Page 10 - Off Grid East Cost Spring 2017

Starting an
Off-Grid Herb Farm
By Estelle Drisdale
As I consider becoming a new farmer, I see the many challenges that I may face taking on this new career: long days, physically demanding labour, dealing with pests, broken machinery and a difficult market. However, like many of my farmer colleagues, I want to provide healthy food and medicine, support my community and work on the land.
Regenerative practices on small-scale organic farms help build healthy soil and healthy plants. However, one fragile component to farming is the reliance on fossil fuels and grid power to keep things running. If power is lost at the wrong time, farmers can quickly start to lose their produce along with all the time and money spent on soil preparation, seeds, irrigation and harvest.
Solar-powered tractor
Unfortunately, the cost of setting up an alternative power source for this scenario is often prohibitive, especially for a farm business. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels in agriculture is an even bigger hurdle to overcome, but I love the idea of a solar-powered electric tractor – coming soon.
Every farm uses energy to grow, process and store goods to be sold. It’s proving to be a challenge to find a source for an off-grid, low-voltage heated table to germinate seeds, an affordable DC furnace blower for the heated greenhouse, a pump for my irrigation systems, heat lamps for livestock and cold storage for produce. All of this farm infrastructure comes at an extra cost, is more complex to set-up and some of the appliances I need are difficult to find.
10 off the grid
Calendula grown for seed