By Hunter Kennedy | April/May 2009 | Features

The Smartest Farm

Almost thirty years ago, one forward-thinking Virginia family decided to make a life out of going green. Today they're still breaking new ground

The Jeffersonian tradition of agricultural innovation can be found almost everywhere. There are small inventions such as the eighty-year-old Maytag washing machine in the corner of the farm store that was retooled as an egg washer. There are the larger creations like the portable open-floored cages made by Sandy from recycled plywood and chicken wire that allow his four hundred Rhode Island Red crossbred chickens to hunt for insects and grubs with protection from predators and inclement weather. The cages are complete with nesting boxes under hinged lids that allow easy access for egg collection, as well as steel skids and hitches so that they can quickly be moved each day to fresh pecking grounds. And of course there is the clever reuse of something for an unintended purpose—the old advertising banners that Sandy uses to tarp the chicken coops in freezing weather.

But it is the integration of the farm’s varied and potentially conflicting operations into a complementary whole that is most impressive. Like any farm, this was fine-tuned over time through trial and error. In addition to the chicken and cattle operations, the Fishers also have six acres of compost with which they fertilize the fields for their grass-loving cattle. A local municipality and the University of Richmond also pay the Fishers a small fee to dump their leaves and yard clippings on the property. Fifteen years ago, the Fishers realized that by locating the feeding stations in the same field, they could concentrate the cow manure nearest the compost pile. In addition to providing a windbreak for the cattle in winter, the ten-foot-tall ridges of compost naturally give off heat—up to 140 degrees—as they decay, both killing the weed seeds and bacteria as well as keeping the herd nice and toasty in a January gale.

The organization of the pastures is a study in efficiency. With the help of farm manager David Wright, the Fishers introduced rotational grazing, moving their cattle among three smaller pastures that are fed by a new gravity-powered water line running from the farm’s largest natural spring, while a fourth pasture is fed by a solar water pump. In addition, they enrolled twenty-three acres of former farmland along the farm’s streams and riverbank into the state’s Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, which provides farmers with incentives to create a fenced buffer preventing livestock from polluting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The Fishers planted thousands of trees in the buffer to further enhance the protection of the watershed. With the creation of these smaller, more intensively grazed pastures with gravity-fed watering stations in addition to the newly fenced buffers, the cattle now have a fresh source of water in every pasture that they can’t foul.

“They can’t get their little ankles wet anymore,” says Rossie, laughing.

The latest step in Brookview Farm’s evolution occurred shortly after the October dousing, but it was a big one: taking the entire farm solar. The south-facing roof of the 185-foot-long hay barn was upfitted with over 2,500 square feet of photovoltaic panels to supply 240 volts of AC power to the farm through rain or shine.