Page 88 - Spring2020

Farm and Ranch

THE MODERN SUBSISTENCE FARMER
By Neal Ritter

At mealtime This morning’s breakfast was amazing: lished a large vegetable garden that grew into a
we often play pastured eggs from our chickens (cooked in micro-CSA (community-supported agriculture).
ghee from our A2A2 Jersey cow Blossom),
We also raised sheep—selling the meat—and
a game to try bacon from the kunekune pigs, kraut, warm chickens. While remaining a part-time en-
to figure out milk for the kids and decaf cappuccinos for us. deavor, our farm generated a reasonable income.
The problem arose when we more carefully
what we are Last night’s dinner was also delicious, with liver contrasted our diet to our farming practices. We
from the cow we processed on the farm two days
eating that ago, green beans and zucchini from the garden were selling all of the lamb in order to buy other
we didn’t and radicchio salad. I am already excited for meat, namely pork and beef. We consumed but
produce on lunch—BLTs on sourdough spelt/emmer bread were not ourselves producing large quantities
that came out of the oven this morning, with of raw milk and other dairy products. While
the farm. fresh tomatoes and radicchio from the garden, our vegetables provided the bulk of our meals,
homemade mayo from our eggs and a combi- they supplied few calories. We had embarked
nation of olive and coconut oil. Tomorrow will on a Wise Traditions diet but still purchased the
be vegetable soup with beef cheeks cooked in majority of our calories.
bone broth. This changed five years ago when we man-
The incredible part about this gourmet aged to purchase our own twenty-acre farm. It is
menu is that this is our life every day. I could a beautiful piece of land, though only about four
go on about the soups, grain dishes, traditional acres are suitable for agriculture at the moment.
Italian pastas, vegetables, eggs, cured meats We are happy to leave the rest wild, as we run
and ferments that grace our table daily. All of youth educational programs for our livelihood;
this abundance is grown on four acres of our the four acres supply our caloric needs.
farm in arid Colorado. In fact, at mealtime we The shift involved a mental adjustment to
often play a game to try to figure out what we imagine how to produce as many of our calo-
are eating that we didn’t produce on the farm— ries as possible, instead of simply focusing on
usually salt, olive oil and grains. What is most volume. This meant shifting to animal foods
remarkable is how easy it all became once we that are rich in fat, along with calorically rich
made a fundamental shift in our beliefs around garden staples that can be stored throughout the
food, farming and nutrition. year. What we have come to realize is that it is
possible to produce a large amount of food. We
SUBSISTENCE REDEFINED now live in a state of abundance and generosity;
When asked, we define ourselves as subsis- at times of excess, we trade and give freely to
tence farmers. This may be a little tongue-in- our community.
cheek, but it is also the simplest description of We have undertaken to go “whole hog”
our goals in agriculture. “Subsistence,” in our on this life experiment of growing as much
minds, is the practice of growing as much of nutrient-dense food as possible. To be honest,
our food as possible, while selling very little. this lifestyle requires a lot of time and work.
(Our goal is to reach a break-even point eco- (It also means that we have a certain amount
nomically.) of monotony in our diet; for example, after the
My wife and I started this journey in our harvest of a large animal, we eat a lot of one kind
early twenties, with a vague notion of “growing of meat for a while.) Luckily, sitting out under
our own food.” On borrowed land, we estab- a tree on a summer evening shelling beans or
88 Wise Traditions SPRING 2020