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RE: "Harvest equipment = a scythe."
I grew up near Pennsylvania Dutch country, and I'll always remember driving
through the areas farmed by the Amish, which as many of you may already know,
eschew engine driven equipment. Unless they hire someone to do fieldwork,
they do the work generally by hand or with horse drawn plows, wagons, etc.
The food for the horses is generally grown on the farm and of course the manure
goes back on the fields. The richness of their farms and fields was
greater than I recall seeing anywhere else. Amazingly, their culture and
farming practices continue to this day in parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland,
Wisconsin, and elsewhere in the states.
[According to my father, use of horse power was commonly used in many
Pennsylvania -- and I suspect in other states as well -- farming
communities up until perhaps WWII.]
I'm curious what list members might think of the ethics/morality of using
animal power, where practical, to grow and harvest crops. (I realize that
in less industrialized parts of the world, that's not even a
question.) It seems far more sustainable, if done humanely and otherwise
ethically acceptable, to use horses, etc., to augment human muscle power and to
replace fossil fuel driven equipment. I should also note that I'm well
aware of the appeal of fossil fuel driven equipment for "efficiency" and to ease
the backbreaking labor of more "traditional" agriculture.
Bob
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--- Begin Message ---on 7/13/05 4:20 PM, John Wilson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:> Hi Mike, > Extracting the oil from seed requires a process that is quite > expensive. Harvest equipment you could probably contract out > but unless you are somewhere where you can sell the cake or > have livestock to feed the cake to an on site extractor I don't > think would pay. Nonsense. What "pays" and what doesn't depends largely on the manipulated state of that day's market. Pressing oil from seed is a very ancient and well-documented process. If you're planning to turn it into biodiesel, the usual requirement of refining is to some extent abbreviated. I encourage you to pursue this option. Find an oilseed crop that is easy to grow, harvest, and process by hand (sesame, peanuts, safflower, NOT soy or corn). Feed the cake to your animals, sell it to your neighbor, or compost it. Good luck..... -K... says Ken, who uses an ApproTec Hela Mk II manual oilpress from Tanzania, IIRC. Or you can make one with a bottle-jack, or use designs for an 80kg/hour press, or get a TinyTech set-up, or whatever. Small is not a problem. See Oilseed presses:http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_supply.html#Oilpress Biofuels supplies and suppliers Harvest equipment = a scythe. Best wishes Keith _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
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