#191, In Practice, May/June 2020

Healthy Land. Healthy Food. Healthy Lives.

M AY / J U N E 2 0 2 0

From Speciesism to Mutualism

BY ANN ADAMS

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ith some trepidation, I decided it was time to write about what I believe is behind the rise of veganism. Certainly the lucrative “fake meat” industry has seen the market opportunity with this increase, and the effect of this marketing effort has far-reaching implications for livestock producers who are understandably upset.

However, I believe the polarization of vegans and carnivores or vegans and livestock producers does not help us move the dialogue forward or help us determine the similar

Opportunities & Challenges INSIDE THIS ISSUE As markets evolve, they provide both challenges and opportunities. Whether Holistic Management producers are exploring agritourism, carbon markets, direct sales, education, or a host of other options, they are finding creative ways to connect their passion and resources to market demand or helping to create that market demand. To learn more about the carbon market options beginning to be explored, go to page 12.

In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International

NUMBER 191

values these groups hold and how we can create common ground. It is only through understanding another’s position that we can better address another’s concern or be able to communicate our concerns to create mutually desired outcomes.

The Current Climate

I will admit that as a one-time vegetarian who has returned to an omnivore diet and who is the person wielding the bolt gun when it comes time to slaughter/harvest from our small goat herd, I have a bias toward ethical/compassionate killing of animals. I will also admit that given my finite foray of seven years into vegetarianism, greatly fueled by Frances Moore Lappe’s book Diet for a Small Planet, I assumed the “vegan trend” would be temporary in nature.

While I have concerns about the vegan diet on a variety of levels, I also appreciate the effort of any person in this day and age who is identifying what they value and working to act on those values with self-determinism. Caring about how animals are raised, eating a healthy diet, and wanting to support efforts to improve environmental conditions on this planet are all common values that I believe I share with many vegans.

It was only when the “fake meat” marketing began with its effort to make these products look like they were healthy for the consumer and for the planet that I realized the situation was very different than it was during the 1970s when the vegetarian movement focused on a plant-based, whole food approach.

W W W. H O L I S T I C M A N A G E M E N T. O R G

Likewise, in 1970 we did not have the research available that shows that regeneratively grazed animals actually are carbon negative and have less of a carbon footprint than highly processed plant foods such as “fake meat.”

These practices also perform better than the annual production of even organic vegetables.

Yet, this information is getting lost in the barrage of information presented by the companies producing “fake meat” in comparison to feedlot beef which does have a much larger carbon footprint and is part of a the larger agri-business industry that seems more focused on the bottom line than the health of the planet and people.

A Forbes article notes that there has been a 600% increase in veganism from 2014–2017 (from 1% to 6% of the US population). The number one reason stated for that choice is animal welfare. Other reasons include health, weight management, antibiotic use on animals, the environment, and taste. If you add the vegetarians into this calculation, then from a global perspective you are at 8% of the population. Yet, the vegetarian population percentage has changed very little.

If we look at the reasons for this increase in veganism, it is evident that people are responding to a broken food system by trying to opt out from it. The logic is that if we don’t eat meat we will not contribute to an industry that is harming animals in the way they are born, raised, and slaughtered and that is polluting and destroying the environment through its practices.

I think these practices are also contributing to the rising ethical concern of “speciesism.”

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Speciesism and Death Healthy Land. Healthy Food. Healthy Lives.

In Practice a publication of Hollistic Management International

HMI educates people in regenerative agriculture for healthy land and thriving communities.

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FEATURE STORIES

At its foundation, speciesism is the assumption of human superiority leading to the exploitation of animals (as inferior species). It is the basis of concern for many animal rights activists. Another definition is that speciesism allows humans to assume we have a greater moral right than non-human animals. According to PETA, this bias is “rooted in denying others their own agency, interests, and self-worth, often for personal gain.”

Thus, even the “compassionate carnivore” or “animal welfare approved” livestock producer is a speciesist because their choices end in the death of animals. But, with that definition we are all speciesists because every human makes decisions on a daily basis that causes the death of animals.

In Mike Archer’s article, “Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands” in The Conversation, he notes that 25 times more sentient animals are killed per kilogram of usable protein from plants than from animals, and results in more environmental destruction and animal cruelty. His calculations show that 2.2 animals are killed for 100kg of usable animal protein, while 55 sentient animals are killed for 100kg of usable plant protein. This calculation is based on the number of mice killed per hectare of wheat through plowing and poisoning and then determining average yield and multiplying by the 13% of the wheat that is usable protein.

Of course, there are many more mammals, snakes, lizards, and birds added to this list of slaughter from both cropping practices and the practices used to protect the crop before and after harvest. What is of interest to me in all the articles I read that there was really no mention of all the micro-fauna and –flora in the soil that are also killed in these practices so that there is far more death below ground than above ground which has far reaching consequences for the health of the planet.

Moreover, he notes that given the fact that there is limited arable land upon which grains

The Journey From Apprentice to Land Manager

MARTHA SKELLEY ...................................................................... 9

Bibbaringa Station— Developing An Earth Canvas

ANN ADAMS................................................................................. 3

LAND & LIVESTOCK

A Decision to Destock

GILLIAN TAYLOR.......................................................................... 7

Revolutionary Agriculture— Educating Farmers One at a Time

Telling The Real Story about Fake Meats— This stuff has lots of holes in its logic, but also lots of money backing it

Carbon Initiatives and Carbon Credits — Understanding the Potential Carbon Market

ALLEN R. WILLIAMS, Ph.D.......................................................... 8

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HEATHER SMITH THOMAS.......................................................10

HEATHER SMITH THOMAS.......................................................12

and vegetables are grown, if everyone were to shift to a plant-based diet, we could not feed everyone. However, meat can be raised on nonarable land.

Of course, all these cropping calculations are based on the conventional food system that is not regeneratively-focused. Thus, a regenerative, perennial-based vegetable production model would have a great deal less deaths per acre. However, there would still be deaths caused by these agricultural systems.

The idea that we are all guilty of speciesist behavior by the fact that we kill sentient beings (mammals, birds, insects, plants, and other organisms) seems like a nihilist philosophy that doesn’t really work to solve the challenges humans and our planet are facing in the 21st century. I believe this philosophy is based on the idea that humans are somehow above nature and, therefore, death. All species recognize the need or respond to the instinct for survival and eat other species.

Even Archer falls prey to this “humans are above nature” dogma by writing: “The challenge for the ethical eater is to choose the diet that causes the least deaths and environmental damage.” I would suggest that the challenge is to choose the diet that creates the best social, economic, and environmental benefit for the local and global community, which leads us to a predator-prey mutualism.

Predator-Prey Mutualism

There are many forms of symbiosis in the natural world. By recognizing that we are part of nature and are both influenced and influencing the health of the ecosystem through our actions and decisions, we are better able to create symbiotic relationships that are mutualistic rather than parasitic.

Symbiotic relationships are defined as competitive (-/-), predatory (+/-), mutualistic, (+/+), commensalistic (+/0), and parasitic (+/-).

Examples of mutualism, where both parties benefit, would be a bee pollinating a flower.

Commensialism is where one party is benefitted

Mob Grazing Is Just One Tool

BEN BARTLETT..........................................................................17

NEWS & NETWORK From the Board Chair.............................................. 20 Grapevine................................................................ 20 Certified Educators.................................................. 21 Marketplace............................................................. 22 Development Corner............................................... 24

and the other is not harmed or helped, such as when barnacles use whales as transportation.

Parasitism is where the host is harmed but not killed such as a flea on a dog. Predation includes the killing of another animal.

However, we know that the predator-prey relationship is not only a predation relationship but a mutualistic relationship. The predator keeps the herd moving so that the grassland remains healthy for the benefit of both species as well as numerous other species. The wolf kills the old or sick deer, but the riparian area is improved as is the deer herd genetics. All the other species that rely on the health of that riparian area reap the rewards as well. In this way, predation moves toward mutualism whether the wolf and deer are conscious of this dynamic or not. It is how nature functions and balances.

Actor Joaquin Phoenix used his Oscar speech to encourage the audience to “end speciesism.” He is part of a PETA PR campaign using billboards which state “We are ALL Animals.” Indeed, we are all animals, and we are part of a natural system that has certain realities in which we must engage regardless of the amount of technology we have at our disposal.

I believe it is our technology that sometimes makes us think we can control nature or avoid defiling it when in reality our every action

touches the spider web of life around us and causes reverberations locally and thousands of miles away. We struggle to even begin to understand the complexity of this world while we also resist the human systems that we know are broken and offend our values.

Again, the argument is that because we are humans and have a higher consciousness, we should not act like other animals and should hold ourselves to higher standards. I would agree that as a higher successional species, we have the potential to recognize the impact of our species on the planet and make decisions that will result in an increased biodiversity and healthy ecosystem processes that feed all life, rather than continue to evolve as a parasitic specie. It also requires decisions that recognize we are not the only species that need access to these resources. If we don’t change course, then nature will self-correct this progression for us (as it has done already on numerous occasions).

For this reason, our choice of diet must be focused on increasing biodiversity, not trying to limit our damage to the planet. I believe integrating livestock into agriculture is a key component of that increased biodiversity effort.

We can’t leave nature alone given the amount of impact we have had on the planet. We need

to be an active partner in the reclamation of the planet. If we are the predators in this mutualistic relationship, we must make conscious choices that increase community and planetary health rather than decisions that suppose us to be the most important species.

I think that vegans are trying to make those kinds of decisions. As a community that cares about planetary health, the Holistic Management community must find ways to communicate across dietary lines so that we can all better understand the short-term and long-term ramifications of our dietary decisions. Together we need to better inform the much larger portion of the population in developed countries who are making dietary choices based on what is cheap and convenient, not what is good for human and planetary health. We must do this work on a market level and at a policy level to make changes to our food system so it feeds our community and our planet.

Our consciousness, awareness, and ethics provide us with the opportunity to partner with nature rather than attempt to create dominion over nature. The first rule we have to truly accept is that the cycle of life is the cycle of death. All die and are eaten. The choice is how we do our killing and our living and how it serves the greater community.

Bibbaringa Station—

Developing An Earth Canvas

BY ANN ADAMS

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any farmers and ranchers are aware of the incredible beauty of the landscapes they manage.

For many of those producers, agri-tourism is a profitable enterprise as they invite consumers on to the land to share that beauty as well as the realities of farm and ranch life. Gillian Sanbrook has taken this concept one step further in developing the concept of the Earth Canvas at the 990-ha (2,475-acres) Bibbaringa Station in New South Wales, Australia and other surrounding Holistic Management farms.

Healing a Landscape

Gillian originally trained under Certified Educator Bruce Ward back in 1990 when she and her husband, David, were running Pooginook Merino Stud Farm in Jerilderie. After they sold that business in 2007, she invested in Bibbaringa and focused on improving ground

Gillian Taylor cover and strategically planting trees to slow the flow of water across the landscape. She also focused on rebuilding the soil fertility using mostly stocker cattle (approximately 300–500 cows and adult cattle) based on the amount of rain she thought she’d be getting as well as looking at the amount of forage she had and how well the land was recovering from the

previous season’s graze.

“In 2007 Bibbaringa was run down due to the 1,500 sheep and 700 cattle grazing the property before we bought,” says Gillian. “We had to let it rest to get it going. We gave it nine months of recovery. Now there is so much grass, but we had lots of weeds at first. I buy and sell cattle CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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Bibbaringa Station

moisture when it comes and store it.

“I’ve also been using Natural Sequence Farming which is about slowing the water to create a flexible stocking rate. In March through the landscape. It provides a wonderful and November I make a call about what we observation of the landscape. We look at ground are going to stock. I can always buy and I can cover, how to get fertility up to the top of the hill, always sell. In June 2019 the soil moisture was and moving water around the landscape rather so low I only bought 200 steers. I’ve got a lot than through the landscape. It does require of grass, but I don’t have the water. Right now serious excavation as we created 10 contour I have a 52,800-gallon (200,000-liter) tank and banks to build soil. In our situation, the granite 10 new troughs to better manage the water. soils don’t hold water, but these improvements Being able to give the land more recovery during help to slow it down. the summer is critical if I want to keep the land “The focus at Bibbaringa has been to build covered 100% of the time. Bibbaringa has to soil and have 100% ground cover throughout pay its own way. But, I can see the production the year. I have used the principles of Holistic is definitely increasing per mm rainfall or the Management whereby we graze cattle DSE per ha (SAU/acre) because we have strategically and allow adequate recovery increased the organic matter and soil carbon of for plants before we graze again. I have also the soil and the resilience of the land to capture planted over 70,000 trees on 300 acres (120ha).

“We plant trees to help with ground cover.

I have used the Holistic Land Planning process and I had government funding or grants to put back into the land.

In the first two years.

With that we created 65 paddocks of six-wire permanent fencing. I now build permanent three-wire fence. I travel a lot and feel confident the fences will hold the stock.

“When I’m home we move the cattle every day or second day.

When I’m travelling, I leave the spreadsheet and the relief worker knows which gate to open. I don’t get sick cattle with our program so I don’t have that concern when I’m away. I need to keep it simple now but my plan is to get back to breeding when and if the season ever feel more stable again. The first step was to focus Gillian purchased Bibbaringa Station in March 2007. The photo on on building resilience top was the condition of the land at the time of purchase. The photo in the property. In the on the bottom is the same landscape 12 years later after drought and meantime, trading cattle challenging weather as well as planned grazing implemented and 60 gives me the income paddock infrastructure development and the planting of 60,000 trees I need. to create a more resilient landscape.

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building resilience in the landscape because they provide habitat for birds and insects and help to build the soil carbon. It’s working as the organic matter on Bibbaringa is up to 3.5–5% at the 10 cm depth when it used to average one percent.”

It takes about six hours of work a week for Gillian to run the cattle operation which gives her more time for looking at market opportunities. She uses the Sell-Buy method developed by Bud Williams. Any infrastructure projects she hires out because she can afford to through business profit which allows her time for other enterprises on which she enjoys working, including her mentor and education efforts.

“I enjoy sharing my experiences of rebuilding Bibbaringa,” says Gillian. “I want people to understand the food chain from farm to end consumer. I want them to hear another perspective and understand the power of the food dollar in encouraging good land management.”

Gillian grew up in Melbourne and her parents created a successful manufacturing business.

She always dreamed of being a farmer and land manager and enjoyed being outdoors. “My first job was jillarooing in the Riverina of New South Wales and in New Zealand,” says Gillian. “After studying at Glenormiston Agriculture College I pursued a career in Rural Journalism in Western Australia and South Africa and then got married and joined my then husband in the family business, Pooginook Merino Stud.”

Earth Canvas

The sale of Pooginook Merino Stud company in 2007 provided Gillian the capital to purchase Bibbaringa as one landscape canvas upon which to create, but she also wanted to engage in other art projects. To that end she started an art investment group called Artstream with 20 unitholders involving 40 people who wanted to learn about Australian art. “We purchased $40,000 per year in art work, and then shared it among the group,” says Gillian.

“We later auctioned the art within the group.

The company was only ever to last for 10 years, finishing in 2019. We purchased art we wanted to hang in our houses. I love group dynamics and learning from and with people. Through Artstream I made connections with all these artists that we had purchased art from. From there I decided to connect top Australian artists with the top regenerative farms in southern New South Wales between the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers.

“Many of these artists have been on these farms and the farmers and artists have great relationships. Both parties are realizing the

synergies that come from these relationships.

The farmer can look at the landscape from a creative perspective as part of their management. Meanwhile the artists are talking about the landscape like a body with a liver and kidneys and providing that perspective. Anyone working with the land has to work with intuition.

Holistic Management, in particular, has a focus on synergy that is attractive to both these farmers and artists. Through the Earth Canvas project we have learnt that indigenous Australian artists and regenerative farmers talk the same language but use different words.

“I also converted my woolshed into a studio space. Now it’s being used for workshops of all kinds every couple of weeks, including writers. I have two sons that are artists so that is an additional motivation to integrate art into the farm. This journey has been an evolution.

When I first came to Bibbaringa I was focused on environmental management and I am only just understanding what I was doing. Now that I’m focused on the larger picture, I’m creating a space for us all to learn from each other, whether we are artists, musicians, regenerative farmers or ecologists.”

The concept for Earth Canvas is that artists each work with a regenerative farmer situated between the Murray and the Murrumbidgee rivers in southern New South Wales. The aim of this project is share the vision of creativity of the farmer and his/her working palate in the landscape with the artist’s impression of the landscape.

Gillian has engaged such artists as painters John Wolseley, Jo Davenport, Idris Murphy, and Jenny Bell as well as printmaker Rosalind atkins, installation artist Janet Laurence, and art photographer Tony Nott. The farms involved include Bibbaringa, Eurimbla, Mt Narra Narra, Yammacoona, Yabtree West, and Mundarlo all in the Holbrook region of New South Wales.

“There has been an outstanding response to Open Days (field days) on these farms with up to 100 people coming to each place,” says Gillian.

“This is only the first stage of the project. In 2020–2022 there will be 10 traveling exhibitions to the Australian National Museum (ANM), with stories and videos about the farmers as well as the art developed. We’ve been approached by ANM about travelling to four states. We will also have a writers’ festival in April to get writers to come and offer a workshop and get writers and readers to learn about regenerative agriculture.”

Earth Canvas is an educational non-profit and schools are coming to the farms involved in the project as the interest grows in regenerative farming and agriculture. Likewise, the program includes the artists and farmers going to the

school to talk to the classes. All of this programming is paid for either by the user or through grant- or schoolfunded programing.

While artists and farmers are not getting paid directly for providing this education, they feel it is important to use their skills to empower people to see there are some solutions to climate change. People can make choices about how they buy their food.

“I have to thank Holistic Management for this opportunity,” says Gillian. “In 1990, our business (Pooginook Merino Stud) was in the depth of drought, too much debt, and a wool depression. We needed a white line to follow. I went to see Allan Savory present and I thought this was the way to change the way we think. That gave us the capabilities change the way we made In these pictures (left) 2007 and (right) 2018, you again see the decisions and eventually contrast in land health and ecosystem function that has occurred sell our business which over the 11 years since Gillian purchased the property and has given was a fourth generation adequate recovery for perennial native grasses. business. I doubt we could have made that decision. And, we working with Certified Educator Brian Wehlburg made that a win-win decision for the family. It who offers this type of support the agricultural empowered us to move forward because our producers who have completed his Holistic children were not interested in the business.

Management training. After having had “When we started on the path of Holistic numerous years in various management groups Management and thinking we changed our as well as practicing Holistic Management on grazing, land planning, staff training. So many two different properties, Gillian has a lot of aspects of our business were changed to make experience to bring to the conversation and it a vibrant modern day business. We used finds this work rewarding. holistic thinking in our marketing strategies and “I facilitate the meetings as we follow an did some downstream manufacturing of wool agenda which includes reviewing a chapter in into garments. We established a client education Savory’s book and look around the farm where company called Pooginook Wool Initiative we are having the meeting,” says Gillian. “We and wool manufacturing business called have a meeting every six to eight weeks. I help Natural Instinct wool company. By refocusing to get the groups up and running when they first the company we were able to reduce debt start out. So much depends on the leadership and build the business during the Australian that comes from the group. We use Whats App millennium drought. for each group for participants to communicate between meeting. Someone might ring me as Management Group Support well and ask me to be a sounding board. We Another activity that Gillian has become usually have four to five meetings to get them involved in is Management Group support CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Num ber 191

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up and running and then they need to move forward with the leadership within the group.

“I’ve been a member of four different management groups over the years since the 1990’s. The group I’m in now is called 8 families www.8families.com. We are all within

context to make holistic decisions. The process is so important in so many aspects. It’s only when you engage in the process that you actually understand the true outcomes.

“For example in initial meetings in support groups there are people who are often loggerjams with each other. They were trying to make major decisions but didn’t have a holistic context. Then the group discussed how this was an issue and said they couldn’t make holistic decisions. Now they are ready to create a holistic context.

“I think people really underestimate the value of the holistic context. I think of it as a holistic intention. If it’s not part

caring. When you’re living in rural communities, you live in isolation. These meetings provide real community and bonding, which can happen very quickly. They can really help with the isolation especially during drought, fire, and flood.”

Whether running all the various enterprises at Bibbaringa or developing new Earth Canvas workshops and fields days or supporting a management club group, Gillian lives and breathes the Holistic Management process. She has found the value of using it whether to help her develop her grazing plan, determine when to destock or buy cattle, and how to create a landscape of great beauty, value, and resilience in a time of great weather extremes and changing markets. Lastly, she has used this process to evolve her business model in many

Trees provide many ecosystem benefits for Bibbaringa including helping to drought proof the landscape, cycle nutrients, add biodiversity, and provide shade for cattle.

Open Days at Bibbaringa and other regenerative farms bring crowds of up to 100 people to learn about art, the Australian landscape, and regenerative agriculture. of you, you can’t make holistic creative ways over the years as her life and decisions. In a management priorities have changed, improving her quality group people hold each other of life and providing new opportunities for accountable, but different people her family. are on different journeys and time schedules. Some people To read a full case study on Bibbaringa’s take more time to pick it up and ecosystem health go to: https://www. run with it. bibbaringa.com/media/pdf/Communities-in“I can’t believe the power Landscapes-project-21Nov2015.pdf of these groups.

Note the biodiversity now apparent on Bibbaringa’s landscape People see the value of them because of land management practices, infrastructure and more people investments, and restoration projects. Despite an average of 30 inches of rain, this Mediterranean climate means there can are wanting to get in the group be long periods of dry which requires a landscape that can once they start hold moisture when it comes. functioning. I tell 100 km (60 miles) with a spread of experience. these groups to be careful who We’ve being going for about eight years now. 8 they invite in. I think it’s best to Families is so important to my business and my have no more than 10–15 people personal life. or businesses in a support “One of the key things that come out of group. With only four people support groups is the reluctance to make a in the group, it isn’t diverse holistic context (goal) because after trainings enough. You need diversity of Natural Sequence Farming is an approach to creating many producers don’t understand the enterprises and ages. We always resilient landscapes by moving the water more effectively concept and the commitment and positive get children to our meetings and through a landscape. This includes the installation of communication that results from building a those meetings have such strong contouring and creating leaky weirs in riparian areas. holistic context. You actually need a holistic community dynamics, love, and 6 IN PRACTICE

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A Decision to Destock

BY GILLIAN TAYLOR

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s for me, well my background in property management is based on 20 years of practicing the principals of Holistic Management in the Riverina of southern New South Wales. I trusted that the process worked and I had the ability to regenerate a stressed property. The goal was to build up a rural business that would be biologically, financially and sociably sustainable.

So over the last 13 years we planted over 60,000 trees on about 23% of the property, turned 23 paddocks into 65 paddocks, maintained 100% groundcover throughout the year and also applied the principals of natural sequence farming developed by Peter Andrews to repair eroded and scarred areas on the property. We are slowing the flow of water through the landscape and getting the water back into the flood plain and out of the scarred incisions.

The rainfall in the past 13 years has varied from 400mm (16 inches) to 1,050mm (41 inches). The past 12 months in 2019 was 460mm (20 inches) with an average rainfall of 750mm (30 inches). The spring rainfall did not come until November, which in my view was too late to build a bulk of feed. Although we had good January rainfall of 55 (2 inches) it did not provide the bulk of feed normally experienced from the summer perennials. The temperatures were all above average including higher winter temperatures, which encouraged reasonable growth during those cooler months.

At Bibbaringa the cattle are run in one mob of about 300 to 700 depending on the seasonal conditions. I vary the number according to pasture monitoring and based on a planned grazing management process developed by Allan Savory and Holistic Management.

In the past (2019) non-growing season the paddocks were grazed based on a 150-day to 180 days recovery period between grazes and about 90 to 120 days in the growing season (Spring). The property was destocked from January to June during 2019 because of lack of run off into dams.

During February 2016 the warning signs began. The cattle were needing to move faster than the plan and not leaving as much feed behind in the paddock as I would like, to maintain the 100% ground cover. So I sold the breeding herd of 300 cows.

I run the property on my own with the help of casual skilled cattlemen when cattle come into the yards. I have a well-designed set of Pratley cattle yards built in 2007. With holding yards we can easily process 800 head in one yarding and this is all done very quietly and smoothly.

In February/March the first draft of sale cattle included dry (not pregnant) and older cows and older steers retained to make up numbers.

Usually I sell store weaners during November at 12 to 14 months of age but this year I retained them to make up numbers. The mob was reduced to 400 head including weaners, cows and heifers.

By the end of April I had one month’s feed of planned non growing grazing in front of me. This means the cattle had not grazed these areas since November 2015. However, the native pastures had not recovered to my satisfaction and I had other issues at hand.

• Paddocks not recovering after 150-day rest • Soil moisture was non-existent. The soil profile needed good rains.

• My dams were ok in the areas to be grazed. But not good enough for my comfort • The forecast was for late autumn rain and possibility of El Nino breaking down and La Nina developing into the winter months. I was not confident about this forecast as Bibbaringa had been missing many of the fronts coming through.

• Cattle prices were good and if the dry continued the price could drop • (on the other hand) April/May is always a tough time and don’t lose heart. It will rain.

• I was not set up to buy in feed and would have to involve neighbours • I did not want to sacrifice ground cover to hold cattle.

• Temperature would soon drop which would limit grass growth I have always viewed my cattle herd as a tool to build up the biodiversity and resilience of Bibbaringa. At this point of time my emphasis is on building diversity of soil and plants and re-energizing Bibbaringa. I also want to live a happy, healthy, stress free life. These were my options: • Sell all the cows • Sell the weaners • Sell everything • Buy in feed As we all sat around the old homestead’s big wooden table, I put the decision to the group and we ran it through the Seven Testing Questions that lie at the heart of Holistic Management decision making. By the time we were at question six, which is the ‘gut feel’ question, I knew they all had to go.

That was on the Monday and by the end of week the cattle had been sold through Auctionplus, private sale and direct to meat processors.

I have not looked back since making the decision. The property now had time to rest and recover and I had an opportunity to travel and reenergize before planning for restocking later in the year.

With a grassed up canvas I had multiple options for re-entering the cattle business.

The money was in the bank, the grass began growing with the rains and I feel the decision was a win-win.

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Telling The Real Story about Fake Meats—

This stuff has lots of holes in its logic, but also lots of money backing it

BY ALLEN R. WILLIAMS, Ph.D.

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onsumers are being bombarded with ads for various forms of what are being boosted as “clean proteins,” but what I call “fake meat”.

It’s pretty much impossible not to see, hear or read about fake meats. There is much publicity about these plant-based proteins and their supposed benefits for human health and animal welfare, the environment and climate change.

When you read or listen to the ads you will hear statements like, “100% plant-based,” “derived from all plant sources,” “healthier for you,” and “wow, I can’t believe this is not real beef.”

In one commercial, people trying a fake meat burger say it tastes far better than the real thing, with one guy in a cowboy hat exclaiming, “I’ve been a #@$* fool!”

What Isn’t Said

The problem with most of these ads is that they provide little or no documentation of the “facts” they are so freely spouting. They do not give you an ingredient list for the fake meat product (most would not want to, given what’s in this stuff).

They do not provide any nutritional or medical studies showing that these new fake meats are actually good for you, and they are not required to do so by the USDA or FDA. Why? Because according to our USDA and FDA, all the ingredients are legitimate “food” items.

The promotions do not tell you how these products are actually better for the environment.

They simply infer that plant-based proteins are better, and that if you are an “informed” consumer you should know that.

They do not tell you how the fake meats are better for animal welfare, other than again inferring that if you eat fake meats there will be far less harvesting of animals.

They do not tell you how growing all plants and not raising animals for real protein actually improves our climate. They do not tell you anything about potential long-term health consequences from eating fake meats as a substitute for real meats.

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They do not mention anything about possible epigenetic effects from eating these fake meats as a routine part of the diet. They also do not tell us why we have to eat a fake meat in place of existing plant proteins.

Serving Size

4 oz

4 oz

Calories

240

260

Highly Processed Food

Total Fat

14 g

16 g

Saturated Fat

8g

6g

Trans Fat

0g

0g

Cholesterol

0 mg

94 mg

Sodium

370 mg

89 mg

Total Carbs

9g

0g

Dietary Fiber

3g

0g

Total Sugars

1g

0g

Protein

19 g

28 g

Calcium

15% DV

27% DV

Iron

25% DV

17% DV

Potassium

15% DV

11% DV

Make no mistake about it, the fake meats currently on the market are mostly highly processed food products bearing little or no resemblance to a real, whole food.

The most commonly known fake meat made strictly from plant materials is the Impossible Burger. This product is touted as being both Halal and Kosher certified, and 100% vegan with no animal products or byproducts involved in its manufacture.

The published list of ingredients (from most to least): water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, natural flavors, potato protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract, cultured dextrose, modified food starch, soy leghemoglobin, salt, soy protein isolate, mixed tocopherols, zinc gluconate, thiamine hydrochloride, sodium ascorbate, niacin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin and vitamin B12.

Water comprises the greatest share of all ingredients, so the consumer is paying quite a lot for water. The next ingredient is soy protein concentrate. Employing yeast cultures, the manufacturers (it sounds strange to say that food is “manufactured”) mass-produce iron-rich soy protein.

Soy Problems

While soy protein is classified as a complete protein, it does have some potential drawbacks.

Soybeans are legumes, and legumes produce phytoestrogens. Too much phytoestrogen in our diet may negatively affect endocrine function in the body.

And when we consider that some 93% of all soybeans are genetically modified, and that glyphosate and other chemicals were heavily used in their production, are we really helping the environment and our long-term health?

In removing animal products, are we are saying it is OK to damage the environment and human health through herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and synthetic fertilizers?

How about poor farming practices that foster erosion, runoff and loss of soil carbon/organic matter? Water infiltration is significantly reduced by these practices, creating huge flooding events and an enormous “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico each year.

There is a saying from Scripture that before you criticize the speck in one person’s eye, you must first remove the beam from your own.

Nutritional comparison: “Impossible Burger” vs. grain-fed beef

Bad Oils

Continuing down the ingredients list, we find that coconut oil and sunflower oil are prominent.

Soybeans themselves are not a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, while soybean oil has a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids of about 7:1, which is not a very healthy ratio. Our bodies cannot actually use much of the omega-3 in soy oil.

Sunflower oil is one of the worst oils in this regard, with an omega-6 :omega-3 ratio of 70:1.

The American Medical Association and the American Heart Association recommend that our daily diet consist of an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of about 4:1 or less.

The average American’s diet provides a ratio near 20:1. Such high ratios can cause tissue inflammation that leads to a host of diseases and disorders.

Coconut oil has no appreciable omega-3 content, while one cup has 3.92 grams of omega-6 fatty acids.

The other ingredients in the list aren’t exactly inspiring, either. For instance, what “natural flavors” can possibly be used to simulate meat?

The remainder of the ingredients reads like the back label of a manufactured chemical solution, which is really what the Impossible Burger is.

Extreme Hubris

To think that we humans can design a synthetic “food” anywhere near the true nutrient value and composition of real foods produced by nature amounts to extreme hubris. As a scientist, my view is that this represents the height of scientific arrogance.

Manufactured foods will produce unintended consequences that will carry through to multiple

generations through epigenetic effects that are transgenerational in nature.

In other words, what we eat today will affect our children and our children’s children.

We have already seen this happen with the manufactured foods that are quite common in the middle aisles of every grocery store.

Let’s do a nutritional comparison between real beef and the Impossible Burger (see table).

Keep in mind that the values in the table for beef are for commodity, grain-fed beef, not grassfed beef.

Per four-ounce serving, the calorie counts are quite similar, as are total fat and saturated fat. The Impossible Burger does list “0” mg. of cholesterol compared to 94 mg. for the grain-fed beef patty.

Cholesterol Isn’t All Bad

Our brains must be bathed in cholesterol in order to function properly. Cholesterol acts in the brain as oil does in an engine: take it away, and the brain/engine seizes up. We call that dementia.

So while too much cholesterol in our diet (particularly as it influences LDL cholesterol) may be an issue, too little cholesterol creates health issues as well.

Where the Impossible Burger really deviates from grain-fed beef is in the amount of sodium (salt) per serving. This fake burger has more than four times the sodium of grain-fed beef (370 mg. per four ounces vs. 89 mg.).

Too much sodium in the diet can lead to serious health problems that include high blood pressure, damage of vessel walls and increased risk of atherosclerosis, heart attacks and strokes.

It can cause oedema, which is manifested in swelling of the knees, feet and hands. Too much sodium can lead to stomach damage, including

The Journey From Apprentice to Land Manager

BY MARTHA SKELLEY

While walking toward a flock of sheep the other day, I was asked how I came to be a “livestock manager.” Did I grow up in agriculture? What credentials do I have? (What wasn’t said out loud was how does a woman find herself in such a field?) The short answers to the first two questions were no and yes. No, to growing up in an agricultural family—I’m two generations removed. Yes, I have a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies with a concentration in sustainable agriculture. Does

increased chance of stomach cancer, while also encouraging overconsumption.

Real beef easily wins the protein comparison at 28 g. per four-ounce serving, compared to 19 g. in the Impossible Burger.

Fast Food Loves This

It’s interesting that the fast food sector has been the most aggressive adopter of this fake meat. Is putting a fake burger patty smothered in condiments between two buns any better for our health?

Is a fake meat fried chicken better for our health than real fried chicken? The advertising is trying to make us feel good about ourselves when we’re eating fast food. Suddenly we are eating healthy.

I must ask the question: “Why do we need a fake meat?” Mankind has always had choice in what to eat from the natural world. If you want to eat an entirely plant-based diet, you are free to do so. You do not need a fake meat to assist you in the endeavor.

What’s Being Accomplished?

If the contention is that you are eating a fake meat to somehow help mitigate climate change, then just how are you accomplishing that? The manufacture of fake meat comes with expenditures of energy and water while creating environmental impacts (see prior Graze article, “It’s Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature”).

So would it not be better to eat plant proteins in their natural state? What are the main ingredients in fake meat that are being touted as “healthy for you”? Are they not primarily beans, peas and lentils?

If so, simply eating beans, peas and lentils as whole foods would achieve results far better than consuming them through their isolated my degree qualify me to be an agricultural manager?

In my book, no. My degree helped exercise my critical thinking and expose me to many forms of agriculture.

What gave me a leg up as a yet-to-realizeI’m-an-agrarian was my college’s farm, Warren Wilson College Farm.

There I gleaned a few of the realities of working and living in agriculture.

I was given a foundation—a grass-based one, thankfully.

The next step that helped me was asking a

components in a highly processed mish-mash of ingredients made in a quasi-laboratory. And with whole foods we do not have to expend additional energy, water and carbon for the processing.

The real reasons for fake meat production are twofold. One, quite obviously, is to make money. Billions of dollars have been invested in fake meats, with billions more to come.

Many investors will profit handsomely, and obviously there are significant benefits for the fast food companies doing this advertising, as they’re charging more for the fake burgers than for the real beef.

The second reason is to advance a plantbased diet agenda. After all, real vegans do not need a fake meat. They already know how to eat diets made up of whole plant foods rather than highly processed ingredients.

Fake meats are not intended to attract dedicated vegans. They are meant to entice the rest of us.

But They’re Here to Stay

Fake meats are here to stay. Too much has been invested. The question now becomes, “How much of a foothold will fake meats obtain within the protein sector?”

Next month, we will examine the real impact in the very things that are being touted as reasons to consume fake meats, along with the facts and fallacies of the real meat sector.

Dr. Allen Williams is a partner in Understanding Ag, LLC, based in Starkville, Mississippi. He can be reached at 662-3126826 and beefrepro@aol.com. He also serves on HMI’s Advisory Council. This article was first published in GRAZE Magazine and is reprinted by permission. To learn more about GRAZE go to: grazeonline.com.

Martha Skelley question. How do cattle producers raise animals in an arid environment? I should point out that CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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Revolutionary Agriculture—

Educating Farmers One at a Time

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

M

ichael Thiele considers himself a revolutionary—trying to change mainstream agriculture and help farmers see how they might be going down the wrong paths. He says this is a quiet revolution, but he is passionate in insisting that it must succeed for agriculture to survive. His mission is to acquaint more farmers and ranchers with a bigger picture, a holistic view that can lead to better care of the soil. Michael says regenerative agriculture is the only hope for repairing the damage that’s been done to the land by degenerative agriculture and a total reliance on technology.

Managing Ecosystems

Michael grew up on a farm west of Dauphin, Manitoba, just north of Riding Mountain National Park. “The park is now surrounded by farms, and has become an island. It’s not a big enough ecosystem, so some of the wildlife such as elk, moose and wolves have to come and go,” he says.

His father had a grain farm next to the park and a few cows. “We Having dairy cattle grazing cover crops is one of were busy trying the innovative practices that Michael has worked to farm and make to share with other Manitoba farmers as part of a living and didn’t the grazing group program. have time for Nature. There might have been a few birds on our farm, but we were not interested in birds; we were doing the serious work of farming.

“This was the attitude we grew up with—that we don’t have to think about Nature or ecosystem function because we’re trying to make a living and feed people. Over there, in that little park, that’s where we can have Nature. I had to come to terms with these ideas and unlearn that attitude, and start to understand what a farmer really is. The farmer is actually a manager of ecosystems. I learned some of this at university, but never synthesized it into something meaningful; it was just a lot of different courses I took—including plant science—at the University of Manitoba, where I studied agriculture,” Michael says.

When Michael was first exposed to Holistic Management he started 10

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to make connections between various fragmented sources of information and bring it all together. “I now have a better sense of all these ecosystem functions like energy cycle, mineral cycle, water cycle, diversity, and how it all fits into regenerative agriculture. I am now trying to work with Nature instead of waging war against her, with all the consequences of high input agriculture (and its high emissions, high costs/low profits),” says Michael.

“I never found a good place for myself in mainstream high-tech agriculture. Something seemed broken, but I wasn’t able to put my finger on it. Now I understand, and realize the consequences of what we’ve done in the past 100 years—maybe just 50 years—of high-input agriculture. So I went into a conservation career instead,” he says.

Michael has worked for many conservation organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, and Manitoba Habitat (a Crown corporation that does habitat work) and now does some contract work and consulting. Currently he is working with cattlemen via the Ducks Unlimited Grazing Club in Manitoba. “People like Allan Savory were pioneers of this idea of regenerative agriculture, systems theory, holism, etc. This is all starting to come together and make sense for more and more people who are realizing the benefits. Now we realize that farmers over the past decades with modern agriculture have taken all those cycles and big circles and pulled them apart.”

Holistic Approach to Improve Agriculture

Modern technology led to segmenting and a focus on small parts, to the point that many farmers no longer knew how to look at the whole. “In doing this, we have degraded our soils rather than keeping them healthy or building them up. A holistic view can help agriculture get back on track,” says Michael.

“I got lucky about 12 years ago when I got to meet Gabe Brown, Jay Fuhrer and other educators in North Dakota. Until then, I never realized agriculture could be so much fun!” says Michael. “At the end of a farming career you want to be able to say that you made a living, raised a family, grew good food, and your land got better.

“Many farmers feel that they don’t have time for Nature, which is exactly the way I felt as I grew up. I never had any discussions with my This field is an example of the improved forage dad about soil—just stand that resulted from high stock density about yield, tractors, grazing on one of the participant farms.

diesel fuel and technology. I was into all that, and loved to farm, but then started to realize that this system is broken and not making any money.

The farmers who have changed how they are doing things, and get their soils turned around, are suddenly realizing they are making more money.

“It’s still farming; there’s no magic involved. It’s not like suddenly everything is going to be perfect, but we realize this is the solution to the problem—the solution we’ve been waiting for. I had been waiting for this for 30 years.”

The Need for Change

Michael believes it will take a revolution to change our present agricultural system. “I was asked to speak at a group of producers in Pipestone, Manitoba who met to discuss how agriculture could change the conversation about climate change. I said that unless they come to terms with the monolith that agriculture has become, they are not going to beat it. There is too much power behind it. But we can try to change agriculture itself,” says Michael.

“I have been trying to find ways to help agriculture, one farm at a time, to help farmers figure out how to get out of the trap they are in. They sense that something is wrong but are not sure what it is or how to fix it,” he says.

“The story they’ve been taught, and bought into, doesn’t allow them the tools to get out of that trap. Community dynamics make it even more difficult; people want to belong and do what everyone else is doing. If they start doing something different, their friends and neighbors start talking about them in a negative way.”

In his consulting work he tries to help farmers understand the big picture because he feels that most farmers have accepted the idea that agriculture is simple. “There has been a dumbing down,” says Michael.

“We tell ourselves that the answer to every problem is simple. If you have a weed problem you spray. If your soil isn’t producing enough, you fertilize.

We want simple answers to a complex question.

Michael is concerned that farmers know very little about soil biology, so they have simplified everything. “That’s dangerous. The answers they get when they talk to someone like me rather than to their ag supplier are more complicated (and that’s a harder sell). Our dependence on technology has simplified ag, so it’s very difficult to now add complexity and more diversity and quit growing monocultures, and integrate livestock back into the monoculture annual cropping systems. I try to help farmers understand this,” says Michael.

Creating Long-Term Solutions

So how do we fix these problems? “We can start with the energy cycle by pumping more carbon back in (which can be done with livestock),” says Michael. “Here in Manitoba people are starting to talk about carbon tax, but there is huge potential for agriculture to be part of the solution. Right now the ag groups are fighting to the death to be exempt from the carbon taxes, though agriculture in Manitoba represents half of all greenhouse gas emissions. Half of agriculture’s half is simply from making and using nitrogen fertilizer. We could cut ag emissions in half just by reducing nitrogen fertilizer use. This would be easy because we could just grow legumes. We don’t need nitrogen fertilizer; it’s a luxury and wasteful.”

Michael notes that chemical fertilizer also has a very short term benefit.

You have to keep using it and it doesn’t add as many nutrients to the soil as does a natural source like a legume or livestock urine/manure. “The challenge is that a grain farmer wants to plant his crop, harvest it, and go to Arizona for the winter and not worry about owning livestock. When you are living that life, you are ‘successful’ but also stuck in that cycle. Some farmers come back to Manitoba in time to get the crop in, and then can’t

wait for harvest to be finished so they can leave. They hate what they are doing and that’s tragic,” says Michael.

“Part of this unease is because farmers don’t really understand what has happened and they are suffering from a stress very similar to a low-level post-traumatic stress syndrome. They have been going to war—doing a job they don’t really like—for the past 20 or 30 years. It is becoming distasteful, but they are trapped because it’s the only way they know to make a living farming, even though what they are doing is destructive.”

The grazing clubs Michael works with are mainly cattle producers (mostly cow-calf) but many of them have mixed farms that still grow some crops. “We are able to integrate it all together and talk about soil health and diversity, climate change, growing good food, etc. All of these things are coming together into a system we call regenerative ag.

“Our grazing club meetings are like group therapy—our meetings are much more than transferring information. Being able to talk to other grazers and farmers and sharing ideas can be very helpful. We suddenly have something that is quite special in Manitoba. After 15 years I can see that it’s turned into something that’s more than just trying to help farmers.

It’s become more like a big family.”

One of the speakers Michael had present to the grazing groups was HMI Certified Educator Blain Hjertaas.. Hjertaas said farmers can build soil health without livestock, but not as quickly. Large-scale agriculture is increasingly specialized and big grain farms don’t want to deal with livestock. Advocates for regenerative agriculture counter this reluctance with the idea that beef and grain producers could team up. This could be challenging, however, if producers don’t share the same vision or can’t find anyone in their area that would be willing to enter this kind of partnership.

Part of the Ducks Unlimited Grazing Groups Program is to have field tours on participating farms for farmers to offer opportunity for peer to peer learning.

Hjertaas suggested that a co-operative cattle herd, purchased by outside investors, might be the solution to that problem. This large pool of cattle could be managed by a group of existing cattle producers who have the knowledge to run the cattle, and put them on grain farms whose owners want to improve soil health with cover crops or rotational crops that could be grazed. Revenue from cattle fed and sold through the program would then be shared between the grain farmers, cattle operators and the investors involved with the co-operative.

Through these kinds of presentations and summer farm tours, Ducks Unlimited has helped sponsor Michael’s work with these grazing groups.

As farmers trust conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited and the programming they provide, then the opportunities for sharing new practices increases—leading to the regenerative agriculture revolution that Michael has been working toward.

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Kirsten McKnight, Manager of Development, Native Energy (a carbon credit provider based in Burlington, Vermont) says that one of the big misunderstandings about the carbon market is the idea that companies who purchase credits have the “right to emit” CO2. She explains that companies don’t buy credits so they can keep emitting. “They buy carbon credits when they set carbon reduction goals, and when there are

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS certain emission sources they aren’t able to reduce on their own,” she says. “Carbon offsets is the only tool to verifiably and effectively offset arbon is one of the most abundant elements on earth, forming those emissions.” millions of compounds. Some of the combinations we are most “Soil organic matter is about 58% carbon,” says Liebig. “If we can take familiar with are carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc. When up carbon dioxide and build organic matter, we concurrently remove a combined with oxygen and hydrogen, carbon can form many greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and improve soil health, making groups of important biological compounds including sugars, lignins, the land more resilient to external stresses like drought. This can make chitins, alcohols, fats, etc. Carbon occurs in all forms of organic life. the land more productive and help protect it,” he says. Increased organic The amount of carbon on earth is constant. Processes that use matter in the soil, coupled with plant cover as “soil armor” can serve to carbon obtain it from somewhere and discard it somewhere else. Paths capture and retain more moisture when it rains, rather than having the of carbon in the environment form what is called the carbon cycle. water run off and create erosion.

Plants draw carbon dioxide from the air and through photosynthesis “Whether you are a livestock producer or a crop farmer, the principle combine it with other elements and build biomass. Some of this biomass is the same: you want to take up carbon dioxide from the air with plants is eaten by animals (including humans) as food. Dead plant/animal and transfer it to soil organic matter, and if the carbon accruals are greater matter may eventually become petroleum or coal, which releases carbon than the losses, over time you will see improvements in the health of your when burned. soil. It does take time, however, especially in dry climates. The amount of Dr. Mark Liebig, Research Soil Scientist, USDA Agricultural Research production each year, relative to the total pool of soil organic matter in soil Service in Mandan, ND explains that carbon is an element that links land profiles, is very small. You need to take a long-term view—looking at this management with the chemical in terms of decades or even composition of the atmosphere. generations, as a stewardship On land, carbon is a major commitment,” explains Liebig. part of biomass and soil. In the There are several carbon atmosphere carbon dioxide initiative programs to give is the most prevalent of the farmers/ranchers more “greenhouse gases” which also incentive to sequester carbon include methane, nitrous oxide into their soils. “Contracts and water vapor. are designed to specify Agricultural practices play the adoption of a specific an important role in taking management practice. For up carbon dioxide from the some producers, these atmosphere. “If farmers management commitments and ranchers have healthy, are something they have productive pastures and already been doing, but this rangeland, those plants can is additional encouragement Alex and Abbey Blake are excited about the opportunities the WSE carbon take up carbon dioxide through for them to stay the course,” program offers them. photosynthesis and translocate he says. it into the soil, where it can become part of the stabilized pool of organic “One practice that almost always has a positive impact on carbon matter,” says Liebig. storage is keeping the ground covered with perennial plants such as deeprooted grasses. This practice works well in most situations. Studies have Developing Carbon Markets documented increases in soil carbon under perennial grass,” says Liebig.

In the past two decades, a number of programs have emerged to Beneficial grazing management methods that favor increased growth of encourage farmers and ranchers to add more carbon to their soils. A above-ground biomass (and limit the amount of bare ground) can put more new marketplace has developed around CO2 mitigation that enables carbon into the soil. companies and industries that emit CO2 to purchase carbon credits However, there is often some skepticism when enrolling in one of from businesses engaged in offsetting activities, such as production these programs because the fine print may be hard to understand. “Many of renewable energy through wind farms or biomass energy, energyof these initiatives read like a legal document so it is important to review efficiency projects, destruction of industrial pollutants, etc. them carefully. I had some experience with a previous carbon initiative in The money that the company pays for these credits is utilized to the mid-2000’s with the National Farmers’ Union and the Chicago Climate support projects and businesses that help sequester carbon. In general, Exchange. The skeptical perceptions from crop and livestock producers a carbon credit allows the purchaser to claim reductions of one metric provided opportunities for dialogue between initiative managers, scientists ton of CO2. There is a voluntary carbon offset market, but some larger and producers. An improved understanding of agriculture’s effect on the companies are required by law to purchase carbon credits to offset their carbon cycle, along with the long-term benefits of carbon sequestration carbon-producing activities in a “compliance market”. on soil health, was a lasting impact of the initiative. The intent was to find

Carbon Initiatives and Carbon Credits—

Understanding the Potential Carbon Market

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ways to boost farm economy and do good things for the environment,” says Liebig.

Determining Value

plant cover crops you will get this amount, etc. but this shortchanges the farmers and ranchers who are truly farming regeneratively and adding carbon in greater amounts,” says Brown.

“My big worry is that carbon credits are going to be sold—like the earlier versions were, to the farmers—saying they can get these producers an extra $5 or $10 or $20 per acre. In my mind that is a small pittance of what it is really worth if you are doing it right. I realize that $20 per acre might seem like a lot, but it’s not much for what the regenerative farms are actually doing.”

Gabe Brown is one of the pioneers of the current soil health movement and regenerative agriculture which focuses on regeneration of resources.

He and his wife Shelly and son Paul have a diversified 5,000-acre farm/ ranch near Bismarck, North Dakota--several thousand acres of native perennial rangeland along with perennial pasture and some cropland.

Brown says there are actually very few working programs that are paying farmers for carbon right now. “Some are willing to pay farmers for Will It Work? the carbon but don’t really have a market developed yet. Carbon initiatives Dr. Jason Rountree at Michigan State University is part of a group that are looked upon as a new thing but this was actually being done years is doing a wide-scale project on carbon sequestration and the amount of ago in North Dakota—a program in which the Farmer’s Union paid farmers carbon that regenerative farms and ranches are actually putting into the for carbon. The problem with that program was that they paid everyone soil. He says there are probably more questions than actual facts about the same. If you did no-till, you got so much per acre. If you rotationally these programs. Like Gabe Brown he references the cost of monitoring as grazed livestock, you got so much per an issue. “The cost of measuring/ acre. There can be a huge difference, monitoring must continue to come however, in the individual situations. down and the technologies need to What we are finding is that people be better,” he says. who are using regenerative practices “We are very close to having less are sequestering much more carbon. expensive technologies to measure You can do no-till and still have soil carbon and there is some carbon loss if you are overusing excellent work being done at Yale synthetic fertilizers and don’t grow University in terms of having realcover crops or have a poor crop time carbon monitoring. The Yale rotation. You won’t be adding carbon program is called Quick Carbon. to the system,” he explains.

There is another group that is just “There are some groups working starting, called Openteam, to try to on this problem, however. We are more aptly get these technologies doing some studies on my land, for adapted faster. instance, looking at the amount of “There is also new funding carbon. We’ve found that we have 92 through FFAR (Foundation for Food tons per acre of carbon in the top four and Agriculture Research) and other feet of soil profile on our ranch now. groups to help launch this. It’s not We are getting the data now on other only an opportunity to obtain more farms in the area to find out how much technology but also to try to fastthey differ, but fully expect it to be 4 forward technologies to more rapidly to 10 tons per acre more carbon here assess soil carbon. than on the typical farming operations “California has a climate-smart in the area.” ag program that is more a function It is important that people use all of taking tax dollars and trying to Loren Poncia has sold a conservation easement to the Marin of the principles of regenerative ag work with farmers to implement Agricultural Land Trust as well as being involved in the Califorsays Brown. “These include the least more regenerative agriculture nia Healthy Soils Program. amount of disturbance possible, armor principles such as no-till, cover on the soil at all times, plant diversity, living root in the soil at all times, and cropping, planned grazing, etc. This is actually working. Another group the integration of animals. These are all very important for putting carbon that is starting to work on this is the Noble Foundation in Ardmore, OK. back in the soil,” says Brown.

They are working on various scenarios in Oklahoma to look at ecosystem “The companies that need to buy carbon credits are going to try service markets (ESM). There are some larger-scale entities interested to buy them as cheaply as possible. Then the question is, how are the and involved. clearinghouses that are buying them from farmers and ranchers going to “McDonalds, Tyson, General Mills, JBS and others have made measure the amount of carbon? This is very expensive to do if you are pledges to lower their CO2 emissions by 30% in the next 30 years. These going to do it right. You can easily pull a soil sample to check the organic opportunities at the ground level are probably some of the largest, and matter, which is 58% carbon, but this is not looking at the full depth of the least expensive to implement, in thinking about how to offset the overall soil profile. On my ranch we took 300 samples four feet deep. This was emissions of the food production system. General Mills is investing a very comprehensive test, but it would be prohibitive for people who are millions of dollars to develop more regenerative oat supplies for their buying the credits to do this,” he says. cereals. They are the number one oat buyer in the world. The big “Since this would be too difficult and costly, they are just going to go industries are not naïve to the problem of impaired natural resources. by trends. They’ll say that if you no-till you will get this amount, if you CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 N um ber 191

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Carbon Initiatives and Carbon Credits

land-managers,” says Collins. LandStream has been building a landmeasurement program to enable people to take accurate assessments.

Another group that is pioneering carbon sequestration programs is the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), with its Marin Carbon Project. MALT They are investing in opportunities to develop more regenerative supply purchases development rights from landowners and the land remains chains. This will continue to be important, especially from a water footprint aspect as well. I look at all of this with hope, but also with a certain level of in the farmer’s or rancher’s ownership; the legal agreement with MALT cautious ‘wait and see’ because first we need to be sure we are measuring guarantees the land’s ongoing agricultural use. Once a conservation easement is in place, MALT’s staff supports landowners with conservation carbon accurately. planning and helps them address land management challenges.

“There is also some discussion regarding the question of permanence.

One of these partners is Stemple Creek Ranch and holistic producer I’ve learned that some of the industries are considering a window of 25 Loren Angelo Poncia. He is the fourth generation on this family ranch in years of permanence but it probably varies. the coastal hills of Northern California near the town of Tomales. Loren “Another big challenge today is economics. I recently read that the notes, “Our goal is to average farmer is $1.3 work in harmony with million in debt right now.

Nature to promote 2019 was a horrible year optimal biodiversity that in some places in terms ensures the long term of weather and flooding health and productivity last spring, and another of this ranch. We raise challenge is volatile grass-fed beef, lamb and markets. Probably for a small amount of pork many farmers the last and sell all the meat thing on their mind is direct to consumers all sequestering carbon. over the country. Our They are just trying business is growing and to survive and feed we can’t keep up with their family. Maybe, the demand.” however, some of these Stemple Creek regenerative practices Ranch’s 1,000 acres is could be an avenue Loren notes that his paradigm has shifted from being a livestock farmer to a grass protected through the that could help propel farmer and now a carbon farmer.

Marin Agricultural Land farmers into potentially Trust (MALT) to insure that it will remain a productive part of the Marin more profitable scenarios and give their land more resilience. There are County agricultural landscape forever. Stemple Creek Ranch is involved some folks out there who are doing this, and more and more data that with the Marin Carbon Project, Carbon Cycle Institute, and several supports it.” other groups that are focused on improving the soil and sequestering more carbon.

New Players in the Market “What got me into this project is that I’ve always been interested in Abe Collins owns a company in Vermont called Landstream that learning about the soil,” says Loren. “This project was an incentive for is quantifying ecosystem services. He was a dairyman who became farmers/ranchers to get some compost on their property for free, if they interested in carbon and studying carbon sequestration. He feels that the would be part of this study. I was chosen out of 35 people to be one of the market on down the road will be much bigger.

His company and other parties that belong to the Soil Carbon Coalition Marin Carbon Projects demo sites. I didn’t really know what I was getting into at the time, but it opened my mind and made me think a lot more are focusing on advancing the practice of regenerative ag, and spreading about soil health and how important it is—how it directly relates to forage awareness of the opportunity of turning atmospheric carbon into living health, animal health and my own health. landscapes and soil carbon. The principal project of the Coalition is the “I now consider myself more of a soil farmer than a grass farmer. This Soil Carbon Challenge, an international competition to see how fast is where it all begins, building soil through our grazing practices. Some land managers can turn atmospheric carbon into water-holding, fertilitypeople call it rotational grazing but I call it pulse grazing. We try to leave enhancing soil carbon. lots of cover and promote biodiversity in our pastures.

LandStream is developing on-farm environmental monitoring “I want to be a part of anything that can help me achieve my goals of systems and Collins says farmers should be hired to rebuild deep topsoil producing the highest quality meat available and something consumers watersheds. He says we can double farmers’ incomes, reduce externality want. My biggest resource that I need more of is grass, so anything I can costs, and grow the natural infrastructure needed for healthier land. do to make more grass is of interest to me, especially higher-quality grass.

“I believe that hiring farmers and ranchers to regrow the measured natural capital of topsoil and biodiversity, and the wide range of ecosystem This is what got me started in this carbon program.

“Now, however, we market our practices as a carbon farm plan and use services that come from natural capital can and must become the largest it as a measuring tool. I have a contract that basically states we are going energy and infrastructure project in history. Pilot projects are obviously to do our best to sequester as much carbon as possible and graze our in order. There are a lot of enabling conditions that will be required to pastures correctly. We’ve signed these types of agreements but it’s not like evolve this. One of them is rigorous, accurate, operational quantification a legal contract. The main thing is that our soils will be so much better when of landscape-function, which serves multiple purposes, from realwe are done with this project that it will be a win-win for everyone involved.” time feedback to land managers to measurement of value-creation by 14

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Land & Livestock

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Western Sustainability Exchange

practices, to understand how it’s changing their operations—and witness Carefully managed grazing of livestock can qualify for the voluntary firsthand the wildlife species and diversity of animals and plants. carbon credit market, according to Chris Mehus, ranching program director “We had about 20 ranchers attending, and the eight companies, and at WSE (Western Sustainability Exchange). WSE’s Montana Grasslands other interested people from the local area. We had soil experts and folks Carbon Initiative investigates and promotes ways gardeners, farmers, and from local and federal government. It was a great opportunity for people to ranchers can create healthy soil by increasing carbon content through meet and talk seriously about how this project might take shape. regenerative agricultural practices. A growing number of companies now “At this point, Native Energy has signed contracts with four ranches, voluntarily purchase carbon credits to offset their own carbon emissions totaling about 35,000 acres. These are 30-year contracts. These are a caused primarily by fossil fuels used in their business operations. business arrangement--not any kind of an easement. They do not cloud WSE is partnering with carbon project developer and credit provider, the land title in any way. It is a legal contract, however, and states that the Native Energy, to create a program that will pay ranchers and other land rancher intends to improve grazing management on his/her property and stewards for sequestering carbon on grasslands through regenerative keep records of grazing management and submit those records to Native grazing practices. Kristen McKnight (Native Energy’s Manager of Energy each year. It also gives permission for them to come test the soil Development) notes: periodically. In exchange, the rancher will be paid for the carbon actually “Native Energy provides upfront funding to improve their grazing sequestered in the soil as a result of the improved grazing practices.” practices. This funding is for fencing and water developments that are To help with the pasture management and recordkeeping, WSE necessary to increase the rest and rotation on pastures. Contracts include enlisted the help of two ag-tech companies, PastureMap and Maia 20 years of payments for carbon sequestered.”

Grazing, that both provide a comprehensive software platform for Mehus says that Native Energy approached WSE four years ago rotational grazing. to discuss creating financial incentives to encourage more ranchers to “We’re taking baseline samples this year on the four ranches that adopt rotational grazing and make a 30-year commitment to practices signed contracts. The carbon levels at those sites will be checked again that sequester carbon. “For many years periodically. After the first five years we’ve been helping producers set up there will be another set of samples monitoring programs and to understand taken. We’ll probably continue taking why management-intensive grazing is a samples every three to five years after better way to do business than seasonthat, though actual timing has not been long grazing. determined yet,” Mehus says.

“We’ve entered a pilot project with “Currently Mark Ritchie and Soils Native Energy. They have participated for the Future are responsible for doing in the renewable energy and reduced it. This is basically a carbon test that carbon emissions arena for many years. can be run (through his laboratory) on They are well established in this field core samples taken from the ground with their energy products/methane and then the results are reported back.” projects and alternative cropping. They Using Soils for the Future’s computer are looking at ways to reduce energy modeling system, the amount of carbon consumption and help companies sequestered is then certified through address their carbon footprint issues and the Verified Carbon Standard--the sustainability issues. world’s leading program for certification Soil sampling is a key component for developing soil “The current project involves of greenhouse gas reduction. carbon models that are necessary for large scale growth of sequestering more carbon through “Native Energy (the project a carbon market. healthier plant communities, healthier developer) has an agreement root systems and healthier soils. The carbon sequestration model we’re with the landowner to sell the credits on their behalf to companies using was developed by a professor at Syracuse University, Mark Ritchie. that purchase carbon credits. Their responsibility is to work with the His company, a soil science organization, is called Soils for the Future. We companies and contract with us to recruit and work with the landowners had some interns out here this past summer and they took soil samples on all the documentation that needs to be provided to make these on 170 sites across the eastern 2/3 of Montana. This model has already contracts valid and verify the carbon reductions to the carbon standards,” been developed but is now being validated with data collection by this Mehus explains. study, through all these sites, to apply directly to our specific environment, Xanterra signed on as the first carbon credit purchaser for the program. growing conditions, soil types and other environmental factors.”

Xanterra Parks and Resorts is the largest national park concessionaire All the data will be used, as well as site-specific factors like moisture, in the U.S. and the primary concessioner for Yellowstone and Glacier soil type and vegetation type, to compare the amount of carbon in the National Parks. soil (and relative soil health) with the past grazing management. Once WSE works closely with each rancher through the enrollment process that model has been validated, it will be used to estimate the amount of to create a grazing plan that fits the producer’s own land and management carbon that the rancher could sequester on his ranch by changing grazing goals. If there are additional infrastructure needs such as fencing, range practices. This is how the amount of carbon credits that can be sold is riding, or water systems, these are included in the plan, as well as calculated and verified. education about regenerative grazing.

“We are currently in the trial phase but we had eight companies out Producers can choose one of two 30-year contracts: one offers here in June, interested in possibly purchasing these credits,” says Mehus. immediate funding to help cover infrastructure costs for a grazing plan, “They came to meet the ranchers who are currently doing different grazing CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 Num ber 191

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Carbon Initiatives and Carbon Credits

climate change, so the potential for carbon sequestration through our grazing management and practices gets us excited about playing a small role in slowing/reversing long-term climate trends. and the second provides a regular payment structure for ranchers who “We were the first ranch Kristen met with, about five years ago, when don’t need the upfront financial investment; they simply receive payment this was a very early idea for Native Energy. At that point, most ranchers for carbon sequestration. The 30-year commitment may cause some around here were still pretty gun-shy about carbon programs because ranchers to hesitate, but the lengthy timeframe is necessary for the carbon we’d done quite a bit of work to get signed up for one about 10 years ago. credit purchaser to know that the carbon sequestration is permanent. WSE That’s when the Chicago Climate Exchange market collapsed so a lot of hopes to enroll 100,000 acres by July 2020. folks were skeptical about what these carbon programs should look like. I McKnight says ranchers are permitted to leave the project if they can really have to applaud Native Energy--and the WSE staff who’ve worked no longer ranch, or if it becomes commercially unreasonable for them to on this--for their perseverance. continue ranching in ways that protect the soil carbon they have accrued.

“It has also helped us to know the other ranchers and their families.

“But the opportunity to make more profit by cropping isn’t sufficient This gives us a support network, being able to talk with them and ask grounds to leave,” she says. questions and discuss these things amongst ourselves when there were things we didn’t understand and things that Native Energy was Carbon Market as still trying to figure out, too. Our community here is a good one to work Income Stream with, because there are many Alex Blake, a rancher near Big people who are involved in Timber, Montana is one of four regenerative agriculture. ranchers in his area who signed up “This carbon program is a for one of these carbon programs.

30-year commitment, which is “My parents bought this ranch in a bit scary, but for me and my 1973 so my family has been here wife and a brand new baby, raising cattle for 46 years. We also it’s exciting to think about the have a retail tree nursery. I spent future and the next generation. some time elsewhere with school, This program will be good for work and the military, then moved this ranch, whether for our kids back to the ranch fulltime in 2009,” or somebody else; we know says Blake. that this property will be on that “My parents are still involved track for the long haul.” in the business; my mom and “We assume there will younger brother are focused on be some changes but I feel Dr. Mark Ritchie from Syracuse University is currently working on carbon the tree nursery and my dad and confident that we are working sequestration models as part of the effort to effectively monitor carbon I manage the ranch. We are a with good partners and sequestration at a large scale. conventional cow-calf operation can work through whatever but have a small grass-fed beef challenges we face or whatever program and custom-graze yearlings some years. changes need to happen. Our ranch is about 5,000 acres and our nursery “We are fairly progressive in our grazing management. My dad went has been a big part of helping us diversify our operation. The carbon through some HMI courses in the mid-1980’s when Roland Kroos started program is just another tool for us to bring in some additional income and some classes. We began making some changes at that point. The whole keep our place going.” family went through the Ranching for Profit schools about 10 years ago and did the Executive Link program with that for a while. This helped Opportunities & Challenges reinforce what we were doing, and some of the things we wanted to do but Roger and Betsy Indreland are ranching north of Big Timber, Montana, didn’t have the time nor the resources to accomplish quickly. This carbon about 12 miles east of the Crazy Mountains, and also participating in this initiative program has now given us the financial boost to get us a bit pilot program with WSE and Native Energy. Last year they signed a 30farther along and get more projects done.” year contract to sequester carbon on their ranch.

Necessary projects included more cross-fencing and water “My parents moved here in 1967 and I grew up here and went to development, and they would not have been able to accomplish these at school in Big Timber and to college at Bozeman,” says Roger. the pace that this program will enable them to accomplish. The initiatives

In the late 1990s Roger and Betsy bought the ranch and program provides financial assistance and gives them five years to get the started ranching full-tim and developed a seedstock progam. In 2012 whole ranch cross-fenced and the necessary water developed. “Without they attended a Ranching for Profit School in Billings, Montana. “We this carbon program, it would have taken us 10 years or more,” he says. were already starting to do some different grazing practices,” says Betsy.

“There are a number of reasons why the carbon initiative programs “Then through one of the summer conferences we met Nicole Masters, got us excited. My parents have been great examples with their strong with Integrity Soils, an ag ecologist from New Zealand. This changed our environmental ethic. They have been committed to conservation and good focus more toward soil health. stewardship since our family’s early days on this ranch. They fenced “Then through our involvement with Western Sustainability Exchange off our major riparian areas in the late 1970s and early 1980s, adopted and their affiliation with Native Energy in Vermont we became aware planned grazing and started on the general HRM (Holistic Resource of their project that would compensate us for grazing practices that Management) path about that same time. We all believe in the threat of CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 16

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Mob Grazing Is Just One Tool

BY BEN BARTLETT

M

ob grazing is “good.” While there isn’t much data on the subject, we do have many grazier testimonials to that effect.

I do believe the people who say that mob grazing is helping them achieve their goals.

Yet “good” is a value statement, and we don’t all value the same things.

What’s good for your neighbor may not be good for you. What’s good for you today may not be good for you tomorrow.

Confusing? Let’s start by defining the subject, and then try to make some sense of it.

Defining the Term

Mob grazing (also known as ultra-high stock density grazing) is usually defined as having more than 100 head of cattle stocked at more than 200,000 pounds of animal per acre or portion of an acre, with fresh grazing offered at least once per day.

More often, stock are given multiple fresh paddocks to graze each day.

Pasture plants have usually been allowed to grow for more days than is common with management-intensive grazing, thus accumulating more dry matter per acre. Forages are therefore usually more mature.

Animal performance can be highly variable depending upon nutritional requirements and how much of the total forage mass you ask them to eat.

Dry beef cows are more adaptable to mob grazing than lactating dairy cows or smaller calves.

Mob grazing changes grazing behavior compared to methods with lower animal densities or less frequent moves, just as people act differently in mobs as compared to individuals.

A mob will tend to graze most all plants with less discrimination, spread and smear manure more uniformly around the paddock, and trample all the uneaten plants. This gives people the impression that mob grazing “wastes” a lot of feed.

Multiple daily moves require more work, more water system capacity and lots more temporary fence. More than likely, mob grazing involves more than a few small wrecks, as you are working with large groups of animals that expect fresh feed often.

So is mob grazing good or bad? Actually, mob grazing is really just one of the tools a grazing manager can use to control the interaction of plants and grazing animals.

Successful grazing meets the needs of the plants, the needs of the grazing animals, and the desires of the grazing manager.

Missing the Point

When people worry about mob vs. “management intensive” vs. “rotational” vs. “set stocking,” they are missing the point that all grazing systems and tools have pros and cons.

They can all be the “right” way to graze on a given paddock and/ or for a particular group of animals to meet the desires of the current management.

When you try to decide on the best way to graze, the most important thing is to determine what success means to you.

Determining success on a grazing farm that relies primarily on perennial forages is a lot more challenging that gauging success on a cash crop operation where all crops are planted each year.

French scientist/farmer Andre Voisin talked about pastures not being really good until they are 100 years old. With a perennial crop like pasture, we can “borrow” yield this year that we will have to pay back next year.

Fertility and organic matter levels can increase and decrease over decades within acceptable ranges appropriate for the soil type.

What Stages Are You At?

Leaving a lot of trampled (wasted) forage through mob grazing builds fertility and organic matter, while possibly promoting more legumes and increased plant diversity for future years. This is great when the paddock needs such improvement.

On the other hand, if the plant and soil communities in my pastures were already in great shape, and I am a beginning (read: no money) stockman or stock lady, perhaps it would make more sense to push the total stocking rate and animal performance for the first year or two to help get my livestock enterprise started.

You need to know the capacity of your land base in terms of organic matter and fertility levels, potential pounds of forage it can grow per year, and the plant communities required to provide certain levels of nutrition for certain levels of animal performance.

Corn farmers have a yield goal for each field, and we graziers need to establish some measurable yield goals for our pastures.

It’s a little more complicated with a perennial crop, as you need to include both the plant/soil community and the performance of your animals.

For really good monitoring, you should also include the investment needed to make it all work.

Bottom line: mob grazing works. It just isn’t the best way to graze every paddock, all the time, for every grazier.

The challenge in determining when mob grazing works is that we do not have verified, measurable economic and biological documentation of the impacts of mob grazing to help us make decisions on when, where and how to use this grazing tool. I am not asking for “proof” that mob grazing works; what is needed is data.

For example, how fast can mob grazing build soils, and therefore future yields?

If I cost myself some money by giving up some carrying capacity or animal performance this year, what will I get in return in future years?

How does adding another percentage point of organic matter affect the soil’s water holding capacity and plant growth rates in August?

When you consider a new way of doing things in your livestock enterprise, you need to ask three questions: 1. Does the new idea work biologically? If I fertilize with Y, will I really get a yield increase?

2. Does the new idea work economically? Fertilizer Y may increase yield, but does the fertilizer cost more than the value of the increase?

3. Does this idea work biologically and economically in my operation?

Just because your neighbor does it doesn’t mean it will help you achieve your idea of success.

Mob grazing is a great and very powerful grazing tool. I believe the producer testimonials.

We need to do a better job of measuring its effects to help everyone sort out the best way to utilize mob grazing.

Every grazing operation needs to sort through the tools that can be used in attaining its individual definition of success.

It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon, but always be aware that the other riders may not be playing your tune!

Dr. Ben Bartlett is a retired Michigan State University Extension agent who has grazed beef and sheep in northern Michigan. He is also an HMI Certified Educator. This article was first published in GRAZE Magazine and is reprinted by permission. To learn more GRAZE go to: www.grazeonline.com.

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The Journey From Apprentice to Land Manager

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I’m a Southeastern gal. With that question, I began looking for an apprenticeship out “West,” you know that part of the country across the Mississippi. I was that little girl who told her mother she’d never move farther than the Appalachian mountains…oops. An important note here is that the only skill set I felt I had leaving college was that I understood working with cattle. (Boy! Nope, scratch that. Girl! Was I naive!)

Lo and behold the Quivira Coalition’s New Agrarian Program (NAP) emerged from the search engine. I was immediately drawn to San Juan Ranch and their philosophy. A few months later, after graduation, I found myself driving into the San Luis Valley of Colorado. I didn’t know at the time that this might just be the best decision of my life. George Whitten and Julie Sullivan opened their home, ranch, and hearts to me.

Their mentorship has shaped me greatly. Not only did they teach me practical ranching skills, but they also taught me business acumen and many hard truths that a life in agriculture has confirmed time and again.

I had two interests when leaving college, cows and apples. Luckily, the Quivira Coalition’s community is wide and varied because through

Carbon Initiatives and Carbon Credits

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sequester carbon. We realized we were already doing this. I think this is a win-win for producers, regardless of where you stand on all the political issues of climate change.”

Roger says they were already seeing enough results on their land that they were convinced and completely committed. “We’ve seen at least a 30% increase in our annual forage production, just from what we’ve done so far, and this is a conservative figure. We’ve had a couple wet years, so I’m hesitant to say it’s all due to carbon storage, but the actual forage we’re producing is close to double what it used to be.

“We were definitely committed because we were seeing results already, but this carbon project will help us accelerate the results, with money for water developments and to continue to refine our grazing rotation system. Without the upfront money from this program it would take us longer.

“We put in a proposal regarding the 18 IN PRACTICE

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it I met my other mentors, Gordon Tooley and Margaret Yancey of Tooley’s Trees (also part of the NAP program!). What a blessing and how fortuitous for me that these mentors have affected my landscape-eye. I go nowhere without adding their lens to each landscape I see and work with. I am passionate about the intersection of pastoral and woody system ecologies because of the work they do and have passed on to me.

It happened that George and Julie also gave me my first management position. About two years after my apprenticeship year ended, I realized during a Virginia summer working in a vegetable field that I no longer wanted to be a general laborer, a hand.

Martha learned practical ranching skills through the Quivira I had an old boss who always Coalition’s New Agrarian Program. said, “Don’t be a task-taker, be a task-maker,” and with that advice I ended up looking for an opportunity to build my San Juan Ranch’s foreman-in-training. This management skill set. That meant someone had opportunity led to advancement and allowed to give me a chance. That chance came from me a space to succeed and fail as a middle my network. I didn’t think I would head back manager. Their mentorship continued.

West, but that same summer I found myself So, you may ask, why management? Why looking westward a great deal. I was hired as not aspire to own my own operation? I have

practices and things we wanted to accomplish, such as water developments. They looked at those and decided if it was something they could work with, and developed a contract.

It took a while to get that figured out and we signed the contract in November 2018.”

Roger says that in September 2019, they met a young woman from Australia who represented a group called Livestock and Meat Australia. “It’s a national organization somewhat like our NCBA in this country. They published a brochure and have signed off as an industry in Australia to be carbon neutral by 2030. I think our U.S. beef industry needs to pay attention.”

Roger also notes that because this is a pilot project, the money the rancher gets is a lot less than the price of carbon. Within the contract, however, it states that if carbon prices really take off, the landowner or operator of the land can buy that carbon back and renegotiate the price. “This was a critical component for us because we don’t know what the market will do,” he says.

“One thing that may be problematic is that sequestering carbon depends totally

on management rather than ownership. We operate on some leased property so that can be a challenge because there are not very many 30-year leases. The contract recognizes that if the management changes, that practice may also change, and carbon might not be sequestered,” Roger says.

“People we lease from need to sign a landowner declaration that their intentions are to continue to graze, acknowledging that it is currently under our management, but it is non-binding to the landowner,” Betsy says. “It’s simply a statement of intention.”

“Another potential challenge is with federal or state lands,” says Roger. There can be multiple landowners involved when ranching in the West. Hopefully over time some of these things may be simplified, and general sentiment may change a bit to help this along.

Roger and Betsy were willing to be early adopters of this program and feel it could be a benefit for ranchers, to provide a more income.

“We don’t mind helping work out the kinks, and hopefully it will benefit other ranchers, too,” says Betsy.

toyed with the idea, but three things have held professional and personal growth, and how to me back: 1) lack of partnership—business and work with someone who is happy right where personal, 2) Lack of capital, and 3) A desire to they are? How to walk into a ranch/farm team experience many different landscapes (which where there is a high level of distrust, and I have done in North Carolina, Colorado, New develop strategies to rebuild trust? While there Mexico, Virginia, Alabama, and California). is still plenty to learn from soil, plants, and Also I’m a part of a new wave of younganimals, we humans are pretty complicated and didn’t-grow-up-doing-this land managers. There interesting to work on too. is a need for good and innovative managers.

Those who understand regenerative practices for the soil and the people. A large part of my agrarian journey has been about the lessons that landscapes and animals have taught me, but what is larger and more powerful are all the people who have taught me something, either about myself or about our human condition. I am intently focused on growing my managerial capacities as a human-herder. What does it take to raise people up, to honor their skill sets?

How to acknowledge and Martha herding sheep at Pacines Ranch, California. create opportunities for

I’ll leave you with a few lines from one of my favorite poems: […] I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. […]

—Marge Piercy, “To be of use”

Paying it Forward

plan has always moved forward.”

Currently, Seth serves as a mentor for a Whole Farm Planning grant through NE SARE. He enjoys working with new trainers and teaching them. “Holistic Management has changed by career and my life,” says Seth.

“As a result, I want to give back and empower others to have that experience. I can also see how the new trainees I am working with are also changing. I want to pay it forward to others who need help and support because I know how important having good mentors and teachers was for me. And, it’s really refueling to see how these new trainees are changing and growing.

“The whole experience has really been rewarding for me. I’ve developed relationships with the HMI staff and people in the Certified Educator network. Everyone wants to see Holistic Management spread. Because of those friendships and all we’ve learned together and accomplished, I want to help move us all forward. I’ve seen the difference that Holistic Management makes in farmers’ lives and their lands. That drives me. The more we can train and empower others, the more we all win.”

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seek to learn Holistic Management specifically, instead they just want help with aspects of farm management. With those farmers, I still use the process, except I do it in my head to get the information I need to help them. All farms need value-based goals and systems that support the goals. They have to know what they are managing toward.”

Through 2019-2015, Seth helped with HMI’s Beginning Women Farmer Training Program that trained beginning women farmers in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas. He served as the project evaluator as well as teaching many of the classes. As he engaged in more curriculum analysis of the program he really began to focus on ways to make the training even more practical for farmers. This was the beginning of a journey Seth undertook into effective adult education methods for farmers “That program really made me look at how to take complex subjects and teach them

so that participants can truly gain skills,” says Seth. “There was a lot of trial and error as we looked at adult education theory and then applied it to Holistic Management and how we were teaching it.”

Seth uses that understanding as he consults and provides farm management support as part of his Extension work, including helping farmers with succession planning. “Succession planning is really challenging because there are so many moving parts and personalities,” says Seth. “I have found that the best approach is to go to each member of the management team and utilize the holistic goal setting process to define what they want. From those conversations I develop a holistic goal for each member then share it with them to get their feedback. This creates a clear direction to help drive the process and reduces curveball surprises. It also helps me learn what the roadblocks are for the team. I often get difficult assignments because this process works. With these tools I can move the situation forward. It may take three years as we stop and start and get more information from which they can make their decisions, but the

I will never figure out how to do everything right, but I can sure pull and strive to treat everyone around me well and with compassion. From the soil up, regenerative practices encompass all beings. We will regenerate better together.

Martha Skelley is the Livestock Manager at Paicines Ranch in Paicines, California and can be reached at: martskelley@gmail.com. This article was first printed in the Quivira Coalition’s New Agrarian News. To learn more about the Quivira Coalition’s New Agrarian Program go to: https:// quiviracoalition.org/newagrarian/

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From the Board Chair

BY WALTER LYNN

In this issue I would like to discuss connections tying us socially together through what we eat at our tables each day. The author C. S. Lewis said in 1949, “The sun looks on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.” But, we also know that photosynthesis is a huge part of this interaction in our lives. We need to make the connection between the soil, plants, animals, humans, and the sun for a complete picture.

Unfortunately, there are many food choices that don’t make that connection.

I read and think about the implications of the current direction “fake meat” production is going in the world. It was an honor at the 2019 REGENERATE conference in Albuquerque to meet Will Harris from Bluffton, Georgia and owner of White Oak Pastures (WOP). Will is an amazing leader in the production of healthy grass-fed proteins. His farm has stepped forward to do a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) for their beef. The LCA for WOP evaluates the total environmental impact of the production system from the perspective of the carbon footprint. The LCA net result for WOP was a carbon footprint of 111% less CO2 per kilogram of fresh meat than a conventional US beef production system and even less than “fake meat.” Regenerative agriculture is a major difference from the industrial food system and kudos to Will for participating in this assessment and showing the value of regeneratively raised foods.

Further, when we assess the ingredients in the “fake meats” and the environmental impact of the production of those ingredients, more questions are raised in our food buying decisions. Water and soy protein concentrate are two major ingredients in one “fake meat” selection. The consumer is

GRAPEVINE The

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people programs projects

N E W S F R O M H O L I S T I C M A N AG E M E N T I N T E R N AT I O N A L

South Dakota Research

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ecent research conducted by South Dakota State University (SDSU) in collaboration with the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service indicates that producers whose production practices include building soil health experience less stress, are more satisfied with farming/ ranching, have more fun, and are more optimistic than conventional producers who do not focus on these practices.

SDSU conducted a survey asking both conventional-practice producers and soil health-practice producers to assess their stress levels on a range of issues from market price volatility to extreme weather events. Producers were also asked to assess their operation’s profitability, concerns about input costs, and opportunities for operational succession. 107 producers completed the survey.

Key survey findings include: Increased Profitability—158% difference • 31% of soil health producers reported increased profitability during the past year while 12% of conventional producers did so.

Likelihood of Future Farm Profitability—92% difference • 69% of soil health producers predicted their farm profitability would

20 IN PRACTICE

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May / June 2020

buying water. 93% or more of all soybeans are genetically modified and then we have the ecological impact of glyphosate, fungicides, insecticides, synthetic fertilizers used in a production system fostering erosion and runoff.

Is such a product really a healthy choice for the consumer?

The market for the “fake meat” seems to be for the fast food sector which is already a source of concern. A conventional beef producer I know made a comment to me recently. He and his wife are involved in his four children’s sports activities. We were discussing cash flow planning for 2020 for his farm. He shared the family spends $400–500 per month at fast food restaurants shuttling kids in the evening to sporting events. Let’s think about something from the book Food Fix, authored by the functional medicine Cleveland Clinic Dr. Mark Hyman: one in two Americans and one in four teens have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes. What are the health costs to those four kids in that drive through that lane? How can we encourage food choices that promote health in the next generation?

Each of us has to think about the decisions we make each day. The foundation for Holistic Management is the framework to deal with economic, ecological, and social decisions in our lives. Our food choices and decisions for our families when we tie the interconnections together are huge. The food decision ties to the source of the food, the practices in its production, and the impact on our soil and water. The meal and its impact on our well-being enhances our ability to survive. This focus on food and health is important now more than ever. In Dr. Zach Bush’s blog post Statement on Coronavirus, he notes the cornerstone to health is to choose foods that CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 nourish you. “Eat real food with real company. Grow your own whenever possible and choose food that is regeneratively grown.” I hope you make the connection between food choices and your desire for a healthy planet and your family’s health today.

h increase in the next 3-5 years versus 36% of conventional producers.

Future Resiliency of Operations—38% difference • 83% of soil health producers were optimistic about the future resiliency of their operations to weather extremes compared to 60% of conventional farmers.

Attitude about Agricultural Experience—150% difference • 30% of soil health producers described their 2019 experience in agriculture as “challenging but fun” compared to only 12% of conventional producers (despite additional flooding and trade market challenges).

SDSU’s Larry Gigliotti, Ph.D., who published the report, said there was a direct correlation between the number of soil health practices the farmers and ranchers used (i.e. no-till, cover crops, diverse cropping rotations, etc.) and the level of stress and happiness they reported experiencing or anticipated in the future. In other words, the producers using more soil health practices were reporting higher levels of satisfaction and reporting less stress than the soil health producers who used less practices.

These survey results suggest that increased land resiliency mitigates climate or weather extremes which reduces stress and increases satisfaction. The full survey report, as well as several infographics are available on the SDSHC website, www.sdsoilhealthcoalition.org.

Certified

Kirk Gadzia

Educators

Bernalillo 505/263-8677 (c) • kirk@rmsgadzia.com

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.

Lee Altier *College of Agriculture, CSU

Chico 530/636-2525 • laltier@csuchico.edu

Owen Hablutzel

Los Angeles 310/567-6862 go2owen@gmail.com

Richard King

Petaluma 707/217-2308 (c) rking1675@gmail.com

Doniga Markegard

Half Moon Bay 650/670-7984 Doniga@markegardfamily.com

Kelly Mulville *Paicines

707/431-8060 kmulville@gmail.com Red Bluff 208/301-5066 nelson-don1@hotmail.com

Rob Rutherford

San Luis Obispo 805/550-4858 (c) robtrutherford@gmail.com COLORADO

Joel Benson *Buena Vista

719/221-1547 joel@paratuinstitute.com

Cindy Dvergsten

Dolores 970/882-4222 wnc@gobrainstorm.net

*Calhan

Katie Belle Miller

970/310-0852 heritagebellefarms@gmail.com KANSAS

William Casey

Erie 620/ 423-2842 bill.caseyag@gmail.com

Larry Dyer

MONTANA

Roland Kroos

Bozeman 406/581-3038 (c) • kroosing@msn.com

*Montana State University Cliff Montagne

Bozeman 406/599-7755 (c) • montagne@montana.edu NEBRASKA

Paul Swanson *Hastings

402/463-8507 • 402/705-1241 (c) pswanson3@unl.edu

Ralph Tate

Papillion 402/250-8981 (c) • tater2d2@cox.net NEW HAMPSHIRE

Seth Wilner

Newport 603/863-9200 (w) seth.wilner@unh.edu NEW MEXICO

Don Nelson

MICHIGAN

Petoskey 231/881-2784 (c) ldyer3913@gmail.com MISSISSIPPI

Preston Sullivan *Meadville 601/384-5310 (h) 601/835-6124 (c) prestons@telepak.net

Belen 541/610-7084 • goebel@aboutlistening.com

*Las Vegas

Katherine Napper-Ottmers

505/225-6481 • katherineottmers@icloud.com

*Brooktondale

NEW YORK

Ann Adams

Holistic Management International Albuquerque 505/842-5252 ext 5 anna@holisticmanagement.org

Christina Allday-Bondy

Edgewood 512/658-2051 christina.alldaybondy@gmail.com

Snyder 806/237-2554 glosson@caprock-spur.com

Kathy Harris

Holistic Management International Dallas/Fort Worth 214/417-6583 kathyh@holisticmanagement.org

Theresa J Litle

Orange Grove 361/537-3417 (c) tjlitle@hotmail.com

Erica Frenay

607/342-3771 (c) info@shelterbeltfarm.com

U N I T E D S TAT E S CALIFORNIA

Jeff Goebel

Guy Glosson

Peggy Maddox

*Chestertown

Hermleigh 325/226-3042 (c) westgift@hughes.net

Elizabeth Marks

CD Pounds *Fruitvale

Craig Leggett

518/491-1979 • craigrleggett@gmail.com Chatham 518/567-9476 (c) elizabeth_marks@hotmail.com

214/568-3377 • cdpounds@live.com

Peggy Sechrist

Phillip Metzger

Norwich 607/316-4182 • pmetzger17@gmail.com

*Hazen

NORTH DAKOTA

701/870-1184 • joshua_dukart@yahoo.com OREGON

Central Point 541/ 890-4014 • angelaboudro@gmail.com SOUTH DAKOTA

Randal Holmquist *Mitchell

*Madison

WISCONSIN

608/665-3835 • larrystillpointfarm@gmail.com

Laura Paine *Columbus

608/338-9039 (c) • lkpaine@gmail.com

605/730-0550 • randy@heartlandtanks.com TEXAS

Gainesville 940/736-3996 (c) • lbellows@nctc.edu Henrietta 940/328-5542 deborah@birdwellandclarkranch.com

Washington DC 773/706-2705 • christinejost42@gmail.com

Larry Johnson

Angela Boudro

Deborah Clark

WASHINGTON DC

Christine C. Jost

Joshua Dukart

Bellows *NorthLisaCentral Texas College

Fredericksburg 830/456-5587 (c) peggysechrist@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.

I N T E R N AT I O N A L Judi Earl

AUSTRALIA

Coolatai, NSW 61-409-151-969 judi_earl@bigpond.com

Graeme Hand

Franklin, Tasmania 61-4-1853-2130 • graemehand9@gmail.com

Dick Richardson

Balhannah, SA 61-4-2906-9001 dick@dickrichardson.com.au

*Cooran QLD

Jason Virtue

61-4-27 199 766 Jason@landlifeeducation.com.au

Brian Wehlburg

Kindee NSW 61-0408-704-431 brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au CANADA

Don Campbell

Meadow Lake, SK 306-236-6088 doncampbell@sasktel.net

Blain Hjertaas

Redvers, SK 306/452-7723 • bhjer@sasktel.net

Brian Luce

Ponoka, AB 403/783-6518 lucends@cciwireless.ca

Tony McQuail

Lucknow, ON 519/528-2493 tonymcquail@gmail.com

Kelly Sidoryk

Blackroot, AB 780/872-2585 (c) kelly.sidoryk@gmail.com FINLAND

Tuomas Mattila

Pusula 358-407432412 tuomas.j.mattila@gmail.com NAMIBIA

Usiel Seuakouje Kandjii

Colin Nott *Windhoek

264-81-2418778 (c) canott@iafrica.com.na

Wiebke Volkmann Windhoek 264-81-127-0081 wiebke@afol.com.na

NEW ZEALAND

John King *Christchurch

64-276-737-885 john@succession.co.nz SOUTH AFRICA

Wayne Knight

Mokopane +27-82-805-3274 (c) wayne@theknights.za.net

Ian Mitchell-Innes *Ladysmith, Kwa-Zulu Natal +27-83-262-9030 ian@mitchell-innes.co.za

Windhoek 264-812840426 kandjiiu@gmail.com

Num ber 191

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Resource Management Resource Management Services, LLCLLC Services,

CORRAL DESIGNS CORRALDESIGNS DESIGNS CORRAL

KirkKirk L. Gadzia, Certified Educator L. Gadzia, Certified Educator PO Box 11001100 PO Box Bernalillo, NM NM 87004 Bernalillo, 87004PasturePasture Scene Scene 505-263-8677 505-263-8677 Investigation kirk@rmsgadzia.com Investigation kirk@rmsgadzia.com www.rmsgadzia.com www.rmsgadzia.com

RMS, HowHow can can RMS, LLCLLC helphelp you?you?

On-Site Consulting: All aspects On-Site Consulting: All aspects of holistic management, including of holistic management, including financial, ecological and human financial, ecological and human resources. resources.

Training Events: Regularly scheduled Training Events: Regularly scheduled and customized training sessions and customized training sessions provided in a variety of locations. provided in a variety of locations.

Ongoing Support: Follow-up Ongoing Support: Follow-up training sessions and access training sessions and access to to continued learning opportunities continued learning opportunities and and developments. developments.

Health Monitoring: Biological LandLand Health Monitoring: Biological monitoring of rangeland and riparian monitoring of rangeland and riparian ecosystem health. ecosystem health.

Property Assessment: Land health Property Assessment: Land health and productivity assessment with and productivity assessment with recommended solutions. recommended solutions.

May / June 2016 h May / June 2020

March / April 2013

22IN IN PRACTICE 22 PRACTICE

22 IN PRACTICE

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You can only manage what you correctly measure. Soil test as soon as conditions permit to add lime or other needed nutrients for pasture and hay crops.

For consulting or educational services contact:

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Num ber 191

h IN PRACTICE 23

AZ

A

N

with Richard McConnell & Tina Williams

liams From Bud Wil — Stockmanship

GR

“Bud Williams” Livestock Marketing & Proper Stockmanship

N

THE MARKETPLACE

IN

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Nonprofit U.S POSTAGE

PAID Jefferson City, MO PERMIT 210

Healthy Land. Healthy Food. Healthy Lives.

a publication of Holistic Management International 2425 San Pedro Dr. NE, Ste A Albuquerque, NM 87110 USA

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

please send address corrections before moving so that we do not incur unnecessary postal fees

DEVELOPMENT CORNER Paying it Forward— Seth Wilner

S

eth Wilner is an Agricultural Business Management Field Specialist for the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Extension in Newport, New Hampshire.

Seth Wilner Seth wanted to be a veterinary his whole life. Yet in college, the vet he worked for convinced him that the salary was low and the vet school debt was too high, so he switched from pre-vet to studying chemistry. Stuck in a lab for numerous hours, he realized he needed a more applied science and found soil science, earning a B.S. in Soil Science from the University of Connecticut in 1991. After graduation Seth joined the Peace Corps and lived in a village in Senegal, West Africa where he developed his passion for agricultural Extension, teaching village farmers techniques to increase crop yields, soil fertility and food storage methods.

Upon returning to the United States, Seth enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his MS in Soil Science and Agronomy, focusing on soil chemistry and soil fertility.

Shortly afterwards, Seth joined UNH Cooperative Extension in August of 2000 and began working with farmers on nutrient management topics.

But in 2001, Seth’s career took an unexpected sharp turn thanks to a Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NE SARE) Grant developed by then NRCS-New York employee, Phil Metzger.

The SARE Grant sought to train one person from each state in the NE SARE region. “My boss at the time noticed that he had two people in soil fertility in neighboring counties. I was the new kid on the block and my boss decided to re-direct my work. So he called me into his office and told me that I was going to the training. I wanted to focus on soil chemistry, but he insisted that we needed someone who could help farmers in farm management. I wasn’t happy, but I went to the training, which turned out to be a Holistic Management training for agricultural professionals in the Northeast. It changed my life and my career in

ways I never would have imagined and was the best thing that could have happened to me. I’ve been able to make a far greater impact with the agriculture community than if I had stayed focused on soil fertility.”

Through that training Seth became a Holistic Management® Certified Educator with HMI. After becoming a Certified Educator, he collaborated with Phil Metzger, who also became an HMI Certified Educator, on a number of other Holistic Management Professional Development grants through NE SARE. These grants provided more training in Holistic Management for agricultural professionals throughout the Northeast.

Seth believes that the Holistic Management training gave him tools to use in his work as an Extension educator to engage with farmers on a much deeper level, helping them to address issues they perhaps couldn’t even articulate on their own. “The training helped me realize skills I had in the arena of social sustainability,” says Seth. “I have developed those skills and am recognized for my ability to help people within very difficult situations to advance in their problem solving and conflict resolution, and in making data-driven decisions toward a valuebased goal. My work and training in Holistic Management helped me to recognize and hone those skills. I use my natural instincts and the Holistic Management process to forge into deep conversations with farmers as well as mediate very difficult conversations and situations.”

Farmers resonate with Seth because he takes a practical approach.

While he helps them develop a value-based goal, he constantly asks questions about the systems they have in place to help them be successful. In doing this work, Seth realized that frequently, farmers’ inability to implement solid financial systems that allows them to understand the financial health of their operations was a huge limiting factor that threaten their very sustainability. As such, he has worked to build his agricultural finance and economic skills, which he says, “complements many aspects of Holistic Management and magnifies the impact of Holistic Financial Planning.”

Seth estimates that he has worked with and impacted well over 500 farmers in his training and consultations. “I include Holistic Management in everything I do,” says Seth. “I use it when I am evaluating a farm to get the information I need to help the farmer. Some farmers want Holistic Management hook, line, and sinker, and for those, I step through the process openly and directly. Other farmers do not

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