Paul and his Singing Frogs Farm
Forty-year-old Paul Kaiser is revolutionizing farming methods. Since 2010 he has been winning multiple awards for his farm, Singing Frogs Farm in Sebastopol, California, a unique no-till vegetable farm. His work was commended by the U.S. Congress in 2013. Agriculture specialists gather there to test his soil, observing his methods. Speaking to full houses at agriculture conferences, he extols the virtues of his methods.
Of his 8 acres, he only vegetable farms around 3, grossing more than $100,000 an acre, all without plowing, spraying and weeding. He hires full-time farmhands, four to five times more than other farms in a land where farmhands work seasonally, paying his farmhands $15 an hour for senior workers. Typical wages are around $9 an hour for California’s minimum wage.
In the beginning of April, California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a state of emergency proclamation as California entered its fourth year of drought after the state’s hottest year on record. In the five years since Kaiser has stopped plowing his fields, his irrigation levels have dropped more than half, sometimes as little as an hour a week using a drip system, no sprinklers. This drought highlights the accumulating of a decades old problem, the steady thinning of America’s top-soil. Dust Bowl is a word being used hesitantly now.
California is our nation’s primary supermarket – 90 percent of some crops and over 50 percent of the rest of the crops. Kaiser’s farm is looked at with many implications. He fanatically follows what he calls his three main rules of soil health: keep roots in the ground as much as possible, keep the soil covered as much as possible and disturb the soil as little as possible. His operations are being used now by much larger operations, in and outside of the U.S., with great success.
Born and raised in California, Kaiser’s mother claims he was obsessed with dirt since childhood. In his 20s, his curiosity sent him in search of the secrets of healthy plant life, leading to advanced degrees in international relations, natural resources management and sustainable development.
He joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to The Gambia, a narrow country near the Sahara Desert. His job was to revive the parched land, leading him to an approach called “agro-forestry,” rarely used in our Western world, but centuries old. You select trees, based on what they can and cannot do, creating windbreaks and giving mulch that holds water and nutrients of the top soil – fertility will follow. Collecting local tree seeds, he planted them everywhere. With no rainfall and the only viable water was a well 110 feet deep, he followed a neglected rule: keep your soil protected. He pulled every stick, twig and leaves from their destroyed forests, throwing them on their garden beds. Nature takes care of the rest. Covered soil stays wetter and cooler. His garden didn’t need as much water as the village farmers. They carted 100 buckets of water daily as opposed to his using 20 buckets every other day. Watching in amazement,villagers realized they could grow things other than millet and peanuts.
The United Nations has declared 2015 “The Year of Soil.” Charles Darwin’s obscure discovery, that topsoil is created by earthworms at a rate of 10 to 20 tons per acre a year; and after eating rocks, roots, leaves and other biological leftovers, they poop fertile soil. Scientists have counted more organisms in a teaspoon full of their soil than there are human beings. As these invisible creatures collaborate, they strengthen the soil to hold water, withstand erosion, store and feed nutrients to the plants, help them build their immune systems. Of all that creates life – sun, rain and soil, we can only take care of one – soil.
After leaving The Gambia, Kaiser was in Costa Rica pursuing his graduate studies, when he and a colleague studying several citrus orchards, notice something unusual: the first orchard planted on the edge of a forest had 90 percent less pests than the orchard in an open plain a mile away. The beneficials were hanging out in the forest’s foliage, an easy commute to their near-by garden.
He visited a banana plantation and found it doubling its productivity by using a nearby Moring oleifera that provided shade and nutrition. Kaiser was so struck by the many powers of this tree he wrote book about it.
In 2005 he returned home to marry, raise a family and test his new theories. They found the neglected, cold, wet and on a slope turning it into a drainage sink, Singing Frogs Farm, eight acres outside of Sebastopol, California; his ideal piece of land on which to practice his theories. Since it had gone uncultivated or years, banked up fertility helped after he plowed. Labor was intensive. One day while plowing, he saw a mother killdeer screeching at him. Climbing down he saw her nest of eggs, cut up worms and snakes, damaged roots and bugs exposed to the scorching sun. He calls it his epiphany, “There’s got to be a better way.” Renewing his studies, he discovered the “no-till” method. Leaving old crops behind to compost minimized water evaporation.
The USDA said in 2010, tilling the soil is the equivalent of an earthquake, hurricane, tornado and forest fire simultaneously to the world of soil organisms. One year of tillage can undo 25 years of soil improvement. To fight insects, he turned to his overseas discoveries and laced his farm with hedgerows of trees and shrubs favored by “beneficial” bugs. Instead of following standard procedures, he mixed compost fertilizer onto the tops of his fields. Compost is concentrated dirt but in pure form it burns seedlings. To counteract that, he placed a layer of calcium, then, planted straight through it all. He now produces up to seven crops of vegetables per acre a year. At present, he is not concerned about the drought effect on the vegetables, but the trees do concern him.
Find a tree and thank it for you fresh air and serenity.
Joyce Comingore is a Master Gardener, hibiscus enthusiast and member of The Garden Club of Cape Coral.