Cow Chip Ranch
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growers, the corn growers, the stockmen’s association, the dairymen, the woolgrowers, etc. Everything became segmented. There was also legislation passed that focused on what we now consider conventional agriculture, with bigger operations,” Chad explains. “Now some of us want to go back to a more diversified type of operation, and we are trying to teach our kids as much as we can about all aspects of agriculture. We’ve had ducks, chickens, turkeys, pigs and lambs and are trying to market them. With Holistic Management our goal is to have healthy soil, to raise healthy plants, to produce healthy animals and have healthy food and healthy people. Yet our ability to locally market what we have has been a challenge.”
The Challenges and Value of Direct Marketing
State and local laws can hinder attempts at direct marketing as the Njos have discovered. For young producers to be able to get started, however, they need to be able to utilize any available resources and diversity—and find some available markets. “We try to help foster some legislative changes to help producers who want to direct market their products, but it’s not easy,” Chad says. “We try to raise natural cattle. Now grass fed is the big thing, but it’s hard to get into that market because there isn’t a lot of structure and there are no consistent guidelines or rules. A few packers are putting cattle out on cornstalks and calling them grass fed!” There’s no consistency in how these cattle are actually raised and fed, and it’s also very confusing to
the consumer because so many different types of beef in the stores are labeled as grass fed, and the quality is very inconsistent. “We’ve looked at trying to do more direct marketing with our livestock but it is a challenge. Here in North Dakota many of the smaller processors have retired. With the current rules, those older businesses were grandfathered in, but once they decide to close their doors, they are closed for good.” There are no new processors taking their place. “Around here, to process a beef or pork, it’s a three to four month wait. Last year my son had 20 pigs that were ready for market and they should have all been butchered by the first of the year, but the last ones were finally butchered the end of February. We ended up butchering and processing our own, because it was so hard to get them into a facility,” says Chad. “We have the product, and we have people who want the product, but there’s a holdup in the middle, with the current rules. We tell the consumers that it’s their job to help make a change; they can have more impact on the legislative decisions than we can, because there are a lot more of them,” he says. “We don’t want people just to buy into our own product, because a person can buy beef anywhere. We want them to want to invest in our operation, our way of life, so they can also feel better about the product they are getting—helping the future of responsible agriculture and food production,” explains Chad. “We are doing it for them. We are not doing this just to make money. We are doing this to grow healthy food for people. They are the ones we are thinking about when we are doing all the work. This is part of our effort in educating the consumer.”
Designing Regenerative Vegetable Production BY GRAEME HAND
Key points
Current vegetable production is clearly unsustainable as it requires offfarm carbon inputs, high fossil fuel use as well as herbicides, insecticides and tillage leading to biodiversity loss producing significant soil loss and soil degradation. Growing vegetables in dormant perennial grasslands (Pasture Cropped multi species vegetables with Planned Grazing) is part of the solution. Multi-species cover cropping with Planned Grazing also has a big role to play.
nutrient cycling by growing litter in place seems to be the only sensible (practical, profitable & low fossil fuel use) design to restore vegetable nutrient density. The evidence base is clear that for farming to be regenerative in the long run requires that perennial grasses need to be the base of all systems4.
Discussion:
Current vegetable production needs to be redesigned1. Most of the industry focus is on improving the efficiency of the current model (technology based) and substituting inputs (compost etc.). But, only a deep redesign2 so that vegetables are grown in a system that is selfregenerating will we be able to produce nutrient dense vegetables long term. Much of the advice to reduce soil erosion and degradation only suggests practices that slow down the damage3. Going over the cliff slowly does not make sense and this non-solution only pushes the problem onto our children and grandchildren. The cause of the degradation is lack of ever-increasing landscape function4—stability, nutrient cycling and water infiltration. Increasing 14
Land & Livestock
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July / August 2018
Photo Credit Gabe Brown
Potatoes being grown in compost that is spread over a multi-species cover crops then potatoes covered with hay then harvested by removing hay.
