Full Steam Ahead for Agriculture Equipment Share Program
On five small farms, Christmas came early this year with the arrival of a new shiny red…soil steamer?
This soil steamer serves as an alternative method to treating diseases or weeds that lie dormant in the soil during the winter. By pressing steam into the soil to the desired depth, it becomes sterilized of anything that may make the growing season burdensome, without long term effects on the beneficial living parts of the soil. Many traditional pest treatments include the use of harmful chemicals which stay in the soil for long periods of time whereas the soil steamer just uses water. The steamer will be most often used in hoop house growing spaces where other types of ecological remedies (crop rotation, fallow) are not feasible.
This long-awaited piece of equipment is part of a grant funded effort to provide small scale producers with innovative new equipment through cooperative sharing. On their own, none of these farms could have justified the expense for this piece of equipment. Even together, an outright purchase would have still been near impossible. A grant from the Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Forestry (DACF) would make buying the equipment possible, but none of the farms were eligible to apply. The farmers reached out to the Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District (CCSWCD) to apply and were successfully granted funds to purchase the equipment. The farmers now have the opportunity to “rent to own” the equipment, and in five years will fully own it as a co-op.
At the end of those five years, CCSWCD will have recouped the amount of the initial equipment purchase and will be able to support a new co-op of farmers in purchasing another soil steamer or other innovative piece of agricultural equipment.
In addition to supporting the small-scale producers actively involved in this project, it will also provide educational opportunities to other small-scale farmers. Workshops will be available for farmers to learn more about the benefits and use of a soil steamer while the equipment share program serves as a model for other producers who may be interested in using more complex equipment that comes with a high price tag.
The soil steamer, fresh out of the box, and on its way to a hoop house.
John Bliss, who spearheaded this project, leads a tour of his hoop houses at Broadturn Farm where the soil steamer will be put to use sterilizing the soil this winter.