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- Micro Eco-Farms
(MEFs) are most often backyard garden home businesses to small
acreage farms of one to five acres. Urban lots and acreages of
up to 20 or so sometimes operate as MEFs.
- MEFs that
grow food crops explore the 20,000 food plants currently forgotten
by the world, including the 1000s of heirlooms on the brink of
extinction. They progress with new offerings faster than their
larger farm cousins with financial intelligence and stability.
Each season, they plant a few beds of something brand new, and
educate their current and potential customers on the new items.
Those that gain enough popularity are continued, others are released.
One example is a farmer who grows many unusual peppers on his
small farm. He keeps his customers in supply of their established
favorites, but each season, he offers three or four new varieties.
He keeps growing the ones that win a new following, and drops
any that don't sell well (along with old varieties that are dwindling
in popularity). He estimates that over ten years, he now grows
a completely new group of peppers, but he remained secure with
an established market while at the same time being the first to
introduce new crops.
- MEFs tap
into the earth's systems and learn to allow the earth to do more
and more of the work of creating and maintaining abundant life.
Earthworms, for example, do much of the farmers' work once the
permanent garden beds are established. Above ground, they employ
techniques such as Square Foot Gardening and biological farming.
- The MEF movement
is in partnership with:
- The local
food revival
- Fair
trade
- Restoration
of strong local economy
- Nature
education and eco-tourism
- Seasonal
eating
- Restoration
of the planet
- Culinary
artisan renaissance
- Earth-friendly
home business and cottage industry
- Preservation
of the culture and flavor of the world's unique bio-
regions.
- Their
larger eco-cousins. Micros and larger eco-farms of 30 to 200
acres or so, produce different products for different reasons,
using different operating systems, complementing rather than
competing with each other
- MEF's operate
financially in several ways, including: as second streams of household
income, as partners to another eco- home cottage business, or
as full-time businesses often selling to both local community
and online to the world.
- MEFs also
partner with larger establishments such as destination eco-spas,
spiritual retreats, gourmet restaurants, schools and wilderness
campgrounds.
- MEFs produce
anywhere in the world humans inhabit, they aren't limited to pockets
of pre-existing superior topsoil, because they use earth systems
to accelerate the creation of new topsoil.
- When MEF's
grow well-known food crops, such as tomatoes, they produce and
sell garden-varieties that are too tender for shipment, and extremely
fresh versions of these well-known products, giving them a secured
market of familiar items. Communities and visitors to the farm's
region begin to count on them to offer local heirlooms picked
hours before serving.
- MEFs collectively
help communities, regions and their own countries reach food independence.
Historically, the Incans fed 15 million with a three to seven-year
surplus. The Chinese once fed one billion on less than 10% of
their land base. Russia lifted itself out of ecomonic disaster
in 1997 by having its citizens 'farm' 0.6 acre plots attached
to the houses in Russian villages. 18 million of these plots totaled
15.3 million acres, and they became the most productive 'farms'
in the country. In France, "potagers," or tiny home
gardens or gardens allotted to villages, are everywhere. The French
government estimates about a quarter of all fruits and vegetables
eaten in France are home-grown. In America, today, LocalHarvest.org
keeps statistics on successful eco-farm members, 45% of its member
farms are less than 15 acres.
- MEFs are
design-your-own. Each MEF is highly unique and personal to the
location and to each farmer who designs his or hers, and they
adapt and change with the times ahead of their larger but just
as important eco-farming cousins. Unlike corporate and larger
formula farming, they are strengthened even more by progress,
new discoveries, and restored ancient wisdom. They are meant for
those with small business sense and creative spirit rather than
those who must operate as a component within a generic, copycat,
static formula. The possibilities are endless, from raising angora
rabbits in an apartment to pressed flowers for handcrafted greeting
cards to old-fashioned u-picks growing heirloom beans and tomatoes.
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