Development Corner

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 Taking the Reins with Holistic Management

BY CHRISTINE SENTER

Iwas born in Argentina, raised in Brazil of British parents. Living in third world countries, we sourced all of our food from the weekly farmers market and our own garden. We had to make all of our food from scratch and learned how to make do when converting

American recipes (buttermilk was milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice, chocolate chips were dark chocolate bars cut up into chunks!).

I came to the US (Michigan) for college, and was amazed at the abundance of processed and packaged foods, and soon fell in love with Kraft Macaroni and Cheese,

Squirt and Snickers! As a poor college student and as I started my career, these convenient and inexpensive foods were my mainstay.

Ten years later I got sick. I went to the doctor, and all he could give me were prescriptions to treat my symptoms instead of treating the cause. This didn’t sit well with me, so I started researching and soon hypothesized that the food I was eating was making me sick.

I started buying produce and meats, and cooking from scratch. I felt a little better. I worked through several issues while I kept improving the source of my ingredients and eventually started raising some of my own food and healing my body.

I was able to purchase five acres in Texas in 2005, and I continued my quest to raise much of my food, while I worked a corporate job one hour away. The children and I had a milk cow, we raised chickens, and we had a garden. Considering myself a homesteader, I was introduced

to ACRES Magazine, and read articles on improving the soil with cover crops and compost tea. In 2007, I found Betsy Ross from Sustainable Growth Texas and had her come to tell me to what to do on my small plot of land and the first recommendation she gave me was to get the soil analyzed! So for the next few years, my practices were dictated by the results of soil tests, with much input from others. In hindsight, I never did spend much time understanding some of the science/rationale behind all that I was doing, so I was at the mercy of others interpretations/ understanding. Inadvertently, my little ranch was being steered by others, and thankfully, I had placed my trust in wise counselors! Fast forward to 2015, and via a Facebook post, I learned of a Beginning Farmer/Rancher (BFR) course in Texas put on by an organization called Holistic Management International (‘HMI’) that was starting within weeks. I remember calling and talking to Peggy Cole about getting into the class. I gave her a quick background of my agrarian experience and her words were, “We’ll get you in! You’ll get so much help from this program!” Little did I know what a life changing event this class would be! BFR taught me to take the reins for my life and ranch, and set my The Senter Ranch provides healthy food at the local farmer’s own course! market. Christine’s journey from illness to health through a HMI brought all the things I’d healthy diet is behind the Senter Ranch’s mission. been attempting to do on my land into a systematic decision making framework that encompassed all aspects I’d been struggling with, including some I hadn’t even considered! I had always had a vision of what I wanted my little farm/ranch to look like, but had never thought of formulating it into a Holistic Goal, from which all decisions and actions were to be based on. A Holistic Goal that encompassed my preferred quality of life, finances, land management, community involvement, and other personal choices. Most importantly, HMI taught me how to test decisions against my CONTINUED ON PAGE 15