Sugar Mountain Farm - Farming Techniques

Farming Techniques

Many simple but effective low cost, low input tools and techniques have been invented by Jeffries at Sugar Mountain Farm which he shares through his writings in articles both in print and on the web. One example is the chain grabber for baler round bales. Jeffries has written many articles online and in print detailing the simple methods, ways and stories from their family farm. A major focus of Sugar Mountain Farms is educating other farmers and small livestock producers to help them work with low input methods of agriculture. Many of these articles are available for free on Jeffries blog. Sugar Mountain Farm has been featured in a number of articles in international, national, regional, state and local newspapers, Radio, TV and magazines as exemplary sustainable agriculture and was recently chosen as a finalist in the Gallo Family Gold Medel Awards.

Many techniques for raising pigs on pasture without the need for commercial grain supplements have been developed at the farm. In today's high input industrial farming, this is an important issue as it allows people to raise pigs with lower petroleum dependence and graze pigs much like sheep and cattle are grazed using managed rotational grazing techniques. Sugar Mountain Farm has also done a great deal of research through successive generations of pigs into raising boars without castration and demystifying boar taint. By raising pigs without the need for interventions like boar castration, no tail clipping, no teeth clipping and no farrowing or gestation crating. Sugar Mountain Farm has demonstrated that the welfare of the animals can be improved over the industry practices and better than traditional practices even on small farms.