38 minute read
HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
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. 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.
Sweetgrass Dairy— A Match Made in Heaven
BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
Located 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. 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
for some land to rent or take care of in Missouri, but it just wasn’t happening. I couldn’t find the right opportunity.”
So he moved back to Indiana a year and a half after graduation and started working for Charlie again part-time and also helping several conventional row-crop farmers. “I was hauling grain, driving semis and doing a little bit of everything—cleaning out fence rows and this and that. I still hadn’t found a way into agriculture and I also hadn’t found anybody who was serious enough about life to start a family with, so my mom got hold of me and encouraged me to join e-Harmony. That’s how I ended up meeting my wife, Elizabeth,” says Coleman.
Her family had a dairy in Pennsylvania. “Her e-Harmony profile said she had three requirements for a husband—that he wanted to farm, wanted to have a family, and had to be a Christian. I thought this might be a good fit. She was from northwestern Pennsylvania and we communicated through e-mail and letters for about three months and then in January 2011 I went to visit her. She had a number of siblings who were already grown up and gone from home. Her family milked about 120 cows at a conventional confinement dairy farm,” he says. With a combination of Jersey, Ayrshire, and Shorthorn crosses, the Colemans have been
“We really hit it off able to build up a strong direct market business for raw milk and other farm products and her desire was to to over 200 customers. continue in farming on her parents’ operation, and they saw themselves retiring at some point and having us take it over. I knew from the beginning that a confinement dairy wasn’t my cup of tea, but Elizabeth and I had a good relationship and we ended up getting married the summer of 2011. By then her father realized he had an extra worker and he wasn’t quitting any time soon!” Creating a Grazing-Based Farm
Jacob and Elizabeth soon realized they weren’t going to be taking over that farm and started exploring other options, trying to get back to a grazing-based farm. “I started reading and traveling—taking Elizabeth with me—to other grazing dairy farms in northwestern Pennsylvania. We had a little bit of land ourselves, north of her parents a few miles, and we began the process of building our own farm there,” he says.
They also began a search for smaller-framed grass-based dairy cows. In that search they came across some cows on a farm in central Ohio, and came to look at them.
“We found out that this farm had been a perennial sod-based farm since 1991 and had been certified organic for almost 10 years,” says Jacob.
The owner had converted it to a grass-based polyculture and then was killed by a bull on the farm a decade later, in 2001. His widow had rented the farm out to a fellow for about 8 years, but that fellow had run it into the CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
ground because he didn’t practice proper grazing. There was about 60 acres of nothing but poison hemlock, for instance.
“We looked at the cows, went back to Pennsylvania and found out that we didn’t have the part-time work on my wife’s parents’ farm anymore. The cash flow to continue building our operation up there was at a standstill. So our plans took a different direction. At our visit to this farm here in Ohio, we found out that the widow wanted to rent it to someone who was willing to continue as a grazing-based dairy and take care of it. We called her and told her we thought we could do that,” says Jacob.
The previous renter had gone bankrupt because he hadn’t taken care of things, so in the transitional process the widow’s son had come back to his father’s farm to run it for a year and had a nice herd of Jersey, Ayrshire, and Shorthorn crosses that he was milking. “We purchased the springing heifers from that herd, and also found a closed line of Friesians in northern Pennsylvania and bought 20 springing heifers from that herd, to bring to the farm. We moved to the farm here in central Ohio in March 2013. The dairy herd was started with about 40 springing heifers, and that was a challenge. “I don’t know if we’d ever want to repeat that, starting with a herd of cows that had never been milked, and a parlor they’d never been in. It was an interesting experience!” says Jacob.
“I was approaching grazing with a very New Zealand mindset, with much shorter rotations, much less residue, with a maximum of 28-day recovery (more of a MIG system—management intensive grazing). We had the desire to be 100% grass fed because that idea was starting to become popular—and we created the perfect disaster. We had MUN (milk urea nitrogen) test results as high as 30 because the cows were grazing so much protein in the lush green grass, and we weren’t supplementing them with any grain for energy to balance that diet. The cows were very short on energy,” he says.
The MUN test is a measure of urea in milk samples. Urea collects in the milk when excess ammonia leaves the rumen and gets converted into urea in the liver. The urea produced in the liver gets into the bloodstream and into the milk and urine, excreted from the body as a waste product. Excessive ammonia leaving the rumen is wasteful from a nutritional standpoint, and conversion of ammonia to urea in the liver uses energy that could have been put to use making milk. There is an imbalance between the rumen soluble carbohydrates and the protein needed for microbial synthesis. A low MUN value is the result of either too little soluble protein in the cow’s ration or an excess of soluble carbohydrates, while
a high MUN means there is too much soluble protein or too little soluble carbohydrates. Excessively high MUN values have been associated with poor conception and early embryonic deaths.
“My non-farm background was a good thing and a bad thing. I had an open mind about farming methods, but although I had been around cows, had managed cows, and managed pastures, I had not been completely involved with or responsible for the total nutritional needs of the cows,” Jacob explained. He had to learn the hard way about some of the important basics of dairy cow nutrition.
“Our high MUN levels didn’t help because we had some breed-back issues and some pinkeye, but it didn’t break us. Yet the openness of mindset helped me. In the back of my mind I knew that something wasn’t right, and was seeking to find a way to resolve the problems. I had always pondered how buffalo thrived on the prairies eating nothing but grass. I’m not sure where this inkling came from, for me, but this is what began my quest for greater knowledge about grazing management,” says Jacob.
Improved Grazing Practices
Jacob wanted to find something that was more natural for the animals—that would work for a grass-based dairy. In his research that winter, he and Elizabeth read about tall grass grazing. “The information we found led us to experiment with a piece of the farm and let it grow and not graze it until late summer. We tried that, the second summer. That didn’t work either because the grass got so thick and tall that it began to selfsmother. When we were grazing out there, however, we did see a more balanced cow pie and some good things for the cows. They were doing better,” he says.
“The grass regrowth after that was very poor, however. After grazing the tall grass it really opened up the soil surface. We saw a lot of weeds coming in. So this method had a couple check marks of good and a couple X’s of bad, and we continued our quest for knowledge of better grazing management,” he says.
By the spring of 2013 they had a subscription to Acres USA and came across the articles written by Ian Mitchell Innes from South Africa. They also discovered a conference about holistic grazing in Tennessee on the Piney River Ranch run by Lee McCormick. Elizabeth thought it would be good to send Jacob to this conference.
“We don’t get off the farm very often, but we felt this might be important. I am the grazing manager on our farm and my wife takes care
of a lot of the other things. The conference was in April so we got things together so I could go for the three days. That’s where all the answers that we were looking for—in terms of holistic grazing—started coming together. This was not a full holistic course; it did not include life management and farm management, but it focused on how we can holistically approach grazing cattle and harvesting energy. It focused on feeding the soil and feeding the grass, looking at cow management as a whole—with everything taken into account,” he explains. “This world was designed to work in a way that builds soil fertility, but we as humans have destroyed that system in just about every possible way. We keep taking from the soil without putting much back,” says Jacob. “Those light bulbs came on for me. Those three days were just overwhelming with all the answers I was looking for. I was trying to reprogram everything I knew about grazing, because these answers were contradicting the traditional view of not wasting any grass (grazing it down to two or three inches). Here were the answers we needed and I came home the end of April at the beginning of our grass here in Ohio. I came home with fresh knowledge and we saw immense changes that summer in the energy intake and health of our cows, grass recovery, grass growth and the bank of forage that we were able to build for the fall,” he says. The cows were a lot healthier and no longer stressed trying to sort through all that extra protein. “The cows were more comfortable and more at ease all summer long.” While the Colemans have not yet gone through a full Holistic The Colemans raised chickens and turkeys to increase soil fertility and Management training decrease insect pressure. they note it is on their list of trainings. “But the holistic training and reading that we’ve done has really changed the way we look at our farm, the soil, and the products we produce. We now understand that there’s a circle to life. When we can give back to all parts of it, everything comes out ahead, from the microbes in the soil, to the grass plants, to the cows, to the customers who buy our food, and to our pocketbooks. Each entity is excelling to a much greater degree, though there is still room for improvement,” Jacob says. Direct Marketing Jacob notes that their production is so much better than their first two years of farming. “It’s a work in progress, and we are moving toward our goals,” says Jacob. “We are certified organic and a Grade A dairy. We ship some of our milk to Horizon, an organic milk company, and also participate in herd sharing with private individuals with a raw milk product. This is the balance we have, at this point. We don’t know what the future holds with Horizon being purchased by Dannon, but right now we are balanced between the herd share program and Horizon.”
The first years on the farm they also started raising chickens. “As we were reading about ecosystems we realized that they contain more than one creature. There are more than just cattle on a prairie or an African savannah. We started introducing some broilers and some pigs, laying hens and turkeys. That first summer we raised about 50 chickens. We didn’t know anyone when we moved here, but slowly gained some customers for our food products,” says Jacob.
The first herd share customer approached them, about the time they were wondering how to get into direct marketing. “About a month after we moved here, we had a knock at the front door. This fellow saw our cows in the front pasture, came to our door, and wondered if we would participate in a herd share agreement. That was how we began our journey into direct marketing; our first customer came along and wanted to do it. He told a few people, and they told a few more people, and it grew from there.”
Their Sweetgrass Dairy Farm now has about 200 families who come to the farm regularly for herd shares for their poultry, pork, beef and milk. “We also have a little help-yourself store where people come to pick up their goods and drop their money in a jar. Everything works on the honor system,” Jacob says.
Passing on the Knowledge
“After we started seeing such wonderful results from our changes in grazing management we wanted to share these results with other grazers here in Ohio. There’s a large number of grazers across central Ohio. The Central Ohio Grazing Conference has about 1,200 attendees every February. Many of these farmers practice a MIG style/New Zealand style of grazing. We drive by some of the farms and see burned up pastures by July, and we developed a desire to see the missing link passed on to as many people as we could,” he says.
“We are not yet to the point where we can sponsor this as a free event, but we’ve hosted a grazing workshop here for the past two summers. It’s a cost to us for us to host Ian Mitchell Innes here at our place, and we supply food that we grow here on the farm. We had about 15 attendees the first summer, and about 27 here this past summer. It’s been exciting because we’ve kept in touch with many of them, and have heard many great success stories about changes and good things happening on the farms that have taken this information home,” says Coleman.
This past July they had a three-day workshop, with Ian doing part of it, and Mark Bader (Free Choice Enterprises) doing part. “Some people feel that a cow is able to determine what nutrients she needs. When she grazes a pasture she eats the tops of the plants and selects the plants with the most nutritional value for her. In a 50-acre fenced farm, she can’t wander far enough to find the balance of minerals she needs,” he says.
Some soils and some plants are lacking in certain minerals. Some pastures don’t have enough plant diversity or enough soil diversity to have all the necessary minerals in adequate amounts. “What Mark Bader has done, with Free Choice Enterprises, is formulate some macro-mineral blends and some micro-mineral blends. There’s a 16-choice mineral program the cow can go through and choose from. We have a box out there in the lot where the cows come and go from the milk parlor and they balance their mineral needs from those 16 choices. Some of those are a micro-mineral blend with multiple minerals mixed together, otherwise there would be dozens of different choices.”
Free Choice Enterprises has worked with those formulas to determine what would be needed. “The cow needs a balanced diet. We have to balance a cow’s energy needs with her protein needs, as well as the minerals. When a cow’s diet is too high in protein, the absorption of certain minerals doesn’t happen at the same rate. Trying to let the cow balance her mineral needs in that situation doesn’t work because she eats mineral and can’t absorb it in her body. When we are grazing in an optimal way, where the energy needs are balanced, the absorption rate for nutrients, including minerals, is highest.”
“Cows will readily change their mineral eating needs from field to field. We have some wetter ground here on our farm, and the cows’ mineral consumption rate changes in that box as we go from one soil to another, and from one grass species to another. It’s amazing to see the cows’ consumption rates change as they graze different things around the farm,” says Jacob.
“At the workshop, Mark and Ian tag-team the topics of animal nutrition and soil and grass management. They help break it down in simple terms and explain why grazing short grass doesn’t work and why grazing forages in a taller stage (more energy) rebuilds the soil and sequesters carbon and balances the cows needs while feeding the soil. They tie that loop of nutrition together and it’s very interesting,” he says.
The Colemans hope to do another workshop in the coming year, but that’s still up in the air. “We feel it is an investment in helping the land, helping other farmers, and all in all an investment toward the world, in providing more acres that are being managed properly. That’s our hope,” he says.
To learn more about Sweetgrass Dairy of Ohio and about their grazing school, go to: www.sweetgrassdairyofohio.com or jacob@sweetgrassdairyofohio.com.
Jacob and Elizabeth Coleman
TheGRAPEVINE
people programs projects
hNEWS FROM HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL h Western Canada Holistic Management Conference
Congratulations to Ralph & Linda Corcoran and their Holistic Management Group for a very successful conference in Moosomin, Saskatchewan with 150 adults and 30 children on February 3rd and 4th. This conference came together Conference attendees enjoyed quickly under their leadership and many networking conversations with the help of many willing hands. as well as opportunities to learn The theme of the conference was from regenerative leaders. “Learning from Regenerative Leaders.”
The conference began Friday evening with a well-attended wine and cheese reception. Saturday morning began with Kristelle Harper presenting on the Brookdale project located north of Brandon, Manitoba. This project is comparing a Holistic Planned Grazing system with a continuous grazing system. This project has run two years and already some differences are observable. In addition there were producer panels discussing experiences with running field days, leadership, and cover crop production practices.
There was also a video presentation from Dr. Richard Teague of Texas A&M. Dr. Teague spoke about the research project he is part of, where 18 holistically managed farms across Western Canada are being paired with 18 conventional management farms. The researchers are looking at economics, soil biology, soil carbon, grassland birds and plant diversity.
Sunday morning began with Holistic Management® Certified Educator Blain Hjertaas presenting on how the earth cools itself and how our management of the surface of the earth over the last 10,000 years of agriculture has altered the cooling system of the planet.
Phil Rose, a graduate student at the University of Regina presented on the importance of grazing lands and how different grazing strategies encourage or discourage different species of grasslands birds.
The last speaker of the conference was Dr. Christy Morrissey from the University of Saskatchewan. Her topic was resiliency in farming systems. Her research explores innovative and profitable ways to encourage resiliency on large grain farms.
The Moosomin conference was an outstanding success and achieved the goal! Many thanks to all who helped out in any way including the following sponsors: Upper Assiniboine River Conservation District, Souris River Conservation District, Kelsey Nagy-Investor’s Group, Back to Your Roots, Lower Souris Watershed Association, GBT Angus Trevor & Cheryl Branvold, Nerbas Brothers Angus, Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association, Timeless Fencing, Sharpe’s Soil Service, FCC, and Saskatchewan Stock Growers.
New Staff at HMI
HMI is excited to announce our new Office Assistant, Kimberly Barnett. Kimberly graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2013 with a degree in Sustainable Food & Water Resources – a curriculum she fashioned for herself in the Bachelor of University Studies program. While in school, she absorbed everything she could about food and watershed management, local food ecosystems, and sustainable agricultural practices. She grew vegetables on her family’s ½ acre farm in Bosque Farms for 6 years before migrating back up to Albuquerque. She gained non-profit and admin experience working with the New Mexico Technology Council and then found her way to HMI. Kimberly is excited to explore the convergence of her organizational skills, love of land, and hope for the future to help HMI grow and thrive in the coming years! Welcome, Kimberly! Kimberly Barnett
Regenerative Agriculture Offers 78% More Profit
Recent research (https://peerj.com/articles/4428/) by Claire LaCanne and Dr. Jonathan Lundgren notes that while regenerative agriculture may have lower yields (29% on average), the profitability is consistently higher—with an average of 78% greater profit.
Of particular interest, regenerative agriculture also provides greater ecosystem services which also allows them to create pest-resilient systems that outperform farmers who are using chemical treatment. In fact, pests were 10-fold more abundant in insecticide-treated corn fields than on insecticide-free regenerative farms.
The research notes that to attain these kind of positive benefits requires “a systems-level shift” on the farm. In other words, if producers apply certain regenerative farming practices within their current production system, they are unlikely to produce the same results as noted by farmers who have achieved the results noted in the study.
New HMI Certified Educator in Finland
HMI is also excited to announce that Tuomas Mattila from Pusula, Finland just successfully completed his Holistic Management Certified Educator Training.
Tuomas is a farmer, scientist and consultant. He has a Masters of Science in Agriculture and Forestry, a Masters in Science in Chemical Engineering, a Doctorate of Science Technology in Systems Analysis and Operations Research, and 10 years of practical experience on managing his family farm. For the last three years he has been helping other farmers to regenerate their soils and improve their lives. Exposure to Holistic Management has been a key issue in wrapping everything together and moving things forward in a way which is truly sustainable, whole and fun. He is particularly interested in the application of Holistic Management to forestry, crop production, and to non-brittle temperate and boreal climates.
Tuomas has helped people and companies learn Holistic Management and implement on their farms. In addition, he offers consulting on soil management, nutrient management, minimum tillage and agroecological farming methods. Congratulations, Tuomas!
Nurturing Soil
BY DANNY NUCKOLS, PhD
Every parent, child provider, knows that you do not wait until young adulthood to provide nurturing mental and physical care; attention is needed to help stave off future youthful challenges and actions pertaining to assorted illnesses, learning disadvantages, and yes, even entering a school to shoot-down one’s fellow classmates. In fact, it is difficult to discover examples that argue against early intervention/study, no matter the context. For those who practice agrarian Holistic Management, the corollary centers on the need for the early nurturing of the soil. Poor soil, poor everything.
In his monumental text, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, David
Montgomery acknowledges that single-bullet theories for why civilizations fail are always suspect, whether from disease, deforestation or climate change. It seems to be more prudent to argue that it is always an interplay of social, economic, political and environmental forces for why a culture fails. Little attention is given, unfortunately, for how the state of the soil affects a country’s wealth, and how the opulence of future generations demands intergenerational soil stewardship.
And although the acknowledgement of the importance of soil has improved, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that “millions of tons of topsoil are eroded annually from the fields in the Mississippi
River Basin. Every second, North America’s largest river carries another dump truck’s load of top soil to the Caribbean. An estimated 24 billion tons of soil are lost annually around the world—several tons for each person on the planet.” Montgomery goes on to assert that undoing damage caused by soil erosion would annually cost the U.S. $44 billion and approximately $400 billion a year globally.
Those who engage in Holistic Management know soil organic matter must not only be prevented from eroding, when possible and
Coming in the Back Door
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10
resolution unanimously in October 2017. We will also use the Land Use Plan for awareness of the resource base in the SWCD and to do holistic analysis for problem solving, such as with endangered species or weed management, erosion and flooding abatement, cleaning up water quality issues, etc.
I am excited about where we are heading as a Soil and Water Conservation District. Other board members, as they see and learn from the work, are also excited. My hope is that we really develop a plan that lends itself to full disclosure to the taxpayers of the District about how we make decisions and how we implement and monitor our plans. If we are successful here, then it’s possible to spread our work around the state of New Mexico. I also serve on the New Mexico Association of Conservation District board. Stay tuned!
Jeff Goebel is a Holistic Management Certified Educator and Director of the Climate Consensus Institute and can be reached at: goebel@aboutlistening.com
prudent, but also built-up. Such soil organic matter originates from many areas, being the remains of dead plants and animals and their excretory products in various stages of decomposition, the final stage being known as humus, as cited by Joan Gussow in her book, The Organic Life. Gussow explains how “nature—represented by billions of organisms—is passing what she’s been offered through the cells of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, mites, springtails, worms, and other organisms. As these organisms cycle chemical elements and energy, they help knit the clay particles into porous mesh through which air and water can percolate, and roots can stretch and breathe as they search for the nutrients that will grow plants.”
Citing the work of Christine Jones, an independent soil scientist in Australia, Courtney White, in his publication, Grass, Soil, Hope, strongly proclaims that continued delays in taking a more holistic approach to land stewardship will see ever increasing losses in soil carbon and soil water. Such a myopic approach only exposes farmers and ranchers to continued increases in all sorts of production risks—from escalating costs in the factors of production, to vulnerability to climatic extremes. As Jones espouses, “it’s time to move away from depletion-style, high emission, chemically based industrial agriculture and get serious about grass-roots biologically based alternatives.”
HMI and its Holistic Management training has proven that every land manager can benefit from improved early soil health management in general, and carbon sequestration in particular—all leading toward more nutrient enriched food. The result will be a more robust profit margin for one’s agricultural operation, not to mention healthier children with emotional well-being.
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P.O. Box 2300 Ridgeland, MS 39158-2300 Joel Salatin, Editor
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.
UNITED STATES
ARIZONA
Tim McGaffic
P.O. Box 1903, Cave Creek, AZ 85327 808/936-5749 • tim@timmcgaffic.com 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 COLORADO
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 KANSAS
Bill Casey
13835 Udall Road, Erie, KS 66733 620/423-2842 • bill.caseyag@gmail.com MICHIGAN
Larry Dyer
1113 Klondike Ave, Petoskey, MI 49770 231/347-7162 (h) • 231/881-2784 (c) ldyer3913@gmail.com MISSISSIPPI * Preston Sullivan 610 Ed Sullivan Lane NE, Meadville, MS 39653 prestons@telepak.net 601/384-5310 (h) • 601/835-6124 (c) MONTANA * Amy Driggs 1551 Burma Road, Eureka, MT 59917 208/310-6664 • adriggs@ldagmachinery.com
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 NEBRASKA
Paul Swanson
5155 West 12th St., Hastings, NE 68901 402/463-8507 • 402/705-1241 (c) pswanson3@unl.edu
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
Kelly Boney
4865 Quay Road L, San Jon, NM 88434 575/268-1162 • kellyboney_79@yahoo.com
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 Albuquerque, NM 87109 505/842-5252 • kathyh@holisticmanagement.org
INTERNATIONAL
AUSTRALIA
Judi Earl
“Glen Orton” 3843 Warialda Rd. Coolatai, NSW 2402 61-409-151-969 (c) • judi_earl@bigpond.com
Paul Griffiths
PO Box 186, Mudgee, NSW 2850 612-6373-3078 paul@holisticmudgee.com
Graeme Hand
150 Caroona Lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h) • 61-4-1853-2130 (c) graemehand9@gmail.com
Dick Richardson
PO Box 341 Balhannah SA 5242 61-0-42906900 (c) 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
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 780/872-2585 (c) • 780/875-4418 (w) kelly.sidoryk@gmail.com FINLAND
Tuomas Mattila
Töllintie 27, Pusula, 3850 +358 40 743 2412 • tuomas.j.mattila@gmail.com KENYA
Christine C. Jost
Box 30677, Nairobi 00100 773/706-2705 (c) • 703/981-1224 (w) cjost@usaid.gov NAMIBIA
Usiel Seuakouje Kandjii
P O Box 24102, 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 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
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 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 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
Deborah Clark
PO Box 90, Henrietta, TX 76365-0090 940/328-5542 • deborahclark90@sbcglobal.net
Guy Glosson
6717 Hwy. 380, Snyder, TX 79549 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 WISCONSIN * Heather Flashinski 16294 250th Street, Cadott, WI 54727 715/289-4896 (w) • 715/379-3742 (c) grassheather@hotmail.com * Larry Johnson 453 Woodside Terrace, Madison, WI 53711 608/957-2935 • larrystillpointfarm@gmail.com * Laura Paine N893 Kranz Rd., Columbus, WI 53925 920/623-4407 (h) • 608/338-9039 (c) lkpaine@gmail.com
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.
These associate educators provide educational services to their communities and peer groups.
LarryDyerEcological
Agriculture
Consulting
Helping farms and communities through the holistic lens of an ecologist
• Educational Programs • Group Process Facilitation • Group and Individual Consultation
Specializing in:
• Organic vegetable production • Season extension • Passive solar greenhouse management • Local food systems • Whole Farm Planning with Holistic Management®
Ralph Corcoran
Holistic Management Certified Educator ——————
Saskatchewan, Canada
I teach a four-day Holistic Management
Course. This course will give you the tools to make better decisions against your Holistic Goal. You leave with a: • Holistic goal • Financial plan • Grazing plan I follow up with a one-day classroom session or a pasture tour within the year for continued support.
——————
To learn more, contact Ralph at: rlcorcoran@saktel.net 306/532-4778
HMI Grazing Planning Software
• User-friendly excel-based interface • Let the computer do the math while you plan • Easy SAU and ADA calculations • Account for multiple herds • Grazing Manual hyperlinks • Livestock and Land
Performance Worksheet • And many more features
Call 505/842-5252 or visit us at www.holisticmanagement.org/store/
$150$40 TO UPGRADE
“This tool has already given us a many fold return beyond our initial investment and we have just begun to use it.”
— Arnold Mattson, Agri-Environment Services Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
TO LEARN MORE or TO ORDER:
SAVE THE DATE!
Worldwide Agriculture Conference/ www.wwag.co.nz
University of Missouri July 25–27, 2018
Honoring the work and current use of Dr. William Albrecht’s soil fertility program.
For consulting or educational services contact: Kinsey Agricultural Services, Inc.
297 County Highway 357 Ph: 573/683-3880, Fax: 573/683-6227 Charleston, Missouri 63834 www.kinseyag.com • info@kinseyag.com
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
Nonprofit U.S POSTAGE PAID
Jefferson City, MO PERMIT 210
please send address corrections before moving so that we do not incur unnecessary postal fees
DEVELOPMENT CORNER Creating Healthy Land, Healthy Food, and Healthy Lives
BY KIRRILY BLOMFIELD
Ilove the power in Holistic Management to make us sit back from our daily activities and ask how we want our lives to be—our communities, our finances, and our landscapes. Then we make decisions to take us toward this goal.
My husband and I trained in Holistic Management together in 2007—and training together with a business partner or spouse is a must. At the time we had young children, and part of our goal was that we would have plenty of time to spend with the children—that my husband would be in to share dinner with us each night. We wanted a healthy farm, free of chemicals, on which to live and have children grow and play safely, among other things.
We have a 2,500 acre-property in New South Wales, Australia, with breeder cows, of which the offspring are sold as yearlings into our direct beef sales under ‘The Conscious Farmer’ brand. We also have some trade animals as well as some agistment/contract animals that we can easily move on and off the farm as seasons permit.
A big part of the activity changes we have made on the farm since our training, is the planning of our grazing—ensuring recovery of plants before their re-grazing. This has created some great results. We have seen the natural regeneration of trees, great improvements in ground cover, a move away from drenching animals, the regeneration of eroded gully areas, positive species change, and clear water runoff (when runoff does occur, which isn’t often). The planning of our grazing means that we feel confident with the number of stock we are running, how much feed they have ahead of them and the condition we can keep them in.
The changes that we have made since training in Holistic
Management have meant we now have a chemical-free farm and animals, and we are building the land and soil as we go. These are all things that conscious consumers value when purchasing, yet our animals were ending up in the melee of the local saleyards. Realizing that people value these attributes, we began direct marketing our beef as 100% grass fed, chemical-free beef. As part of our planning for a profit, we determined what was necessary to double our gross margin return from each animal, and we set our prices accordingly. Changes in the beef market since mean there is currently less premium, but for us, it is worth the challenges (and there certainly are some!) that come with it.
We contribute to Holistic Management International both in cash and by volunteering our time, such as hosting an Open Gate day at our farm and as being a Director with the organization. We want as much community exposure to Holistic Management as possible, so that others can create balanced, fulfilling lives and healthy landscapes, but also because we know it will create a better community and environment for us and our family to live in.
Kirrily and Derek Blomfield from New South Wales Australia love the power of Holistic Management to help them create quality products for their customers.
