corn and hay and have to be fed all winter.
You won’t see a lot of farmers going out buying oxen.
—they won’t be doing it for long—subsistence agriculture is on great for other people-—
Not really. Actually crops may cost less. Farmers will have to work harder.. It is more work taking care of large draft animals than a tractor.
Let's see how they like our new methods of farming when THEY are the once again feeding themselves on insects and monkey dung.
My gosh. We’re turning into a 3rd world country!
$3,000 for a second hand tractor? Second hand garden tractor yes, or a very, very second hand 40 horse tractor. Otherwise the writer is dreaming.
Sounds very romantic and nostalgic. However, like tractors, critters break down, and as noted are much slower.
Bottom line, if done by choice, go for it. If forced by govt incompetence, not good.
But, but, won't it produce ox-flatulence and kill the ozone, thereby radiating the earth and killing all the farm crops.
Just askin'
Enjoy while PETA get its act together.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.