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When it comes to this world of farming small, what is this world?
Is it a bunch of small farms each operating independently?
For the most part, I think the answer is yes.
Given that, what’s the next step.
Is it more small farms operating independently or is those small farms growing to be larger small farmers.
Now I am not talking 1.5 acre farms scaling to 100 acres, I am talking about 1.5 acre farms scaling to 10 acres.
If small farms do that, what does that look like, both for this world of farming small and for each independently operated farm?
Is that scale manageable on a people powered biointensive level? Or does this style of farming not scale?
It’s a question being asked by one of the leader in this movement, JM Fortier.
A few years ago JM Fortier left his 1.5 acre farm behind to start working on an experimental 10 acre farm to test the idea and validity of scaling these types of farming methods.
It’s project which has produced some answers, but one which has also produced a lot of questions, some of which are the focus of our show today.
It’s all about the future of market gardening in this episode with farmer JM Fortier.
Connect with Jean-Martin Fortier:
Pablo Lappalainen
Great episode Diego,
It would be good to hear about the no-till stuff. Have you considered talking to Charles Dowding
https://www.instagram.com/charles_dowding/
It would be interesting, as he is only adding compost on top, with no till and no dig.
Ian Graham
greenhouses example: $100K for infrastructure to gain 2mos spring sales, for 10 yr life, means $10K sales net of direct marginal costs. And not paying for the replacement of the asset. Is this realistic? what area of growing beds, what rev/sq ft?
Diego
That’s an extreme example in terms of cost. You can get a quality high tunnel for a lot less than that which will pay for itself in a few seasons.