Microfarms co-creating with the earth

Posted on Aug. 30, 2005

There is a quiet revolution happening in our time: the emergence of "microfarms" on tiny acreages that achieve astounding yields of organic produce and provide a better-tasting alternative to the products of big agri-business. "Micro eco-farmers" across the nation are profiting from small acreages to small-town backyards. Their livelihoods restore the planet while creating an abundance of healthy products produced in very small spaces.

"There is a change among those who farm in this century," asserts Barbara Berst Adams, author of the new book, Micro Eco-Farming: Prospering from Backyard to Small-Acreage in Partnership with the Earth. "Are you one of them?"

Micro Eco-Farming details how the new micro eco-farmers succeed, how they start "with nothing," what traits they share, and what secrets they know. The examples covered in the book emphasize farms from fractions of an acre to five acres that earn full-time income for at least one adult. In addition to presenting close-ups of those who are actually succeeding, Hundreds of real-life examples are presented with ideas, resources and methods for all who aspire to create their own micro eco-farm: from wild-grazed mini dairies, backyard gourmet restaurant gardens, homegrown organic spa products, "u-gather" nut groves, front-yard cut-flower stands, heritage rose farms, children's and holiday farms, urban greenhouses, farm and cottage industry partnerships, miniature Shetland sheep with 11 natural colors of wool, herbs and flowers for healing, exotic and heirloom perfume melons, connoisseur apple orchards, ethnic personal chef gardens, old-fashioned farm festivals, native and wild edible farms, to mail-order farm crafts and more.

Finally, although the new micro eco-farmers usually achieve their dreams of economic independence, there is also the understanding as well that success includes "something greater" than financial profits. As Mariam Massaro, of Singing Brook Farm,Worthington, Massachusetts, expresses herself poetically: "I love co-creating with the earth, as it is so simple and healing to live close to the mother earth that sustains and nurtures me every day with her beauty." Micro Eco-Farming invites you share the eco-farmers' dream of prosperity and fullfillment, "in partnership with the earth," and it gives you the inspiration and practical tools to live the dream.