Sunday, September 20, 2015

A Visit to the Standard Process Farm Part 1


This past weekend I had the privilege of attending a seminar, "Advanced Fundamentals" at the Standard Process farm in Wisconsin. I saw first hand how the crops grow on the 420 acres of farmed land to make 335,000 gallons of juice a day. The workers start at 630am to harvest and juice or dehydrate the crops before moving them to the production building 10 miles down the road.



Standard Process has been in business since Dr. Royal Lee made catalyn (Standard Process's multivitamin) for his dying mother in 1930. Dr. Lee grew up on a farm and knew how to take the nutrition in the food and make it into something the body could use to heal. As Hippocrates says, "let food be thy medicine."



The soil is the darkest soil I have ever seen for it is the soil that makes such nutrient rich supplements. The plants get their nutrients from this dark, nutrient-dense soil and it is those nutrients, juiced or dehydrated, that are made into supplements that help us heal when we take our Standard Process vitamins. For food is the genuine replacement parts for the body that is constantly turning over new cells.

To create this rich soil when Standard Process buys new land it needs to be cultivated for 3 years before crops can be harvested. So it's only in the 4th year that farming can begin. 90 acres are being cultivated right now.

Besides constantly testing the soil to make sure of it's nutrient content, Standard Process uses cover crops to prevent wind erosion and rain erosion of the soil. After a harvest cover plants are planted just to grow and then once mature are tilled back into the soil to never be harvested but to cover the soil so that it is never left bare and could be damaged from wind or rain plus the nutrients that the cover crops soak up are put back into the soil for the next planting of actual crops.

By nature the Standard Process land is marsh land and so their problem is how to keep water out of the land. Besides, the 6.5 inches of rain that came down the night before I visited the farm was not helpful. And so you see in this picture an impromptu pond among the crops.



Another way to keep the soil as amazing as it is is by not planting the same crop in the same area for at least 5 years. Because different crops absorb different nutrients from the ground such rotation of plants won't strip the soil of nutrients.

One of the arguements for non-organic food is that organic food cannot feed the world. Well, after seeing farming done correctly, I beg to differ. Organic farming, done right, can feed the world. We aren't going to win the battle in the courts. Every time a court case against Monsanto goes to the Supreme Court they win. The only way to win is by our grocery carts and choosing what goes in them. Please choose carefully and buy non-gmo, organic when possible!

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