Mark Shepard - Restoration Agriculture: Real-World Permaculture for Farmers

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

RESTORATION AGRICULTURE

This book, written from real experience of working with the land and referencing real results of experience over time, will be invaluable and is destined to be a permaculture classic. This will be a reference book of great value for anyone interested in using permaculture design in a farming operation and valued by future generations.

Geoff Lawton, managing director, Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

In Restoration Agriculture, Mark Shepard convincingly makes the case for no-tillage, perennial agriculture. He draws inspiration from J. Russell Smith, Bill Mollison, Masanobu Fukuoka, his father, his grandfather, his neighbors and others who showed him that trees are the key to productive and sustainable agricultural systems. Shepard shares his practical knowledge and hard-won wisdom gleaned from years of experience growing up on a farm in central Massachusetts and later transforming a barren overgrazed landscape in western Wisconsin into a richly productive polyculture. The discussions include rotational livestock management, beekeeping, soil and water management, plant breeding, turning a profit on a small farm, and many others. This book is well organized with lots of delightful and informative personal anecdotes.

Larry Korn, translator of The One Straw Revolution and Sowing Seeds in the Desert and student of Masanobu Fukuoka

What a great story and a fun read a wonderful history of mans intervention. Its not just the reasons we need to change land management, its the model to follow a call to action.

Gary Zimmer, president, Midwestern Bio-Ag

Ive never been a big fan of permaculture, that is, until encountering Mark Shepard and his work. Restoration Agriculture describes the reasons why permanent agriculture is needed, the ecological systems behind farm-scale permaculture, and the step-by-step of how to get there. His message is reality-based, down-to earth, and a call for new pioneers!

Faye Jones, executive director, Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES)

Restoration Agriculture

Restoration Agriculture

2013 by Mark Shepard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission except in cases of brief quotations embodied in articles and books.

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author and Acres U.S.A. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use or misuse of this information.

Cover photography credits:

Blueberry cluster (front cover) Erik Shepard

Pine cone Brand X Pictures

Blackberry, raspberry & blueberries (back cover) Stockbyte

Orange willow leaf Goodshoot

All other images Thinkstock

Back cover author image Praveen Mantena

Interior photography credits appear on page 313

Roundup and Roundup Ready are registered trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC.

Acres U.S.A.

P.O. Box 301209

Austin, Texas 78703-0021 U.S.A.

512-892-4400 fax 512-892-4448

info@acresusa.com www.acresusa.com

Printed in the United States of America

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication

Mark Shepard, 1962

Restoration agriculture / Mark Shepard. Austin, TX, ACRES U.S.A., 2013

xxii, 330 pp., 23 cm.

Includes index and bibliography

ISBN 978-1-60173-035-0 (trade)

1. Permaculture. 2. Tree crops. 3. Fruit culture. 4. Nuts.

I. Shepard, Mark, 1962- II. Title.

SB170.S54 2013 634.04

Contents

Acknowledgements

E VERY book, I suppose, needs to include some sort of acknowledgement of the multitude of people who were an instrumental influence on its author. Although writing a book may seem like a solitary task, it is not. There may only be one monkey pounding on the keys, but there is a whole host of support behind and around any author as they go through the process of writing and publishing a book.

It would have been impossible on several levels for you to read this book if it wasnt for my Mom and my Dad. Aside from the obvious, they provided me with an incredibly dynamic way of interacting with the world. My Mom was a displaced Vermont farm girl who taught her children Yankee thrift and ingenuity, how to garden, and more importantly how to cook, can, freeze, pickle, dehydrate and jam just about everything that is edible (and some things that turned out not to be edible!). My Dad was a displaced Maine woodsman who instilled in his three sons a love of nature, a desire for constant learning, plant identification, and how to piece together a ramshackle tool with little more than bubble gum, duct tape and a generous application of WD-40, and to love the physical exertions of living a rural life. His never-ending planting of food trees, and his (unintentional) neglect of those trees helped me to see perennial plants in a different way than the main stream would.

The forest and the farm are part of who I am and they have become one in restoration agriculture.

Indirect inspiration came from many directions, of course, but most significantly J. Russell Smith, Masanobu Fukuoka and Bill Mollison. I may never get to meet Bill Mollison in person, and even if I do I dont know whether Id like him or not, but Bill has begun a revolution on this planet in founding the international permaculture movement. Because of his work and charisma, millions of people worldwide have dedicated themselves to earth care, people care and equity. The world is and will be a better place because of Bill Mollison. If nothing else, millions now live lives of meaning and purpose within the wreckage of the industrial, materialistic global economy that has left them behind.

More directly I would like to thank all of those who have coached me through the years directly and indirectly and have helped me to come to the point where I would write all this down. To all of the workshop participants, course students, consulting clients and to folks who have come on tours of New Forest Farm, I thank you for helping me to understand that I actually do have something of value to share, and thank you for helping me to hone my message so as to be able to communicate it (I hope!) clearly enough for non-experts to understand.

Thank you to Fred Walters, when I was in a challenging phase in my life, for suggesting that I write a book, and thank you for the Acres U.S.A. staff who have helped me through the process. Especially to Anne Van Nest and Maggie Voss, my editors, who have somehow been able to remain calm, level-headed and polite even when I am not. There must be a dark side to them somewhere!

Thank you to my research team, the board and staff of the Restoration Agriculture Institute: Peter Allen (Executive Director), Ron Revord, Kevin Wolz and Brandon Angrisani. Thanks for feeding me with the ecological research that confirms my on-the-farm discoveries. Thanks also for reviewing and commenting on the manuscript before sending it off to Acres U.S.A. Thank you also for the ongoing conversations and arguments that have helped to clarify the message, and thank you for working with these systems in your private lives as well as your careers.

Special thanks have to go out to Julie Gahn who was my backup during the most challenging chapters of this book. Julie tirelessly researched and compiled all of the nutritional information that is included throughout the book, but especially in the About Nutrition and Nutrition & Perennial Agriculture chapters. The nitty-gritty details of those chapters seemed so unimportant to me at the time compared to the overall system and I never would have survived writing those chapters without Julie keeping me on task. Yippee, we did it, Julie!