Jack Lazor was co-owner of Butterworks Farm in Westfield, VT, with his wife, Anne, and cofounder of the Northern Grain Grower’s Association. Jack grew organic grains in the mountains of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom from 1975 until his passing in 2020, both for human consumption and for feed for the family’s herd of Jersey cows. He is considered a leader in the movement for growing grains in cold climates, and was the recipient of many agricultural awards. Butterworks Farm grows corn, oats, barley, soybeans, legumes, alfalfa, and oilseeds, such as flax and sunflower. They also produce organic Jersey milk yogurt, buttermilk, sweet Jersey cream, cheddar cheese, and grain products.
Mother Earth News-
"The Organic Grain Grower is the best resource we’ve seen for
small-scale grain growers everywhere. The book covers necessary
equipment and cultivation techniques for many types of crops: corn,
wheat, barley, oats, rye, spelt and triticale, buckwheat, soy, dry
beans, and oilseeds. Lazor describes himself as 'a grain-processing
nut,' and his passion comes alive in this fine guidebook’s depth of
detail."
"Jack Lazor writes about grain growing with passion and experience.
With this wealth of background and insight, readers will want to do
it themselves, and with the lode of detailed information Jack
provides, they will be able to do so. Although his focus is on
medium-scale commercial production, many of the tips he shares are
applicable to the backyard grain-grower as well."--Will Bonsall,
Khadighar Farm; director, Scatterseed Project
ForeWord Reviews- "Longtime farming pioneer Jack Lazor has
progressed from a back-to-the-land idealist to the co-manager, with
his wife, of a profitable dairy and grain business, Butterworks
Farm in Westfield, Vermont. In The Organic Grain Grower, he
shares his considerable experience and expertise with new
generations of holistic home and market grain producers. Lazor’s
book starts with the history of grain production in his local
region; early settlers found that northern New England offered a
good climate for wheat, vital for animal fodder and bread making.
Today, “the rebirth of grain growing” is not just common sense, but
fun, Lazor enthusiastically reports. He takes readers through soil
fertility and tillage, to the crucial matter of storage (“mice …
have an uncanny ability to … burrow into bags that you can’t see
from the outside of the pile”), drying, screening, grinding, and
grading. He recommends equipment, including less expensive
“retired” machinery. Grains covered are corn, wheat, barley, oats,
rye, spelt, triticale, buckwheat, and flax, plus soybeans and other
legumes. The book is very well organized, including a large section
of clear, helpful photos. Though he is not averse to employing
newfangled machinery if it does the job well, Lazor takes pride in
using older farming equipment that is less complicated than modern
counterparts, and some examples of these are illustrated. The
Organic Grain Grower is more than 500 pages, with a colorful,
informative cover. Anyone seriously considering growing grain for
animal feed, human consumption, or sale will find value in this
manual. It would also be beneficial for those interested in any
aspect of organic farming, since the sound advice given for grains
could apply to any crop. The foreword by author Eliot Coleman (The
Winter Harvest Handbook) praises Lazor as the person “who inspired
the movement” back to the “small farm’s grain heritage.” Lazor is
as handy with a pen as with a plow, making even grain diseases
sound interesting (“there is nothing like a mid-June thunderstorm
to set up wheat plants for an invasion of … rust”). His flowing
style demonstrates both hard knowledge and old world graces, as he
modestly expresses the hope that the book “will help people avoid
some of the mistakes that I have made.” Another outstanding
offering from Chelsea Green Publishing, Lazor’s guide will
doubtless plant the seeds of inspiration among beginners and old
hands alike as they tackle the complexities of grain growing and
organic agriculture, and will do its part to propagate more general
interest in the subject."
“The Organic Grain Grower is quite possibly the most complete and
extensive text ever written on grain production in the Northeast.
Jack Lazor’s deep passion and knowledge creates an astounding
story, and he shares his wisdom and experience generously. If you
have ever wanted to grow grain, this is a book to own and
cherish.”--Dr. Heather Darby, University of Vermont Extension
Agronomist
“Jack writes from the top of a mountain—the mountain of his life.
His long years of experience are longer than his very beard, and
the wisdom and distillation of his farming life are written here
with clarity and graceful articulation. As he says in the book,
‘people are hungry for meaning as well as food.’ In this classic
book, Jack provides not only the meaning, but also the methods
required to succeed as a small-scale grower of organic
grains."--Jeffrey Hamelman, director, King Arthur Flour Bakery, and
author of Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes
"Given our industrial agriculture, most of us assume that grain can
only be grown in huge monocultures devoted to producing as much as
possible, unmindful of the quality. But in The Organic Grain
Grower, Jack Lazor provides us with a practical and attractive
alternative. As a farmer he has demonstrated that one can provide
an emerging market with a diversity of superior quality grains,
grown on a small scale, using heirloom varieties and modest
investment. This book is (as Eliot Coleman puts it) “like acquiring
hundreds of years of knowledge in one book.”--Frederick
Kirschenmann, author of Cultivating an Ecological Conscience
“I believe I can safely say, without losing any money, that if you
know of one fact truly necessary to growing grains organically in
the United States that is not in this book, I'll pay you five bucks
out of my own pocket. Plus there's a whole bunch of stuff about how
to process and use grains in the barn or on the table that I have
not found all in one place before.”--Gene Logsdon, author of
Small-Scale Grain Growing
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