#171, In Practice, January/February 2017

Healthy Land. Healthy Food. Healthy Lives.

JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2017

In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International

NUMBER 171

W W W. H O L I S T I C M A N A G E M E N T. O R G

What Type of Agriculture Do You Support?

BY ANN ADAMS

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here’s been a lot of media attention lately on Regenerative Agriculture. The term Sustainable Agriculture is also being used, and there is the old standby, Conservation Agriculture. Each of these terms are attempting to describe a type of agriculture that conserves, sustains, or regenerates the land, plants, and animals.

It is nice to know that people are making the shift from “Let’s not just sustain or conserve what we have, but actually regenerate it.” After all, if we’ve spent 50+ years degrading the soil and the resources that depend on it, it’s a little late in the game to just work on conserving what’s left.

Granted, it’s a step in the right direction if the rest of your neighbors are busy continuing to mine the soil with their farming or ranching practices.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) defines conservation agriculture as “an approach to managing agroecosystems for improved and sustained productivity, increased profits and food security while preserving and enhancing the resource base and the environment.” That sounds a lot like regenerative agriculture to me. Ultimately, the title of the agriculture system is not as important as the outcome or results of that system. We know we need to improve soil fertility, profitability, health, diversity, and quality of life as key outcomes.

At HMI, we teach Holistic Management because we believe that this decision-making and adaptive management process is the best way to help agricultural producers learn how to actually manage their agricultural businesses in such a way that they will help not only regenerate the land, animals, and plants, but also help make those businesses financially

Global Regenerative Agriculture INSIDE THIS ISSUE Around the world, Holistic Management is on the leading edge of agricultural practices that regenerate land and communities.

On page 7 read about the efforts of Conservation Agriculture Namibia to educate the villagers in northern communal lands in Namibia about good livestock and grazing practices to help them feed their communities and develop livestock businesses for economic development.

viable and regenerate the communities that depend on those businesses for food, fiber, and ecosystem services (i.e., carbon sequestration, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, water quality, etc.).

Holistic Management helps people do this because we are constantly aware of our relationship in nature. As humans and agriculturalists we are dependent on and a part of the natural ecosystem processes. The better we understand those processes and work with them, partnering with them, the more all species will benefit and the higher our food quality will be.

With more people making a living on these working landscapes, the more opportunity there will be to keep these spaces open and productive for all.

The idea of regenerative agriculture has excited the imagination of thousands of people around the world, not just agricultural producers. It reminds us that we are all part of a healthy, whole food system that truly feeds us all whether we are humans, plants, or animals. Whether we are raising cattle in Namibia, goats in California, pastured chickens in Canada, or milk in the United Kingdom, we must work with people, plants, soil, and animals for the benefit of all. How and where we choose to buy the food we don’t grow ourselves helps to support that holistic food system even more.

None of us are perfect and the world is a complex place with the consequences of our decisions often far removed from our day to day life.

Having a decision-making process that helps us stay focused on the decisions that move us toward our holistic goal can be a particularly critical key for each of us to do what we can to participate in a regenerative agriculture that feeds us all.

Rapid Global Change for Regenerative Agriculture and Forests BY JEFF GOEBEL

Healthy Land. Healthy Food. Healthy Lives.

In Practice a publication of Hollistic Management International

HMI educates people in regenerative agriculture for healthy land and thriving communities.

STAFF Ann Adams. . . . . . . . . . . . Executive Director Kelly Curtis. . . . . . . . . . . . Finance and Operations Director Jennifer Klass . . . . . . . . . Development Director Kathy Harris. . . . . . . . . . . Program Director Peggy Cole. . . . . . . . . . . . Program Manager, Texas Mary Girsch-Bock. . . . . . Development Manager Carrie Stearns . . . . . . . . . Communications &

Outreach Manager Valerie Grubbs. . . . . . . . . Accounting Manager Julie Fierro. . . . . . . . . . . . Education Manager Stephanie Von Ancken . . Programs / Office

Assistant

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he issue of accelerating the practice of conservation is something I have pondered since I was a young man working for the USDA Soil Conservation Service.

One of my clients, the late Bill McGregor, had gone to the Savory Grazing Method School in 1982 and was practicing Holistic Management as best as he understood. Bill, and a few other ranchers who attended Allan’s school, were my early teachers about holistic decision-making until I was selected by the [Savory] Center for Holistic Management to be one of six educators to learn, then teach, Holistic Management in 1985.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Daniel Nuckols, Chair Walter Lynn, Vice-Chair Kelly Sidoryk, Past Board Chair Gerardo Bezanilla Kirrily Blomfield Kevin Boyer Lee Dueringer Guy Glosson Wayne Knight Robert Potts Jim Shelton Sarah Williford

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT In Practice (ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by: Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: hmi@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2017 Holistic Management® is a registered trademark of Holistic Management International

FEATURE STORIES Rapid Global Change for Regenerative Agriculture and Forests

JEFF GOEBEL.............................................................................. 2

Smiling Tree Farm— Growing Milk, Meat, and Soil in the United Kingdom

Photo Credit: Marius Strom

Example of muddy run off from Palouse Falls, Washington

On one particular visit to Bill’s ranch, we were standing at a viewpoint on his ranch overlooking Palouse Falls. The river drained the loess-rich farmlands of the Palouse Country.

The river was flowing strong and was full of that rich loess. It seemed so thick with mud that I could imagine running a tractor and plow across the river, leaving the marks of furrows as the river flowed over the falls.

At the same time, the Agency, which is now known as the Natural Resource Conservation Service, was celebrating 50 years of business; and I remember thinking that after 50 years of investment into conservation, was this the best we could do? By 2010, the national investment into conservation had amounted to $295 billion.

Conservation Agriculture Namibia— A Holistic Approach to Conservation Agriculture and Rangeland Management

ANN ADAMS................................................................................. 7

LAND & LIVESTOCK

ANN ADAMS................................................................................. 3

Kingsclere Estates— Achieving Conservation Agriculture through Holistic Management

US Wellness Meats— Growing a Grassfed Beef Business

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How to Restore Healthy Carbon Cycles

Climate change is threatening the fragile ecosystem on which human life —and all living species —depends. Food systems, water supplies and biodiversity are at risk. To prevent catastrophic change we must rapidly reduce carbon dioxide in the air and restore healthy carbon cycles.

But with so many problems in the world and slow adoption of conservation methods, how do we approach this monumental task before things get worse?

International efforts are mainly focused on developing clean energy sources, green transportation, and alternative technologies.

These approaches are critical and should continue.

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Hoven Farm— The Multiple Benefits of a Holistically Managed Farm

ANN ADAMS................................................................................. 5

So, what is going on? Why are we still seeing such ecological and economic deterioration of our communities and earth?

After many years of incredibly rich experiences working with land stewards around the world, I began to become clear on the root cause of the issue of societal change, and using Peter Senge’s thinking in his book, The Fifth Discipline, I realized the “limits to growth” was in the human brain —a psycho-sociological problem; I realized that all ecological problems for humans are caused by humans.

As a result, and nudged by a $100 million grant opportunity by the MacArthur Foundation and a wonderful team of people, we put together a concept to potentially foster rapid global change at the grassroots level. The following framework is what we have organized. Perhaps you will find this of value in terms of your own thinking about resolving our global and local issues, and perhaps, consider joining us in making a big difference, fast!

HEATHER SMITH THOMAS......................................................... 8

HEATHER SMITH THOMAS....................................................... 11

January / February 2017

Star Creek Land Stewards— The Benefits of Public Grazing

HEATHER SMITH THOMAS.......................................................14

NEWS & NETWORK Grapevine................................................................ 17 Program Round Up.................................................. 18 Certified Educators.................................................. 20 Marketplace............................................................. 21 Development Corner............................................... 24

Smiling Tree Farm—

Growing Milk, Meat, and Soil in the United Kingdom

BY ANN ADAMS

C

hristine Page was always a health nut and nature lover. She cooked and ran a restaurant in her earlier years and saw food as medicine from a young age. But in 2006 she took that commitment of health and food to a whole different level. She bought a farm in the rolling hills of Shropshire, far from the madding crowds. Her goal was to grow her own food and provide some extra for her friends and family. Her focus for this farm in turn included integrating organic and Holistic Management practices with Permaculture to create a healthy, beautiful landscape that supports her, the wildlife, and the rare breed animals she is raising.

When Christine first moved to the farm she had purchased 13 acres. She hadn’t really intended to sell a lot of produce. She didn’t have a business plan. But having studied nutrition since her daughter was born in 1996, she realized that she wanted to raise a better kind of food. So her farm efforts began.

Growing a Business

The Shetland ewes on the farm are great mothers and easy to manage on this grass-based system.

From those humble beginnings of working more animals will help cover the cost of the milk to feed herself and her family, Christine has tests, as that cost is the same no matter the found that many people are seeking the kind of number of cows I milk. We make our own hay, food she produces and she’s having to use her with the help of a local contractor, but as the entrepreneurial skills and Holistic Management cows are grazing year round and are not fed any training to take the farm to the next level. “In concentrates, their feed costs are very low.” the beginning my farm sales entailed people ”The dairy cows are milked just once a day coming to pick up their milk from a fridge I had and keep their calves at foot. Consequently, on the porch, and they’d put their money in an their milk is rich and creamy and appeals to the honesty box. They could ethical consumer. So I can also purchase some of charge a premium that the frozen meat out of the reflects both the quality freezer. As I’m scaling up of the milk and the quality now, I’m building a proper of life for the animals. farm store.”

There really isn’t anywhere Christine’s main else they can buy it. My enterprise is her microolder customers tell me it dairy that she runs with takes them back to their her 5 Jerseys. “I get childhood because they £1,500–2,000 from each haven’t been able to have cow from the milk she milk like this for 60–70 produces each year as well years. Even though I live as her calf (weaned at 4–6 in the middle of nowhere, months),” says Christine.

I have people driving 3–4 “That’s a good return for a hours to get their monthly micro-dairy like mine. The order of 30 liters which I Christine Page biggest cost is the regular have frozen for them.” milk tests that are a legal requirement to sell Christine also runs 25 heritage breed raw milk. I am increasing my herd to meet the Traditional Herefords for her beef sales. growing demand for grass-fed raw milk. And She sells these direct market as well to the

conscious consumer. She has them slaughtered locally, dry-ages them for 21–28 days and then has them butchered and packed on the farm.

Beef is sold fresh 5 or 6 times a year in beef boxes. She also sells value-added products like burgers, mince, and braising steaks in her farm store.

Christine also has 20 Shetland ewes who give her 34–36 lambs/year. They pay their own way as they are excellent mothers (she’s never had to pull a lamb) and they are hardy and super easy. “They are small at 84 pounds (38 kg), but the meat is super sweet and delicious,” says Christine. “Usually half of the lambs are ewes and I sell them to people wanting starter flocks so I only have the male lambs left over for meat sales. The ewes are really for helping the grazing program and for my own meat consumption so it is not an enterprise I intend to grow commercially. The Herefords and Jerseys are my main focus on that front.”

Christine also has two rare-breed sows, but she is clear that this enterprise is really more for her. Like the sheep, the pigs pay for themselves and give her the pork she wants. Having clarity about which enterprises are commercial versus for her own use is critical for this one-woman farm. It allows her to focus on the critical issues of making a good living from what she does CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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Growing Milk, Meat, and Soil in the United Kingdom CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

grow and improve land health and resilience through her management practices.

Taking the Next Step

Christine notes that her quality of life while running the farm has been greatly improved by her Holistic Management training. “I learned about Holistic Management through the PastureFed Livestock Association that is connected with the American Grassfed Association. When Kirk Gadzia came over to teach a class in 2014, I was ready to learn how to practice.

“With Holistic Management, the animals are

Jersey cattle are the main stay of Christine’s micro-dairy. She spends much of her marketing time helping people understand that the food they support has a great effect on the landscape. With her product, her customers can have healthy nutrient-dense food while helping her to improve the landscape and sequester more carbon. a joy to manage,” says Christine. “Once you have your infrastructure figured out, it’s easy to take care of the animals. I might spend a total of 3 hours a day milking and taking care of all the animals. The challenge is taking care of all the people requests that are a part of direct marketing all this product as well as the time spent sharing my knowledge with others and spreading the word. The animals aren’t hard work at all.”

Christine also began noticing changes on the land as she improved her grazing practices.

“I noticed after I changed my grazing practices how much more resilient the grass is,” says Christine. “I look at the neighbor’s soil and think about how this land was when I first bought it. I learned it is incredibly easy to destroy soil. But, with Holistic Management I also learned that you can rebuild that soil. My land now responds well to grazing pressure and it absorbs the heavy rains well. I haven’t had the runoff I had in the past, and the grass is greener and taller.

“My neighbors set-stock like most people do 4 IN PRACTICE

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around here. That was the case of the additional 50 acres I acquired two years ago. It was bitten down and had always looked poor. But now that I’m using holistic planned grazing, I’ve seen the land and grass really bounce back with how the Herefords are grazing it. The grass is now knee high and we are grazing the mature grass and getting good response from both the Herefords and the Jerseys. People say you can’t get good production for dairy animals if you are grazing tall grass. But that’s just not true. My 5 Jerseys are giving me 8 liters of milk/day with once a day milking and raising their own calf. And with such a quality product, my customers are willing to pay £2.5/liter for that milk.

“I was on the path of improving my grazing, but the Holistic Management course with Kirk gave me a big boot up the path. I had gone from conventional grazing to partitioning the field, allowing for longer rotations. Then I gradually began making the paddocks smaller. I put in permanent electric fencing and created an alley so I could deal with my once a day milking as part of the grazing plan. I had to sort out the water system and then I move the animals in the evening. Every 2–3 days I move them and that works well. I want to let them have that first bite then move them. I run the sheep, beef, and dairy separately, using temporary electric to further subdivide paddocks.

“I need to keep the beef and dairy separate because of the concern of bovine TB. I use a river that runs through the property as a divider.

The sheep are used to clean up graze and are swapped with the Jersey cows once they have knocked the pastures down. After they graze, the paddocks get 40–90 days recovery. Grazing this tall grass with cows works. I haven’t had a vet bill since I started holistic planned grazing — not even with the dairy cows. And I haven’t had any feet problems with the sheep or cattle.”

As part of Christine’s holistic goal, she has worked to create a beautiful and resilient landscape. Besides improved grazing pastures, she is working to improve her wildlife habitat and pollinator habitat through wildflower meadows.

“The wildflower meadows are really the hay fields,” says Christine. “If I get too much fertility

January / February 2017

Christine gets £1,500 –2,000 from each cow from the milk she direct markets at £2.5/liter. from the animals, I find that the wildflowers don’t grow as well. If I hay the fields (I use a contractor), I get better mixes of plants. I will occasionally reseed a field and I will add wildflower seed in because beauty is part of my holistic goal as well as food for the pollinators.

Working on my holistic goal helped me create the values and visions for this farm, which included a lot more than just making a profit.

That goal setting process makes you go back to square one and think about what you enjoy and why certain values are so important.”

Besides her Holistic Management and Permaculture training, Christine has also learned about soils from Elaine Ingham. All of this education and learning has been exciting and rewarding for her as she builds her farm and realizes the dreams she had when she was younger —to be actively involved in offering others the nutritious food she has known is good for everyone. “I really see myself as a soil farmer and food is the byproduct of that effort,” says Christine. “The milk and meat I can grow and sell are the icing on the cake.”

You can learn more about Christine and her farm at: www.smilingtreefarm.com.

As Christine has implemented holistic planned grazing, she has seen her landscape become more resilient.

Kingsclere Estates—

Achieving Conservation Agriculture through Holistic Management

BY ANN ADAMS

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im May is the Managing Director for Kingsclere Estates, a 2,500acre (1,000-ha) farming business in Hampshire, United Kingdom. He works with his father, a tractor driver, one selfemployed shepherd and two builders. In this 30-inch (750-mm) rainfall/year climate, the farm has a focus on conservation agriculture as Tim and his father work to grow commodity grains including yields of 7.8 tons/ha of wheat, 6.5 tons/ha of barley, 2.5 tons/ha of beans.

They sell their grain for feed and human consumption, and they also raise grassfed lamb, averaging 155% birthing rates. They are averaging about 2,200 homebred lambs and they also buy in lamb and contract graze cattle.

Another key source of income is renting out buildings on the farm. To increase revenue they want to get into direct marketing their lamb.

The goal of the farm is to not only be profitable but increase the resiliency of the land and the business.

was lifeless and the organic matter was low. We weren’t farming correctly; we were fighting nature and not looking at underlying causes.

Holistic Management helped us make Tim has shifted from growing only barley and wheat to a number of a shift to begin different grains and crops that can be used as fodder or cash crops, to address those reducing his dependence on chemicals and his risk. underlying causes sustainably.”

Tim first learned about Holistic Management expenses. In time the investments should when he came across Holistic Management: result in more profits. We’re looking at things to A New Framework for Decision-Making when always address the root cause. Right now we he was researching for his work on the Nuffield are seeing the soil structure and color of the soil Scholarship he was awarded in 2012. He felt improving,” says Tim. like what was articulated in the book had a Tim currently has 1,400 ewes weighing on lot of common ground with his thoughts on average 164 lbs (75 kg). From those ewes he conservation agriculture. gets 2,200 lambs. The cattle follow the sheep So when Kirk Gadzia taught a Holistic so he can have the fattening grass for the lambs Management course in the United Kingdom in to gain weight. He averages a 20-acre (8-ha) Building on Stewardship 2014, Tim took both the basic and advanced paddock for this herds, letting them graze for The key conservation practices that Tim has courses. “What got me really excited was 3–4 days. He works to provide a 30–55 day been utilizing on his croplands is to direct drill the decision-making matrix,” says Tim. “The recovery period during the growing season and seed and work on minimum tillage in an effort potential for this process was really amazing.

100 days during the winter. In the past he had a to build soil and reduce cost as well as reduce Planning for agriculture is so complex, you need 21–35 day recovery and didn’t have much winter their reliance on chemical inputs. “We perceive something to get it all down and do it right. I grazing available. ourselves as stewards of the land, so that is also loved the planning for profit section of the At this point Tim is not concerned as why we were attracted to Holistic Management,” financial planning. In fact we aren’t using profit/ much about pushing stock density and grass says Tim. “We started learning about Holistic loss statements anymore for our planning. We production and is okay with letting excess grass Management in 2012 because we found the have converted back to cash flow reports. That return into the soil. He says he’d rather feed arable land was difficult to maintain. The soil way I can guarantee what I’ve got, then take the land and invest in soil health then push out the profit and wealth production at this point. He figures that the generating investments, land has had a lot of chemicals and tillage and and then inescapable he needs to earn the right to push the land. expenses. We just do it bit “There’s so more learning to do, before I do by bit. I’ve got my holistic that,” says Tim. goal and I keep on doing more study.”

Changing Management Practices The result from this Tim’s made a lot of changes on the farm change has been that since he began researching and learning there is the same financial new management practices in 2012 during profit, but he has more his Nuffield scholarship work. In particular, he grass to help build the realized having the important management resilience in the system. conversations were first on his list. “We’ve “We are doing more worked on the hardest step first,” says Tim. “We investing in the land right needed to make some management changes.

By partnering with a local producer, Tim has been able to add yet now so we don’t have These social issues take time and so I sought another species to graze on Kingsclere, while still being able to more profit, but we are mentorship. I’m a 4th generation farmer and I focus on the critical enterprises for his farm.

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Achieving Conservation Agriculture through Holistic Management

“This is an incredibly scary scale of risk,” says Tim. “That alone made me question this way of CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 farming. So we began talking with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight studied and got my agriculture degree. But what Wildlife Trust because of the effect of I still needed to learn was that the cheapest all those chemicals on biodiversity. and most resilient way to capture solar energy They began to do some surveys is through a green leaf. I had to invest in soil and monitoring starting in 2013. health by maximizing green over. Right now half One of the big things they noticed of the farm is in herb/clover mix. Our efforts to was the amount of earthworms in integrate livestock into the whole farming system the grasslands versus the arable is unique to this area. All our neighbors keep all lands. In 20 cm³ the arable land only With holistic planned grazing, Tim has shifted his recovery their land arable.” had 10 earthworms compared to 40 periods from 21-31 days to 30-55 days (with 100 days in The push for moving from an arable focus earthworms in the grassland. We the winter) to improve forage quality and production. entirely to a combination of cropland and also found red clover nodules in the pasture may seem unusual to Tim’s neighbors, grasslands at four feet (12 meters) mycorrhizal fungi.” but that critical decision was part of working so even the clover was able to penetrate in Tim’s longer term vision for Kingsclere toward Pitt Hill Farm’s holistic goal. As Tim the worst areas.” This is the kind of resilience Estates is to have more partners and less became clearer where the farm needed to Tim knows is necessary for truly sustainable employees, having people start their own head, he develop “The Five Golden Rules of agriculture that is profitable and resilient. enterprises. For example, he’s currently Kingsclere Estates.” They are: “As I began to better understand Holistic partnering with a young fellow who has created 1) Choose to support local businesses Management, I thought about other ways to an egg layer enterprise. Tim also wants to 2) Know that quality products lead to improve the soil health and reduce my risks,” develop a dairy again. He wants to do a mobile greater profits says Tim. “I began to use my winter cereal milking parlor and feels like the potential is there 3) Be proud of what we do, how we do it, crop as a fodder crop. In the past, if I wanted to build a profile, and tell and sell the story and and where we do it to use my winter cereal crop as a cash crop, I then scale the operation. He could also do more 4) We will do good to all our people would have to put on slug pellets, pre-emergent direct marking of his lamb to gain more profit on 5) We know there is abundance of herbicide, growth regulator, and fungicide that enterprise as well. opportunity within this land holding among other things. Now, the livestock can Shifting some of the land to livestock has Those rules are evident in many of the use it as fodder and it still can grow as a cash had its challenges for Tim as a UK farmer. management decisions being implemented crop after that. I can put 1,500 lambs on a “Subsidies favor large areas of land rather than 125-acre (50-ha) field livestock,” he says. But as he has utilized the for four weeks. Then holistic decision-making process, he has learned in early spring if there to think outside the box and determine whether are no weeds, I remove good farming practices can outweigh the lambs, and let the government subsidies. “Holistic Management is crop recover and I can so powerful,” says Tim. “It’s fantastic. It frees up harvest it. In this way your time so you know what you need to focus I get a return on my on.” Right now for Tim that focus is continuing to efforts a lot more quickly develop the opportunities for conservation and reduce my risk. agriculture while improving the quality of life for I also have a lot less his family and the community that the chemicals going into farm influences. the soil.

“The other great thing about Holistic Management is it helped Tim is raising about 1,400 ewes and averaging about a 155% birthrate me make farming for his grassfed lambs. decisions in the context of my quality of life. One today on the farm. In particular, there have of the things I realized was that I wanted to free been many changes in the cropping practices up some time in the summer so I could be with to reduce reliance on chemicals and increase my family during the summer holidays. Normally soil function. Currently the crop rotation is a we would be combining all of August. So instead By working towards putting half of the arable four-year rotation that still requires 10 cycles of wheat we are growing barley in the spring land into a clover/herbaceous mix, Tim has of spraying and fertilizing. The farm has to pay and winter as it is more suited to grazing. We been able to increase the soil fertility and £30,000 per month for the various chemicals have found that modern wheat is not suited to resilience of Kingsclere. and fertilizers during a 3–4 month period. this type of farming and the barley has more 6 IN PRACTICE

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Conservation Agriculture Namibia—

A Holistic Approach to Conservation Agriculture and Rangeland Management

BY ANN ADAMS

C

onservation Agriculture Namibia (CAN) is a Namibian nongovernmental organization (NGO) that was formed for the purpose of increasing agricultural production in Namibia.

Director Colin Nott is also an HMI Certified Educator and has been working in the field of conservation agriculture for years as part of his efforts to improve rangeland and communal land health.

The key focus of the Rangeland and Marketing Development Support Project that has been funded by the European Union and the Meatco Foundation is to increase the awareness and active involvement of key stakeholders at the local, regional and national levels in climate change adaptation strategies related to rangeland, livestock, marketing and cropping.

More specifically, the goals of that program 1) To improve the awareness and active involvement of key stakeholders at the local, regional and national levels in climate change adaptation strategies related to rangeland, livestock, marketing and cropping.

2) To support locally established organizations to develop regionally appropriate responses to improve uptake of increased production of fodder, improved herd productivity as well as increased sales of livestock.

3) To improve the whole chain of production of livestock farmers in selected sites in the Northern Communal Areas.

4) To address key issues affecting the sustainability of the rangeland and livestock sectors.

So far CAN has been able to increase its efforts and is now operational in seven Northern Communal Areas in Namibia (Kunene, Omusati, Oshana, Oshikoto, Ohangwena and Kavango East and West) with a focus on climate change adaptation strategies in the livestock and cropping sector. They work in 33 Grazing Areas (GAs) in these seven regions where they are piloting improved rangeland and improved crop production as well as starting to facilitate the development of local level land use plans.

Already almost 35,000 acres have been directly influenced to date from within these grazing areas and some of the specific activities and topics have included: teaching herder roles and responsibilities; explaining qualities,

benefits, challenges, animal health of lowstress animal handling; adjusting livestock numbers to the available fodder; explaining livestock marketing /off-take; developing solutions to the issue of neighbouring villages invading/disturbing rangeland management practices in participating grazing areas; livestock kraaled at high density in rangeland at nights; and exploring rip furrowing on cropland and analyzing the benefit to the soil.

The major challenges that confront the Grazing planning for over 35,000 acres have already program are: 1) drought, 2) grass poaching, begun within 7 communal areas and over 300,000 with no recourse, 3) limited grazing areas acres have been influenced by the project overall. due to fencing issues, and 4) no legal framework to apply grazing plan. in capacity building as well as climate change With the outbreak of Foot and Mouth adaptation strategies. These institutions are Disease there has also been much effort to being supported to provide extension services create awareness about this disease including as well as to establish smart businesses that will disseminating key guidelines in posters which enable sustainable operations and support. were developed in conjunction with meetings to Because CAN is fully functional in the explain those key concepts more thoroughly as seven target regions it has become well-known well as the impact this disease is having in the and accepted by various local government, region. Lastly, the program staff also created a regional government and line ministries in video for disseminating this information. these areas. CAN’s approach is in response The third component of this program is to issues identified at the grassroots level. focused on cropping and is titled Namibia It will provide co-operative support including Specific Conservation Agriculture. It focuses general business training and the development on getting farmers who own crop land and of business partnerships to leverage money in are members of the grazing areas where the communal land.

Recently CAN has asked for help from HMI to support the training and capacity building of CAN staff and key implementing partners such as the NNFU and MAWF, as well as farmers and key stakeholders in the Northern communal areas —including traditional authorities, and regional government structures —in Holistic Management. HMI’s collaboration will enable more targeted and specific training to be delivered to these various stakeholders as well as to enable better institutional planning and delivery of services and technical support.

Conservation agriculture includes using a The focus of this part of the program will be subsoiler to allow for more water infiltration in on improved decision-making, visioning and crop areas as well as using animal manures to planning to achieve improved quality of life of increase fertility. residents through successful natural, human, livestock project is happening who are willing to and financial resource management. As Colin be trained in and follow good cropping principles has noted: “The restoration of Namibian and practices. rangelands will help alleviate the poverty of Implementation of programming is done vulnerable communities in Namibia.” With largely through Regional Livestock Marketing holistic decision-making, financial planning, and Co-operatives that CAN helps develop. CAN grazing planning as critical pieces of this works in close partnership with the Namibia program, HMI is helping to support capacity National Farmers Union (NNFU) and Ministry building for the success of this critical of Agricultural, Water and Forestry (MAWF) regenerative agricultural program for Namibia.

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LIVESTOCK Hoven Farm—

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The Multiple Benefits of a Holistically Managed Farm

knowledge into a better model not only for me (the farmer) but also for my customers,” he says.

Moving Toward Smaller Framed Cattle

There have been cattle on the Hoven farm since 1910. “We live on the western edge of civilization. If you go 30 miles to the west you hit im Hoven’s farm has been in his family for several generations, mountains and bush all the way to the Pacific Ocean. We have good land, since 1910 and is located near Eckville, in central Alberta — but it’s not great for grain. There is a lot of lowland, and muskeg in certain about 30 miles (50 km) west of Red Deer (about halfway areas. Out of our 2,000 acres, there may be only about 400 to 500 acres between Edmonton and Calgary). “My great-great-grandfather that might be considered good for grain production. Grazing is the best came to Alberta from a town called Hoven, South Dakota. He had been use for most of our place,” says Tim. a hotel owner, until his wife died. Then he came north with 3 of his sons “I don’t know what kind of cattle my great grandfather and grandfather when he was 58 years old, to homestead. Then he married a 32-year-old had, but our herd now is primarily Angus-cross cows. We have a mix of woman and had 3 more children,” says Tim. genetics, with Hereford and some Black Welch. I had a couple of Black “I’ve been managing the farm since 1998, but my parents originally Welch bulls for a few years and now I am trying a couple Galloway bulls — became involved with Holistic trying to get some hardier genetics Management in the late 1980s. into the mix. We want to keep a They took a course with Don smaller-framed animal, and I prefer Campbell and Noel McNaughton. black just for the simple reason It was about 1990 when they really that black cattle can stay warm started implementing Holistic easier in cold weather than lighter Management on the farm. At that colored cattle. point they didn’t do any more “We are trying to slowly grain farming and went to strictly improve the genetics. I recently grass farming.” read Johann Zietsman’s book Tim came back to the farm in and it was very inspiring to me. I 1997. “At that time my wife Lori and knew from the earlier courses I’ve I made the decision to go certified taken, and having seen what my organic. We had started direct parents had done in the past, why marketing our product and people a smaller-framed animal makes were always asking us if we were more sense than a large one, certified organic. We investigated but the way Johann walks the to find out what was involved and reader through it in his book and The Hoven family. Back row from left to right: Therese, Liam, Tim, Loridiscovered that we were already explains it, and shows the math anne, Joseph, and Aiden. Front row: Dominic, Monica, Mathias, organic, except for the paperwork. and science behind it, I found that and Francis.

It wasn’t any difference at all to very inspiring.” become certified. After that we started heavier into direct marketing our The cattle are moved daily on the Hoven farm. “We run two herds. beef,” he says.

The cows and calves are one herd and the other group is what I call At one point the family had a butcher shop in Calgary, with 3 full-time the fattening herd—the animals we are finishing on grass for our direct employees and 4 part-time employees. “After 15 years of driving back and marketing. We also sell some of those animals to other farmers in the forth to Calgary, I was just about burned out. I was burning the candle on province who direct market organic grassfed beef, so we actually have two both ends, and maybe the whole candle was on fire! So we sold that side markets now,” he says. All the calves are grown out for beef. of the business and I was able to focus on the farm again,” says Tim. “We usually finish them at about 24 to 28 months. The challenge we “That was a real blessing. This allowed me to recharge my emotional have here are the cold winters. It’s hard to put much gain and fat on them batteries. Now we are looking at getting back into direct marketing, during the winter on grass and harvested forages. We have tried using utilizing what I learned and experienced, and trying to incorporate that good second-cutting alfalfa, but if we get a stretch of −4 degrees F (−20 C)

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weather for a week or two, it’s like the animals’ metabolism changes and they just can’t put on more weight, even after it warms up,” says Tim. They need something besides alfalfa to generate body heat and gain weight during cold.

So the cattle are finished a bit later on the good spring grass. “During the winter they might not be putting on any fat but their frame is growing.

Once they hit the green grass they just boom and bloom,” he explains.

Connecting Good Food with Good Health

As Tim moves back into direct marketing again, he is trying to make it easier for the customer. “I am trying to use the internet to connect with our customers. After doing direct marketing for 20 years, I can really see how customer perception of organic food and organic beef has changed over the years. When I started selling organic beef I was literally laughed at because people could not believe anyone would want to grow or eat organic beef,” says Tim. “Now with people being more concerned about their health and their children’s health, more people are seeking out these products. Now the challenge, for me, is doing the direct marketing in such a way that it is convenient, quick and easy for the customer. People today are used to buying through Amazon where they simply click a button online; it charges your credit card and the product miraculously shows up on your doorstep two days later,” he says.

“The way we used to do it, selling wholes and halves of beef, people placed an order and then had to wait anywhere between 3 weeks to 2 months to get their meat. I don’t think that’s acceptable anymore, in the 21st century. We are trying to work with our processor using internet tools to try to copy Amazon and get people to order online —and then very quickly, within a couple days, the meat shows up on their doorstep.”

Many people in the city have a choice of time or money, and generally think they have more money than time. They don’t want to have to wait, for something they want. “Ease of purchase is also very important. It only takes one barrier to have someone not go through with a sale. They’ll go through 5 steps and then realize they have to wait 4 weeks so they decide not to buy. If I can eliminate that step, it puts my farm in a class all by itself in terms of marketing and distribution,” Tim says. People are more apt to buy this product.

The Hovens use balegrazing in the winter to spread nutrients and keep costs down.

“We are also selling chickens this year, and a few pigs. The big project we are most excited about this summer, however, is an organic vegetable garden. Our son is home from college so this will be his project. We will be

attending two markets, focusing on selling the vegetables there, but also connecting with people to sell the beef —since primarily we are a grass ranch,” he explains. Interest in one product can help open doors for the others.

“For the vegetable marketing we are trying to do a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) and will be attending two local farmers markets that are closer to home.

When we had the butcher shop in Calgary it was more High density grazing has improved plant than a two-hour production and soil fertility and reduced weeds. drive for me twice a week. After 15 years that became a little too difficult. So we are trying now to focus on local markets in a city and a town close to us. Now my children are older, too, and we have a few who are very excited about being involved with the marketing and being at the market,” he says.

Benefits of Holistic Management

“There are three aspects to the way we utilize Holistic Management,” says Tim. “Number one is our holistic goal, and this has been such a blessing for me and my wife. We are always asking what do we want for our lives, what do want from this farm, what we can we do to maximize the joy we have on this planet? When things come up or there’s a decision to be made, we ask if we should test that decision. Quite often we don’t even need to test it because we know what the answer will be,” he says.

“I use the grazing planning every day. We try to maximize the regrowth period. We have a nasty little weed here called tall buttercup and if your recovery period is too short, this weed will come in and take over the field.

But if you give it enough recovery time, the grass will outcompete and tall buttercup won’t become a problem. We had fenced off all our creek banks many years earlier, but we still used to graze fairly close to our creek banks. It was then that we ran into this problem with tall buttercup. So we actually moved the fences farther away and moved the animals out, and within a couple of years the weed disappeared. The grass choked it out.

Now we do graze those creek areas, but only now and then. We keep them as reserve pastures so now they might get grazed only once every 2 or 3 years.

“We don’t use any chemical weed control on our farm. By increasing our stock density and our recovery periods it appears that we have just as effective weed control as the people who spray. We are using and managing Nature the way Nature wants to be managed —and a lot of the man-made problems disappear,” says Tim. It can be hard for many people to understand this, however. “It takes a leap of faith, and it’s a totally new way of thinking for so many people.

They can’t get out of their existing paradigm.” says Tim. Farmers have been taught for many years that we need to use pesticides and herbicides because that’s supposedly what good managers do. Yet if you manage a little differently, you don’t have to use those tools.

For example, many livestock producers use antibiotics, but with good management a person doesn’t have to resort to this tool very often. “We are certified organic, so we don’t use antibiotics very often in our cattle,” says Tim. “If we have a sick one, then we treat that animal, but we have CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

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The Multiple Benefits of a Holistically Managed Farm

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very few sick animals. One problem is having to spend $100 on a bottle of antibiotics that we’ll only use once. We may not need to use any of it again for a year or two and by then it may have expired! It becomes quite expensive to treat these animals if you only use one dose out of a bottle,” he says. But it’s nice to not have very many sick animals.

Tim mentioned that the financial planning is another plus. “It helps us, being able to monitor our finances and to plan where every dollar is going to go. We have that plan and then it is essential to monitor how the plan is working —especially when taking on a new project, like our vegetable garden.”

Here is an example of post-graze (left) and pre-graze (right). Adequate plant matter is left after grazing and incorporated into the soil to improve soil health. Adequate plant recovery allows for improved forage stand.

“If you were not really aware of the money, you could think that spending money is a solution to a problem. Usually you can find a solution that doesn’t incorporate spending money. It might be time or a little manual work, instead. Having that plan can save you thousands of dollars, very easily,” says Tim. A person has to be creative, innovative, and look at all the options, and be flexible.

“My wife and I often walk around our farm, and we have often said that we are living on a gold mine of opportunities. Anything we want to do, we can do with our land —and it’s such a blessing.” It’s just a matter of having eyes open to all the opportunities and possibilities.

The Hovens do everything as a family, regarding major decisions. “We talk about our holistic goal and what we want, as a family,” says Tim. “We try to incorporate children into that decision-making, not just to give Lori and myself insight into what’s best for our family, but also to teach our children how to make good decisions about things. Many people think Holistic Management is just about soil health, grass and grazing, but to me it’s really about people —the whole picture.

“I’ve told people that there are two major sources of wealth —soil and people —and you can’t have one without the other. You can have great soil and grow a lot of grass and beef, but if you don’t have people to sell your products to, you have nothing. And if you only have people, and the soil is deteriorating, you won’t have people much longer. They really grow together. You can’t be successful in agriculture without soil and people,” he explains.

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Nurturing a Multi-Generational Family

Tim and his wife Lorianne have been married for 23 years and have 8 children. Aiden, the oldest, is 21, Liam is 19, daughter Therese is 17, Joseph is 15, Francis is 13, Dominic is 9, Monica is 7 and Mathias is 5 years old. “We are very blessed to have good, healthy kids. They enjoy working with the farm and livestock. It’s interesting to observe their different skills and talents,” says Tim. “My son Joseph has become a mechanics whiz and repairman. He builds bikes and go-carts from scratch, and would never have had the opportunity to have this experience if he’d lived in a city. Kids on a farm know how to weld and use tools to assemble things. He takes apart gas motors and puts them back together and is amazing at what he can do; he has a natural knack with machinery.”

The farm also has a 200 laying hens, and son Francis takes care of those. All the children are encouraged to try new things and learn new skills.

“We feel strongly about the importance of family,” says Tim. “We feel it is important for our children to live in a family situation where they can live and work with their parents, but they also get to live and work with their grandparents. There is a whole other generation of wisdom that they can learn from, and form adult relationships with. Many young people today are completely isolated from anyone other than their own age group. This gives them a very limited world view.

“Our family situation has been a blessing for my parents as well.

Many people their age do not get much chance to interact with their grandchildren. Older people today in our area might go down to Arizona for 6 months of the year because there is nothing here at home to keep them here. My parents may go on a short trip, but they want to be home most of the time, to be with their grandchildren.

“Holistic Management has led us to do things that strengthen our family and doesn’t bring us apart. We home school, and part of that involves the testing decision. We want to have a strong family unit, and good, happy, healthy kids. So we put that extra 13-year old Francis has taken on the poultry effort into educating our grazing operation to add more enterprises to kids. It builds the family the farm. bond but also enables the children to grow in the areas they want grow in.

“Instead of coming out of high school with a cookie cutter education that’s just the same as all the other kids, they can build on their natural gifts and talents and become experts at those.” This can put them far ahead of their peers in that chosen field of interest.

With the whole family involved in Hoven Farm, the Hoven family pulls together to offer a multi-generational, multi-enterprise operation involving not only beef cattle, chickens, pork, and vegetables, but many hands above the ground and healthy soil organisms in the ground. Through Holistic Management the Hoven family has learned how to work with nature and reap the benefits —supporting their community of consumers in return.

Tim Hoven can be reached at tim@hovenfarms.com or on Twitter @timhoven. Please check out their webpage at www.hovenfarms.com and connect with them on Facebook at facebook.com/hovenfarms.

US Wellness Meats—

Growing a Grassfed Beef Business

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

J

ohn Wood is a 5th generation farmer in Missouri who has been raising cattle for a long time, and then started the US Wellness Meats company. “I became exposed to Holistic Management in 1992. Four of us now own the company (Wood, Ken Suter, John Leeser and Jim Crum), and Mr. Leeser had a sister who lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She had given him Allan Savory’s book, Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision-Making, for Christmas. John and I crossed paths and he told me I should read this book,” says Wood.

“As luck would have it, Savory was speaking in St. Joseph, Missouri on a cold January day in 1992. John and I drove over there, and there were about 75 people there —some University people, bureaucrats, Soil and Water people, University Extension, etc. and an Amish/Mennonite group, and a few ordinary farm people. I had read the book and was sitting in the 3rd row, and right behind me in the 5th row was Jim Gerrish. Allan had given a 3-hour talk and was on a roll. Finally Jim told Savory that everyone already understands this and that he had been doing high density grazing in Missouri for several years. Savory refuted him rather eloquently and then ended his presentation by asking us all to clear half the room, and then ¾ of the room. We were all standing shoulder to shoulder in what was left and he pointed out that this was an illustration of 2,000,000 pounds of stock density per acre!”

That afternoon Savory was also speaking to ALOT (Agriculture Leaders of Tomorrow). “These are groups in various states, of young people age 25 and up, and it’s a 2-year program. Missouri started doing this in the 1980’s. I approached him during the lunch break and said I was interested in putting on a class. He told me there was only one person in my part of the country, who was an educator here. So I communicated with that instructor and we had our first meeting in January 1993,” says Wood.

“We held it at a small Methodist church in Monticello, and I got the Soil Conservation District to help defray part of the cost. It was a 3-day course, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Everyone said we’d never get people to show up for 3 days. We had room for 30 people, and we had the class sold out and full. That class was a success so we did it again in August. Over the next 2.5 years we held 3 more classes, with strong attendance. This created a core group and our US Wellness Meats company evolved from that core group,” explains Wood.

carcass for about 35 to 40 days),” says Wood.

“We got those steaks and cooked them over a grill, and compared them to some prime Hereford beef that were grain-fed. This animal had ¾ inch of fat on the rind on the ribeye. Three of us sat around and barbequed and said the flavor was great, and we cut everything with a plastic knife and fork. We couldn’t believe it and thought it was just a fluke and couldn’t happen again,” he says.

In 1998 they butchered another animal, with similar results. “I’d been feeding cattle for 23 years at that point. I was an Iowa State University graduate, and we always used implants and got as much starch as possible into those animals without killing them. That was the mantra I was charged with when I left Iowa State,” he says. So it was an eye-opener to realize how successfully an animal could be finished on grass.

“In 1999 we finished a few more animals (6 head) on grass. But at that point in time it was a challenge to try to sell the beef. The internet was still in its infancy, and not yet useful for on-line sales. Then we got a little smarter. One of the members of our company, Jim Crum, was a graduate of University of Illinois. We asked Don Bietz who is still at Iowa State (on the faculty there since 1967) if he’d like some samples and he said he’d love to sample some CLA and omega-3. We sent him tissue samples, and sent some to the University of Illinois, as well. They came back very high in CLA and omega-3 and much lower in omega-6 fatty acids,” he says.

That’s when Wood decided to see if he could market this meat and

Learning How to Finish on Grass

“We were trying to figure out how to generate $500 net return per acre. At that time corn was cheap and soybeans were cheap so we thought livestock would be the way to go, or raise some vegetables or novel things. We’d heard of someone on the outskirts of Boston who made $20,000 per acre off some very small units of land with stacked enterprises that included vegetables and some clever ideas. So in 1997 we harvested our first grassfed animal —a Charolais-cross steer,” he says.

“We cherry-picked the best animal in our group of steers and took it to the locker. I called the butcher and asked him if it would be fit for steaks, because I didn’t think it would be. He told me it was well marbled, and graded low choice. I didn’t think it could, so I drove over there to look at it, and sure enough, the ribeye was well marbled. There wasn’t a lot of back fat on the carcass, not like the grain-fed animals next to it. So I told the butcher to go ahead and cut some steaks after we let it hang there for about 10 days (which is a lot different from what we do now, aging a

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Growing a Grassfed Beef Business

people spend money on gifts, and in January they fill their freezer back up,” he explains.

“The banking community likes this, because they look at our financial resigned from the family business. “I had a farm of my own, that I grew records and we don’t have peaks and valleys; our business is pretty up on. There were about 12 people who had some interest in our venture. steady,” says Wood.

We called the first meeting and only 6 showed up. After 3 years we lost Another thing that he considers pure luck is becoming acquainted with 2 of our original 6 because the going was pretty tough at that point,” a meat scientist, Dr. Carol Lorenzon, from University of Missouri who had says Wood. just come out of industry and started teaching at the university in 2000.

“We started it November 7, 2000, and by the end of December we had “Dr. Lorenzon got us into PM Beef, a commercial mid-size packer at the 45 orders, and only 2 from the internet that were not already connected time. We were taking the animals to southern Minnesota for harvest and to our cause. We realized that this would require a lot of marketing effort. we really didn’t know what we were doing. Then we discovered J.F. O’Neill Then in 2001 we were lucky enough to stumble into Dr. Joe Mercola. At which is a really good mid-sized family-owned business in Omaha. We’d that time he had a portion of one floor in a small building in Chicago and been harvesting cattle there since 2003. They gave us excellent service. had a newsletter and was involved in the alternative health world. We So we were lucky enough to get into some good businesses in the meat turned his website on August 1, 2001 and he already had a fair number of industry —some good slaughter plant people, fabricators, etc.” people reading his newsletter. We had a good number of sales from that.”

It’s a complicated business. “We have cattle processing going on in two After about 6 months Dr. Mercola said he didn’t like running a places, a commercial cooker, steak cutting in Nebraska, sausages and hot webstore. “We redid the website and created our first affiliate linkage with dogs in Emporia, Kansas, and two family-owned independent processing Dr. Mercola’s website, companies in Missouri which enabled us to who do specialty things gain marketing traction. for us.”

Today, Dr. Mercola has Pemmican is one the #1 alternative health of the products they website in the world. have perfected. “This So we were lucky to is a Cherokee Indian network with the right recipe, and we’ve folks,” says Wood. developed quite a following for this Growing the product. We’ve gotten Business a lot better at it and “When we started can make it better than our meat company we we did 10 years ago,” didn’t have funding or he says. anyone to fall back on, “We also have so we were very careful. people who raise free Some of the lessons that range chickens in we learned from Holistic Oklahoma, Arkansas Management helped and South Carolina, carry us along. The and a new facility in bottom line was that we Florida. We are always needed more customers, Grassfed beef high in CLA’s and Omega 3’s are in high demand these days as people realize on the lookout for that food is medicine. and had to work at people who can do developing a customer clever things with real base. I worked at it for 2 years and never took a penny out of it, and my food,” Wood explains. wife thought I’d lost my mind! We had another member or two come and “We used to work with a guy in Michigan who was a retired Russian go. They wanted to do some fire sales but we hung tough and said we just army analyst who spoke Russian fluently. He raised rabbits and chickens. needed more customers,” he says.

We try to find people who are passionate about what they do and how Slowly, it grew. “The internet will do that for you. If you deliver a good they do it,” he says. product, and deliver it on time, and do your best to do what you say you “We have lamb producers in Missouri who are family-owned are going to do, you will develop a customer base. The movie “Food Inc” businesses. One family has been doing this for 50 years and the two came along a few years ago and was one of the tipping points in this proprietors are in their 70’s. It’s a complex business, with many moving grassfed movement. You can tell things are progressing, by the questions parts. It’s been fun. We’ve met many fascinating people along the way,” he people ask. Today we have a much more savvy consumer than we did 10 says. years ago.” More and more people are interested/concerned about where “We wrote a grant in Missouri in 2003 and brought in a consultant their food comes from and how it was grown. who has done a number of projects for us. The first thing he told me was “Our business is not seasonal; we are not like Omaha Steaks. People that we need marketing flankers. We had added free-range chicken and buy from us because meat is a center of the plate item, 7 days a week. butter, and saw a spike in sales, then added a heritage pork that has been January has always been a better month for us than December, for sales, produced here in southern Missouri and in Kansas for the past 15 years. and people wonder why. But we are not a gift company. In December, These are older breeds that haven’t been modernized and they still have 12

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intramuscular fat. We are selling pork every week to a butcher in Boston who is a hard guy to please. Hardly anyone complains about the taste of his pork chops because there is real fat there, and it’s tasty. When a person buys pigs coming out of confinement facilities in Nebraska and Iowa and Illinois they are too lean. The industry actually pumps some of them with high fructose corn syrup to give them some flavor!

“We have a free range chicken business in Oklahoma that’s a drug and alcohol recovery program and it’s a novel strategy where they have people out on the land to do real things, versus going to jail for a couple of years.

The proprietor says most of these kids had never had a job before, no responsibility,” he says.

“The neat thing about what we are doing, raising healthy meat, is capturing sunlight, taking advantage of water, and building soil. What we do is good for the land, good for the cattle and good for the people, and the rural community,” says Wood.

“Our meat has feed the New York Jets football team now for 5 years; we’ve shipped meat to all their away games, and to their training team.

Some of our customers are professional athletes, some are senior citizens, and some are soccer moms who are concerned about their children’s health. We have customers all over the U.S. including people with autoimmune diseases or serious health issues. They suddenly start to realize that food is medicine, and want to eat healthier,” Wood says.

Mississippi. I can type in my local dam and it shows the flood events. If you look at the 20 highest water marks, most of those have all occurred in the last 25 years. We are running the water off instead of soaking it into the ground. In 1993 we blew the old record away by 2.5 feet on the Mississippi and in 2008 we got within an inch of that mark.”

Topsoil is being lost in many regions, and not replaced. “I am used to something between zero and 6 inches of topsoil, where I come from because we live in an area right on the river that was settled early by pioneers. My family farm goes back 5 generations. If we had 1.5% organic matter, that was really good. Now I have part of that farm up to 3.5% organic matter, so we’ve greatly increased it —but it’s a slow process,” says Wood.

“We recently harvested a group of cattle from Lower Baldwin County, Alabama. There was one prime, 27 choice, and 14 select in that group.

There was 1,305 pounds of combo fat, which in a trailer load of grassfed cattle was quite high. It’s unusual to get more than 1,000 pounds of combo fat in a load of cattle that have been on grass. That area of the country from February 15 until early May is tremendous for growing grass. We’ve been trying to figure out how to get cattle to gain 3 pounds a day on grass, but the grass in that region will do it.

I go down there midFebruary and think the cattle should be bigger, and go back 40 days later and they have really bloomed.”

There are some areas in the Southeast where it rains enough, Grass & Soil with a year-round Health supply of grass, and Wood has been producers don’t have intrigued with Savory’s to buy hay or make advice, and has told hay. “But sadly, if you many people to listen to look at the history of the TED talk that Savory Alabama, Mississippi, gave 2 years ago.

Georgia, etc. and Grazing cattle to improve soil health and grass cover is just as “This was a watershed the plantations, they important to US Wellness Meats as the quality of the meat that results from that grazing. event. He illustrated, farmed it and ruined quite eloquently, the fertility of the soil. the advantages of grasslands and what they can do for the planet.

Finally they went from cotton into grass, and then after a couple bad turns Savory also went to the House of Lords a few years ago, and not many in the cattle cycle they quit growing grass and it turned into pine forest commoners get invited to the House of Lords to address both sessions.” and basically became wasteland. Now it’s come full circle and there are “We live in interesting times, with many bright people around, but we some tremendous opportunities for growing cattle down there, but there is have to do something to change the way we farm. I saw an interesting limited opportunity for slaughtering them. There are no large-scale USDA NRCS map, a picture taken 25 years ago that shows the acres of slaughter plants at all, in the deep south,” says Wood. grassland in Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and As the grassfed market expands, he also fears that the big players like Missouri. If you look at these same areas today, a huge amount of land Tyson, JBS and Cargill will be bringing in less-than-perfect grassfed has come out of grass into row crop production. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, beef from Queensland and northern Australia. “They are playing the 60 million acres was a big corn crop in the U.S. but now we have a lot game. But if we do a good job here and tell our story, there are some more,” he says. In some plains areas, if Mother Nature is kind, you can good niche markets developing,” he says. “There are a few ranchers raise a crop, and with $7 corn and $14 soybeans some people have made direct-marketing lots of good beef. It’s tricky because you have to age it a lot of money. and do things just right, to produce a quality product.” But as John But the land plowed up and put into crops instead of leaving it in grass Wood has proved, the opportunities and demand are there if you learn has also contributed to more water runoff and flooding. “A map put out by how to manage your grass and animals to create these types of valuethe National Weather Service shows all the rivers in the country and the added products.

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Star Creek Land Stewards—

This has actually worked out very well, however, and her company has enjoyed doing those contracts. “We are just very conscious about safety and taking time to make it work,” explains Soares. “We look forward to an ongoing relationship with Caltrans.”

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS “The majority of our work is with public agencies, but in 2015 we any of us know that grazing can be good for the land and began an increased amount of private work as well, for ranch owners that intensive grazing in certain areas is needed for weed and corporate developers. In northern California many of the large open control, brush management, and wildfire fuel reduction. The spaces that used to be livestock ranches are now owned by new families danger of fire has become increasingly worrisome in Western who don’t have livestock background and don’t have livestock on the states due to dry conditions and the fact that much of the land is no longer land.” This lack of grazing has created significant risk for fire, with fuel adequately grazed by livestock. To remedy this situation, some people buildup. In addition, large corporate developers are often required to treat with herds of sheep and goats are being hired to bring their animals onto land prior to building, and the use of goats and sheep is a satisfactory way the land and reduce the weeds/brush/fuel loads. to remove existing vegetation.

Star Creek Land Stewards is a contract grazing business, with “Many of these private owners who don’t have livestock are now headquarters at Los Banos, California. Andree Soares, President, has realizing and learning the benefits of livestock on the land. We’ve taken been running this business for three years. our herds in and out of their properties Her background training is as a registered and it has been very beneficial for them, nurse and she has worked at Valley and they are learning more about what Children’s Hospital in the San Joaquin livestock can do, and learning more about Valley for 28 years in neonatal intensive their own land,” she explains. care. She grew up on a sheep ranch, “Most of our work is vegetation however, and when the opportunity to do management for fuel reduction. Some contract grazing came along, she took it. of our work is focused on restoration of “I was born and raised in a commercial native grasses, and reduction of noxious sheep outfit owned and operated by my weeks in areas that people are trying to father Raymond Talbott (a third generation restore to their natural landscape. It is sheepman). I enjoyed living that life, but amazing to see what grazing can do in never really thought I would be doing this as these situations,” says Soares. a career. My mother was a nurse and I went “I realized that I had taken the to school to become a nurse, and I loved beneficial impacts of grazing for granted, being a nurse,” she says. because I’ve seen it all my life, but many “When this business opportunity for people don’t understand it. Now the contract grazing came to me, the previous benefit that livestock bring to the land in owner didn’t want to continue. He had terms of soil and vegetation improvement begun it because of some needs on his own is very slowly and subtly catching on.

RA Stine © 2015 ranch —to increase the grazing impact — Livestock benefit the land not only by Andree and Operation Manager, Emilio Huarte. and it had grown into having his goats do adding carbon and organic matter, but some grazing on other ranches, to facilitate also help with their hoof action and soil clearing of unwanted vegetation and restoration of native landscape. He disturbance which enables the ground to absorb and hold any available didn’t really want to continue this business. Two people who had worked moisture. This is crucial here in California because we are so dry, and so with him for a few years came to me and asked if I might be interested, so desperate for water,” says Soares. that’s how I got into it,” says Soares.

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Fuel Removal Demonstrations

Grazing along Freeways

Soares purchased and took over the company. “At that time, Star Creek already had some contracts with some public agencies and private landholders for annual grazing to reduce fire-hazardous vegetation.

We have maintained those contracts and have obtained more. We are currently doing grazing for cities and large regional park systems in the Bay area. The majority of our work is in the Bay area and the Sacramento Valley,” she says.

She has also engaged in grazing contracts for Caltrans, the state agency responsible for highways, bridges and rail transportation, so it is a large landholder in California. “Caltrans has the responsibility for maintaining the off ramps, on ramps, easements along highways, etc.

We have contracts to maintain the vegetation in those areas. I had a lot of anxiety when we first started that project; I shied away from it initially because of the safety issues, with the animals having to graze right along the busy freeways in the Bay area,” she says.

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Soares’ company was asked to participate in a project in Fresno County that was a joint venture by UC-California Berkeley, Southern California-Edison and the Department of Forestry. They were doing a demonstration, looking at various types of ways to reduce fire danger and trying to find the most cost-efficient ways to remove fuels. Fifteen agencies teamed up to stage this demonstration, which was observed by natural resource managers, fire agencies, fuels treatment contractors, water conservation districts, resource conservation districts, electric companies, homeowners associations, fire safety councils, tribal staffs, county and city planning districts, elected officials and other interested parties. Soares’ goats were one of several methods being compared for brush removal.

“The demonstration took place over a 5-day period. The various treatments were being performed on adjacent parcels of land. For example, a caterpillar tractor was removing brush on one parcel, fire was used on another one, and a hand crew on a different parcel, and several pieces of large mechanical equipment on other parcels. On the 4th and 5th

days they hosted tours of people in various industries, and students in the to reduce the noxious weeds. The sheep will eat the weeds, and these area so they could observe and learn about what each of the treatments sheep won’t transport weed seeds from place to place,” Soares says. was able to do.”

She has about 3,700 animals (goats and sheep). “We typically take During the 5-day demonstration the progress of each treatment was them out in bunches of 350 to 400, or a gooseneck load. Many of our jobs recorded. “They had video cameras, such as Go-Pro cameras that we are in the Bay area and we can’t get to them with a big truck and trailer put on a goat for a few hours every day, and GPS markers/trackers to so we use gooseneck trailers. Depending on the vegetation and the goals determine how much land the goats could clear in a given amount of time. of the client, sometimes we deploy a group of just sheep—if it’s mainly UC-Berkeley’s role in this was to do the research. They are still studying just grazing that needs to be done. We take goats if we need to do more all the data collected, and their report is supposed to be published in browsing, eating the brush and higher-up vegetation that the goats can 2016,” says Soares. reach better. Often we deploy a mixed herd and other times we’ll use just “They are studying how much terrain a goat covers in a certain period sheep or just goats,” she explains. of time. They brought in equipment to measure the density of vegetation before and after, and record the activity observed through the video Providing Education & Holistic Management cameras that were on the animals. It was a fascinating project,” she says.

From Soares’ perspective the West needs a lot more of these projects “There can be some benefits to all methods, depending on what and enterprises because too much of the landscape no longer has grazing the goals are, and the individual situation and terrain. At the end of the animals. “I’ve heard Allan Savory speak, and have been moved by his demonstration, the consultant who was in message and his knowledge. His work has charge of putting it all together said that had a great impact,” she says. the verbal feedback they had at the end of “I have been able to help my clients the week was that the goat use was very understand the full benefits that livestock favorable. It was easy on the land, there can bring to the land, as opposed to were not fuels brought in (no fossil fuels just coming in and eating the plants and needed), no diesel, nothing left behind leaving. My greater understanding of except the manure which is beneficial to Holistic Management has been helpful in the land,” she says. my being able to convey that message to In this situation her goats were used, clients. I can help them understand the rather than sheep, because they can full circle, and how beneficial the livestock browse higher on the trees, standing on on the land can be, for the land, soils, their hind legs, or up on stumps, to reach plants, ecology.” the lower branches and limbs that can carry She enjoys providing an education as flames on up the tree. If fire goes up a tree well as a service. “In some of our areas due to this ladder effect, it reaches the we do speaking engagements, talking with crown and the heat from this much fire can volunteer groups who are associated with “explode” the tree and spread the fire into the client agency. We also do field trips for other trees, spreading a fire out of control. some of the cities that we serve, to help Star Creek Land Stewards on the job! more people understand the benefits of Team Effort the livestock. It is crucial for them to understand, before we’ll be able to Soares acknowledges this kind of work requires a skilled team. “I could see much change. We have to get people to understand their connection not do this kind of contract grazing with the goats and sheep without an to the land and we can do that, I think, through the animals,” says Soares. exceptional team. We have sheepherders from Peru who are here on H2A “I have come to understand that the people new to agriculture have to work visas. Most of them are from the same family and they are wonderful get up to speed on these things. The old-timers, who have seen animals and very good at what they do. They have a genuine love for the animals; on the land all their lives (people like my father, who is 78 years old) they are the key to success of our business,” says Soares. understand the benefits of livestock on the land so intuitively that they “My operations manager, Emilio Huarte, also works as my father’s didn’t feel the need to discuss it. It’s so much a part of them —a given, foreman for his commercial sheep business. Emilio’s father was my taken for granted as a fact of life. My father is just now realizing the need father’s first foreman. Now he is working for me, as well, so there is quite to talk about, to teach other people.” a bit of continuity in this relationship between the two businesses. He “When I was beginning to learn about Holistic Management and actually brought this business to my attention and has several years of planned grazing, and good and bad grazing, I was able to understand contract grazing and general livestock experience. We are a great team,” why my father did what he did at certain times of the year. He just did it she says. because that’s what he knew to do, almost instinctively, things that he had Of course the other part of the team are the sheep and goats. “I have absorbed early on and learned by doing. It’s like brushing your teeth every both sheep and goats, and a different type of sheep than my father has. morning; you don’t even think about it or have to explain to anyone why He has Rambouillet which is a wool and meat breed. I have Dorper you have to brush your teeth,” she says. sheep, a breed that has a much smaller carcass, with a hair coat rather But in the past several decades we’ve lost a lot of that intuitive than wool —so they don’t need to be sheared. It’s also good for what we knowledge, with the loss of the earlier generations who were more in do, because their hair coat doesn’t hold seeds like the wool does. Thus tune with the land, the people who had a good handle on the necessary they don’t spread weed seeds when we go from one place to another for balances and a more holistic approach. Now we need to teach the grazing,” she explains. younger generations —especially the ones who are new to the land, “We deal with a lot of weedy areas, and many of our clients’ goals are CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 N um ber 171

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The Benefits of Public Grazing CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

without a farm background —how it works. “The idea of teaching people how it works is something that our industry has not had to do before, or wasn’t doing enough of it because we didn’t recognize the need,” says Soares.

Another drawback is that some segments of our industry have drifted away from the holistic perspective, becoming more fascinated with new technology that could increase production—planting monocultures, using large equipment for harvesting, using fertilizer (because the livestock impact was now missing from the land), using chemicals to control weeds, etc. rather than livestock.

“The attraction to technology has distracted us from the things that are so basic and so much better,” she says. Some aspects of agriculture have

Rapid Global Change for Regenerative Agriculture and Forests CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

We believe that all climate problems are people problems. An example of this is evident by examining two plots of land divided only by a fence (please see “Lessons of a Fence Line” in Issue #170 of In Practice). On one side, the rancher may have amazing grass productivity while the other side looks like a dry desert.

The difference is not more rain or different soil, but the core beliefs and behaviors of the land manager in order to rapidly deploy conservation approaches that will restore our land, forest and soil’s ability to pull carbon dioxide from the air and sustainably store carbon long-term. The same applies to forest, farmland, and urban land management. If these problems are people problems, we must look to people as the source and solution.

Conventional approaches use nonsustainable land production and educational methods that result in slow adoption and resistance. Our uniqueness is a process that accelerates adoption of sustainable land methods by allowing humans to willingly change the way they think and act. In this way they are able to quickly manifest improvements to the landscape.

Consensus Building to Resolve Conflict

Our unique niche is to facilitate consensus building to resolve conflicts surrounding land management practices by addressing and changing core beliefs and behaviors of those who are have direct (and often adverse) influence on the land. These grassroots projects will resolve local conflicts and empower 16

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actually gone backward in addressing the health of the land and have done a disservice to the land/plants/ecology and we have to start over.

We are now discovering that some of the old ways were better.

“It will be a slow cog to turn, however,” says Soares. There is some hope, because more people are beginning to recognize the benefits of a holistic approach. A few decades ago not very many people in agriculture knew about Holistic Management or things like mob grazing and animal impact. These terms were foreign to many farmers and ranchers. But the word is starting to get out and circulate. And, with more companies like Star Creek Land Stewards, urban populations and new farmers will better understand how animals can heal the land and improve land productivity.

For more information about Star Creek Land Stewards, check out their website at: www.starcreeklandstewards.org

communities on a local and global scale to change land management practices that return the health of the land, improve land productivity, increase fresh water supply, stabilize species diversity, increase food production and most importantly increase carbon capture and storage through improved photosynthesis.

Rural communities around the world will see direct benefits through improved living standards, reduced hunger, and increased wealth. The skill sets developed as part of the process can readily be transferred to neighboring community members, thus forever expanding the positive benefits of the program to all of humanity for many years after the initial project. One of the key goals of the program (in addition to improving carbon sequestration) is to catalyze adoption of truly sustainable land management methods for generations to come.

Climate Consensus Institute

Our plan is to facilitate conflict-resolving processes by training community leaders and citizens in small groups. The process begins by identifying issues followed by a series of workshops to establish community consensus institutes in regions where conflict is negatively impacting natural resources and carbon capture and Credit: Creative Commons license storage are at risk.

A community consensus institute is a series of four three-day workshops over the course of a year. Each workshop focuses on specific issues related to conflict resolution and how to resolve and manage consensus of change, scarcity, stereotypes, power, participatory democracy, one-on-one conflicts and diversity. With these proven techniques workshop participants

January / February 2017

learn to resolve real conflicts that are relevant locally. Consensus is defined as 100 percent agreement to do the “right” thing, as defined by the community. This agreement is measured by actual behavior.

Data collection and analysis will guide carbon capture and storage to evaluate actual change over time. Collection and dissemination of results to participants will facilitate effective adoption while follow up sessions will ensure continued interest and ongoing engagement.

If you are interested in learning more or becoming a part of this solution-focused process, please contact me. Together we can address these pressing issues of our times.

Jeff Goebel (of Goebel and Associates) has partnered with numerous individuals and professionals from diverse organizations, public and private sector institutions to support and implement the consensus work globally. Over the years, Jeff and his colleagues have witnessed a need for shifting core beliefs to solve land, conservation and climate issues. If you would like to be part of this growing movement, or for more information, please contact Jeff Goebel at goebel@aboutlistening.com. Thanks also to the following people who contributed to this article: Nirel Jackson-Wardwell, Kathryn Thomsen, Todd Klibansky, and Karen Shimada.

Jeff is leading a workshop on Fostering Change and Holistic Financial Planning at Pu’u O Hoku Ranch on the beautiful island of Molokai, Hawaii from February 26 to March 4, 2017, where these concepts will be incorporated in Holistic Financial Planning. If you are interested in more information or to register, go to www.climateconsensusinstitute.org.

GRAPEVINE The

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N E W S F R O M H O L I S T I C M A N AG E M E N T I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Changes on HMI’s Board

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HMI is excited to welcome two new Board of Directors who were voted in at HMI’s fall Board Meeting on October 17th.

Robert Potts is the President and CEO of The Dixon Water Foundation —a foundation whose mission is healthy watersheds through good land management. They operate two research and demonstration ranches in Texas. Robert has been a long-time member of the Holistic Management network through his work with the Dixon Water Foundation.

Robert Potts The Foundation practices and promotes holistic grazing management on their demonstration ranches. He lives in San Antonio and Fort Davis Texas with his wife, Lana. They have a 27-year-old daughter, Rebecca. Robert is excited about joining HMI’s Board to help influence the wider adoption of HMI programs as that in turn would further the Dixon Water Foundation mission.

Lee Dueringer is Director of Development for the Alumni and Advocacy University of Arizona (UA) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He has worked in various jobs at UA for the past 11 years including the Arizona 4-H Foundation Executive Director, Major Gifts Development at UA Cancer Center, and UA Regional Development. Lee lives in Lee Dueringer Scottsdale, Arizona with his wife, Jill. They have four grown children. Twelve years ago they adopted their granddaughter and she just graduated from high school. Lee has been involved with HMI since 2002 when

he was our Development Director. He has served on HMI’s Advisory Council and Board of Directors since then. He is excited about being back on HMI’s Board to help build sustainable relationships focused on successful major donor fundraising. Welcome, Robert and Lee! HMI would also like to thank outgoing Board members, Ben Bartlett and Laura Gill.

Ben has served on our Board since 2005, including service as the Board Chair for a portion of that tenure.

He retired from Michigan State University, where he served as an Extension Educator, but Ben continues, along with his wife, Denise, to raise a commercial flock of sheep and graze stocker cattle on their farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Ben firmly believes managing holistically is very important and wants to help spread the Holistic Management tool to people who manage landscapes.

Laura has served on our Board since 2012.

She came to Holistic Management as a participant in HMI’s Ranch and Rangeland Manager Training Program. As co-manager of the 32,000-acre Circle Ranch in Texas, she wanted to learn how to better manage the land to improve wildlife habitat. She has held numerous positions and memberships in a variety of organizations including Planned Parenthood, Texas and Southwest Cattle Raisers Association, Texas Bighorn Society, and Texas Wildlife Association. Because Laura has a strong interest in wildlife, she is concerned about how destocking practices on rangelands are creating havoc, reducing the health of wildlife habitat.

She believes we need to get animals back to work on the landscape and believes HMI’s work on improving land health is critical work to share with others. Thank you, Ben & Laura, for all your hard work to lead and support HMI!

In Memoriam

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t was with great sadness that HMI learned of the passing of Dale Lasater of Matheson, Colorado on October 14th in a tragic horse accident. Dale was a well-known Colorado cattle rancher and conservationist and was a founding board member of the Colorado Branch of Holistic Management. Dale is survived by his wife, Janine; sons, Alex and Tom Lasater; grandchildren, Thomas and Elizabeth; brothers, Laurence and Lane Lasater; and sister, Sally Lasater.

Dale influenced many people because of his commitment to ranching, cattle, and land stewardship. He carried on four generations of breeding Beefmaster cattle and improving the Holistic Management of the ranch when he took over management of the Lasater Ranch in 1986.

Dale was raised on The Lasater Ranch in Falfurrias, Texas and Matheson, Colorado. He graduated from Princeton University and spent a year studying as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He also worked on a cattle improvement program with the Peace Corps in Colombia.

Dale is a past president of the Pikes Peak Cattlemen’s Association, and served on the board of directors of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, and the National Cattlemen’s Association. In 2002, Dale was awarded the Slow Food Award for Biodiversity in Turin, Italy. In 2012 Dale was awarded the Stuart P. Dodge award for lifetime achievement by the Palmer Land Trust.

HMI offers our condolences to the Lasater family and all those who knew Dale.

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PROGRAM ROUNDUP Paicines Ranch Day & 2016 Gathering

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Dr. Judi Earl, along with an expert panel of graziers, led a sold out 2-day workshop on Advanced Holistic Grazing. 32 livestock manager participants were engaged in presentations and discussions on a wide range of advanced grazing.

To view the HMI Gathering recap page with photos and videos go to: https://holisticmanagement.org/hmis-2016-gathering-recap/.

Thanks to all the folks at the Paicines Ranch for their support.

Thanks also to the Christiano Fund, TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation, the 11th Hour Project, and Sustainability in Practice for their support of this event.

s a kickoff event to HMI’s 2016 Gathering, 121 people participated in the Paicines Ranch Open Texas Reunion Open Gates Gate in Paicines, California. The The Texas Reunion was a grand celebration of those who have focus of the day was exploring been practicing Holistic Management for many years and generously grazing innovations that sharing their insights. The event began Oct. 28, 2016 at The Double improved soil health. But another Joel Salatin was the keynote at T Ranch. The 50 participants were mostly long time practitioners or major part of the program HMI’s 2016 Gathering alumni from HMI’s Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Program over was also to look at what bird the past 4 years. Our host at the populations could tell land managers how their land is doing.

Double T, long-time manager and Sallie Calhoun shared the history of the ranch and what she and Holistic Management practitioner her ranch team have been working on since 2001 when Sallie and her Art Roane, led the caravan out husband, Matt, bought the ranch. Participants then walked to various into the large cattle, sheep and spots on the ranch for different types of monitoring. Joe Morris of Morris wildlife ranch to see the nature of Grassfed Beef talked about how they are using holistic planned grazing some of the decisions a manager on the ranch to help move Paicines Ranch toward their holistic goal. must make towards the goal of Mel Preston of Point Blue Conservation Science also talked about the ranch owners. Along with Art the research they are doing on Paicines to determine the number of Roane, master grazers Dr. Bob Small group conversation is birds and bird species and how that correlates to soil health and land Steger, Robby Tuggle, Casey always a favorite part of Holistic management practices. Participants had the opportunity to break into Wade, Betsy Ross, Joe Maddox, Management events and where a small groups with educators to practice a type of biological monitoring Joel Ham and others shared lot of learning takes place. assessment tool. experience and wisdom on After a great grazing planning and low-stress livestock animal handling. lunch of Paicines Day Two of the Texas Reunion was an hour south of the grassfed beef, Kelly Double T at Hudspeth River Ranch near Comstock, Texas.

Mulville, Paicines Alice Ball Strunk and her husband Billy Bob Strunk inherited Ranch Manager, the ranch from Alice’s mother, Claudia Ball, one of the founders shared his thoughts of Holistic Resource Management of Texas back in the mid of how to design all ‘80s. Sky Jones-Lewey, education director at the Nueces River cropping systems, and Authority, and Betsy Ross of Sustainable Growth Texas, also particularly vineyards, presented on riparian restoration. We focused on learning about so you can easily the plants most useful in stabilizing banks and how to encourage integrate livestock into those plants. them so they can do Thanks to the Dixon Water Foundation for their support of this 130 participants engaged in numerous biological more work for you like event and to all our ranch hosts, collaborators, and partners for monitoring discussions and exercises during the pruning and fertilizing their efforts in making this event such a success.

Open Gate. and give you a second crop from that area. Ellen Kerschner also explained how to attract pollinators and how doing so can greatly increase the main “cash crop” income. Participants at this event influence 340,632 acres.

Circle Ranch, Van Horn, Texas That evening HMI had a well-attended fundraising wine and cheese On August 26th, 55 participants gathered at the Circle Ranch in event sponsored by Sustainability in Practice. the Chihuahuan high-desert grasslands of far-West Texas to learn The next day was the official start of HMI’s 2016 Gathering, about effective water cycle management, forage production and soil “Cultivating Community: Land. Food. Health,” with 230 people health. Host and ranch owner Chris Gill provided participants with an participating in numerous presentations. The biggest challenge was orientation to Circle Ranch, followed by wildlife biologist and restoration choosing between three different tracks each focused on people, planet, expert Bill Zeedyk, who provided participants with a restoration or profit. orientation, providing information about the number of restoration Following the Gathering, Holistic Management Certified Educator projects happening on the ranch, including a tour of some of the sites.

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Katherine Ottmers also talked about the value of biological monitoring, leading a group exercise in the field to explain the monitoring process. Post-program survey showed 100% satisfaction with the program and participants who would recommend the event to other. As a result of this program 96% intend to complete biological monitoring for the land and 79% intend to change management practices.

Thanks to The Dixon Water Foundation, who provided program funding, as well as the following sponsors, collaborators and outreach partners: Circle Ranch, Texas NRCS, Zeedyk Ecological Consulting, Ausplow Easitill II, High Point Soil & Water Conservation District, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Quivira Coalition, and Frank Porter.

V6 Ranch, Parkfield, California

On September 7th, 67 people attended the V6 Ranch Open Gate Event which focused on innovative practices to continue the ranching lifestyle.V6 Ranch owner Jack Varian talked about how a conservation easement was able to preserve the land for future generations and how his son, John, and wife, Barbara, started a ranch tourism business.

Royce Larsen, University of California Cooperative Extension — Area Watershed and Natural Resource Advisor on the California Central Coast, spoke about innovative treatments for chamise and tumbleweeds, including dozer, fire, flail shredder, and ball and chain.

Next, Devii Rao, Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor with the University of California Cooperative Extension, talked about how tumbleweed can be great forage for cattle.

Keston Giudici Jack Varian introduces the rest of the V6 of L.A. Hearne Ranch team Company also shared some information on soil health monitoring with a penetrometer and use of a refractometer to measure Brix, along with the importance of soil health.

After a lunch of V6 grassfed beef burgers, John and Barbara Varian talked about their horse related events. Next, HMI Program Director Kathy Harris discussed ecosystem processes and Jack led a tour of the V6 Ranch. The day ended with a discussion about conservation easements led by Daniel Sinton.

Post-program survey showed 100% satisfaction with the program and participants who would recommend the event to other. As a result of this program 93% intend to manage their landscape to improve soil health and 90% intend to change management practices.

HMI would like to thank The Christiano Family Fund and the 11th Hour Project for funding this event. We would also like to thank our partners and collaborators: V6 Ranch, Work Family Guest Ranch, California Rangeland Trust, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, San Benito Working Landscapes Group, and NRCS—Salinas Service Center.

Canadian Open Gates

In the latter part of 2016, Canada hosted four Open Gate events including: The Walls Farm Open Gate in July was hosted by farm owners Trent and Carolyn Walls and focused on using grazing systems to produce healthier food and ecosystems. Presenters included Bruce Duncan from Upper Souris Watershed talking about the role of riparian areas in cleaning water and Kiley McRae, an agrologist with Ducks Unlimited, who talked about grazing and the importance of recovery times.

In August, at Redtail Farms in Castor, Alberta, owners Ian and Dana Greibel and Kathleen Charpentier hosted an Open Gate focused on planning for success into the next generation. Certified Educator Kelly Sidoryk led an introduction to Holistic Management followed

by Merle Good, presenting on the technical aspects of setting up a succession plan. Then Ian and Dana shared their experiences with direct marketing.

Another August Open Gate was hosted by owners Glen and Doreen Hicks of D & G Hicks Ranch, in Ninga, Manitoba focusing on leaving the ranch to young, like-minded producers. Matt Bolley from MNP (a business advisory service) spoke about the legalities of succession and why it’s important to begin succession planning early. Rancher Don Gilford then spoke about his own succession plan. That was followed by an introduction to Holistic Goal Setting from Holistic Management Certified Educator Ralph Corcoran.

In September, Megan and Nathan Maier of Prairie Flavours Ranch in Preeceville, Saskatchewan hosted an Open Gate focused on using grazing systems to create healthy food and ecosystems. Holistic Management Certified Educator Blain Hjertaas provided an introduction to Holistic Management and forage specialist Al Foster gave a talk about grazing principles, followed by a walk to the pasture to move cattle. In the afternoon, the Assiniboine Watershed Group talked about programs and services available to area producers. Megan and Nathan then spoke about the challenges they face and how they make decisions with the family in mind.

HMI would like to thank all our hosts and collaborators for these events including Assiniboine Watershed Stewardship Association, the Government of Saskatchewan, the Canadian Forage and Grass Association, and the Young Agrarians.

Lowry Range Grazing Planning School

Thirty ranchers, non-profit agricultural managers, and government employees took part in a two-day HMI Holistic Grazing Planning class in Aurora, Colorado taught by HMI Certified Educator Kirk Gadzia. These agricultural professionals influence over 45,000 acres.

Thanks to the Thornburg Foundation for their funding of this event and to the West Araphoe and West Greeley Conservation Districts for providing scholarships to this event. Thanks also to the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union for sponsoring this event and to our other supporters and collaborators: Trainor Cattle Company, Colorado State Land Board, The Nature Conservancy, and the Event Center at the Araphoe County Fairgrounds.

When surveyed, 90% of participants said they would develop or modify a written grazing plan. 82% of the participants said they would change management practices as a result of this training and 100% expressed satisfaction for the course.

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Certified

Educators

The following Certified Educators listed have been trained to teach and coach individuals in Holistic Management. On a yearly basis, Certified Educators renew their agreement to be affiliated with HMI. This agreement requires their commitment to practice Holistic Management in their own lives and to seek out opportunities for staying current with the latest developments in Holistic Management.

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COLORADO

Joel Benson P.O. Box 4924 Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/221-1547 • joel@holisticeffect.com Cindy Dvergsten 17702 County Rd. 23, Dolores, CO 81323 970/882-4222 • 970/739-2445 (c) wnc@gobrainstorm.net Katie Miller 22755 E Garrett Rd, Calhan, CO 80808 970/310-0852 heritagebellefarms@gmail.com

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IOWA Torray & Erin Wilson 4375 Pierce Ave., Paullina, IA 51046-7401 712/260-6398 (Torray) • 563/419-3142 (Erin) torray@gmail.com • wilsonee3@gmail.com

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MAINE Vivianne Holmes 239 E Buckfield Rd., Buckfield, ME 04220-4209 207/336-2484 • vholmes@maine.edu

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MICHIGAN

Larry Dyer 1113 Klondike Ave, Petoskey, MI 49770 231/347-7162 (h) • 231/881-2784 (c) ldyer3913@gmail.com MISSISSIPPI

Sullivan *610Preston Ed Sullivan Lane NE, Meadville, MS 39653 prestons@telepak.net 601/384-5310 (h) • 601/835-6124 (c)

MONTANA Roland Kroos 4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 406/581-3038 (c) kroosing@msn.com Cliff Montagne Montana State University 1105 S. Tracy, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/599-7755 (c) • montagne@montana.edu

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NEW YORK Craig Leggett 6143 SR 9, Chestertown, NY 12817 518/494-2324 (h) • 970/946-1771 (c) craigrleggett@gmail.com Erica Frenay Shelterbelt Farm 200 Creamery Rd., Brooktondale, NY 14817 607/539-6512 (h) • 607/342-3771 (c) info@shelterbeltfarm.com Elizabeth Marks 1024 State Rt. 66, Ghent, NY 12075 518/828-4385 x107 (w) • 518/567-9476 (c) Elizabeth.marks@ny.usda.gov Phillip Metzger 120 Thompson Creek Rd., Norwich, NY 13815 607/334-2407 (h) • pmetzger17@gmail.com

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U N I T E D S TAT E S CALIFORNIA Lee Altier College of Agriculture, CSU 400 West First St., Chico, CA 95929-0310 laltier@csuchico.edu • 530/636-2525 Owen Hablutzel 4235 W. 63rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90043 310/567-6862 • go2owen@gmail.com Richard King 1675 Adobe Rd., Petaluma, CA 94954 rking1675@gmail.com • 707/217-2308 (c) 707/769-1490 (h) Kelly Mulville P.O. Box 23, Paicines, CA 95043 707/431-8060 • kmulville@gmail.com Donald D. Nelson 11728 Shafer Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080-8994 208/301-5066 • nelson-don1@hotmail.com Rob Rutherford 4757 Bridgecreek Rd., San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 805/544-5781 (h) • 805/550-4858 (c) robtrutherford@gmail.com

Albuquerque, NM 87109 505/842-5252 • kathyh@holisticmanagement.org

NEBRASKA Paul Swanson 5155 West 12th St., Hastings, NE 68901 402/463-8507 • 402/705-1241 (c) swanson5155@windstream.net Ralph Tate 1109 Timber Dr., Papillion, NE 68046 402/932-3405 • 402/250-8981 (c) Tater2d2@cox.net NEW HAMPSHIRE Seth Wilner 24 Main Street, Newport, NH 03773 603/863-4497 (h) • 603/863-9200 (w) 603/543-7169 (c) • seth.wilner@unh.edu NEW MEXICO Ann Adams Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 • 505/842-5252 anna@holisticmanagement.org Kirk Gadzia P.O. Box 1100, Bernalillo, NM 87004 505/263-8677 (c) • kirk@rmsgadzia.com Jeff Goebel 1033 N. Gabaldon Rd., Belen, NM 87002 541/610-7084 • goebel@aboutlistening.com Kathy Harris Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B

NORTH DAKOTA Joshua Dukart 2539 Clover Place, Bismarck, ND 58503 701/870-1184 • Joshua_dukart@yahoo.com OREGON Angela Boudro PO Box 3444, Central Point, OR 97502 541/ 890-4014 • angelaboudro@gmail.com SOUTH DAKOTA Randal Holmquist 4870 Cliff Drive, Rapid City, SD 57702 605/730-0550 • randy@zhvalley.com

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TEXAS Lisa Bellows North Central Texas College 1525 W. California St., Gainesville, TX 76240-4636 940/736-3996 (c) • 940/668-7731 ext. 4346 (o) lbellows@nctc.edu Guy Glosson 6717 Hwy. 380, Snyder, TX 79549

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806/237-2554 • glosson@caprock-spur.com Tracy Litle 1277 S CR 305, Orange Grove, TX 78372 361/537-3417 (c) • tjlitle@hotmail.com Peggy Maddox 9460 East FM 1606, Hermleigh, TX 79526 325/226-3042 (c) • westgift@hughes.net Katherine Napper Ottmers 313 Lytle Street, Kerrville, TX 78028 830/896-1474 • katherineottmers@icloud.com CD Pounds 753 VZ CR 1114 Fruitvale, TX 75127 214/568-3377 • cdpounds@live.com Peggy Sechrist 106 Thunderbird Ranch Road Fredericksburg, TX 78624 830/456-5587 (c) • peggysechrist@gmail.com

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WISCONSIN Heather Flashinski 16294 250th Street, Cadott, WI 54727 715/289-4896 (w) • 715/379-3742 (c) grassheather@hotmail.com Larry Johnson W886 State Rd. 92, Brooklyn, WI 53521-9102 608/455-1685 • 608/957-2935 (c) larrystillpointfarm@gmail.com Laura Paine N893 Kranz Rd., Columbus, WI 53925 920/623-4407 (h) • 608/338-9039 (c) lkpaine@gmail.com

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associate educators provide * These educational services to their communities and peer groups.

For more information about or application forms for the HMI’s Certified Educator Training Programs, contact Ann Adams or visit our website: www.holisticmanagement.org.

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

AUSTRAILIA Judi Earl “Glen Orton” 3843 Warialda Rd. Coolatai, NSW 2402 +61 409 151 969 (c) • judi_earl@bigpond.com Graeme Hand 150 Caroona Lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h) • 61-4-1853-2130 (c) graeme.hand@bigpond.com Dick Richardson “Spring Valley,” 165 Ironbark Lane Frogmore, Boorowa NSW 2586 61-0-429069001 (w) • 61-0-263856224 (h) dick@dickrichardson.com.au Jason Virtue P.O. Box 75 Cooran QLD 4569 61-0-754851997 • jason@spiderweb.com.au Brian Wehlburg Pine Scrub Creek, Kindee, NSW 2446 61-2-6587-4353 (h) • 61 04087 404 431 (c) brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au CANADA Don Campbell Box 817 Meadow Lake, SK S0X 1Y6 306/236-6088 • 320/240-7660 (c) doncampbell@sasktel.net Ralph Corcoran Box 36, Langbank, SK S0G 2X0 306/532-4778 rlcorcoran@sasktel.net

January / February 2017

Blain Hjertaas Box 760, Redvers, Saskatchewan SOC 2HO 306/452-3882 • bhjer@sasktel.net Brian Luce RR #4, Ponoka, AB T4J 1R4 403/783-6518 • lucends@cciwireless.ca Noel McNaughton 5704-144 St NW, Edmonton, AB T6H 4H4 780/432-5492; noel@mcnaughton.ca Tony McQuail 86016 Creek Line, RR#1, Lucknow, ON N0G 2H0 519/528-2493 • mcqufarm@hurontel.on.ca Len Pigott Box 222, Dysart, SK, SOH 1HO 306/432-4583 • JLPigott@sasktel.net Kelly Sidoryk Box 72, Blackroot, A B TOB OLO 780/872-9761 (h) • 780/875-4418 (w) 780/872-2585 (c) • sidorykk@yahoo.ca

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KENYA Christine C. Jost ICRAF, Box 30677, Nairobi 00100 254-736-715-417 (c) • c.jost@cgiar.org NAMIBIA Usiel Seuakouje Kandjii P. O . Box 23319, Windhoek 9000 264-812840426 (c) • 264-61-244028 (h) kandjiiu@gmail.com Colin Nott PO Box 11977, Windhoek 9000 264-81-2418778 (c) • 264-61-225085 (h) canott@iafrica.com.na

Wiebke Volkmann P. O . Box 9285, Windhoek 264-61-225183 or 264-81-127-0081 wiebke@afol.com.na NEW ZEALAND John King P. O. Box 12011, Beckenha Christchurch 8242 64-276-737-885 john@succession.co.nz

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SOUTH AFRICA Wayne Knight Solar Addicts, P.O. Box 537, Mokopane, 0600 South Africa 27-0-15-491-5286 +27-87-550-0255 (h) +27-82-805-3274 (c) wayne@theknights.za.net Jozua Lambrechts PO Box 5070, Helderberg, Somerset West, 7135 +27-0-21 -851 5669 +27-0-08-310-1940 Ian Mitchell-Innes 14 Chevril Road, Ladysmith, 3370 +27-83-262-9030 ian@mitchell-innes.co.za UNITED KINGDOM Philip Bubb 32 Dart Close, St. Ives, Cambridge, PE27 3JB 44-1480-496-2925 (h) +44 7837 405483 (w) pjbubb99@gmail.com

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THE MARKETPLACE

FROM THE WORLD’S #1 MOBILE SHADE COMPANY

THE ALL NEW SH500

Keep your herd productive and protected with our newest, most affordable model!

INTRODUCTORY OFFER

$6995 *

SH500 FEATURES Provides 500 square feet of mobile shade.

Perfect for cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, and other livestock.

Will withstand steady winds up to 35mph, or 50mph gusts.

Pulls easily with a 4-wheeler.

Comes with 1-year warranty.

Ships worldwide March 2017.

* Pricing for first 10 units sold. Limited availability. Promotion ends 1/31/17.

www.shadehaven.net

(855)-247-4233 Num ber 171

h IN PRACTICE 21

THE MARKETPLACE

The Porta Reel System for Temporary Fencing Geared Reel 3:1, TA280 • Save time by 3-way transmission • Special eye for well-directed wire routing • Impact-proof plastic guarantees durable use • Heavy-duty steel crank arm • Up to 600 m plastic polywire or about 200 m tape

NEW iable l e r h

wit ut! w n o k n c ive lo t A perfect, professional reel system for a x fi temporary fencing systems that have to be assembled/disassembled quickly and for many years of use. The indispensable aid for modern fencing.

TwinMountainFence.com • San Angelo, TX • (800) 527-0990 • En Mexico: 01-800-640-3156

2017 DATES!!!!

Holistic Management Trainings

CORRAL DESIGNS

“Bud Williams” Livestock Marketing & Proper Stockmanship

Jan. 30-Feb. 4, 2017

with Richard McConnell & Tina Williams

Albuquerque, New Mexico with instructor Kirk Gadzia

Come to one of our schools and learn how good stockmanship can make your livestock handling experiences enjoyable, easier, and more profitable and how livestock marketing based on today’s price (no crystal ball) can help you realize your profit goals.

Introduction to Holistic Management January 30 - February 1: $495 Advanced Training Session (Requires prior attendance at intro session.)

February 2-4: $495 Comprehensive Holistic Management Training January 30 - February 4: $895 Remember, profitable agriculture is not about working harder— it’s about making better decisions!

Pasture Scene Investigation

Information and Registration:

By World Famous Dr. Grandin Originator of Curved Ranch Corrals The wide curved Lane makes filling the crowding tub easy.

Includes detailed drawings for loading ramp, V chute, round crowd pen, dip vat, gates and hinges. Plus cell center layouts and layouts compatible with electronic sorting systems. Articles on cattle behavior. 27 corral layouts. $55.

Low Stress Cattle Handling Video $59.

Send checks/money order to:

GRANDIN LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS

www.rmsgadzia.com

Kirk L. Gadzia, Certified Educator

2918 Silver Plume Dr., Unit C-3 Fort Collins, CO 80526

Resource Management Services, LLC Bernalillo, NM ~ 505.263.8677 kirk@rmsgadzia.com

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970/229-0703 • www.grandin.com

January / February 2017

We are setting our 2017 schedule now. Call or email to set up a school in your area or join us — February 6-8, 2017—Springfield, MO

www.handnhandlivestocksolutions.com info@handnhandlivestocksolutions.com 417-327-6500

THE MARKETPLACE Fostering Change & Holistic Financial Planning

Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2017 This workshop is designed for Farmers, Ranchers and other Business Professionals, Tribal and Government Agencies who want to practice: • Making decisions holistically • Enhanced Quality of Life • Increase Profitability

• Overcome limiting beliefs • Effective Conflict Resolution • Foster Change

Pu’u O Hoku Ranch on the beautiful island of Molokai, Hawaii Facilitated by Jeff Goebel Sr. Certified HMI Trainer

For more information and to register go to www.climateconsensusinstitute.org

ral Services, Inc.

E? R U T S A P E S N E D NUTRIENT

KINSEY Agricultu

How many animals truly receive feed that has been grown with correct nutrients added to the soil? 95+% of all pasture and hay soils we test do not have the fertility required to provide the animals that eat it with even close to good nutrition. What about yours?

You can only manage what you correctly measure. Soil test as soon as conditions permit to add lime or other needed nutrients for pasture and hay crops.

For consulting or educational services contact:

Soil test as soon as conditions permit to add lime or other needed nutrients for pasture and hay crops.

Kinsey Agricultural Services, Inc. 297 County Highway 357 Charleston, Missouri 63834

Ph: 573/683-3880, Fax: 573/683-6227 www.kinseyag.com • info@kinseyag.com

Num ber 171

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Nonprofit U.S POSTAGE

PAID Jefferson City, MO PERMIT 210

Healthy Land. Healthy Food. Healthy Lives.

a publication of Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 USA

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

please send address corrections before moving so that we do not incur unnecessary postal fees

DEVELOPMENT CORNER A Letter of Thanks

BY JENNIFER KLASS

T

he giving season is still upon us all and, we know, it is difficult to go just about anywhere without being asked to give, donate or contributed in some way. Were you recently asked to give a dollar at your local grocery store? Did you recently purchase a roll of wrapping paper to support the school down the road? How many envelopes in today’s mail requested you send a check back?

We know you have a choice where your hard earned dollar goes and that’s why we, at HMI, wanted to take this opportunity to say “thank you”!

It is also the season of gratitude and we are incredibly grateful that you chose us. We are thankful you trust us with investing your gifts wisely.

Did you know that, because of HMI’s wise investments, every penny of your donations go directly toward programming? That is a

HMI supports Holistic Management programs around the world, like this conservation agriculture training in Namibia.

Peer to peer learning is a critical part of HMI training success.

We work to make sure that we support training around the world and we make it experiential and practical. statistic we are proud to spotlight.

And lastly, it is a season of reflection. Sadly, the USDA states that 2,000 farmers and ranchers will go out of business this week and every week. So, whether it is to our Whole Farm and Ranch Trainings or our Open Gate Series, without gifts from you, we would not be able to offer our valuable programs at affordable prices, sometimes as low as $2.00 an hour!

Your support allows us to continue training land owners around the world who are practicing Holistic Management on over 40 million acres world-wide. That is another staggering statistic that makes us proud.

So, from HMI to you during this season of giving, season of thankfulness, and season of reflection, now and always, thank you for supporting our mission to educate people in regenerative agriculture for healthy land and thriving communities.

For more information on giving opportunities and the valuable work of HMI, please contact me at jenniferk@holisticmanagement.org.

Printed On Recycled Paper