Green Options » oxen http://greenoptions.com/tag/oxen Posts tagged 'oxen' Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:09:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Green Mountain College Sets the Standard for Low-Carbon Farming http://sustainablog.org/2008/12/15/green-mountain-college-sets-the-standard-for-low-carbon-farming/ http://sustainablog.org/2008/12/15/green-mountain-college-sets-the-standard-for-low-carbon-farming/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:09:14 +0000 Jeff McIntire-Strasburg http://sustainablog.org/2008/12/15/green-mountain-college-sets-the-standard-for-low-carbon-farming/ Students farming with oxen at Green Mountain College in Vermont“He’s happy who, far away from business, like the races of men of old, tills his ancestral fields with his own oxen, unbound by any interest to pay.” – Horace

Modern agriculture is completely dependent on fossil fuels, from gasoline to run machinery and transport harvests to natural gas to produce chemical fertilizers. While numerous colleges and universities have introduced programs in organic and sustainable farming to their agricultural curriculum, few schools have gone as far as Vermont’s Green Mountain College in trying to lighten agriculture’s carbon footprint.

Organic fertilizers and biofuels in the tractors may be enough for some schools; GMC went a few steps further and introduced oxen into the College’s Cerridwen Farm operations this year.

Yes… oxen.

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