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Nerbas Brothers—
Holistic Ranching in Manitoba BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
Arron Nerbas, of Nerbas Brothers Angus, near Shellmouth in western 200% Production Increase Manitoba, says that originally his dad and uncle farmed together, and Arron says he and his brother Shane took a Holistic Management that’s where their ranch name came from. “My grandfather Rudy actually course in 2005, and their parents took it the following year. “The way we started the operation. He homesteaded here in the 1950s; his father operated our farm was already following a lot of the holistic principles; had earlier homesteaded about 15 miles away, in Saskatchewan. My we were spring calving, range feeding, etc. and didn’t have to change dad, Gene, is still involved with our ranch and my mom, Cynthia, is the dramatically in what we were doing, but Holistic Management brings a lot financial bookkeeper even though she’s not involved with the day-to-day more discussion to the table. It’s not just about the livestock or the land. ranch work. The daily management is me, my brother Shane, and my It involves your financial planning as well, and ties everything together,” dad. My brother and he explains. I came back to the “When we took ranch, so we are the that course we third generation.” implemented a lot of While Arron’s different things that grandfather and father complemented what had a more diversified we were already operation—a small doing. We are firm amount of grain, some believers in holistic pigs, chickens and principles and a dairy cow, in more it’s not really that recent years Arron’s complicated. It just father transitioned the involves breaking business to a cow-calf things down beef operation. and simplifying “My brother and I them rather than both went to university being caught up in Winnipeg (taking in the paradigm agricultural courses) of conventional and then we both agriculture. The worked on other jobs, holistic way of The Nerbas Family and later came back looking at things tied to the ranch,” says Arron. “Our family slowly added to the land base, doing into what we were doing and helped us refocus and also realize we were it strategically.” They focused on getting adjoining land to aid them in their going in the right direction,” he says. grazing operation. They rent a fair amount of land (1,500 acres) so they Having all the partners of the operation on the same page and all have about 5,500 acres total in forage production (owned and rented) for of them taking the course was also very important. “When you have hay and grazing. discussions, even on a daily basis, it just helps you see the big picture and Arron and his wife Amber have two girls, Emerson (age 10) and Hailey realize that the end goals are the same for everybody,” Arron says. (age 7) and Arron’s brother, Shane and his wife, Sacha, have two boys, “With Holistic Management, one thing we implemented shortly after Cash (age 5) and Kane (age 3). Both wives work full-time off the farm we took the course, and something we were not doing a good enough which works well for both families. With Arron’s daughters, Emerson and job on, was the management of our grazing lands in terms of rest and Hailey, now showing some interest in the cattle operation, there may be a recovery. Utilizing a grazing plan was very important to us, to make the fourth generation working on this farm in the future. land healthier long-term. In doing that, we’ve increased our production on 8 Land & Livestock
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March / April 2019
