The Model Farm

So I thought it would be a good idea to take a step back for a minute and talk about the history of agriculture at the University of Maryland. I know that agriculture and farming aren't really things that a lot of students think about all the time, even though we do have a working farm right on campus. Here's a quick timeline of important ag-related happenings at UMD:

• in 1856, the University of Maryland was chartered as the Maryland Agricultural College (MAC); the charter called for the creation of a "model farm" to be used for research and teaching (below: a MAC stock certificate)

• in July 1862, President Lincoln signed the Morrill Land Grant Act, which gave money to schools that taught agriculture or engineering or provided military training (whoa, so this whole deal where the federal government makes the military having access to students a requirement for federal funding started early); so the MAC became a land grant college in February 1964
• during and immediately after the Civil War, the MAC had lots of financial troubles, and had to be bailed out by the state legislature, which then assumed ownership of half the school
• the state took complete control in 1916, and the school became Maryland State College (this was also the year the first female students enrolled- yay!)
• in 1920, the Maryland State College merged with existing professional schools in Baltimore to form the University of Maryland, with the main campus here in good old College Park

As you can see, over time the university has changed from an institution focusing solely on agriculture to one with much broader perspectives. This was pretty much inevitable, since, after all, there's stuff besides tobacco farming going on in Maryland these days. And it's not a bad thing, either, but I think there's definitely is a case to be made for maintaining what's left of the "model farm" (which isn't much).


Although you wouldn't know it from looking at College Park, agriculture is still Maryland's number one industry: it employs 350,00 people, and brings in billions annually. It's also an industry that's undergoing some much-needed change. Awesomely, one of the College of Ag's biggest focuses is on sustainable production, and there's just no better way to convince students that approaching agriculture from a standpoint based on respect for the environment is a good idea than by letting them see it first hand.

Based on my experiences at Sheep & Wool Festival, I also think it's vital for students to see that there are ways to raise animals that don't involve mistreating them in one way or another. It's just important for people who are going to be entering the industry of animal production to know that hacking off tails and feeding an unhealthy diet aren't the only ways to raise an animal; I think that this might be one way that our farm could actually function as a model farm. Raising animals exactly the way we do it apparently isn't practical from a profitability standpoint, but hopefully students who pursue careers in agriculture will be inspired to innovate ways to balance humane treatment and profitability. The campus farm can be used to teach all kinds of useful lessons, like how to trim a cow's hooves, but it can also be used to teach students about humane, environmentally responsible farming practices. So you've got practicality and idealism (and sheep!)- how cool is that?

Sheep & Wool Festival

I spent most of last weekend at the Howard County fairgrounds at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival with the rest of UMD's farm crew, and we sold nine of our lambs (for those of you who don't know, Maryland has a small flock of sheep that we breed every year, and this year we had 31 lambs born in February and March). One ewe lamb (not ours) sold at auction for $500. Ours sold for $60 each. To be sure, most lambs went for between $100 and $150, but still...I mean, that pretty much sucks, right?

I decided to do a little investigating to figure out why our lambs are apparently so defective. So I took a look around, talked to Lindsay (the farm manager here), and did some research, and this is what I found:

One of the first things I noticed was that everyone else's lambs looked a lot leaner than ours. My first thought, therefore, was that we must overfeed our lambs, making them too fat to fetch premium prices. But then I found out that, in fact, most commercial producers feed only grain, while we feed smaller amounts of grain supplemented by alfalfa and grass hay. Grain is much more energy- and nutrient-dense than hay, so how can grain-fed sheep be leaner? Without getting way into it, it basically comes down to the anatomy of ruminant digestion: sheep are ruminants, so they have four stomach compartments (like cattle), and they're designed to eat grass and forage, which is why we feed them hay- it's what their system was made for. Feeding grain leads to faster weight gain and leaner-looking lambs, but it also leads to problems like acidosis- a painful condition where the rumen produces too much acid because it can't really deal with all that grain. Feeding hay makes the lambs look fatter (but not more muscular) because hay-fed lambs have more developed rumens, which makes it look like they have pot bellies. So while it's better for the health of the sheep to feed a balanced mixture of grain and hay, it isn't really to the advantage of the producer to put the sheep's health first.

The other thing I noticed is that commercial producers tend to do short docking, which we don't do. Docking is tail removal, and the reason sheep get docked is to prevent all kinds of gunk (feces, for instance) from getting caught in the wool on the sheep's rump. In the wild, of course, sheep wouldn't have docked tails and they'd do just fine, but wild sheep haven't been bred for generations and generations with the purpose of producing massive wool coats, so there's less of a problem with matting and things like that.

The procedure on the campus farm is to make the cut between the third and fourth coccygeal vertebrae, so that there is something of a tail left over (above). In short docking, you make the cut much, much higher so that there is virtually no tail left (left). Producers say that this allows them to highlight the lamb's rump and legs (the most expensive cuts of meat), which I guess it does; but it also dramatically increases the risk of nerve damage during docking and can cause vaginal and rectal prolapses. A lot of times these prolapses only occur when the animal is lying down, and when it stands up, everything sort of pops back into place, but that doesn't mean that it's not a problem! I mean, when your insides are outside, it's definitely a problem.

So I'm not trying to make excuses for the fact that our lambs sold for really lousy prices, it's just that I realized how messed up this whole thing is: it's a luxury for us on the campus farm that we can choose to treat our animals well, because we don't have to turn a profit. But other people do, and if consumers aren't willing to pay more for their sheep products, then what are the producers supposed to do? I honestly don't know. Well, actually, no: people should seriously stop with the short docking, there's no excuse, the idea that it looks better is totally artificial. In terms of the grain vs. hay feeding dilemma, I don't want to condemn producers for doing what they think they have to do to stay afloat financially, but more than that I hate the idea that anything can be justified in the name of making a profit.

Rectal prolapse = gross and (shocking!) unhealthy

Mote alert!

UMD President Dan Mote, who apparently has never been to the campus farm before, has decided to pay us a visit tomorrow (Thursday) around 3:15 pm. My ag professors have been encouraging all of us to go to the farm that afternoon to work with the animals, say hey to Mote, and generally show how enthused we are about agriculture. One of my professors told us that there have been proposals in recent years to reallocate the farm space for other things- projects like redoing part of Regents Drive so that it doesn't curve, which would allow the big "Comcast" sign on Comcast Center to be seen from as far away as the traffic circle. While I'm sure that's vitally important to some people, I am not so much concerned with the visibility of Comcast's logo as with the existence of our dairy barn. So if you feel like hanging out with sheep and cattle on Thursday afternoon, consider stopping by and showing that people other than ag majors care about the farm. This would be a great time to come, especially if you've never been to the farm before. I work on Thursday afternoons so I'll definitely be there, and you should be too.

Stella wants you to come visit her tomorrow

Oh, and I don't know much about the proposal to take out the dairy barn or how likely it is that something like that will actually happen, but I will most certainly be looking into that and updating when I find out more!

Happy (belated) Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day, I thought we should talk a little bit about sustainable agriculture. I decided to look at some of the basic methods farmers use to promote sustainability and see how these methods can be adapted for very small-scale sustainable agriculture in a vegetable garden.

What I'm trying to show with this list is that sustainable does not necessarily mean more expensive, which I think is a common perception. If you want to know more about ways that farmers can cut costs and be more eco-friendly at the same time, you can check out this article (pdf) by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, which looks at how technologies like wind and solar power can be both energy- and cost-efficient for farms. And if you want to know more about how you can create a cost-effective, eco-friendly garden...just keep reading!

1. Compost. Who needs Miracle-Gro when you can make your own compost? By composting you can produce soil chock full of nutrients and turn waste that would otherwise be going into a landfill into something useful. Plus, compost improves soil percolation, which then reduces runoff- so even if you wanted to pour a bunch of nasty chemicals on your lovely composted soil (which you don't!), the impact wouldn't be as bad. Don't have enough space for a compost pile? Try worm composting, which basically involves putting some shredded newspaper, dry leaves, kitchen waste, and a little bit of soil in a big plastic box and then throwing in some worms. Awesome!
2. Use organic substances like bone meal and blood meal to add nutrients to your garden. I know that this stuff sounds gross, but it's part of sustainable agriculture: blood and bone meal are slaughterhouse byproducts. We can argue over the ethics of killing animals for food another day, but I definitely think it's a good idea to use every part of the animal we can if we're going to kill it anyway. Blood and bone meal are both compost activators, and blood meal also keeps animals like rabbits away from your garden.
3. Rotate crops. Farmers do it so they don't deplete the soil. In a vegetable garden, that's not really an issue, but it's still a good idea to switch it up every few years so that crop-specific pests don't move in permanently. By discouraging harmful insects from returning to your garden, you also avoid having to use dangerous pesticides.
4. Efficient irrigation. Try placing water barrels under your drain spouts and using what you collect to water your garden. You can collect a lot of water really fast, and it's easy to then use a watering can to water your garden. Another way to reduce water waste is to water in the early morning to limit evaporation. Also, think like a farmer and pay attention to the weather so you'll know when you can skip watering and let nature take care of it.
5. Pick your crop carefully. Whenever possible, try to pick plants that are native to your area. Native plants generally don't require as much work from you in terms of water or fertilizer, since they're already suited to the climate. They're also more likely to get help from insects native to your garden.

Once again, happy Earth Day, everybody!

Farming & Feminism

Alright, I'm going to get a little bit personal for a minute and talk about my experiences working on the campus farm here at UMD. I didn't expect this when I started working, but I've actually found being a farm hand to be a very empowering experience. The farm manager (Lindsay) will, for instance, just hand me a drill and a box full of bits and tell me to go assemble a wheelbarrow, or give me a hacksaw and some screws and ask me to mend the fence. She's an awesome manager because she assumes that I (and her other employees) can handle whatever she throws at us.

All four of the current farm hands happen to be women. Reactions to our all-female farm crew range from perplexed to amused to patronizing. When people (and by "people," I mean people we encounter in the farming world, like hay salespeople and livestock producers) automatically assume that all of us are weak, clueless, and generally incompetent, it's incredibly frustrating. The idea that we're constantly being judged for being "weaker" is completely absurd: even if women do tend to be smaller than men, does anyone actually think that a couple extra pounds of muscle mass are going to make the difference when you're dealing with a 2,000 pound Holstein? Of course not. It's become very clear to me based on my experiences this year that the farming world is still definitely male-dominated and full of not-so-subtle sexism. I've also noticed that my College of Agriculture classes are generally chock full of...women. So what's up with that?

It turns out that a lot of women in the College of Ag, including me, are aspiring veterinarians. Many are planning to become small animal vets, which is awesome, and some want to continue to work in agriculture by becoming livestock vets, which is awesome too. Although women make up a significant majority of students in vet school these days, livestock vets are still predominantly male. There is also a shortage of livestock vets in general right now; the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association writes that the fact that women compose the majority of vet students "is seen by some as a bad sign for the livestock business. Female vets have traditionally preferred small-animal practices." Hmm...this "preference" for small animals couldn't have anything to do with not wanting to deal with constant insinuations that we can't handle livestock, could it? It's a tough situation, because attitudes towards women in agriculture won't change until we "prove" ourselves, but it's the existence of the assumptions that we have to subvert that make a career in agriculture so unappealing to so many women.

Anyway, that's why I spent the first half of this post describing why I think Lindsay is such a great manager: she doesn't create an atmosphere where her employees, as women, need to prove anything, and that is incredibly refreshing. I think it's fantastic that so many of my fellow livestock vet wannabes here are women, and I'm glad we have people like Lindsay and our UMD vet, Dr. Angela Black, to help us out along the way.

Above: a cow that isn't going to move unless it wants to,
regardless of the gender of the person trying to make it

Micro agriculture

My roommate Margaret and I planted a tiny garden in our room this weekend! We have three different types of herbs, three kinds of flowers, and even tomatoes! The pots are tiny and we're going to have to transplant everything after it gets to be about three inches tall. I'm also sort of concerned because everything's growing in a pretty hostile environment: right in front of our window fan. I'm actually ridiculously excited about this, though! Look how cute:

So here's a radical idea...

...castration hurts. A lot.

While that may seem obvious to, well, pretty much everyone, there are no state or federal laws regarding the use of painkillers when castrating livestock. To get an idea of why that's so incredibly uncool, let's take a look at some of the different castration methods commonly used in the US (grossness warning)...

1. banding: you can use an elastrator (left) to place what is an incredibly tight rubber around the entire scrotum, and then wait two or three weeks for the flesh to atrophy, rot, and eventually fall off- yum!

2. bloodless: you can use a tool called a emasculator (right), which basically crushes the blood vessels running to the testicles and simultaneously cuts the spermatic cord

3. surgical: this involves cutting off the bottom third of the scrotum, pulling the testicles out and severing them, and then sewing the rest of the scrotum back up (this is the only method I've ever witnessed in my extremely limited castrating experience, and the procedure I saw involved a lot of painkillers)

So, in conclusion: ouch.

It is, of course, possible to use anesthetics, and a lot of producers do. Even for producers who don't have the time or money to use painkillers, there are a lot of effective ways to manage pain and stress, such as castrating when the animals are young, before the tissue that's going to be removed is fully developed. The thing is, though, it's perfectly legal to castrate even fully grown animals without painkillers if that's what you want to do. So what are we going to do about that?

Well, one day I showed up at work on the campus farm only to discover that Lucy, our fistulated dairy cow, had had her forehead shaved. Upon further investigation, I discovered that researchers here at Maryland are using her as a test subject in a project that uses electroencephalographs (EEGs) to record how her brain activity changes in response to various stimuli. Their goal is to quantify the ways in which animals feel pain, and to use this information to build an irrefutable argument about why it's wrong to perform procedures like castration and de-horning on adult livestock without painkillers. While the conclusion might seem obvious (I don't think anyone actually thinks that cows don't feel physical pain in the same way humans do), the researchers hope that approaching the argument from a scientific perspective will help create momentum to pass legislation regulating castration techniques. Honestly, this stuff isn't a big priority in Annapolis right now, but I certainly wish them the best of luck.