Suzanne Nelson Karreman appear on the cover of our November / December 2021 upshot as part ofThe Female Farmer Project — a multiplatform infotainment project that chronicles the rise of women function in agriculture around the Earth .
Nelson Karreman quit her job as a Capitol Hill journalist to start a land vocation . Now , she runsReverence Farms , a diversified , boom polyculture in Graham , North Carolina , where animals are treat with reverence and saving grace , earthworms are cherished and all critter eat a species - appropriate dieting .
What Livestock Do You Keep?
We have 40 Jersey cows , all their young pedigree — this class ’s calves and last year ’s calves that are still growing , including the pig calf — and about a dozen matured Jersey bulls . We also raise hairsbreadth sheep , laying hens and Ossabaw Island pig .
Read more : These small breeds match cracking on hobby farms !
What Is Your Biggest Success?
Our biggest success is pioneer how to range multiple species within a dairy context . We are also finding style to not sell off the bulls and heifer into conventional flow with vastly other than approach path to animal welfare than we have .
Dairy is significantly more complex than beef because of the dramatically higher nutritional need of dairy farm cows , plus the complexity of having mobile infrastructure when you also have to get the animals back to the b every twenty-four hour period .
We have bred an all A2A2 herd of Jerseys . They can milk on eatage only , breed back , keep in good condition , share the Milk River with their calves and still give us Milk River for the cooler . There is growing awareness among consumersof how dairy farm cow do n’t get to be mamas , but make milkmeans making babies , so how are we as a cultivation going to reckon with that biological reality and moral choice ?
We are answering those question with deliberate breeding , dirt and forage improvement , and arrangement and procedure to make it all work together . Bos taurus graze with their calves during the twenty-four hour period and are fork after 4 to 6 weeks old at night . Then we milk the moms in the sunrise , and they deliver to their infant after that .
It means that our farm mart meat as well as milk , because dairy oxen were originally also the family unit beef cow producers . There ’s a lot of practical and ethical normalcy to that advance .
What Have Been the Biggest Challenges?
Our biggest challenge has been recovering what has been lose in two contemporaries of industrial agriculture : the capital , land access code , country degradation , lack of genetical diversity and , most importantly , the going of generational knowledge when most Fannie Merritt Farmer were reject and we all went to the foodstuff store . Rebuilding a food organization from incision is not for sissies .
say more : find out more about the Female Farmer Project and its charge .
Any Advice for New Farmers?
Get unspoilt at producing / marketingonething before you get on another acquisition curve . Yes , all the things work well together . It ’s why Grandma had a homestead and survived the GreatDepression .
But you ca n’t learn all those things at once ; you ca n’t rebuild all that base at one time .
assist a neighbour . Learn . Humble yourself to learn from people you do n’t agree with . Make friends : You are start to need them ! Trust me .
What’s Your Proudest Achievement?
What I ’m most gallant of is the Jersey cow genetic science that we ’re now capable to share with others . These are useable cows that can do the study of a household dairy farm moo-cow — producing in high spirits - fat , high - protein , high - cheeseflower - constituent milk on a solar - ground dieting — and be healthy and in good condition , without require so much caryopsis to farm milk in nimiety of a family ’s needs .
We are going back to the island cow that took the world by storm for good reason . These are amazing cows . We trade come . I never conceive I would do that , but I felt called to share what we fastidiously created with others .
Any Final Thoughts?
Farming as a fair sex is a lot easier than it used to be when I first embark on , when I was often the only one in a room . My advice to other female farmers is that you do n’t have to give up your centre or nurturing instincts to raise . Be who you are . It pull in you a better farmer . You do n’t have to produce like a human to be a actual farmer . lead a track . — Suzanne Nelson Karreman
This article originally appeared in the January / February 2022 issue ofHobby Farmsmagazine .
