Oma maa 2020 satokausi self evaluation & feedback
Kekri on-line session 31.10.2020 (summary report)
Introduction : The session held is to be seen as part of a process. A next moment in this process will be the Coop day held in January 2021, during which there will be the presentation of Oma maa 2021 farming plan, as well as the drafts of Oma maa’s 2021 action plan & budget. Then too there will be the opportunity for comments, feedback and questions. The actual approval of the 2021 Oma maa Action plan & Budget will follow during the 2021 Annual Meeting, held around April.
During the Kekri on-line session attended by the farm crew and several food and board members, the farm told of its own self evaluation, as also put forward in the end a proposal for a “Oma maa Rapid Response network” to be formed in order to deal with the needs of next years peak season (see point 7). During the time for commenting and question we mainly talked about community building and learning (see point 8)
During the session we addressed :
1.The problems in the past that we wanted to address better this year
2. The year 2020 and what “the Corona effect” meant for Oma maa
3. What we were able to do this season
4. Our Seed sovereignty
5. Our foodbags
6. Farmdining
7. (Other) Development needs & a Proposal for an Oma maa Rapid Response network
8. Community supported Agriculture, Community building & Learning!
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1.This year we wanted to address better the following problems of the past :
A. A better covering irrigation system
B. Improved capacity to deal with weeding
C. A more permanent ground cover
In order to be earlier, and
– Enlarge the amount of fruit trees and berry bushes
– Enlarge the amount of peltovilejly & to diversify the farming
-> Enlarge our Polyculture
And to Increase our seed sovereignty
2. 2020 and “the Corona effect”
This spring we saw an increase in food bag orders, and thus resources. Also more people found their way to the farm, with some of them putting up tents and staying for longer periods. On the other hand, of course activities like our farm dining and community building at large, became more challenging.
3. What we then were able to do this season :
A. Extend our irrigation system
We put up an irrigation system taking in water from Tuusula lake, via an inbetween laying pond, and extending over different areas in the farm. However, the setting up of the system was delayed due to different problems (among other with the processing of our ordering from a small company), so therefore the system was not set up in time. So for instance for our red beet, fava beans, and onions the watering system came a bit too late.
But since we now have the core elements in place, we can put the system up earlier next year, as well as then see for any necessary enlargements.
This then facilitated that
– we were able to plant more fruit trees, berry bushes, pumpkins
– the plants were more alive in the greenhouses (there were water supplying lines running to the greenhouse previously, however, as we had no water filter on it, the pipes running through the greenhouse had gotten clogged)
– The plants fared better on the fields
Also, we planted a part of our root veggies in the autumn, so they got moisture in the spring.
B. To be on top of weeding needs, we put more attention to the seedling pre-growing, and developed our own compost for that.
The weeding need is the most acute when seedlings are small. So if we grow our seedlings bigger in our nursery before planting them, we are making sure we are not challenged by weeding needs we can not live up to.
We for the first time made biochar. However, the biochar pieces should have been smaller. The parts were too large, making the char not always compatible with the planting machine. But this was our first year of biochar making, and we learned.
We also improved and enlarged our tunnel spaces to host more seedlings.
We tried for the first time a soil blocker machine, making soil blocks. It resulted in the moisture level of the blocks being better. A problem with the cups was that they dried out a lot (See also this blogpost “Our land, our soil”).
We then this year also got a second leg for our planting machine. This enabled us to renew the strawberries at a good pace. Beans, fava beans and onions were also able to be planted with the planting machine. We however did have problems with fitting the size of the blocks to the planting machine, this is to be improved for next year.
All in all, there are different things to improve with regards to our seedlings for next year, we should also yet again try to be earlier next year .., however :
-> We were able to grow more seedlings
-> Due to the infrastructure improvements, the circulation and spacing, the timing of different plantings will be better in the future.
So for instance our tomatoes in the new tunnel got a disease, but also, since we got the tunnel late (the tunnel was bought when Corona gave us a rise in bag orders..) we were also then late with the tomatoes. At the moment however a nice amount of those tomatoes has been ripping in ranankouko, and is being dried to make sun dried tomatoes!
On Kaukon tila, the weeding remained a larger problem and needs to be improved. However also there, the weeding fared better than previous year.
C. We increased our ground cover
but also here there is still room for improvement.
Peltoviljely / The farming on the fields : Oma maa had two interns with this summer, Ahmed and Jutta, who were able to be alongside Jukka on the tractors. This meant we were able to enlarge the farming part more, and in its totality the harvest has been larger and more diverse than last year.
There is however no grand harvest to be expected of anything, as there was considerable drought in the beginning of summer (and as such the customary cooperation with other local small farms from which a part of our grains come will continue also throughout the next year).
Even if no grand harvest, If thinking of things in terms of carbon sequestration and nutrients : All that wanted to be put into each land part (lohko) was planted, so we can be concluding that on the whole carbon sequestration was improved with regards to previous years. In every lohko, a minimum of two, up to six varieties were planted!
4. Our Seed Sovereignty, we worked (a lot )more on that this year. We also got some new varieties that now have only a smaller yield, but of which we are saving the seeds in order to get more harvest every year.
These include :
- Millet
- Chickpeas
- Poppy
- Quinoa
- Garbanzo beans
5. Our Food bags
Our foodbags have felt to have been ongoing in 2020 in a stable, continuous, fashion.
It was nice we could this year also hand out again our own Rypsy oil. Due to corona our mill was closed for several weeks, and we during that time had to mill all we could in our own small mill, making it impossible to for instance grind seitanjauho to get seitan pasta into the bags. But still, we were able to keep the bags going also for that period.
Our Greenhouse bag saw a good start, but we would not have been able to keep it up neither larger nor longer. There would not have been enough for more people, so in that sense it was not anyway from the normal food bag orders. This was a learning for our first greenhouse bag season from which to learn and draw up improved plans for next year.
From the food bag perspective, we are going into winter with more roots than last year, and also our pumpkins did well and are still within the foodbags.
6. Farm dining
We had to stop our farm dining dinners with the onset of Corona. Currently we are holding farm dining dinners for small groups of people, but unfortunately it is then not really possible to hold larger and more community building intended membership dinners in that manner. We would like to develop more possibilities to hold farm dining on the farm in the nearby future.
7. Things that happened outside of core workings, but which were important from an ecosystem point of thinking, as well as income.
We carried out different kind of works, and engaged in different processes :
8. Development needs :
Our challenges are linked to the transparency of activities at the farm. How to continuously follow what is happening and stay on top of things in each area?
We have identified that we need to:
- Make and create a clear division of the responsibilities of each area of work also outside of “office hours. (E.g. how to be keeping an eye on things, are the windows closed at night in the greenhouse, how is the temperature?, etc.)
- Be able to deal better with the peaks of season (E.g. ripe strawberries, dry hay, etc).
These peaks are very weather dependent, so there can be rather unpredictable fast arising needs on particular days for people to be there.
In spring time we were able to be systematic in managing work and we had also weekend shifts in place, but in the busy growth season, summer, that did not work well anymore.
PROPOSAL to improve our capacity to deal with the peaks of summer season : a ‘rapid response network’
Members could already before summer chart on our excel sheet which weeks/days in summer they could be available “on call”. Regardless of whether or not the call to come to the farm is put out, it would give us at any time an increased capacity to see who is available to come out, so that we can react to ripe strawberries, to the ready hay bales etc.
This takes a step further what we have already put increasingly into practice this year – to move away from the conceptualisation of talkoot as being something that a separate invitation is meant to go out for, to an continuously open invitation to come to co-work on the farm. In this manner we also promote more compatibility with the needs on the farm and the plans of people.
9. Community supported Agriculture, Community building and learning
On the farm we have already identified two aspects we want to improve on for next year
- To keep up regular discussion moments together with all people working at the farm, during which there is a focus on how everybody and everything is going. These discussions are to be organised on a regular basis, even during the peak seasons.
- To create time to celebrate finalised achievements.
During the meeting, in particular the aspect of ‘How do we learn at Oma maa?’ gave rise to interesting discussions, and also brought to the forefront this being a two way street : One issue is how Oma maa can facilitate learning, but the other side of the coin is what is a person’s capacity to learn in a given situation.
As to how can Oma maa facilitate learning, we discussed that increasingly besides our main farmer Jukka also farm crew members can and should be passing on knowledge. We also discussed the possibility of making lecture type video recordings to both make and watch whenever suitable. We will be further developing our answer to this question.
As to a person’s capacity to learn in a given situation, it was brought to the forefront that the asking of questions is an important tool to use. Also, understanding needs to be developed that in most cases it is not possible to have a substantial learning process if not coming out to the farm on a regular basis. Learning importantly happens at Oma maa from doing and from whilst doing being able to increasingly able to connect the dots. This then can be supported by reading useful material as well as the asking of questions.
Thank you to everyone who participated!