In Scotts, Michigan, farmers at Tillers International, a nonprofit corporation with a penchant for animal-powered farming, use enormous draft horses or oxen to handle, pull and drive buggies, carriages and equipment.
Once a year, the farmers hold a class where interns and visiting guests can learn the power of draft-pulled plowing.
The driver communicates with the horse through line movements, no horseback riding here. Instead, to lead the draft, the farmer pulls leather straps connected to the harness in the direction he or she would like the horse to move.
The organization also gives classes for logging, blacksmith, woodworking, beekeeping and cheesemaking.
Founded in 1981, Tillers now sits proudly on a 430 acre-wide farm, reports the Detroit Free Press.
Despite the humble beginnings, the farm now has received international traction for its skills in teaching farming powered by animals. They've partnered up with organizations like the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Land O'Lakes International Food for Progress Program to teach the tricks of the trade.
And they have every intention of continuing internationally-in fact, Tillers has now participated in several farming programs in Africa and South America.
"I think it's a great way of farming for a small-scale farm and besides from being pleasant, it makes sense," said Cynthia Main, a Tillers intern. "It's actually a really viable option for small farmers."
Now, Tillers employees want to take this viable option and create widespread farming with it by bringing their techniques to farmers abroad; in fact, executive director Dick Roosenberg recently got back from a six-week long trip in which he trained hundreds of Ugandan farmers how to use draft power.
He, in turn, picked up some of their methods, which sparked an idea to make all these trade secrets widespread knowledge.
"We see what someone is doing in South Africa and move it to Uganda, or Madagascar to Haiti," Roosenberg said to the Free Press. "We're bouncing around the world as a catalyst."
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