Apple Schram Orchard is a forty acre, OGM certified organic farm. Seventeen acres are in apple orchard, apples constituting the major source of farm income. Thirteen acres are in alfalfa and ten in woodlots, farm buildings, house and lawn. The farm is a full-time operation, owned and operated for the last ten years by a woman who has developed diverse marketing and value-added strategies for selling her produce. Table grade apples are distributed to food coops around the state. She contracts to have the majority of her apples processed into apple juice, sauce and butter under her own label; she sells throughout Michigan and to major organic distributors in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois. She has an on-farm cider press and a small country store where she sells cider and donuts for several months each fall. She and her partner have raised herbs in their heated greenhouse for local sale and wheat grass and alfalfa sprouts for a mail order business. In 1996, she purchased 100 laying hens and was instrumental in starting an egg coop with 10 area farmers. The coop now hand packs and markets 40 cases of eggs each week.
While she hires farm labor during critical times of the year (e.g. tree pruning, apple harvesting), she is herself personally involved in all aspects of the farm operation. For her, organic production methods and the humane treatment of animals together with locally-managed, small-scale farms and farm markets are critical dimensions of sustainability.
Initially, she was interested in using geese under her apple trees to manage weeds and fertilize the soil. However, her weekly distribution routes, the new egg coop, together with the demands of a university course in European agricultural marketing left no time for participation in the domestic bird research.