Tilley's Passion
Farming Without Fossil Fuels
Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont is running the Cerridwen Farm without the assistance of any fossil fuel burning devices (excluding some lights and one rototiller). This isn’t really a radical or new idea, as many, many people beat them to the punch by utilizing oxen, but in this age of jumbo-sized factory farming, it certainly is refreshing.
The labor and know-how required to run such an operation is being provided by the college’s Farm Life Ecology summer class. In addition to old-school techniques, they have adopted some modern innovations to make things more efficient. They have installed solar collectors to heat water and are utilizing the CO2 emitted from chickens to boost air levels in a green house.
Kenneth Mulder, the farm’s manager and ecology economist, says that it is very unlikey that farms will ever be 100% free of fossil fuels, but by implementing traditional farming techniques, one can come pretty close.