Features
Putting a new spin on organic horticultural production
SPIN (a reduction of 'Small Plot Intensive' horticulture) is the latest food production concept sweeping through the sub-acre plots of suburban America and Canada. An innovative, grass roots style of gardening, it may offer a solution to that contemporary conundrum of organic vegetable and fruit production in Ireland: we have a market hungry for organic produce, and a workforce trained to grow it, yet the twain appear to be having trouble meeting.
Billing itself as an easy to learn, inexpensive to implement, farming system, SPIN claims to work for new entrants to the sector, as well as those simply wishing to farm more profitably. Its precise revenue-targeting formulas for growing give an annual turnover, according to the projects directors, in excess of $50,000 (around €32,000) for a mere half acre. By removing two of the critical barriers to entry for first time farmers - land and capital - part-time producers and hobby farmers can also up their growing game. So far there are around 200 known SPIN farmers in Canada and the US, and recent converts in South Africa, Australia and the UK.
New concept
Key Concepts
- Standard size bed - one that measures 2 feet wide by 25 feet long
- High value crop - one that produces $100 per harvest per bed
- Relay cropping - the sequential growing of crops
- Intensive relay cropping - growing 3 high value crops per bed per season
- Bi-relay - growing 2 lesser value crops per bed per season
- Single relay - growing 1 low value crop per bed per season
- 1-2-3 rule - divides the farm into 3 different areas of crop intensity
- Land allocation - the smaller the farm, the more of its area needs to be devoted to intensive relay production
- Revenue targeting formula - 1 acre accommodates 480 standard size beds, including paths walkways and infrastructure; if all are intensively relay cropped they will produce $300 per bed per season; 480 beds x $300 = $144,000 per acre per season
The SPIN concept was born in Saskatoon, Canada, where farmer Wally Satewich and his partner Gail Vandersteen had been farming for two decades. In addition to a 20 acre farm, Wally and Gail managed a few urban plots producing high value crops like radishes and salads, and they began to realise they could make more money growing multiple crops intensively in the city. Writing a newsletter for customers, Wally coined the term SPIN as a simple way of conveying his production technique. They eventually sold the farm but continue to rent a selection of residential backyard plots from neighbours, and have recently acquired land in a town nearby, which combined gives a growing area of just half an acre in total. "We started out with a rural farm, now we use urban and suburban plots for our high value crops, and we also rent an acre of farmland further out where we grow potatoes. It shows how adaptable this way of farming is - it can be applied in a variety of contexts, not only urban or rural, but both. That's the beauty of it."
Roxanne Christensen, based in Philadelphia, describes how she became a co-creator of the SPIN concept. She sought an urban farming project that was financially self-sustaining. "Other city gardening programmes have social and environmental benefits, and they have been demonstrated again and again" she notes, "but what was missing for me was economic viability". Partnering with the Philadelphia Water Board, owners of assorted urban plots that were simply draining money in landscape and lawn maintenance, they set about experimenting to see what economic activity could be generated by putting the land to use. Internet research led Roxanne across the border to Wally's project, and thus began their collaboration, with Roxanne enlisting him as adviser on the Philadelphia Water Board project. That pilot project turned over $26,100 from its half acre growing site in the first year of operation. By year three this had doubled, and the SPIN creators were busy compiling the intensive growing techniques and refining financial formulas into practical guides for others to use.
Business models
Prospective SPIN farmers can now hop online and browse through a directory of downloadable off-the-shelf packages. To ensure maximum profitability, growers must target high value crops in fast succession and market them effectively. Choose from three models offering both part-time and full-time templates for farming - Hobby Farm Model, Intermediate or Deluxe. Then select your speciality - 'Leafy Greens' or maybe 'Lettuces, Salad Mixes, Radish Scallion and Spinach'. The 'Flowers' package demands a multi site operation, as does the 'Garlic' guide, but the rest can be run on single sites, and, crucially, on as little as 6000 square feet, just a sixth of an acre. Additional guides available for download include Tools and Investments, Work Flow Practices and Marketing.
What makes the SPIN concept different is its firm business focus. This is not just about having a nice 'foodie' lifestyle, selling off a small surplus, or paying an occasional farm bill with a spare acre. SPIN farming aims to make horticultural food production accessible to 'anyone, anywhere'; it will tell you how to do it, and what profits are likely to be. Ireland's organic horticulture sector could seriously benefit from this kind of practical business modelling, but how might the SPIN farming technique translate to the Irish organic landscape? In terms of its organic credentials, SPIN is not marketed as overtly organic in order to avoid a moralistic tone says Roxanne: "Sustainable agriculture hasn't gained enough traction. For outsiders there appears to be lots of dogma attached, it can almost seem like pushing a religion. We wanted to promote a non-dogmatic, pragmatic approach, to bring sustainable agriculture into the mainstream. We don't preach organic, but we recommend it as being cheaper and more efficient, on the sub-acre scale. SPIN allows organic practice to happen de facto. It simply makes sense".
Economic reality
The SPIN projects circumnavigate the Community Farming models - many of which are currently sprouting up around Ireland - yet the ethos is similarly empowering for local growers, and beneficial for localised food systems facing the peak oil pinch in years ahead. It is also the type of contemporary approach that should appeal both to a new generation of growers, and to the civil servants that so urgently need flourishing figures in organic production. The sometimes urban focus of SPIN is less relevant in an Irish context where we have an abundance of green fields, but the principle of producing intensively and efficiently on small plots of land remains equally as important, particularly for new entrants for whom access to affordable land is an additional barrier. A SPIN-style format, designed specifically for the Irish climate and marketplace, could enable newly trained growers to hit the ground running - something that is simply not happening of its own accord.
I re-trained in commercial organic horticulture in 2004, hoping to forge some kind of a living wage growing organic herbs and salads for restaurants and direct sales. A mere three weeks into my FAS course at Rossinver's Organic Centre, I was brought to earth with a bump when I began to calculate the labour and capital investment required to net a basic salary - and I didn't yet own any land. Furthermore, it appeared to be a bare wage that would tide you over only if you a) already owned your own home outright or b) possessed a kindly, supportive spouse and/or c) had a second income. (Small scale organic growers invariably have additional incomes as trainers, gardeners, or other forms of consultancy). This was frightening stuff to learn on a 'commercial' organic curriculum.
Over subsequent months it became apparent that this enlightening and enriching course, which has no doubt benefited each and every participant over the last decade, could never truly prepare its trainees for life as a 'full-time commercial organic grower'. Save for a small handful of field-scale producers in the country, there really aren't any. This is not through a fault in any of these training programmes, rather the sheer economic reality of the globalised marketplace once outside the insulated training fields. Of my 14 fellow students that year, some are growing for themselves, some are working in the organic sector - as schools' or community gardeners. But not one has taken the plunge to become a certified organic grower and this is typical of the output of all other years too, and of other training centres where only a tiny percentage of trainees become certified commercial growers.
Making choices
The trainer on a recent one day course entitled 'How to Make a Living off One Acre' espoused similarly depressing figures. Here are the sums: one person must work 60 hours per week for around eight months. This person needs a kindly spouse to put in an additional 20 hours per week around their 'normal' job. A WWOOFER (willing worker on organic farm) volunteer adds another 30-40 hours each week. The remaining 4 months can be managed by one person for around 20-30 hours per week. Et voila, a gross turnover of about €25,000 p.a. According to this model, if you are lucky enough to have a willing wife/husband/life partner on hand, bringing in a cash income, and working part-time for gratis, AND if you are happy to open your home to give bed and board to a student/stranger (albeit an organic one) in return for them working for free, then by my sums you can pay yourself around €7 per hour at most. If you have to pay for this labour, you are probably looking at €2-3 per hour left for yourself, maximum.
A colleague of mine recently admitted that she and her husband, out of pure curiosity, sat down with their calculator and figured out that €2 per hour is what they technically earn through their organic vegetable business. None of us are in it for the money, that is for certain. The truth is, it's rarely possible to pay for the extra help, and small scale organic horticulture often only seems to work with access to free labour, and/or a second cash income for the grower. Another highly experienced grower proposed that €20,000 was an achievable turnover for one person working a large tunnel and outside site single-handedly. He pointed out that whilst you have to work long days in the busiest six months, the rest of the time it is only necessary (and indeed possible, with the shorter days) to work 2-3 days per week. Regardless, those entering the sector surely need to know this kind of information upfront - and ideally to be able to choose a style of production that fits into the resources they have or can reasonably acquire.
Realistic expectations
Realistically, is it any wonder that local organic produce is in such short supply, and most consumers invariably buy plastic wrapped organic imported produce in supermarkets? What little there is exists only because it is heavily subsidised by the passion and determination of the growers. Depending on this does not add up. If we are serious about addressing the issue of import substitution (at least in the crops that can be grown here) and if we are serious about indigenous food producers supplying local communities, we should no longer rely on the sheer good will of a dwindling generation of small holding pioneers.
There are significant non-financial benefits to being an organic grower - you get to work from home, work for yourself, work outdoors, be in touch with the land and the seasons, and have access to the best, freshest, healthiest, tastiest produce to put on your family's table. Maybe it is time to identify these benefits formally, even to quantify them - so that people who want to grow for a living have realistic expectations of the cash turnover, the full, costed resources required (including allowances for volunteers) but also the diverse range of additional, non-salary benefits that this way of living and working can generate.
Resource bank
What of all the emerging trainees passing through our organic training establishments and programmes? What of other entrepreneurs, who perhaps have a family background in working the land but gave up its ghost as an unrealistic daydream of yesteryear? Keen, trained, dynamic and dedicated to the organic cause, these individuals, numbering hundreds by my most conservative calculations, should be ready to take up the mantle of earlier organic pioneers. And yet most of us who are growing anything at all are doing so on a small and non-commercial scale, and crucially for those 2012 targets, few of us make it into certification despite the lowest entry level fees of just €150 per year. Some cite lack of access to land as a barrier, and lack of equipment. But even if given land at nominal or no charge, still there will be no rush for these people to become certified in my view.
There are two ways to view the 5% Government targets. Yes, there is the sheer quantity of hectares under organic management - and for maximum environmental benefit, the more the merrier. But let's also look at how the number of individual farmers/small holdings could rise, year on year, purely by providing realistic business models for the newly trained, re-trained, diversified or converted growers of the future. The Organic Trust has just 17 certified small-scale growers (on a positive note, over half of these have registered within the last 12 months). IOFGA certifies around 150 horticulture producers, but this includes many livestock or mixed farms where vegetables are produced on a kitchen scale for domestic use only. At best we are looking at perhaps 60 small scale professional growers nationwide. Meanwhile there are probably 100-200 individuals who have been trained in organic horticultural production over the last decade, and grow on a non-commercial basis for family and friends. I estimate there are a further 100-200 people growing 'silently' - that is, using organic methods but not officially certified. Directly connected to their customers, and often with waiting lists for their box schemes, these growers have no incentive to obtain formal certification.
Even the most conservative estimate would suggest there are at least 200-300 would-be growers or non-certified (but using organic methods) growers in Ireland. How can we bring these camps into the fold in order to strengthen the sector for everyone's benefit? (It is a great shame if 'organic' food is being produced and eaten here but never recorded in market statistics.) Just a fraction of people, say one in five, moving into commercial certified organic production, even on a micro or sub-acre scale, would increase these horticultural producers by 60 - overnight doubling their number. How can we best support these growers, enabling them to expand their business to supply localised food networks that clearly benefit communities and the environment? The importance of developing field scale producers is in no doubt - there are a mere handful operating in Ireland. But there is also this bank of smaller operators who could be cultivated - some of whom will go on to enlarge their outfits to field scale, or to join forces with counterparts to form types of co-operatives that achieve other similar benefits of scale.
Drawing on experience
If the government is serious about developing indigenous organic food production, then it must develop realistic plans for horticulture. And that involves looking at the incredible wealth of experience we have here in the pool of professional long term growers who against the odds have been supplying their localities with fresh, seasonal, organic produce for decades. Seasoned producers and organic sector workers informally discuss the idea of mentoring schemes, or 'master farming' as the Soil Association describes it. We could also surely benefit from looking beyond the island to embrace every gem of an idea that could translate to our own physical and economic landscape.
We would do well to look at the SPIN model in the US and Canada, to see how it might be applied here. There are questions in terms of how specialised cropping would contravene organic best practice and how practices such as growing green manures might derail income projections. But these could all be explored. It might also be useful to audit the growers that are currently operating here, and to build a database so that we can access their valuable expertise and accurately measure growth in the sector. We need to nail down the real reasons that other segments avoid the organic certification route altogether and then directly address those reasons - regardless of whether it is clearly defined in the Organic Farming Action Plan or not. We need to be innovative in order to develop small-scale organic growing into profitable businesses. At the moment, there is one key reason why we are unable to supply our own people with our own produce, and it is simply that, for most of us, the sums do not appear to add up. Grasp that and you have the very root of the matter. Quite simply: we need to show how to make it add up.
Spin farming is the way of the future when it comes to producing food and income for the small land holder. I have been practicing a similar type of farming for years and have produced an equivalent income on a much smaller amount of land. I never turned mine into income. I just fed my family plus 5 local families plus many more at my church.
It can be done, you just need to go out and find a way to do it in your area.
I am surprised at organic matters publishing this article.reminds me of chain letters. just try this in Ireland, infact it smells of a money scam but not for the poor sod of a farmer who will have to pay these guys.
IOFGA member