EMAU FARMS- SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

by Peter Emau: A goal of EMAU FARMS LTD is to raise livestock and poultry in pasture consistent with nature. Here we show pictures of such activities: While the goats search for and graze on fresh pasture (leaves, stems etc), the chickens search and eat the insects/worms etc that run away from the goats.

by Peter Emau One common challenge in sustainable agriculture is finding enough time for growing healhty foods. At this time of COVID pandemic, most people are forced to work from home. Therefore, there is an opportunity to allocate time (break time) for gardening. We tested one option of dividing the garden into plots equivalent to tasks that can be completed within 15-minutes, assuming one takes a 15-minute break and spends that time to complete a sepecific garden task (e.g, sowing, planting, weeding, harvesting) on a single plot. We divided the garden into 6ft x 6ft plots ( i.e 2 meters x 2 meters) for which such a a specific garden task can be completed by one person within 15 minutes. The size of the plot may vary for each person. This 15-minute break provides not only healthy mental and physical activity for the brain and body (that can be beneficial for the work), it provides time for grow healthy foods. Below is an examples of garden plots:

by Peter Emau One objective of EMAU FARM's sustainable agriculture program is to establish and preserve grains such as finger millet- that has been used for many generations as stable food in many regions of the world. Birds, including poultry, also love to eat millet.  Specifically, the objective is to test the growth, of different varieties of Finger Millet from India and Africa in Ohio, US.  The challenge for Ohio is that growth of Finger Millet is affected not only by the climatic conditions, but also by the photoperiodism (.e. Finger millet is a Short-day plant, for which onset of flowering requires long nights of approximately 12 hours ).  Thus, plants will need to be ready to start flowering by August- September (when the day-length decreases from 13 or less hours/night-length increases from 11 or more hours a day).  The ideal variety would be that which requires 10 - 11 hours of darkness to start flowering; which would mean it starts flowering by early August...