August 13
BY ANNE BROCKHOFF
Kansas City Star 
While strolling through his farmyard on a recent summer afternoon, John
Craft pauses near the corral. His three Haflinger draft horses immediately reach
through the fence to nuzzle Craft’s shoulder, and he rubs their honey-colored
necks while making introductions.There’s Vi, a 15-year-old mare originally
trained for dressage (a competitive equestrian sport) who adapted readily to
fieldwork on Craft’s Willing Horse Farm east of Lawrence. Her son, Stretch, is 4
and recovering from an injury, so his 3-year-old sister, Vida, picked up more of
the workload this year.
Craft relies on these muscular animals to plow, manage and harvest his 31/2
acres of crops, but they’re clearly more than just a tractor replacement.
“Sometimes I tell people my growing vegetables is an excuse to work with my
horses,” says Craft, who is also a residential building contractor. “I found to
my surprise working with horses was a great source of joy.”
He’s not the only one. Farming with horses may seem quaint, but the
practice is enjoying a renaissance in the United States. Demand for well-trained
teams and modern horse-powered equipment is rising, as is attendance at industry
events.
Amish farmers who have long favored equines over engines account for part
of the growth, but draft horses are also gaining ground on small organic
operations, says Dale Stoltzfus, national secretary for Horse Progress Days
(HorseProgressDays.com), an annual equipment manufacturers’ showcase that will
be in Mount Hope, Ohio, in 2014.
“For those concerned with how they produce food and the impact their way of
farming has on the environment, horse farming really makes sense,” Stoltzfus
says. “More and more people are considering these things and are being drawn to
a new old way of farming.”
Horses were domesticated some 6,000 years ago and have since served as
warhorses in the Middle Ages, hauled freight and tilled fields in Europe and
provided transportation in colonial America. John Deere’s invention of the first
cast-steel plow, coupled with westward expansion after the Civil War, seemingly
solidified their role in agriculture.
By 1920, 26 million horses and mules were in use in the U.S., according to
Draft Horse Journal (DraftHorseJournal.com), but the advent of the tractor
quickly eroded their numbers. Engines eclipsed draft horses by the 1950s; there
are now just 1 million in the U.S., according to Stephen Leslie, author of “The
New Horse-Powered Farm” (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013).
Clydesdales are the most familiar, thanks to Budweiser’s commercials, but
farmers rely on breeds like Belgian, Shire, Percheron and Suffolk Punch as well.
Most stand between 5 and 6 feet at the shoulder and weigh 1,400-2,000 pounds.
There are also draft “ponies” such as the Haflinger and Norwegian Fjord that
reach almost 5 feet and 1,000 pounds.
That’s a lot of power, especially when it has a mind of its own.
“I used to tell people that I have no physical control over these animals,
and their jaws would just drop,” Klaus Karbaumer says with a chuckle. He
operates Karbaumer Farm near Platte City with his wife, Lee.
What Karbaumer does have is the absolute trust of his four draft horses — a
glossy black Percheron named Sam, two Belgians called Charlie and Norman, and
Gandhi, a sturdy Haflinger. Karbaumer understands the personalities, strengths
and weaknesses of each and how to work with them safely and efficiently.
“It’s all about communication,” Karbaumer says. “It’s about observing what
they do, knowing how they will react and what they might be doing in the next
moment, and how you communicate with them through the lines.”
Karbaumer has more than half a century of experience with draft horses. He
grew up in Germany in the 1950s, where neighbors taught him to drive a team and
where he later owned his own horse-powered farm in addition to teaching.
Karbaumer continued to farm and teach after immigrating to the Kansas City area
in 1991. He moved to Lee’s farm after the couple married in 2006.
Just more than two of their 17 acres are in vegetable production, while
much of the rest provides hay and pasture for their horses. The couple don’t own
a tractor, irrigate or buy fertilizer or chemicals. Instead, they use organic
methods to produce a succession of vegetables including collard greens, Swiss
chard, spinach, kale, beets, carrots, leeks, onions, potatoes, green beans,
zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, cowpeas, okra, sweet potatoes and winter
squash.
Marketable cover crops such as turnips, radishes and mustard greens enrich
the soil and out-compete weeds, and flowering plants like buckwheat and elephant
amaranth help support the farm’s five beehives. They also have ducks, and goats
control weeds and produce milk for drinking and cheese-making.
“Every animal on this farm has a job, down to the cat,” Lee Karbaumer
says.
The Karbaumers operate what they call the Karbaumer Farm Guild. Its 50
members pay a $12 service fee; in exchange, they receive weekly emails detailing
availability and prices and can pre-order produce, fruit from a nearby orchard
and vineyard, and eggs from the couple’s 300 free-range hens ahead of a weekly
market day. The farm market is also open to the public, and the Karbaumers
supply vegetables to Grunauer, Eden Alley, Local Pig and Green Acres
Market.
Karbaumer’s method is an intensive one, and he’s constantly plowing,
discing, harrowing or cultivating; planting or harvesting; logging (their home
is heated with wood); mowing hay; spreading composted manure on fields; or
giving hay rides. Tasks must be organized so the horses can work at a steady
pace but still get ample rest.
“Horses force you to be more considerate with yourself, and with them,”
Karbaumer says. “That’s one of the reasons why horse farming is different from
tractor farming.”
Another is that not only must a farmer master all that, his draft horses
must, too.
“These horses have to learn a lot of complex skills,” says Leslie, whose
book features the Karbaumers. “It takes time to do that. It’s not something you
can really expect to just jump into.”
Many of the inquiries Leslie receives come from novice farmers who also
lack equine experience. He encourages them to learn one skill at a time —
figuring out how to grow whatever they want to grow before adding horses to the
mix.
“The main take-away message in my book was don’t be a new horse farmer and
have young, new horses,” says Leslie, who has farmed for more than 20 years and
uses Norwegian Fjords to grow vegetables, flowers, fruit and cover crops at
Cedar Mountain Farm in Vermont. “That was my biggest mistake.”
But even the best-trained draft team still requires constant monitoring,
says Craft, who grew up riding horses on his family’s dairy operation but refers
to himself as an amateur teamster.
“You have to be present all the time. You can’t be off daydreaming,” Craft
says. “They need you to be alert.”
Craft grows everything from a variety of greens to sweet corn, tomatoes,
potatoes and sweet potatoes. He sells most of that at the Lawrence Farmers
Market and Cottin’s Hardware Farmers Market and through a CSA organized by
Lawrence resident England Porter. Craft also planted sweet sorghum for the first
time this season and restored a sorghum press with an eye toward processing his
own syrup.
Horses do all but the heaviest fieldwork. For that, Craft has a 1950s-era
Ford 600 series tractor. Still, he limits its use, partly because of
environmental concerns and partly because draft horses want and need to
work.
“You have to do things with them,” Craft says. “These guys get bored if you
don’t.”
When not in the field, Craft uses the trio to clean manure from their pen,
hitches them to a cart during warm weather or a sled in winter or saddles them
for a ride. It’s enjoyable, but also a lot of work.
Farming with horses is physically demanding, because you also have to
manually guide whatever equipment they’re hitched to. It takes extra time and
effort to harness the team at the start of the day and unhitch them at the end.
Horses have to be fed, watered and cared for year-round, and whatever grain or
hay isn’t produced on-site has to be purchased.
So why do it?
For one thing, horses are a green alternative to tractors, Leslie
says.
“Some people are considering farming as a vocation because they’re
concerned about the environment, climate change, the issue of food safety or the
preservation of soils,” Leslie says. “They see organic farming almost as a form
of social activism.”
Draft horses generate power and fertilizer without consuming fossil fuels
or compacting the soil as a tractor can. Plus, they’re especially well-suited to
small, diversified farms that rely on relationships between animals and plants,
Craft says.
“It’s the farm working as an integrated system instead of an input-output
model,” Craft says. Horses can also be more economical than buying a new tractor
and equipment. That certainly wasn’t an option for him, Craft admits.
But most of all, Craft and Karbaumer simply enjoy working with horses and
can’t imagine doing it any other way.
“This passionate love of horses is so powerful. People don’t understand it
if they don’t have it,” Karbaumer says. “I don’t think I could live without
horses. I wouldn’t want to.”
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