Nothing Runs like a Deere, Except a Chicken
Farming has been a human necessity for centuries that’s gradually evolved. From a simple idea of planting a seed repeatedly in the ground has grown into a complicated network with many factors to consider. The drawback with farming is how resource heavy the entire process is. Add to the fact that the human population has been greatly expanding in the past few hundred years has only exacerbated the problem further. Growing food just isn’t sustainable given the planet we live on. This have sparked many opportunities to innovate solutions to these problems. The newest innovation might not be overly glamourous but it may pay dividends.
Introduction chicken tractors. The idea is simple, gather those free range chicken and repurpose the time spent grazing to something beneficial. Chickens continue what they are meant to do, get fat enough before slaughter, while providing a great benefit, maintaining the fields of farmers. This simple adjustment adds benefits to the entire ecosystem. The chickens are allowed to roam the fields and graze as they wish. The field doesn’t need more machinery for maintenance while receiving important nutrients. Not included are the indirect savings of not operating and maintain farming equipment, additional transportation of supplies, hours working, etc. While the solution doesn’t solve the issue of being able to sustain the current food supply it provides a step in the right direction.
Integrating natural processes into the industrial process is always interesting. As famously describe waste is unique only to humans. Everything in nature follows a continuously cycle whereas the industrial process follows a linear cycle. Even if something is natural at the core we transform it into an industrial process. Only now are industries being more environmentally conscious to seek ways to being more sustainable and applying designs like cradle to cradle, a mutualism type design. Whereas mutualism has always been a cornerstone in nature. The chicken tractor is no different. It’s always strange to see how ground breaking such an innovation may be even though its existed well before chickens and crops were farmed. Then again the sustainability framework has always be based upon going back to basics.
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Hi Sidney,
Great post and some great ideas! I’m just curious as to why not more farmers are already using this? I would expect that employing a free-range chicken farm is less productive than, say, a condensed chicken farm in cages. Of course, the sustainability and health factors take a huge play in this. I would like companies or reports that compare the profitability of free-range chicken farms to high density caged-chicken farms. If the tradeoff is too high to raise free-range chicken, I would guess that farmers would ignore sustainability factors and keep to maximizing profit. In the future, I would definitely like to see more free-range chicken in farms and the market!
Jennifer