GRAEME HAND

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.

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 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 .

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.

Perennial grasses are required to maintain soil structure, biodiversity, soil organic carbon and nutrient cycling4,5 .

Multi species cover cropping vegetables is a giant leap forward6 but as Dwayne Beck, Research Manager at Dakota Lakes Research Farm in Pierre, South Dakota (leading US Scientist in no till and cover cropping) describes, this design can result in too much nitrogen and not enough carbon as well as the need for perennial grass roots.

The closest design he has seen to a long term regenerative cropping design would be Pasture Cropping based practices5 .

Impact of Practices

Table 1 is an attempt to describe the impact of different vegetable growing practices.

Vegetable Growing Practices in order of increasing landscape function and soil health

Developed by Graeme Hand and Col Seis

• Pasture Cropped multi species vegetables & planned grazing - low

or no synthetic fertilizers, perennial grasses, high diversity, no herbicide, no fungicides or insecticides

• No till, compost, multi species cover crops & vegetables – low or

no synthetic fertilizers, higher diversity, low or no herbicide, fungicides or insecticides

• No till plus compost – lower synthetic fertilizers, low diversity,

herbicide, fungicides

• No till – plough replaced with herbicide, synthetic fertilizers,

monocultures, herbicide, fungicides

• Conventional vegetable growing – soil inverted/ tilled, synthetic

fertilizers, monocultures, herbicide, fungicides

Table 1

Examples of Practices

The lower practices are degrading, so I will not provide any examples below level 4.

Level 4 Example

Gabe & Paul Brown work at this level with great success. They plant potatoes and other vegetables into the decomposing litter from previous cover and cash crops. Sometimes potatoes are planted into compost and then covered with hay (seen at left). The Brown’s share their economics which show that vegetable production is very profitable. This income is achieved through direct marketing of nutrient dense produce that brings customers back.

System relies on excellent soil health and structure from a commitment to increasing landscape function. The Browns achieve this through multi species cover crops and excellent ultra-high-density grazing management to promote decomposing litter in all their grazed and cropped areas— perennial grass, multi species cover crops and cash crops. It is the decomposing litter that produces the conditions that increase fungal content. Increasing fungal content increases nutrient cycling, water infiltration and stability. Harvesting can be labor intensive. See photos. There are also many YouTube videos of Gabe and Paul presenting.

For more information see https://nourishedbynature.us/ and http://brownsranch.us/.

Level 5 Example

Level 5 is the highest known level of regenerative agriculture. Colin Seis works at this level. Col admits it is early days, but the signs are that this is a viable way of broad scale production of vegetables without erosion, while increasing nutrient cycling and water infiltration.

Barriers to Adoption

The key barrier to adoption is having a climate and grassland that has a clear dormancy period. These techniques rely on not killing perennial grasses but waiting until they are dormant or forcing them into dormancy with grazing management or herbicides that do not kill perennial grasses7. Small safe to fail areas trials are required to develop expertise in this technique.

Summer growing grassland have species such as: Redgrass, Kangaroo Grass, Box grass, and African sub-tropicals. A summer growing grassland that shuts down with frosts and cold winter temperatures is a good example of a situation where these techniques work well. It is harder to develop a niche in a summer grassland where the winters are mild and may require herbicide.

Winter growing grassland have species such as: Weeping grass, Wallaby grass, Spear grass, Phalaris, Cocksfoot, and Perennial Ryegrass.

A winter growing grassland can be manipulated to go into dormancy in the summer but years with high summer rainfall or irrigation can result in growth and competition and may require practices from level 4.

Possible vegetable species that could be planted into different grasslands are as follows:

For summer growing grassland possible winter growing vegetables to plant (while summer growing grasses are dormant or growing slowly)

Photo Credit Gabe Brown

Multi species vegetable production in deep decomposing litter base.