Rice for Cold Climates: Terraced Hillside and Bottomland Systems

Rice feeds more people than any crop in the world.  It is the only grain that has been produced sustainably for thousands of years on the same land.  Join pioneering homesteaders and farmers, Ben Falk and Erik Andrus, in an overview of two varied approaches to growing rice in Vermont's two primary land types: sloping poor-soil hill farmland and bottomland deep-soil agricultural land.  Erik and Ben will discuss how they are successfully producing a staple that can yield 5,000 pounds per acre perpetually. This workshop will inspire new thinking about flood and drought resilient agriculture.   Ben researches and develops new cropping and resilient human habitat systems fit for the challenges of peak oil, climate change and economic insolvency at the Whole Systems Research Farm in the Mad River Valley. Erik Andrus farms with draft horses on an Addison County clayplain farm, and is interested in contemporary applications of traditional technologies.