U.S. Farmers Turning To Mule Power To Fight Rising Oil Prices
by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada on 06. 9.08
Image: Flickr Mountain Mike
Rural areas in the U.S. are now feeling the profound effects of mounting gas prices, more so than in other parts of the country, due to the combination of lower incomes and heavier dependence on farming equipment, tractors, pickup trucks and vans. In addition to other trends (gasoline theft, buying less meat, switching jobs for a shorter commute), the dilemma has led some farmers to turn to less energy-intensive forms of tilling land – or in a word, mules.
According to a recent survey by the Oil Price Information Service, Americans typically spend 4 percent of their after-tax income on gasoline. In rural areas however, such as the counties in the Mississippi Delta, families may spend up to 13 percent on fuel. It is a disparity that may not be so apparent in the Northeastern states, where families generally earn more, drive shorter distances or have better access to public transportation.
Benefits of Mule Power
But with gas approaching $4 a gallon, T.R. and Danny Raymond, two farmers on a 40-acre farm in McMinnville, Tennessee, have now switched over by modifying their equipment to shift the weight equally between two mules. Though training the animals to pull the equipment is initially time-consuming, the substitution has meant that the Raymonds save $60 a day on fuel.
"They just eat hay and a little sweet feed, a little shell corn," T.R. Raymond says of his mules. "You gotta rub around on them and talk to them, stay acquainted with them, where they know you."
Of course, the Raymonds are not the only ones now falling back on good, old resourcefulness. "There's a lot of mule power around here," says T.R. Raymond. "When you get to where you can't afford the gas, you hook the mules up."
::NPR (with audio interview)
Related Links on Rising Gas Prices:
::High Gas Prices Changing Society
::Rural U.S. Takes Worst Hit as Gas Tops $4 Average (NYT)
::Trading Tractors for Camels
::Gas Buddy's Map Shows How Expensive Your Gas Is
::Truckers to Protest High Gas Prices?
::Extreme Gas-Saving Car Modification
Hopefully nobody will actually be so gullible to believe that the modest increase in fuel prices actually makes this a cost-effective solution to anything.
@Scott
DOn't be a mule-hater!
Cowboy Bob up there looks awesome! What have you got against asses?
For people who live close to the poverty line, $60 a day savings sounds pretty good. Around here its at least 8 miles to the grocery store and there's no public transportation. Country people are much more dependent on their vehicles.
hopefully no one is so gullible to think our current policies are sustainable and continuing price hikes will just go away if we do nothing.
Animal power is sustainable farming. Obviously a combine isn't going to be pulled by a team of mules, but small scale (read: sustainable, local) farming with real horse-power is an example of permaculture in action. We've only farmed without animals for a hundred years or so, after thousands with. If a farm is small enough for animal power, why even consider a tractor? The only benefit of mechanized farming is to accommodate large scale operations.
Extra! Extra! LOCAL LIVING ASSUAGES GLOBAL WOES! I bought organic asparagus from a local farmer yesterday for $2.50/lb. The grocery store had organic asparagus trucked in for $5.99/lb, and factory-farmed asparagus trucked in for $2.99/lb.!
"The only benefit of mechanized farming is to accommodate large scale operations"
You are absolutely right. And we live on a planet with a large-scale population...6.7 Billion and growing. America can NOT feed the world with a mule and plow.
Unless you are proposing that we all return to a lifestyle of subsistence farming, a lot of people are going to starve. Even if we do all regress back to a far more primitive state of existence, a lot of us will still starve.
Perhaps this article could have pointed that a mule needs to be fed, sheltered and cared for 365 days a year. A tractor only needs fuel for the hours it runs. Also, you can do in a few hours on a tractor what it takes weeks to do with a mule.
Living as I do in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, seeing a farm implement being pulled by two or more mules isn't that shocking to me. Heck, I buy a lot of my vegetables and all of my meat and dairy products from folks who use horse power!
To those who say the tractor only costs what it takes to run it... well, there's the buying it, the running it, the maintaining it, the purchasing of the equipment needed to put on it to do the specific job....
Mules can be fed off your land (if you have it, which I'm assuming anyone who is pursuing this method will) on grass, hay and supplemental grain (and fruit, veggies, and whatever else you want to give it).
Plus, mules can be purchased (or given to you) inexpensively and bred. Tractors usually aren't (definitely aren't bred...).
And mules are cute and fun and entertaining, and generally love you if you're nice to them. Tractors won't ever do that....
Mules for large-scale operation, no. But for small farmers or people who are raising their own large cooking garden they can be the perfect solution.
@scott
This sounds a bit callous but it isn't America's problem to feed the world. We export a lot of grain and a few other things, but even now we don't tend to feed other countries wholesale, nor should it rest on us to do so.
I also don't have much sympathy for those in the US who decide it isn't their problem until it reaches their front door. The gas-guzzling SUV driver that doesn't care about their effect on the environment shouldn't expect my condolences when they can't feed themselves. Something along the lines of "you made your bed...etc." :p I do care at a community level and volunteer my knowledge freely to those around me, but beyond that I'm only really interested in others who give a damn, it's too late to save the rest IMHO.
My father farmed with mules as a young man. He knows first hand that while mules do require a commitment of time and enegry, caring for them is not a major undertaking. Mules, unlike horses will not be overworked, will not flounder easily, or become colicy. Due in part to a mules natue, they are easy keepers and adapt to their environment. He has stated many times that he perferred farming with mules rather than the farm machines. He feels that the crop is not covered with gas or deisel fumes, which does effect the taste of the produce. The cost is less, because you are not meeting that note each month on all of the equiptment that you bought. Then there's the issue of planned obsolescence that keeps the farmer updating equiptment and the expense associated with that. If your equiptment breaks down, you have to fix it yourself...mechanics do not make house calls. If you can't solve the problem, there's the expense of having your equiptment hauled into the mechanics shop, the cost of the down time, the loss of possible revenue associated with that downtime, or the cost of renting a replacement until yours is back up and running. If it is not cost effective to fix it, then you need to buy a new one. No, the price of gas is not the only consideration. But no, this is not practical for hugh farms, but for a small holding it is econimical.
One nitpicking comment: you can't breed mules. They are the offspring of a horse and a donkey, and are sterile except perhaps in very, very rare cases due to the fact that horses and donkeys have different numbers of chromosomes. This leaves the mule with 63 chromosomes, an odd number, and so it cannot produce viable eggs and sperm, which require halving the chromosome number.