Food Web - integrated food production

velacreations

What is a Food Web? The Food Web is a holistic approach towards small scale food production. Basically, it's a way to increase efficiency and yields by integrating your livestock. If you are going to raise animals on your homestead, you should design connections and interactions between them to decrease feed inputs and labor.

It's like aquaponics, but for all of your animals and food production.

We're building a Food Web here in Northern Mexico as a working example and sort of an open classroom for the struggling farmers in our area. We are documenting this project in a book, titled Food Web. It will provide instructions for people to be able to design and create their own Food Webs, depending on their unique situations and circumstances.

We need help to get the project off the ground, so we've launched a crowdfunding campaign here: http://www.indiegogo.com/foodweb

Come check it out, and help us promote a simple, real world example of sustainable farming!

We've been living off the grid for more than a decade. Part of our lifestyle is sharing our experiences, so that others may find some inspiration or information in their own projects.

Check out a list of our Homesteading How-To's:
http://velacreations.com/foodweb/howtos

helomech

I like your site. Never mind everything after this sentence I found what I was looking for, there is a button. I might be missing something though, it seems like your directions are incomplete, or I am not seeing a next button. Like the rabbit tanning, the directions stop at step 5, unless I am missing something. Looks like yall have it figured out though, hope to get there one day.

velacreations

helomech, if you look at the how-to, there are tabs at the top, right under the thumbnails. We divide the instructional stuff into tabs, according to the major steps.

So, for the fur tanning, the tabs are Tanning Solution, Adding Furs, etc. There isn't a next button, but maybe we need to add that...

helomech

I am not to bright, I finally figured it out though. Thanks great site

velacreations

yeah, I think a next button would be helpful, thanks for the suggestion.

Don't forget to check out the project: http://www.indiegogo.com/foodweb

Pass it on to your friends, if you can. Every little bit helps.

helomech

Will do

velacreations

More photos

We are moving forward with the Food Web model system. We have started construction on the barn's water. It is a 7,000 gallon rain catchment system. We've been experimenting with liner-tanks for large capacity water storage, and this one is coming out great.

The basic concept with these tanks is to make a support structure to hold a liner (animal safe or potable, depending on your needs). The structure has to be able to hold the liner in place, and resist the pressure of the water, especially at the base. The trick is to avoid making the tank very tall. A 4ft tall tank has only 1.8 psi at the base, no matter how wide the tank is. 1.8psi is not a lot of pressure, and can be held with a very basic frame, like wire mesh, plywood, or sheet metal.

In this version, we used wire mesh.

Here's some more details about the tank:
http://www.velacreations.com/blog/item/ ... -tank.html

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