From the Board Chair

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and results of their “big herd” grazing techniques.

The second day of the workshop began with Kirk talking about the financial aspects of grazing like considerations of asset turnover, and the benefits of selling monthly or weekly versus once a year, how to calculate profit per acre or per animal, as well as return on assets managed (ROAM) as a way of tracking escalating overhead costs. There were also discussions about labor, infrastructure investments and tax consequences of permanent versus portable fencing.

In the afternoon Robby explained how they seeded the Eastern gamma grass in strips and how the cattle have dispersed it. HMI Program Manager Kathy Harris gathered a sample of gamma grass to test with a refractometer (brix meter) to show participants another way to measure forage quality.

Thanks to Ben Bartlett, Kirk Gadzia, Deborah Clark, Lisa Bellows, and Robby Tuggle for their informative contributions to the workshop. Special thanks to Melissa and Tom Bookhout for all their help with preparation and coordination, and the Dixon Water Foundation for funding and providing the beautiful pavilion and the ranch.

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“There have always been market cycles up and down and you just hang on until the next one—when cattle prices are good again—but those cycles have changed. This is one of the tough realities, and if we are talking about Holistic Management, these things need to be discussed. A person can do everything right, in terms of grassland management, but if you go broke it doesn’t matter. In our situation, Candi and I will be fine, but we are just trying to figure out what the future holds.”

Even though the challenges are huge, many people in agriculture have a passion to try to find ways to continue working the land and making a living. As Candice says, “Some of us see our stewardship of the land as a sacred trust and a calling as we try to work with Nature and the natural laws of the earth. We have learned to stop using chemical insecticides and pesticides, using management that allows the natural biological controls to do the work. We are passionate about caring for all of these systems and their interplay, yet we are also reminded of not only the sacredness of life but the brevity of life.

“The sustainability of Holistic Management can help us find it [the sacred trust]—not only to learn it and understand it and see it and work it, but also to know that it is being shared in a way that will be carried on.”

BY WALTER LYNN

In the last edition of IN PRACTICE I discussed the social aspects of our Holistic Management® decision-making framework. The people part of a business, our community, and our families is such a huge piece of our holistic goal. This is a continuation on those social aspects.

In working on helping others to understand the social components,

I committed recently to developing a list of the constraints to soil health adoption. Our networks are hunger for what we sometimes take for granted in regenerative agriculture and Holistic Management. When I have shared my write-up of constraints, many of the constraints point to further education. Education and messaging are so key to helping others understand the possibilities of this world revolution in soil health. We cannot keep soil health under the bushel basket. Each of us has a story to share from our farm or ranch about a soil health change implemented or observed.

I would like to share about my networking and creating impact on soil health. The meetings I attend or help to organize, you never know who you may touch. On August 7th, HMI helped sponsor the Farmer’s Footprint video showing here in Springfield. Our venue and local organizers reached out to 50 people that evening, including several attendees of note— including representatives from two downstate Illinois medical schools, my personal M.D., approximately six environmental groups, a local newspaper publisher, and a Forbes.com (Forbes Magazine) reporter. We had demonstrations on soil health and a farmer panel to enhance the soil health message impact. The Forbes.com reporter lives locally, and she published an article about our event and soil health within two days of our event. This blind sow found an acorn with this reporter!!

Fourteen days after our showing, I had a confirmed appointment to meet with Southern Illinois University of Illinois School of Medicine’s Department on Population Science and Policy. We discussed the Soil, Food, and Health connection on November 6th. I had several pieces of “soil health technology” to help the education—a penetrometer, two pie pans, bread, and a bottle of water. The penetrometer measures compaction in pounds of pressure per inch limiting physical soil quality. The “flour test” is a demonstration about runoff and creating soil life. Our soil function helps to create the nutrient density of our food for better health. Explaining the soil connection may give us hope in reducing the current odds of one in three people receiving a cancer diagnosis. After the medical school meeting, I was in the groove to commit to writing my “Social Constraints to Soil Health Adoption.”

Where can you individually start a conversation? • A Rotary Club • A Slow Food Group • A Master Gardener group • A Group in your faith community • A local community college or University

It is about the conversation!

I want to personally commend each Holistic Management® Certified Educator and each practitioner for the impact created by their teaching, demonstration and implementation. HMI and its educators have the educational tools to help our journey of lifelong education and learning. Learning is critical because I believe that when we cease to learn in life, we are in a “marble orchard” or cemetery.