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Acknowledgements
Dairy farmer John Merrill’s
frustration with trying to find a rotary hoe—and someone anywhere
close to New England who knew how to operate one—was the origin
of this book. He shared this information hole with his colleagues
on a committee of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education
(SARE) program. Like many other SARE groups, this committee was
a cross-section of farmers, educators, researchers and farm specialists.
They agreed that farmers needed a nuts and bolts book on how to
find and use weed management tools profitably and sustainably.
Beth Holtzman, communications
specialist for the Northeast Region SARE program, and Fred Magdoff,
coordinator of SARE’s Northeast Region, developed the question into
a concept. Both individuals were patient and supportive in seeing
this project through.
I repeatedly interviewed
the farmers who are featured in this book. Each gave generously
of his time, experience and on-farm research findings, formal or
informal. These innovators are the real authors of this book. Many
frequently open their farms to other members of regional sustainable
farming networks where real farmer-to-farmer exchange takes place.
Providing unfailing good
sense was Dale Kumpf of Henke Machine/Buffalo Farm Equipment. He
knows farmers throughout the U.S. and Mexico who are familiar enough
with their farms to know when steel is ideal. Richard R. Johnson
and Al Higley at Deere and Company—and the dozens of Deere specialists
they linked me to at the right moments—provided images, specifications,
insight, statistics and technical explanations that could only come
from a world-class corporation. Ralph Moore of Market Farm Implement,
Somerset, Pa., shared repeatedly of his deep working knowledge of
horticultural tools, as he does daily with farmers across the U.S.
Vern Grubinger at the
University of Vermont recommended farmer contacts and tools. Richard
Parish, Dan Ball and Thomas Lanini at the state universities of
Louisiana, Oregon and California at Davis, respectively, provided
important perspective on crops, tools and farmers in their regions.
I frequently consulted Rick Exner of the Practical Farmers of Iowa.
Helping to distill and
express all this shared wisdom was Craig Cramer, who has yet to
see a sustainable farming sentence he couldn’t improve. He and the
reviewers listed at the back of the book immensely enhanced this
effort. Errors that remain are mine. These individuals lent their
expertise without compensation simply to make this book as valuable
as possible to the people who choose to make sustainable farming
work in these United States.
To all these and many
others, many thanks.
Greg Bowman
Kutztown, Pa.
January, 1997
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