Six working farms and one research orchard were selected as sites for observing the effects of domestic birds -- geese, ducks and chickens -- for controlling weed and insect pest. The six working farms were all small, diversified operations ranging from 5 to 120 acres. All but one (a 17 acre apple orchard) were part-time farming operation heavily dependent on off-farm income. Two were CSAs growing for a member population of 50-70 households.
The majority of farm production (vegetables, fruit, meat and/or grain) was sold locally, through co-ops and other small retail establishments, farmers markets, subscription arrangements or word of mouth. All the participating farmers believed in the 'rightness' of chemical-free farming and used no synthetic chemicals on their land or crops. Four of the farms were certified organic.
All the farmer-collaborators had been raising domestic birds already or were interested in integrating them into their farming system. Early discussions with each farmer established how he or she wanted to use the birds on the farm (e.g., weed, reduce labor, improve apple quality). Suggestions (and literature) were offered by the researchers, but farmers ultimately were free to design their own non-replicated, bird-use experiments. It was assumed that this would enable project ownership and a working partnership between researchers and farmers. This did not fully happen. In fact, a degree of polite confusion surrounded the role taken by researchers and the farmer's perceived need for 'real' scientific answers.
The experimental orchard was the site of on-going and replicated experiments on domestic bird, plant and pest interaction. The results of these trials were written up in numerous in-house and professional publications, shared with farmer collaborators and summarized in this report.