Heat & Energy
Community & Economy
Conservation
Ecosystem Services
Forest Management
Fuels Reduction
Brush Pile Burning
Defensible Space
Firewood Gathering
Grazing for Fuels Reduction
Mastication
Mechanical Thinning
Prescribed Burning
Other Fuels Reduction
Infrastructure
Restoration
Forest Products
Compendium References
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Highland Farms / Flying Mule Farm
Location: Colfax, CA and Auburn, CA *Sierra Nevada Region: Central (Placer County) Using animals to duplicate nature and create a community-sized fire break that saved a town, Allan Edwards uses what he terms a "Deep Husbandry" business model on his 520 acre forest-based family farm, "stacking multiple products, and multiple seasonal revenue streams that are not necessarily crops, each sustainable to the farmer and the community." Highland Farms and Flying Mule Farm have entered into a new model of Partnership. Edwards family farm, dba Highland Farms, has been in the sustainable tree farming business for over 50 years in Colfax, Ca. Flying Mule Farm in Auburn, CA, co-owned by Dan Macon, and Samia Macon, DVM, produces a signifacantly different primary product: goats. So, why the partnership? Goats, grazed intensively on rotating small parcels, nibble at invasive weeds without pulling out the roots and disturbing the soil. They can be easily more transported to off-site higher elevation grazing lands than can cattle or horses. So, when it is time for weed control at Edwards' HIghland Farms, he enlists Macon's goats, both decreasing his weed control costs and Macon's cost of feeding the goats when their home range is in its "California summer gold". Neither partner farms conventionally, "in the linear model that became a standard of the 19th & 20th Centuries: inputs (fertilizers & seed) to the Farm for outputs (harvest), to producers (value-adder), to trucker, to retailer, to consumer. The consumer purchases from the retailer who pays the trucker who pays the producer who pays the farmer who has to buy more inputs. Both the farmer and the land become anonymous, disconnected from both the end product and the consumer, and are eventually deemed as being as replaceable as any other part of the system - usually by someone or something cheaper, but not necessarily more economical." Significantly different from valley farming, "Highland (high altitude) farming can be economically successful, if you look at everything as a resource, even when you don't directly harvest it. For example, in the past, a farmer new to the mountains might cut down sweet birch and native blackberry to plant alfalfa, but not only are these native plants are more nutritious than alfalfa for (meat) goats, we can produce other value-added items from birch (bark) and from the berries, because we herd the goats in rotation, allowing plants to regenerate. We don't have to buy plants to feed our animals." "And to link the consumer to producer, sell direct." Highland Farms produces logs, posts & poles for building and for furniture makers in California and Nevada, stove wood, goat meat, poultry and eggs, cold-hardy salad greens and berries, ornamental plants, and what his wife, Nancy, lovingly calls "free-range Christmas trees." The products are diverse, but every product supports the other ones. Chickens eat pests, and provide fertilizer; berries and ornamentals provide wildlife corridors and windbreaks for the salad greens and tree nursery; and those "free-range Christmas trees" that grow too tall become logs or firewood. Wood is sold locally to timber-frame architect East Wind Construction, fine furniture craftsman Robert Erickson, and to individual woodworkers. Food products are sold directly to consumers at Nevada County and Placer County farmers markets, and supply local restaurants like The New Moon Cafe that name the farmer as a food source, in effect co-marketing the farm. Agro-tourism is new to the mix for what seems an unlikely reason. In his long-range planning, he is considering crops and products, and even business operations that are changing because of warming climate. More oak trees are sprouting up than in recent memory, and Allan is "letting them be." A former economist for the State of California with substantial training in Forestry, Mr. Edwards directed the State's first Climate Change Study. "Not that long ago, our land was virtually inaccessible in winter; now, with less snow most years, we con consider direct-farm sales year round, including direct sales of firewood, saw logs & pole timber. Big trucks used to be impossible on our road in winter." For more about:
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