NE Animal Powered Loggers United??

Hi Brad
You are not alone in your frustration. It is not just horse logging or forestry that is so outcast by the conventional commercial industry. I look at the UN figures for Farming and see that there is approximately 570 million farmers in the world today. Of that number just over 50 million have tractors the rest use some form of animal power to produce 75% of the worlds food. That is a pretty amazing figure considering there is virtually no money spent on research and development to improve the work done by this form of agriculture. The prejudice and misconceptions towards draft animals runs deep and is difficult to manage.
For many years I taught the draft horse course at a local agri college and the animosity from the conventional staff towards that course boarded on paranoia. Even though these courses and support groups are relatively self funding and well received by the participants they will be torpedoed at every opportunity.
Good luck.
cheers
Ron

I am one of those future operators I believe. When my teaching job becomes less sustainable I look to draft powered forestry to be part of a large pillar of a diversified farm plan. Having taken all GOL levels, attended workshops, and harvesting my own timber and firewood, I think I’m ready. The business side of it intrigues and scares me at the same time.

As an educator I’d love to put together a rotation of sustainable skills courses to offer at a dedicated learning facility in the Connecticut River Valley. I may have such a site available soon. I imagine people could come stay for the length of each course (variable length), choosing what course(s) interest them, and returning for multiple courses to maybe earn a certificate in certain trades. I would try to be the middle man bringing together interested learners and professionals from their field, designing curriculum to mesh the two, (and selfishly learning a lot along the way.)

That’s my pipe dream, but either way you’ll see me in the woods at some point soon.
To that end, if there’s a job I can help out on in late July/early August I’ll have almost a month free, a team, arch, and gear. I’d love to be the greenhorn on a real job in order to get a better feel for that vs/ weekend warrioring.

I’m going to keep watching how all of this emerges and will lend my support.

You have another greenhorn on board with me! I am putting together a certificate course for the college I work at right now (SUNY Adirondack) for landowners with woodlots and how they can begin to manage and harvest them. Part of this course is going to revolve around who do you hire? I hope to cover small machine operators and draft animal loggers and within the next few months I will be reaching out to the draft animal world to see who would like to present and demo their craft. This only tangentially relates to what you are talking about but it is another way of getting a better understanding of draft animal traction into the minds of the general public.

I would love for their to be some sort of association. Two factors gave me the confidence to take the plunge this year: 1) Our local state forester told me that when I get my business going he will feed me much more work than I can even handle. He says there is a huge need for the small horse loggers in our area, the second was having great conversations at the field days this last summer. Being able to talk to many different folks about the way they operate their business was priceless.

I am running the logging business a lot like my small farm though. I am only offering the horses and I as a service and we are charging hourly. I am not confident in selling logs but people keep asking me if I will help them out in various ways, so work is starting to pile up. My current job includes a 2200ft skid to the landing which is not cheap by the hour, but the landowner is going to add value to the timber by building a barn with it. He also feels that it is priceless to be able to work side by side with the horses to harvest the timber for the barn that he will be building with his own hands. The rest of the work that is waiting is mostly pulling firewood. Most of the landowners will agree it is worth paying me hourly to pull the wood because it may cost a little more than doing it themselves, but the first time they fold their pickup truck around a tree their firewood operation gets really expensive quickly.

I will see you this weekend and maybe we can talk more about how I may be able to help move this forward with my connections in academia. (or maybe why we should keep it far away from academia?)

Hi Mike
Most of the animosity associated with any college setting is pretty normal kinds of Jealousy and funding stealing. What I think set the draft horse course attacks apart are the out of proportion to the perceived threat side of things. The conventional side of any college has little to worry about concerning the draft horse side taking over the college yet they feel very threatened by the fact that horses are on “their campus”. The idea that there was something to be learned from small farming, logging or that anything from the past was still relevant to the present or the future was absurd to them.
You asked what the reason was for this behaviour. I suspect that most of the teaching staff at most colleges realize we as a society have made a wrong turn down a slippery slope economically, environmentally and technically. Like all people every where, myself included, no one likes to admit this or have that exposed. I think the fear of draft horses, sustainable forestry and small scale farming on a campus will give rise to embarrassing questions…
That would be my guess on that.
Cheers
Ron

Ron and Jared,
Thanks. I did not pursue tenure track years ago and don’t regret it. Metallurgical engineering was my field.

I saw some pretty monumental egos at work in other departments and also the petty bullshit in our own.

I can see how some might feel threatened by the past, having dedicated their skills and emotions to the future. Many have never worked outside academia a day in their lives however, and are viewing the world through soda straws of their own making. In one of our publications, SFJ, RH or some other, there was a statistic this month on the percentage of the world’s food raised by draft power. It was astonishing at some incredibly high number…..that I can’t recall offhand. Like 85%+. And the number of farmers with only a single draft animal to feed their families and generate surplus for sale to their neighbours and the market was equally high. Draft animals might be anachronistic in Europe and the US but worldwide their usage is normal, everyday life, and the sooner we understand that the better. I am not a ‘peak oil’ preacher, but things are going to change, later if not sooner. I don’t know the answers, or even the questions, but draft animals will be a much larger part of our future, and petrochemicals a much smaller portion. The fact that we have driven several thousand local varieties of maize, melons and other vegetables to extinction by allowing Monsanto to take over the lands in central and South America and Africa is deplorable, at best. Much of he northward migration seen world wide is due to these folks being pushed off the land.

I won’t even address the population problems…… but I will mention them.

God bless.