Big Bear Ranch
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Campbell and the Agricultural Ministry of British Columbia. Ranier believes that raising the best animals for high quality food starts with high quality soil. His holistic approach focuses on a balance between the land, plants, animals, and people, and he stresses the importance of humane and respectful treatment of the animals. “If the pastures are grazed down like we did in the beginning, leaving only about 30% of the plant, then it takes longer before we can come back to the same pasture,” says Ranier. “I figured out that if you take the cows out two or three days earlier, and leave more than 50% of the grass, you can come back in four weeks instead of six weeks. It looks like a lot of waste and trampling, but the production is so much higher.” “The problem I have right now is that some of my land is degraded because we don’t have enough animals anymore. You can really see a difference; to be productive, the land needs the impact from grazing animals. During the years we had 500 to 800 head of custom cattle and moved them across the whole place, every day they just got the area they needed for that day, and were moved daily, and we had excellent growth on all the fields.” Now that he only has the cow-calf pairs and grazing only the fields needed for them, those fields are still very good, but the other fields are declining in productivity. “I really think that industrial agriculture is on the way out. More and more people are realizing it is not sustainable,” says Ranier. In the past 60 years people came to depend on technology rather than natural, healthy ways to grow food, but there is a movement today to get back to doing things in healthier regenerative ways. Organic, natural agriculture doesn’t mean choosing between environmental benefit and financial benefit. Ranier believes that organic agriculture can feed the world, and you make more money at it because the cost of production is so much lower per acre. You spend less on fuel, fertilizer, and pesticides, and yield is higher. Ranier has found that multispecies and planned grazing are good ways to keep the animals and the land healthy. The parasites of one species won’t survive in the other species, so rotations break the life cycle of the parasites. The soil is also healthier with natural fertilizer from the animals.
Sweetgrass Dairy—
A Match Made in Heaven BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
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ocated at Fredericktown, Ohio, Jacob and Elizabeth Coleman’s grass-based dairy is relatively new but already has a growing number of herd-share customers for their poultry, pork, beef and milk. Their journey into grass farming has been an interesting one. Jacob didn’t grow up in a farming family, but dairy farming became his dream early in life. When he was 13 he got a job on a grass-based dairy farm just down the road from his parents’ place in Indiana. “We lived just outside the little town of Thorntown. That summer job was my introduction to dairying. I worked there all through high school and took on more responsibilities as I got older. That dairy was practicing a traditional New Zealand style grazing method. So I came into farming with a very open mind, willing to learn and explore methods that were a bit new or just coming into use in this country. I didn’t have the mindset of ‘Dad did it this way’ to hinder me,” says Jacob.
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Land & Livestock
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May / June 2018
When the sheep are in the barn over the winter their feces and bedding builds up to a two-foot layer that is moved outside in the spring. The pigs dig in this material and move it around, and it creates excellent compost to apply on the pasture. Improving the land and forage in natural ways is not only healthier, but cheaper. “I learned this from my own experience. The first years from 1995 until 1999 when I fertilized my hay fields, I spent $50,000 each year on fertilizer, and only fertilized half of our hay acres. At that time we were putting up hay on 1,000 acres and each year we fertilized about 500 acres. We needed 3.5 tons of hay per cow-calf pair for winter. Now, without fertilizing, I need only 2 to 2.5 tons per cow-calf pair. There is so much more nutrition in organic hay; it makes a huge difference,” he says.
Sharing Knowledge
Ranier tries to help other people understand the principles of Holistic Management and taking better care of the land. Each year, Big Bear Ranch hosts a field day for the class of sustainable agriculture of Thompson Rivers University. “They come here for a week each semester to learn about plants and animals, etc. One of the students wants to do a project about sustainable agriculture, and the teacher approached me to see if I would be willing to mentor this student. I don’t have a lot of spare time, but on the other hand I feel it is very important to help, if people want to learn about this. They can see that it is doable, fun, and so different,” he says. “People who come to our place are overwhelmed and say it’s like a park; it looks so beautiful! Here are all these pigs and it doesn’t smell bad!” If they can see it firsthand they can begin to understand the benefits and values. “Every year on the first weekend of July we have an open house and invite our customers and friends, to learn about what we do. There are people coming from Vancouver (a six- or seven-hour drive) to our field day, and many come a second or third time because they really enjoy it.” It’s an educational experience, when people can see with their own eyes (and nose!) what is actually going on and how it looks. “People can also come any time of the year, whenever we are around.” This sharing of knowledge is critical for regenerative agriculture to expand. Whether teaching a consumer about the benefits of grassfed beef or explaining the importance of planned grazing to a grazing mentee, Ranier is determined to keep learning and help others do the same.
Farming Values
During high school he read some of Joel Salatin’s books (including his You Can Farm series) and this ignited his interest in direct marketing. “I raised some pasture poultry and rotationally grazed some grass-fed beef at my parent’s place,” Jacob says. After high school he wanted to continue in agriculture, even though his parents couldn’t see a future in it. “I had no interest in college; I just wanted to farm, though Charlie Carter, the farmer I was working for, wanted to see me go to school. I told him I had three requirements for a college. It had to be affordable, it had to have an ag program, and it had to have a Christian background. I thought this was an impossible mix, but Charlie discovered a school in Missouri called College of the Ozarks. While students went to school there they worked on a campus job, to pay all the tuition.” Coleman worked at the school dairy farm’s processing plant, and also as a herdsman. “With all the students working part-time jobs, there were 30 people working on the school farm. To schedule 30 people to get those jobs done was a logistical nightmare at times!” he says. After college, he still didn’t have a way into agriculture. “I was looking
