#200, IN PRACTICE, November/December 2021

From Hierarchy to Relationships

BY ANN ADAMS

In a recent article “Plants Feel Pain and Might Even See” in Nautilus by author Peter Wohlleben, the author is making a case for the retirement of the classification of living things. When I read this article, I found myself excited about the possibility to move past hierarchy to the recognition of all the symbiotic relationships that make up the natural world that makes such hierarchies a lesson in futility.

The author begins his article with discussing his interview with philosopher Emanuele Coccia who wrote the book The Life of Plants. In this book Coccia notes how such hierarchy implies superiority and distorts our view of nature (and of ourselves). After all, don’t we owe our continued survival on plankton and fungi which may be perceived as “lower” species.

Certainly I can appreciate the familial relationships that are noted in the taxonomical

In Practice

system but most of us can track family trees without assuming that one family is more superior to another. Superiority as noted by economic class certainly has encouraged that kind of thinking and many have argued that our scientific classification of species has encouraged this kind of thinking that doesn’t serve humanity. Has that hierarchy been influenced by our values? Does it continue to influence our values?

What would our management of the natural world be like if there wasn’t a hard boundary between the plant and animal world in our thinking? As biologists continue to study plants, there is more questions of plants’ consciousness as they react to stimuli. A German scientist, František Baluška, believes plants are intelligent because they can process information and make decisions. He also notes that, of course, plants must feel pain because any species needing to determine appropriate response must have that ability. For example, plants produce substances that suppress pain.

I think if we think something or someone is “beneath” our concern because they are lower down on the hierarchy then we are more likely to make a quick decision about how we

will treat them or respond to them than we are if we feel they are equal to us or we fear or respect them.

Holistic Management has helped me recognize the incredible importance of all species in the web of life. It has helped me respect animals (including people) and plants, and all the myriad life forms more than I ever have before. The more I understand and learn about each life form who inhabits the land I’m managing, the better able I am to help create symbiotic relationships. If I come from a place of humility and ask questions instead of assuming the “value” of a given life form, I may actually be better off. It’s another example of “enlightened self-interest.”

I think our indigenous ancestors lived this type of life, recognizing themselves as part of an intricate web of life. They believed that they were in relationship with all of creation, not the supreme beings of creation. Science is now allowing us to understand “scientifically” what we once knew or understood intuitively. Given the finite nature of all our natural resources, there has never been a better time to shift our paradigm from competition to one of collaboration and solidarity as we work to figure out how humans can work and create within the natural system in a regenerative manner. As Wohllenben points out, trees have been around for 300 million years and humans have only been around for 300,000 years. What can we learn from them to help us be around for another 300,000?

Do You Have a Story?

Do you or someone you know have a great story to share with the IN PRACTICE readers about what has been learned or achieved with the practice of Holistic Management?

Share your ideas at: anna@holisticmanagement.org.

The Holistic Management® Framework has been used by many Holistic Management Certified Educators and practitioners around the world to help create policy that actually addresses the root cause of the problems these policies are trying to address. To learn more about some of these efforts, read Grassland 2.0 on page 2 or Decision Design Hub or page 3.

HMI’s mission is to envision and realize healthy, resilient lands and thriving communities by serving people in the practice of Holistic Decision Making & Management.

STAFF

Wayne Knight Interim Executive Director

Ann Adams Education Director

Carrie Stearns Director of Communications & Outreach

Stephanie Von Ancken Program Manager

Dana Bonham Program & Grants Manager

Oris Salazar Program Assistant

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Walter Lynn, Chair

Jim Shelton, Vice-Chair

Breanna Owens, Secretary

Delane Atcitty

Gerardo Bezanilla

Jonathan Cobb

Ariel Greenwood

Colin Nott

Daniel Nuckols

Brad Schmidt

Kelly Sidoryk

Brian Wehlburg

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT® IN PRACTICE

(ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by:

Holistic Management International 2425 San Pedro Dr. NE, Ste A Albuquerque, NM 87110 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: hmi@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org

Copyright © 2021

Holistic Management® is a registered trademark of Holistic Management International

Grassland 2.0— Building a Template for Transformational Change

BY LAURA PAINE

The Midwestern Corn Belt has been fueled by banked fertility and organic matter accumulated over millennia by the tallgrass prairie that once existed here. The diverse plant community, grazed by bison and managed by Indigenous people, built deep, rich soils that have made the region among the most productive in the world. Today, the bank account may be running dry. A recent study estimates that 30% of topsoil in the region is gone (Thaler et al. 2021). Lost forever.

And what is our collective response? Apply more fertilizer, breed better hybrids, tweak our tillage practices, plant cover crops, tile drain, irrigate—all to produce more corn that is often in oversupply. This is classic ‘Root Cause’ stuff: rather than stepping back and looking at the significant systemic issues with our agriculture and food system—the root causes of our current situation—we focus on solving the immediate problem that in many cases was a result of our own previous actions.

Grassland 2.0 is a unique regional collaboration that seeks to press the pause button on this vicious cycle. The land that we farm—this soil—is our nation’s most substantial and important natural resource. It is what we live on, both literally and figuratively. It can— and should—provide more than cheap food, livestock feed and ethanol.

Holistic Management Linkages

I was drawn to the project because of its many parallels to the practice of Holistic Management. In the 15+ years I’ve been engaged with Holistic Management, it’s been as much a framework for my work as it’s been a help in organizing my farm and personal life.

Grassland 2.0 speaks to fundamental Holistic Management principles: long-term visioning, paradigm change and ultimately systems change. And we’re taking on a massive challenge: how can we reshape our food and agriculture system so that, in addition to tasty, nutritious food, it produces healthy, resilient soils, clean air and water, biodiversity, stable incomes for farmers, racial justice and vibrant rural communities?

Grassland 2.0 (grasslandag.org) is funded by a five-year USDA grant and housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The grant program asks the applicant to describe what a sustainable agriculture system looks like in your region and provides funding to devise a plan for how you will get there by the year 2050. The project brings together a diverse group of partners—other universities, regional agriculture non-profits, state and federal agencies, farmers, consumers, and private industry—to address the challenge through a holistic lens: from soil carbon to finance to policy to humanities and culture. One of my roles as outreach coordinator is helping the project build partnerships. As we make connections around shared values, we are building a movement for grassland agriculture in the Midwest that will live beyond the life of the grant.

Who are the decision-makers? Our current system, with its focus on economies of scale, has evolved toward larger farms, more mechanization, and more specialization, especially here in the Midwest where I live and farm. Consequences have been the decoupling of livestock and cropping systems, a depopulating of the rural landscape, and degradation of soil health, water quality and other natural resources. Agriculture in the U.S. functions within an economic system that reinforces the status quo, rewards economic efficiency over broader societal benefits, and consolidates wealth and power in the hands of the few. Decision-making is the purview of supply chain actors and policy makers, often to

the detriment of both family-scale farmers and eaters. This project recognizes that some of our solutions may need to come from outside of agriculture and that one important role we can play is to listen to and amplify the voices of those who are currently not invited to the table where decisions are made.

A Project Holistic Goal

We envision an agriculture system in which livestock are re-integrated into cropping systems, spreading the benefits of wellmanaged perennial forages and fertility from livestock manure and legumes across the landscape. Livestock production can deliver significant ecosystem services in addition to high quality grass-fed meat and dairy products, price premiums for family-scale farms, and economic growth for rural communities. We can’t pretend that everyone in the region agrees with this vision. And we are very aware that the potential change that it engenders can be threatening to some, especially those who are invested in the industrial model and whose livelihoods depend on the policies that support it. We want to hear from them too. We want to know what their aspirations are for their families and farm businesses, and to understand the barriers they see in making changes that will benefit the future communities their kids and grandkids will live in.

Even the most committed industrial farmers would find it hard to argue against clean water and healthy soil, a stable income without government subsidies, and a viable business that they can transfer to the next generation. It’s just that, more often than not, short term decisions lead away from the longterm vision they may imagine. And differences in short term perspectives create barriers to communities working together toward a better future.

Place-based Conversations

Building a framework within which people can get off that treadmill and have a conversation about our shared aspirations is another commonality that our Grassland 2.0 project has with Holistic Management. Grassland 2.0 Learning Hubs are intended to create a trust-based setting for communities to engage in these potentially divisive conversations. We will be engaging five community-based learning hubs in a goal setting and scenario planning process. The three Wisconsin hubs include 1) a dairy region challenged by consolidation and expansion, 2) a rugged landscape that’s experiencing

catastrophic flooding, and 3) a larger, regional hub encompassing some of the most significant grassland bird habitat east of the Mississippi River. We are also exploring developing learning hubs with two groups outside of Wisconsin. A Central Minnesota group’s primary challenge is the conversion of forestland to annual crops. In central Illinois, we hope to work with a community that has almost entirely lost its livestock industry and culture. Diverse landscapes, diverse farming traditions, and diverse local relationships will make for a rich mutual learning opportunity.

The project team is developing a “collaborative landscape design” process for

that will be the primary product of the project will incorporate opportunities for and barriers to change across the spectrum: addressing the risk to individual farmers in making changes to their farming practices and businesses, understanding the social components of change at the community level, identifying the levers for change in state and federal policy, and highlighting opportunities for change in markets and supply chains.

The Hard Part

Although building consensus and planning is not easy, it is the easier part of transformation. This five-year project will result in a plan, but

rural agricultural communities that we’ll pilot in these hubs. It includes scenario design processes commonly used in natural resources planning and will use a landscape-based computer modeling system called SmartScape/ GrazeScape developed at the University of Wisconsin. The process will help communities map out and visualize transitions on the landscape at the watershed or farm level and estimate impacts on productivity, environmental indicators (phosphorus, soil erosion, biodiversity) and profitability.

Walking through a planning process with these local, place-based groups will help our team understand the process of change on the ground and will allow innovation and ideas to bubble up. The comprehensive regional plan

what happens next? If we successfully engage a community of partners, build a shared vision, and work together to build this plan, it will have life beyond the Grassland 2.0 project. That’s our challenge! We welcome your ideas and partnership as we embark on the journey.

Reference

Thaler, Evan A, Isaac J. Larsen, and Qian Yu. 2021. The extent of soil loss across the US Corn Belt. PNAS February 23, 2021 118 (8) (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1922375118)

Laura Paine is the Grassland 2.0 Outreach Coordinator and a Holistic Management Certified Educator. She can be reached at: lkpaine@gmail.com.

A field day in the summer of 2021 to introduce participants to Grasslands 2.0.

Recognizing the Circle of Life—

The Most Powerful and Creative Planetary Force

BY PETER DONOVAN

Editor’s Note: This article is a booklet that is available for free download at: soilcarboncoalition.org/ downloads

This booklet is aimed at helping you recognize the opportunity of working with the circle of life—the most powerful planetary force. When we’re dealing with complexity, sometimes a lot of knowledge can get in the way of learning. So part of the goal here is to expand the quality and range of your ignorance. Good questions can help. What follows is a bit of background on asking some good questions, and making some quantitative observations.

LIFE, powered by a tiny fraction of incoming sunlight, is the most powerful and creative planetary force.

Our planet’s atmosphere, its soils, its blue, white, and green colors viewed from space, even the composition of its crust and oceans, are the products of eons of life’s complex chemical wizardry. This work of life powers carbon cycling, as well as the cycling of nitrogen, phosphorus, and many other elements. It modifies and slows the vastly greater power of water cycling at all scales. We are riding an enormous, incredibly complex, eddying flow of sunlight energy captured by interrelated communities of self-motivated living organisms whose metabolisms, behaviors, and relationships are increasingly influenced by our own.

Photosynthesis is a chemical transformation that happens pens quietly and gradually in the growth of a lichen, leaf, or diatom. It’s happening almost everywhere on earth, in millions of different kinds of organisms. Unlike diesel engines or volcanic eruptions, photosynthesis occurs at ordinary temperatures and pressures, in microbes and parts of cells that are too small

to see.

This complex circle of life, solar-powered through photosynthesis, does about 8 times more work globally than all our human-controlled power. It does almost

Three times the work of the geologic forces that move the continental plates and trigger earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Any kind of physical or chemical change involves work.

1. Nature is a THREAT

One of the oldest, this is the belief, paradigm, or orientation of using technology and organizing our society to protect ourselves from famines, diseases, pests, and disasters. Many of us owe our lives to this protection, from the most primitive hut and plow to modern equipment, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. We continue to seek technical solutions to every problem and threat.

2. Nature is a VICTIM

The environmental movement arose as many people realized that our technology had damaged or destroyed aspects of nature that we valued: pollution, deforestation, extinctions of species, and on and on. Our technology may even spell the end of nature (wild things), and many have personal experience of these losses. We seek to limit ourselves and our technology, and find a more sustainable way to live.

Though these orientations are opposed, they share many characteristics. They both:

• problem-solve, manage against what we don’t want

• rely on expert decision-making and leadership

• label species as good or bad: cows or wolves, native or non-native

• label practices or tools as good or bad: concentrated animal feeding operations, conservation easements

Power is work per unit of time. James Watt found that a brewery horse could lift 180 pounds, 180 feet (=32,400 foot-pounds) in one minute. This became a horsepower—about 746 watts. How much work are you capturing from sunlight and rain on your farm or ranch?

Frames

Many of us have been taught about photosynthesis in school. But the basic facts—that the dry material of a tree or plant comes mainly from the air, for example, not the soil—are often forgotten because they don’t fit the frames or contexts by which we recognize and organize our beliefs, judgments, and decisions.

regard nature as resources or things (to either exploit or save) regard humans as somehow separate from nature

Both “nature as threat” and “nature as victim” are based on evidence and personal experience.

Circle of life.

Wherever you stand along this spectrum, there is loyalty to some beliefs and behaviors. There are enormous vested interests and sunk costs— John Deere, Monsanto, Pfizer on the one hand, environmental organizations and movements on the other, and even long-running governmental and civil efforts at somehow balancing the two. These various vested interests now fund most science and research. All this is where the money and jobs are.

available:

3. Life is the most powerful planetary force

Humans are part of nature. This is not a compromise or combination of “nature as threat” and “nature as victim,” but something different, in a different direction. Nature is not just things or resources, but processes that do an enormous amount of work. We influence that work and depend on it. Through human history, we have unintentionally and inadvertently worked against the circle of life, resulting in land degradation, desertification, failing watersheds, and failing civilizations.

If we can learn to manage complex living communities of self-motivated organisms, to ally ourselves with that work, we have a huge opportunity to slow down the water cycle (the main factor in climate and in sea-level rise), improve human health and nutrition, boost farm profits and quality of life, and save taxpayers and governments some of the enormous sums they are laying out for infrastructure repair, disaster relief, and water purification.

formation and also the degradation of the soil aggregate—the complex of sand, silt, and clay held together by the snots, cements, glues, and fibers produced by the soil foodweb, and fed by plant photosynthesis. This results in a fantastic micro-architecture that holds water, air, and provides a variety of niches, food, and habitats for important soil organisms such as bacteria, fungi, mites, nematodes, insects, and worms, most of them beneficial to agriculture. This micro-architecture, the soil aggregate, is also the fundamental infrastructure of our civilization, as without it the soil dissolves in water and wind, floods will take out the rest of our infrastructure, and droughts will finish off our economy.

Technology can’t build the soil aggregate, but technology such as tillage or chemical applications can destroy it faster than the soil foodweb can rebuild it. This is a complex situation. In complex situations we learn through

To manage parts: To manage wholes:

Energy energy means sources of industrial, transport, and home energy

energy includes the power of photosynthesis, which has huge leverage over the vastly greater power of the water cycle

In this strongly polarized field, everything is judged and recognized according to the spectrum, and can easily become a wedge or dividing issue. How do you feel about atmospheric carbon dioxide? livestock? nitrogen fertilizer? If you’re like most people, your feelings about these matters reflect your identity and loyalty to one or more positions on the polarizing spectrum, which is the context for your judgment and decision making. This context, in which protecting economic sectors and protecting the environment are locked in an expensive and perpetual conflict, results in a zero-sum or finite game in which our choices and opportunities for improving our lives are limited or merely predatory.

But a different context is possible and

But this opportunity still doesn’t often fit with the vested interests, leadership, or expertise of either the agricultural research and input sectors, or environmental organizations. It does not align well with the left/right polarized spectrum we’re usually so sensitive to, and thus it remains hidden from many.

How do we orient ourselves around this opportunity, this frame or context?

Water focus on control of water in ditches, pipes, wells, and behind dams

soil moisture, soil cover, soil structure, and atmospheric water vapor are all related, even locally: how we manage the soil surface

Climate focus on atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane

Soil is the Center or Hub of the Circle of Life

Soil is often regarded as the dance floor or stage upon which the real activity occurs: plants, animals, vehicles, buildings, and so on. But in fact there are enormous flows of matter and energy through soil that we seldom notice: water, carbon and sugars moving into soils, and water, carbon dioxide, and other transparent gases moving out.

The flows of carbon compounds, energy, and water in and out of the soil surface include the

focus on soil sponge because it influences the water cycle: plants manage water, and in managing water they manage heat

feedback, by outcomes in physical reality.

Practices—such as no-till, cover crops, rotational grazing—are tough to define with any accuracy. Everyone’s situation is different, and everyone does things at least a little bit differently, with different timing. A few NRCS people in North Dakota came up with some principles that can be implemented in a variety of creative ways depending on your situation, your resources, and your resource concerns: CONTINUED

“If you want to make small changes, change how you do things. If you want to make big changes, you must change how you see things.”

—Don Campbell

Recognizing the Circle of Life

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

Soil health principles

• keep soil covered

• living roots for as long as possible

• diversity of plants

• minimize tillage

• integrate livestock

“Integrate livestock” is sometimes left off, but nature does not try to grow food without animals. And this means more than just having livestock in the system, but using livestock at the right time and place for the livestock, the plants, the soils, and the people and animals that share the habitat. A good and flexible planning procedure will accommodate all of this.

The soil health principles are enabling conditions for the formation of soil aggregates, using solar energy. Observation and listening— to the land, people, animals—is an enabling condition for learning. Being in the right position is an enabling condition for low-stress livestock handling, for letting your animals do what you need them to do.

Common questions

Am I doing the right thing?

Good questions help us escape the polarizing, left/right spectrum. Good questions orient us around wholes, around what we don’t know, and perhaps need to know.

Monitoring animals, plants, and soil is an excellent way to focus on basic questions for working with the circle of life. It connects us to physical reality rather than to stories we

1. ask good questions (about soil health and watershed function, about systems, about managing wholes), and

2. to engage more people in asking and answering these questions.

Contact us at info@soilcarboncoalition.org or managingwholes.com@gmail.com if this is something you’d like to do.

To manage parts: To manage wholes:

A few accredited experts and specialists have the power and resources to ask, frame, interpret, forecast, regulate, and collect data.

Ask, what are the mechanisms of the parts?

Manage against problems (or symptoms).

Ask, how does the whole system function? What works for all, in the long run?

Engage more people in asking and answering whole- system questions, based on observations, real data, variability over space and time, and creativity.

Manage for what we need and want. Ask, what are the enabling conditions for these?

Better questions

What results am I getting?

Is this species or practice good or bad?

How do I kill this weed?

What best management practices are commonly associated with accomplishing X, and which appeal to me?

What’s my soil type? Is it good or bad?

Some good questions

“Do civilizations fall when the soil fails to produce, or does a soil fail only when the people living on it no longer know how to manage their civilization?”

—Charles E. Kellogg, USDA soil survey chief in 1930s

People want to manage wholes. The levers or buttons to push aren’t obvious, and neither are the good questions. It takes some time and effort. Where fear, habits, and urgency rule, we default to managing parts.

How does it function in the larger system? What work does it do?

What conditions could I create so that this weed is no longer a problem?

What conditions will enable X to occur?

How long does it take an inch of water to infiltrate? How might I improve that so my soil can accept and store more water?

tell ourselves. We can test our beliefs, which takes courage.

Questions about soil cover, diversity, production per unit of input, food and forage analysis, soil samples and analyses can all be answered with repeatable measurements and observations so we can track progress.

If these measurements and observations are open (as they are on the free web app atlasbiowork.com) they can also be an instance of leadership.

Soil Carbon Coalition was formed to help people:

Links and further reading soilcarboncoalition.org includes many hands-on learning resources for schools, communities, adults about soil health, watershed function managingwholes.com: a library of articles about holistic management, low-stress livestock handling from Bud Williams, and consensus building from Bob Chadwick atlasbiowork.com: a free and open web app for data entry of repeatable observations around soil health principles such as soil cover and diversity, water infiltration, soil, food, and forage analyses, and production per unit of input. See soilcarboncoalition.org/atlasbiowork for more information and intro.

soilcarboncoalition.org/downloads: free downloads in printable pdf form, including this and other booklets. big-force.pdf is a short booklet that includes an example of working out livestock production (stock days per acre, or pounds gain per acre) per inch of rainfall. If you can increase this over time, and that is an excellent indicator of soil function and health. These kinds of production-per-unit-of-input figures can also be recorded using the open web app atlasbiowork.com

The circle of life is the most powerful geologic force. How we recognize it influences our beliefs and actions, which in turn influence the circle of life.

Decision Design Hub— People, Environment, and Prosperity

BY ANN ADAMS

Helen Lewis’ passion was ignited by the Holistic Management training she began in 1998 and then completed in 2002. Since then Helen has helped with her family’s 3,500-acre farm, producing grass fed beef—Picot Farm, near Warwick, Queensland, Australia. Helen is also a national lobbyist, as the General Manager for the Outback Highway project, which seeks to create a highway across Australia bringing rural community and economic development. Through all this work, she has used holistic decision-making and the Holistic Management framework to improve the decision-making at the family, policy, and community development levels.

The Value of a Context

Since completing HMI’s Certified Educator training program in 2002, Helen has been educating families and organizations in decisionmaking and looking to find the root cause. She worked with Brian Wehlburg with Inside Outside Management training farmers throughout Australia. To focus on the decision-making process, Helen started a business and website called Decision Design Hub in 2020.

“I really enjoy training people about the whole process,” says Helen. “It’s been very interesting to meet so many people and help them with their lives and their directions. I really enjoy their excitement about going forward after learning the process. I think my background in agribusiness, community development, and policy helps me share this information in a way that is accessible.

“I took my first course with Bruce Ward in 1998. In 2000, I signed up for Certified Educator course, because what I love about Holistic Management is it solves the root cause of everything. You really look at problems in a new way and start solving the issues we are facing.

“In this day and age, we are witnessing what are diluted standards of social expectation of what is respectful and what isn’t. Because these social expectations are blurry, people don’t have a benchmark of appropriate behavior. With this blurring, it is even more important to have a life context to guide your decisions and actions. With that level of decision-making there is a whole new level of respect required, and there’s a wider societal point of reference.

“The value-based decision making and context in Holistic Management provides a point of reference. We have people losing their sense of belonging and wondering ‘where do I fit.’ We’ve got leadership that is focused on right or wrong, and there is a total lack of empathy because it is seen as a weakness. Consequently, we can’t hear each other. There isn’t room to say ’I don’t have the answers, so let’s work together on that.’ We have to acknowledge humanity and that we are not robots. It’s got to be okay to say ‘I don’t know.’”

funded work with producers through Landcare (a community-based organization) in New South Wales. These producers are generally from smaller acreage properties, and are engaged in this program for personal reasons. This work is part of the Women on the Land Program, which has a goal of keeping people on the land.

Much of Helen’s work is helping people understand the value of knowing their values and why they want certain outcomes so they have a clearer sense of direction. Helen also talks about ecosystem processes because she believes that environmental intelligence is critical for people to make good decisions. She has tweaked some of the testing questions to make them apply to a wider audience and has summarized them so it makes it easy to explain them to people and help them check off each filter.

Helen is aware that many people come to Holistic Management for the grazing planning, and she wants to lead with the decision-making because of the broader application and the power within that process. “Grazing is just a how to,” says Helen. “It’s a great how to, but the decision making is the management side and it is dynamic. A holistic context evolves with the person/people who create it. The context gets updated and evolves and is the most current version of ourselves and our business. The magic happens when we have various options/ ideas--we use the decision matrix checking each options towards our Holistic Context – so one of the options is the front runner, but it doesn’t mean all the other options aren’t any good, they just aren’t the best option for you or your business right now. In 6 months’ time—when you have grown and your business has evolved, which is reflected in your context—one of the other options might be spot on because you are ready for it. This is evolutionary management, which is gold. It’s amazing to have management that moves with us.”

Engaging a Wider Audience

Helen’s work with the Decision Design Hub has been with private paying clients and grant-

Helen’s focus is on People, Environment, and Prosperity (PEP). Helping people consider the people in their life, the environmental, and prosperity consequences of their decisions has transformed the way her clients are talking and thinking. Testimonials point to how calm they feel with this decision making process and having clarity about their values. She always has them look at the tools they are considering for their decisions within the context of that triple bottom line.

Helen believes that the human brain (particularly the left brain) is predominately linear in its thought process, doing well with step by step activities like building a house. We look at parts and logical sequence and try to create order in chaos. “Our linear approach is sometimes referred to as silo thinking. There is a sense of control and static as we follow the steps to get the outcome we want, sometimes at the cost of ‘other factors’ we failed to consider,” she writes. These “other factors” can include our health, relationships, community, prosperity, and the environment. The reason that people can’t easily make decisions about themselves, other people, and the environment is because they are all very dynamic and complex. So, when we engage with people and the environment in linear thinking then we find ourselves reacting to

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

Helen Lewis

Decision Design Hub

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

unintended consequences because we are often reacting to symptoms rather than addressing the root cause.

Helen defines Holistic Management as “Elevated Decision-Making.” Creating a Life Context and creating an Action Plan so people can live their values every day, then running a decision through the “10 Good Questions Matrix” helps people engage with that complexity, rather than trying to compartmentalize the relationships. By using the testing questions, people are engaging their head and heart while looking at the future, present, and the root cause and considering the larger whole of people, the environment, and prosperity. And, of course, there is the active feedback loop to keep the decision makers evolving their actions within the context of current reality.

Helen has found that the holistic decisionmaking helps people to start picking up on things they now need to work on like time management and personal development areas. “They begin to acknowledge they can do something about this situation they are in,” says Helen. “The Life Map Exercise is really helpful as a starting point about what they want to

accommodating of the other person, rather than someone needing to compromise. They see they can work together because they have an understanding of each other’s values. I’ve seen couples get closer through the process, but occasionally it can go the other way as people recognize that they are not on the same page. There’s certainly been some large changes, but the holistic context is definitely the glue to make these decisions possible.”

Helen also used the Holistic Management process for the development of the Queensland AgForce efforts to create an Ag Business Cycle Approach—a program that was to help producers and the industry acknowledge that drought is a constant and needs to be included in the ag business cycle. The four components to the Ag Business Cycle are— No drought, drying, drought, and recovery— each component has government programs, etc that are appropriate for that phase of the cycle. In every phase, producers have to consider what social, environmental and financial actions they are taking. The idea is that through rainfall data and soil moisture tests the producer can decide when they are drying and access the various support/ programs available at that stage of the cycle.

producers to deal with the root cause. You’ve got to use the systems and mechanisms in government that already exist and show how the new ideas can be plugged in. It has to be easy

change and where they want to move to. It also helps them understand why they want to shift, the why is added to their Life Context.

“The Life Context process also really assists when couples work together because each person needs to do their individual context. I find there is a problem if they don’t find and write down their values individually first because by reclaiming themselves as an individual, they are being true to themselves. We can then merge the Values statements--discussing the meaning of words with each person in the couple. By understanding what our values mean to each of the people in the couple--it enables us to come from a place of respect, which is

“This process was about being proactive and being prepared for drought with social, environmental and financial ducks in a row. Of course, planned grazing was an activity they could engage in.” says Helen. “When you ticked off things you could be eligible for the next phase and set benchmarks so they knew what they needed for the next phase. Ideally this process of continual improvement would enable producers to go into drought later and come out sooner—because they were prepared.

“While the program was not put into effect, we did create a Context for Agforce and make decisions towards it as we developed the policy. The process allowed policy makers to see the potential value of such a program. It really is a shift of head space from reactionary to proactivity. We can move past handouts and build some mutual obligation in by focusing

and irresistible.”

Helen is excited to bring Holistic Management to a wider community so that it becomes a mainstream tool. She is offering her Decision Design Hub as a master class for people who have had Holistic Management but came to that original training for the grazing. It takes 11 hours over six weeks to go through creating a context and learning the decision making.

Helen is excited to provide the tools to help improve people’s quality of life and prosperity. “I talk about the fluctuations that happen in people’s lives before they create a context,” says Helen. “There are big highs and big lows. But, then with a holistic context those highs and lows become ripples, and there is a sense of calm. Of course, we may not get it right all the time, but with early monitoring we can tweak our actions and keep progressing and monitoring. Your life context gives you the confidence of who you are and what you want.

“It’s the small decisions that we make that give us our confidence and our self-esteem and is paramount to our wellbeing. That is what leads to empowerment, which is a fundamental human requirement. We need to own our decisions.”

Visit

The Ag Business Cycle Approach© AgForce Used by permission Helen Lewis

By being able to exercise our mind to make a decision, we start our journey of empowerment, self-esteem, and ownership of our life and wellbeing.

—Helen Lewis

& LIVESTOCK

Rafter W Ranch— Surviving Droughts & Pandemics

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

Lance and Lisa Wheeler started ranching on a small scale 16 years ago. They had been living in Elizabeth, Colorado and discovered Joel Salatin’s writings. “This generated a paradigm shift in our thinking about how to manage the land in other ways besides the conventional methods,” Lance says.

“We kept reading Salatin’s books and articles and then in 2014 we bought a larger piece of property near Simla, Colorado, and then some additional property next to it in 2016, and we moved there.”

In 2018 they went to their first Holistic Management course. Lance and son, Brett, took the Whole Farm Land Management course at Sunfire Ranch in 2018 with Cindy Dvergsten. “I love Cindy, because she asks hard questions and is willing to challenge your thinking,” Lance says.

Lance and Lisa had been navigating their own way in terms of rotational grazing and management intensive grazing while reading books on the subject, then the Holistic Management education really solidified that process. “It’s a decision-making process, and not just rotational grazing and moving electric fence; it involves the way you make good, solid decisions about where you are and when you should or shouldn’t be there. This is what got us to where we are today,” Lance explains.

“The other learning experience, for us, was to look at things as a whole and more than just the sum of their parts, in a view of holism. We had not been taking everything into account, like our wildlife and the other things that live here with us besides the animals we put on the land. We now try to manage for the benefit of the larger whole.”

Drought & Progress

It is with that focus on continued learning that Wheelers have been able to make progress even with the drought that has been part of the landscape in recent years. One step in that educational journey was going through an Audubon certification program a few years ago. Now they are much more aware of their bird populations as well as where the cattle and sheep are grazing. “We now have some antelope, which we did not have here in earlier years. I was talking with my Holistic Management educator about that a couple years ago and she likened it to what I would call a “Field of Dreams” concept-- if you build it, they will come. If you create the right conditions, they will come,” Lance says.

With the recent drought, they pulled their cattle off the range pastures earlier than they ever have, in the interests of maintaining plant health and, hopefully, some additional diversity as spring moves forward this year.

“It has been a learning curve for us, but we also realize that if a person

is not making mistakes—not failing at something—they may not be trying quite hard enough. We are trying some different things each year, to see what works and does well, and what doesn’t, and then move forward from that lesson. This has been very helpful in the Holistic Management decision-making process, to assess these things, to know if we are moving in the right direction, and if we are not, we try to figure out why. Then we can make informed decisions,” he says.

“It’s been an interesting journey for us. We make mistakes and get frustrated occasionally with some things over time, but it’s still all positive. We are seeing a lot more grass species and diversity showing up, so we realize our efforts are yielding some results, and that’s always encouraging.

“We are still in a pretty severe drought, so we have no cattle on pasture right now. We are feeding hay, and committed to keeping all of them off pasture until the end of June. That way we can monitor forage growth through April, May and June and see where we are. We had some snow in March, so we are grateful for that.”

Low Maintenance Animals

Lance and Lisa now have a meat-finishing and direct-marketing operation. “Our herd of cows consists of mixed breeds,” says Lance. “This is part of my experimentation; we have some Angus cows, some crossbreds that we got from a grass-fed genetic program west of us, and now we’ve also acquired some Dexter cows. I like the Dexter cattle, even though they are smaller.

“With the finishing program, we are comparing our end product, based on the animals’ genetic profile. So far, the smaller cows are producing really high-quality fattened meat on grass. Our larger cows—the Angus— are more difficult to do this with on their purebred offspring; we have to work quite a bit harder to get that same quality, especially if the forages are challenging, like last year. It was really difficult to get those purebred Angus yearlings to fatten. So we bought a Dexter bull and we’re going to raise an F1 cross out of the Angus cows and see how that turns out,” Lance explains. This will hopefully produce animals with a more moderate frame size (not as large as the Angus) and a genetic profile that will work

Lisa & Lance Wheeler.

Rafter W Ranch

better for grass finishing.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9

“We also have some Katahdin sheep, which are hair sheep and just a meat breed,” Lance says. “We wanted a good-quality meat sheep and to not have to deal with shearing and wool, and these sheep produce very nice quality lambs. We’ve tried the meat and enjoyed it, and this breed seems to be well suited for where we are and what we are doing.

“We have some chickens as layers, and sell eggs. During spring and summer we also raise some pastured poultry and sell whole chickens. We raise about 600 of those each year.”

In their area the Wheelers don’t have much problem with predators. “We occasionally lose a chicken, because we have owls and hawks as well as coyotes, but we have pretty ‘good’ coyotes here,” says Lance. “They haven’t bothered our sheep, possibly because they have plenty of natural food. One of our neighbors sent us an article last year from Oregon State University Extension Service about coyote populations, and how to gauge whether you have a good population or a bad one. There are coyotes everywhere, but if your local coyotes aren’t bothering you, it pays to not bother them.” If you kill off the ‘good’ ones, they might be replaced by some that are more predatory on livestock.

“The coyotes here are ever-present. We hear them all the time, but they don’t bother our animals; they help keep other wildlife populations (mice, rodents, etc.) in check.”

Educating Consumers

The Wheelers direct market their meat through their website and via the internet and Facebook. “As our operation has grown, word of mouth has also been a factor and many people learn about us that way,” says Lance. “There are also some search platforms like Eat Wild where people look for more natural food products and may find us that way.

“Our ranch is connected with the Weston A. Price Foundation locally, which is group of more traditional-food-oriented people interested in traditional cooking. We try to sell the whole animal and do as much noseto-tail marketing as we possibly can. The Weston A. Price people are really good for this; they like a lot of the organ meats and other products from the whole animal. We make an effort to minimize any waste that might ordinarily be discarded when an animal is butchered, and if possible, any waste is composted.”.

Lance would also like to facilitate a broader context or a coalition of people to help educate the public a bit more about the food choices they make, and that where they purchase that food really matters, in a broader way.

“It’s not just that it’s healthy food, but they will know what that animal

was doing while it was living, and how it was raised—and why it matters that the soil and landscape where it was raised was managed well. We hope to help people understand that they are participating in the healing of the land when they purchase from us,” he says.

“I think something like this would lend benefit to a lot of producers—for the public to have some additional information, to make really intentional buying decisions.”

The pandemic last year revealed that we need more local food supply in every community. “Many people couldn’t find meat in the grocery store and got on Google to see where they could find some, and they found not just us, but producers all over Colorado who are doing some amazing things and providing amazing food. Until the pandemic, most consumers never even knew those producers were there,” he says.

“We’ve met some great families who found us this way. We acquired a number of new customers who wanted to get out of town a little bit and were willing to drive all the way out to our ranch for a day and stroll around to visit cows and chickens see how they are raised.

“When a family makes a trip out here to our place, we try to give them a pleasant experience. We put them in an RTV and take a drive around and give them a ranch tour. If there are deer or antelope around, they enjoy seeing the wildlife. We also have a guard llama that roams around with the sheep, and they seem to enjoy that, too. It’s been a lot of fun to give these tours; to see the enjoyment that they get from it.”

Lance and Lisa plan to continue with their production and marketing systems and simply fine-tune what they are doing. “The biggest challenge going forward, because of where we are in Colorado, is going to be access to additional land,” says Lance. “Besides the ranch we are on, we also lease some additional property, but presently there is a lot of land changing hands, and it is very high priced. Much of it is being subdivided for home construction, and it’s hard to compete with that. So land access, especially to lease anything of reasonable size, is becoming a greater challenge.”

The ranch they are on is about 1,000 acres, but since it is rangeland it won’t run very many animals per acre. “We have been leasing another 200 acres but some of it was recently sold and subdivided. I would love to apply what we have learned thus far to larger areas of pastureland, but this goal is becoming a bigger challenge, to find more space,” he says.

“This year, especially with the drought, I think we’re going to just concentrate on what we have right now. We did sell off some cattle and haven’t raised as many sheep this year as we have in the past, because of the drought. We won’t expand until we are confident that we have consistent land access and enough rain/snow to facilitate it.”

Despite the challenges of land access and drought, the Wheelers continue to enjoy living their dream of running a ranch, raising good food for their family and their community. As demand for locally grown, regeneratively raised food continues to grow, the Wheelers are positioned to tap into that market through their growing business.

Three generations of Wheelers moving chicken tractors.

The Wheelers use temporary electric netting to create more paddocks for their livestock and improve land productivity.

Using Holistic Management to Overcome Adversity— Surviving a Severe Flood

BY BLUESETTE CAMPBELL

Editor’s Note: This article is an excerpt from a presentation by Bluesette Campbell, one of three managing partners of the B-C Ranch in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Igrew up on a Montana sheep ranch that my mother purchased when I was a child. She did not have an agrarian background so we jumped in without any prior knowledge which led to many hard lessons and tough times. I grew up learning a lot, maybe far too much too soon. Because of my experiences, I did not want anything to do with agriculture. I wanted to flee as far away from agriculture as I could.

I applied and attended college in upstate New York hoping to expand my horizons. I even studied abroad, twice, in search of something else. However, I came back to Montana after finishing my degree to figure my life out, which did not happen quickly. In the meantime, I was offered a job at the Bench Ranch, a sheep and cattle operation in Fishtail, Montana. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the ranch was run by John and Susan Heyneman who were Holistic Management practitioners. One of the prerequisites for the job was to attend Holistic Management training and therefore took my first course in 1996 with Roland Kroos.

I didn’t realize what an impact that would have on my life. I ended up meeting my future husband who was also helping out on the Bench Ranch. Mark and I were married in 1999 and moved to Saskatchewan, where he grew up, in 2002 and my ‘official’ journey as a practitioner began. I had learned some concepts before, but I hadn’t fully grasped how it would impact and change my opinion about agriculture. It is for that reason that I decided to continue my life in agriculture even though my previous experience with agriculture wasn’t very positive. I give credit to the Campbell family and Holistic Management for showing me that it could be another way full of choice, fulfillment and purpose.

Over the course of the next several years, I completed three more Holistic Management courses, one with Kelly Sidoryk and some with my father-in-law, Don Campbell. I now sit on the board of Holistic Management Canada and have recently been nominated president. I also embarked on the journey of becoming a Holistic Management Certified Educator in the fall of 2019.

Goals, Meetings & Responsibilities

Our family is the main reason why we are ranching. We have 4,200 acres and there are three families that reside on the ranch: Mark and I and our two boys, Mark’s brother Scott, and Don and Bev—Mark and Scott’s parents. We have no off-farm income except for some Holistic Management consulting which we consider to be part of our on-farm income as it is in our goal “to share our ideas and experiences with others

in our community.” We’ve been ranching together since 2002 but began planning our migration to Saskatchewan in 2000. We are a cow/calf operation and run, on average, 700 cows, raise our own bulls and have an extra-age breeding program (3 yr.-old, first calf heifers). We hit about a four or five on the brittleness scale.

On average we receive about 15 inches of rain, but have observed that timing of rains has changed over time. To live up to our goal, we also run a Holistic Management internship program, provide grass tours and Open Gate field days here as well. Our management is driven by our written three-part goal, our division of responsibilities and our robust meeting schedule.

Highlights from our holistic goal include: “We are striving for excellence by being the best we can be in people, land, and finances,” and “we will leave the land better than we found it.”

The text of our goal has a lot of meaning to us. We read it at the beginning of each week to remind us of why we are ranching just in case we forget when times are tough. It has been effective in keeping us on track. If we do not feel that it accurately reflects our current status, something needs to change. Either we revisit the goal to change the wording, or more likely, we need to make changes in our management so

The framework of our business is divided between Mark, Scott, and myself as Don and Bev have successfully transitioned out of management. When we first started out in 2002, each person or couple would take on a division of the business for about two years before moving on and learning the next division. That was part of our contingency plan in case someone got injured, died, or wanted to leave the business. This ensured the other managers would be able to carry on with some proficiency. Scott is presently in charge of Production which includes the biological plan, monitoring, fencing, calving, breeding, etc. He also shares Marketing responsibilities with Mark which includes buying and selling of livestock and feed. Mark is in charge of Finance which includes the financial plan and monitoring, bookkeeping, bills, insurance, etc. I account for the People or Human Resources which includes the team plan, monitoring, meeting duties, internship program, educational tours, etc. By these divisions, we can run efficiently and effectively…most of the time.

Our family does not experience more hard times than any other family, but we have had to cope with a variety of illnesses, surgeries, BSE, drought, corporate restructuring, and numerous other challenges, including most recently, a severe flood, one that we may never see again in our careers. Everyone experiences adversity and we just happen to use Holistic Management to get us through the challenges we face.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

The Campbell family (from left to right): Front row: Andrew, Bluesette, and Birch, and Bev. Back row: Mark, Scott, and Don.

Using Holistic Management to Overcome Adversity

The Flood

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

The picture below shows the view outside our kitchen window and of what our landscape normally looks like in June. You can see the monument in the back of the picture that commemorates the dike system put in by Ducks Unlimited in 1966 to protect the nesting habitat of the water fowl, which has been a great asset to the ranch as we have water availability and access over the entire property.

• A management team with three different skill sets

• Almost 100 years of combined Holistic Management experience

• Great relationships

• Existing effective management structure

• 35 years of stewardship on the land

• Diversity of species

• Grazing planning knowledge

• Liquid class of cattle

• Flood reserve paddocks

• Flexibility

• Knowing our margins

• Comfortable with the financial planning process

• Psychology of money

• Patience (to keep meeting and working through the numbers)

Ultimately, it boiled down to the relationships, amongst our team, with our inner circle, (neighbors) and our outer circle, (our banker and accountant). That is what got us through.

The picture to the right is the same view in June 2020 to give you some perspective of why the past 12 months have been particularly challenging for us. We had about three days warning for this water but had no idea how much that meant. We live in flat country with a huge watershed. A large portion of our watershed received eight inches of rain in 24 hours. Almost 80% of our ranch was immersed in water. You can see in the picture the aluminum boat that replaced our horses. We hung up our spurs on June 15th and didn’t use them again until the end of July because the water you see in the picture is 10–15 feet deep. We used our gracious neighbor’s boat to check on the cattle every day, opening up any fence lines we could to provide access to hills and nobs of grass.

We know that we live on the flood plain of the Beaver River. The dike system had been constructed to address smaller floods over the years. It does a remarkable job of controlling that water. The key adversity we faced was that the water was captured on the inside of the dike, and because of increasing regulations with oceans and fisheries, we had difficulty breaching the dike so that the water could leave. As frustrating as it is, the benefits of having the dike outweigh the challenges we faced in this one particular incident, although, it is going to take us several years to recover.

We do have a flood reserve because we live on a flood plain, and we run a liquid class of cattle if we ever need to destock quickly for flood or drought, but we did not anticipate this magnitude of flooding and weren’t quite prepared for the duration it would stay. Adversity was once again upon us. Shortly after the shock, confidence resumed as we employed all these Holistic Management tools involving people, land, livestock and finances that we had previously used to get us through tough times:

• A time-tested goal

We applied various tools to strengthen the key areas on which we needed to focus. Inviting a facilitator proved to help us discuss these key issues, come up with ideas, estimate forage production and needs, and address inventory loss and recovery. We used brainstorming as a tool and calculated gross profits ad nauseam. We did financial plans and projected them out three to five years to forecast trends. We looked at how each person perceived profitability, which became increasingly important. Normally, we would spend 15–20 combined hours on financial planning, but this year it required 210 hours of planning from January through the end in March.

We manage to the least common denominator (aka the most concerned team member) to find the place where we can all agree

style of someone in the middle, we would always be leaving someone behind. This led to a policy on our ranch that if someone is not comfortable with a certain calculation of profitability or market price, then we manage to the level of that most concerned individual. This way everyone’s needs are being met. This policy was used a lot this year, and that is, ultimately, what saved our bacon as a team.

The same view in 2020 as above but with 10–15 feet of water over 80% of the ranch for six weeks and in some cases much longer.

The view out Bluesette’s window in June 2019.

We are choosing to focus on the team even when the grazing and finances seem to be more urgent because if we lose a team member, does it matter if we have more grass or money? We choose to see our differences as strengths as frustrating as it may seem in building consensus, because if we all thought the same, we’d be stuck in the same rut with all the same ideas.

Gross Profit Planning

We have a Gross Profit template that we have used over the years, and we have continued to develop this spreadsheet. We took it to a new level this year. Our ranch has been under Holistic Management practices for 35 years and it now carries 2.5–3 times the carrying capacity that it did before and we even have a slightly smaller land base than we started.

We used gross profit analysis to determine a new enterprise called our extra-age heifer program. This idea came up during one of our brainstorming sessions of a financial planning meeting seven years ago. It was Don that brought it to our attention and everyone reacted as if it was the most ridiculous idea. We thought the numbers would never support such a decision. We began to discuss the challenges of getting our two-year-old bred heifers through their first winter and to get them rebred in their second year. We also discussed the hassle of keeping them separate during breeding with heifer bulls and that their calves are often lighter at birth. We discovered by keeping them over one more year before exposing them to the bull we might address many of our concerns.

We ran gross profits which looked unrealistically good. Our skepticism was too high to make the change. We didn’t trust ourselves and weren’t comfortable so we waited another year. In the end, it took us three years of doing gross profits before we felt confident. We realized, by changing our paradigms, that we were already keeping heifers an extra year. Often, if that first calf heifer didn’t rebreed, we’d blamed it on our management, i.e. a nutrition issue, not enough groceries or poor quality feed. We were already giving them a free pass of one year. Why not do that upfront and potentially increase the life expectancy of the cow and have all the other benefits?

The Beaver River flooded over many miles but there are very few operations along this river of our scale. There are also very few operations that rely on ranching as a sole source of income. Not many houses or out-buildings were damaged by the flood, however, the area was declared a disaster. Only six to seven other operations applied for the agricultural disaster assistance. Most people didn’t want to deal with the bureaucratic process of applying and the subsequent back and forth communication to receive assistance. Of those who applied, not many received assistance. We are grateful for Mark’s patience as he stuck with it and we should receive some flood relief.

At the B-C Ranch we use Gross Profit Analysis in three ways:

1. As one of the testing questions for comparing enterprises

2. During the annual review to analyze the potential changes or mixing of enterprises to see where our operation is headed to meet our quality-of-life goals. We use 5–10 years of historical numbers for market prices and look at longer term trends and opportunities.

3. We use it to strengthen the outcome of the chosen enterprise in a specific year and use current market prices, not historical trends, to project our fall prices to improve accuracy from the initial plan.

This severe flood gave us the opportunity to ask “Do we even want to be in cattle anymore?” This could be an opportunity to do something else entirely. We tested these ideas and it was very clear that cattle play a large role in our quality of life. There are, however, many different aspects of the cattle business, and we analyzed which one we wanted to be a part of. We looked at cow/calf, backgrounding, and longyearling options.

Because some of these enterprises take multiple years of investment, we can experience gaps in income and decrease flexibility depending on our choices. It doesn’t make financial sense to switch back and forth every year. We have selected the long yearling enterprise for the last 10 years. In this analysis, we make sure to differentiate the variable expenses, those that are impacted by a change in one unit. We want a clear picture of the profitability of each enterprise.

We looked at having a cow/calf enterprise by selling the calf at six months. We determined gross income at $808 for the calf and a gross profit of $490 assuming an 82% weaning rate (as a conservative figure).

However, if we decided not to sell that calf and instead background it through the winter, this animal would now gross $1,128 with a gross profit of $501, which includes the price “buying” that animal from the cow/ calf enterprise.

One step further and we can keep that backgrounded animal until it was a long yearling at 18 months and gross $1,440 with a gross profit of $643 (also having “bought” the animal from the backgrounding enterprise). What this analysis showed us is if we can hang on to our animals, the value and profit is in the long-yearling enterprise. We run this analysis every three to five years, using historical data, to make sure the market and other factors haven’t changed. This long-yearling enterprise also gives us a liquid class of cattle with market flexibility or the potential for hitting a good market on that animal in the spring (12 months of age as a grasser/ stocker), late summer if the price spikes suddenly, or in the fall.

During the flood, we couldn’t bring the cattle back to the corrals to sort off the dry culls. The closest cattle to the yard and easiest to market were our replacement heifers. We sold them immediately and got a decent price for them. The recovery to full inventory is proving to be difficult now. The

The bottom black line is the Beaver River and is the southern property line. The two lakes are the northern property line. We have 105 paddocks. The two areas in light yellow and the northern orange area were the only areas that were not under significant water for 6–8 weeks and are our designated flood reserve land.

Using Holistic Management to Overcome Adversity

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

cost of replacements is too high for the profitability we are seeking. We really didn’t have a lot of choice about what to sell at that time. We made the best choice at the time with the knowledge we had. Now, we just need to do the same; continue to make sound choices.

One of these choices was to project our forage in a year after a flood. We were in uncharted territory. We decided to look at the land and estimate which pastures would be able to produce 100% of their normal forage (those above flood line) and which ones would be less. How much less? 90%, 80% or 50% of what they normally produced? Using our past grazing charts, we determined the 7.7 million pounds was a conservative estimate of forage potential for this year.

We know that if we are a cow/calf operation we can hold a certain number of cows. But, if we decide to hold their calves as yearlings, then we don’t have the grass to keep that same number of maternal cows. We had to figure out how many maternal cows we needed to decrease if we kept their calves over into the next year. We now know, through forage estimation exercises, that our ranch can handle 650 cow/calf pairs along with their yearlings and that 7.7 million pounds of grazeable forage is achievable after the flood on our 4,200 acres.

If we want to add extra-age breeding heifers into the operation, then we need to bring that number down again to 570 cows. This means less breeding animals. The gross profit shows us that we are more profitable using this production model then if we decided to raise 717 cow/calf pairs on that 7.7 million pounds of forage. Just for context, in an average year, the ranch produces 11–15 million pounds of forage, of which a considerable amount goes to stockpile for spring grazing or as biological capital.

When we completed our calculations, everyone felt comfortable with the numbers. We reached consensus and plugged numbers into the financial plan based on price projections for fall.

Increasing Profit Even More

In Western Canada, we have a price insurance program and we decided early in the spring to buy a policy to guarantee $2/pound for an 850-weight steer. Having a guaranteed price, which we pay a premium for, reduces risk. We looked at our financial plan for areas of improvement. Price insurance was one possibility. Disaster assistance income was another. We couldn’t count on either, but there was some optimism. We projected having the price insurance expense, even though we weren’t sure it would materialize. So we didn’t calculate any extra income at the time of financial planning. There were many things that could go right. To manage to the most concerned team member, we continued to estimate conservatively.

We also created a spreadsheet showing options that would increase our gross profit. We looked at things like increasing weaning weight or backgrounding weight, increasing daily grass gain, reducing hay/ pellet costs, increasing grazing days, increasing the yearling or cull prices, or increasing the cowherd. We used our gross profit numbers to help us calculate the outcome of these changes and the total gross profit percentage increase of being able to accomplish one or more of these options.

After running the numbers, it became clear that reducing hay costs by $5/ton yielded a 3.3% gross profit increase. Hay is 49% of our budget so that gives us a big return. We may not have a lot of control, but we can try. We also decided to look at increasing yearling prices by just one cent/ pound as that yields a 3% gross profit increase. We have a lot of control

over this, and we can directly influence it. We have made significant changes already in the last seven years by strengthening our relationship with our buyers, having our own scale —being very specific about weighing conditions to address shrink on cattle. We sell them right off our place so we don’t lose on shrink that occurs through loading, shipping, and unloading. We aim for uniformity that makes our cattle more marketable. Selling from our own place also allows us the flexibility of passing on low prices and deciding to wait a week for a shift in markets although we have to be careful not to affect our relationship with the buyer.

We also avoid getting caught up in the industry standard of maximizing yearling daily gain. We aim to have more head of yearlings gaining well. We ran gross profits and find this approach to be more profitable for us.

It is hard to swallow the loss of the genetics that occurred when we sold our replacement heifers as we have been working hard on this. Finding the kind of cow that fits into our program is difficult. We look for animals that calve in May and can thrive in this environment, that can handle our tough winters and, as we found out this year, that can survive on poplar saplings and willow, in a pinch.

We even ran gross profits to see if we should cull as liberally this year. We normally cull about 80 head (10%), but wondered if maybe some of those were open due to harsh conditions. If we kept the younger ones back and sold only the old ones, how would that impact our bottom line and adjust our inventory? We did three or four scenarios of what it would take to build our inventory and that is proving to be an uphill climb. We estimate it will take us three years to become profitable again by increasing our inventory slowly. We considered buying inventory through financing, but interest is too high to meet our profitability expectations. We also can’t guarantee the grass for them right now as growing conditions are not ideal this year.

We had three days’ notice before the flood and it only took two days to completely cover the property. We did have the high ground, our flood reserve, so we opened all the gates and let them go where they could. It was in the middle of calving so fresh calves were dropping. Two weeks after the flood some of the waters receded enough that the cows split themselves in half. One herd came home, swimming through channels and chasing the grass. The other half stayed where they were. There was enough grass and regrowth to sustain them although the land was overgrazed, a necessary evil.

Some of those decisions had to be made in less than 24 hours. Some we had a little bit more time. We did consider unintended consequences as part of our planning. Price insurance is a good example. The markets were volatile with the looming pandemic. We had allocated $20,000 to buy price insurance on those cattle in our financial plan, and we predetermined that $2/pound was the number that would work for us. We confirmed with our team that when the policy hit that high, we would buy up to $20,000. Being prepared in this way meant we didn’t have to organize another team meeting. That’s the importance of doing the work ahead of time. We might get that notification on our phone while tagging calves, but we stop and lock it in, no matter what we are doing. We estimated that we have potentially increased our total income by $40-$50,000 in this single decision, because we were ready.

Without the practices of Holistic Management, I would not be in agriculture. I’ve learned through our experiences at the B-C Ranch that agriculture doesn’t have to be crisis management all the time, that people are the most important, and that agriculture can be profitable. Sometimes we do have crises, like the flood, but through it all, focusing on the relationships is the key to dealing with adversity.

You can reach Bluesette Campbell at bluesettecampbell@gmail.com

Grazing on Wet Soils

Q: I was in conversation with a California rancher who has his herd out in the winter when the grasses grow in that Mediterranean climate. With the winters come the rains which make the clay soils wet and the herd compacts the soil. We know that compaction reduces water infiltration. Does anyone have experience with being able to reduce that type of grazing compaction given the dominance of annual grasses in that climate? Any strategies to suggest? The grazing goal is to increase perennials and improve bird habitat and to have a profitable livestock operation.

A: I have found that less compaction happens when there is maximum diversity of plant types and covered soils and when you use different types of grazers with less pounds per square inch with each hoof. If possible, identify those areas with soils that are most likely to compact and plan to graze them before the rain events start. Historically, we don’t know when that will occur, but the beauty of the flexibility of holistic grazing planning is that we can replan when needed.

—Rob Rutherford

A: Even on the North Coast where winter rain is quite abundant, it tends to come in discreet, forecasted storms with dry periods between them. I graze sheep on level alluvial clayey soil. Water will stand on the surface during and shortly after a storm but will infiltrate within a few hours, even on compacted areas like lanes, when the rain stops. It doesn’t puddle up where there is good grass and litter cover. Also, I keep the animals in the barn during the worst of the downpours. I think these observations confirm what Rob is saying about timing grazing to avoid a lot of hooves on the wettest areas during the wettest weeks, and keeping soil well covered. All the cool season grasses, annuals and perennials, do best with fall seeding. Over-seeding perennials like orchard grass or clover ahead of grazing and rain events might work? Spreading barn litter on areas with poor grass cover has helped my pastures, but I’m dealing with very small areas so that might not be practical for a larger operation.

—Rhoby Cook

A: New Zealand West Coast dairy farmers only allow their stock on pasture for no more than three hours, probably less depending on how quickly they achieve gut fill. Pugging occurs after that stage as they wander around trying to find a dry spot to lie down and ruminate. They are often taken to a feed pad or barn between grazing. A sacrifice paddock means you are transferring fertility.

Another thing to consider is how you organize your winter grazing

planning. I have client here who add to their winter recovery period an extra 15% of days to cover breakouts, water problems, and wet weather, similar to the drought reserve you’ll practice with Holistic Grazing Planning. It means during wet periods you have flexibility to move livestock faster. You can always come back once the frosts strike.

Research here also implies strongly that higher post-grazing residuals—in excess of 1,760 lbs DM/acre (2,000 kg DM/ha), has a greater influence on reducing pugging than livestock liveweight, but like the majority of livestock research that has a caveat around mob size as the research was completed with mobs of 20 cattle. Residuals at that biomass will provide plenty of cover for bird nests.

—John King

A: Living here east of the Mississippi and pretty far north (Wisconsin), we have what we call ‘mud season’: the annual time starting when the ground goes from frozen (we call it ‘free concrete’) until the lush growth of summer. There are also periodic times during the growing season when high rainfall can result in a mini-mud season. Here are some observations from our experience:

1. Grazing lightly (leaving more residual) and moving frequently reduces serious sward damage and pugging. This is not a time to do mob grazing!

2. We’ve found that if the grazing is of short duration and lower stocking density, any compaction you have (at least in our climate) is pretty short lived--some studies have shown that it is gone by the end of the next recovery period.

3. If there is compaction, it is usually pretty shallow and you could consider planting species with deep tap roots that can punch through the compacted layer (alfalfa, chicory, and there are probably native species).

4. Designate a ‘sacrifice paddock’ for wet periods. Once the wet period is over, you move the herd back onto the rested paddocks and renovate the sacrifice paddock. This renovation process is a way of introducing more seed to the pasture, maybe more durable species, and thickening the stand which can reduce the problem in the future.

5. Some farmers in this area, especially dairy graziers, invest in a concrete feeding pad to use during wet periods and winters.

—Laura Paine

A: We also have a lot of experience with wet winters and danger of pugging. I agree with a lot of what has been said, but not the sacrifice, pads etc. With high landscape function (> 30% perennial grass basal area [>4cm2 ] and decomposing litter in the intertussock space) produced

Cattle grazing during a 12-inch rainfall. The soil is protected from pugging by a robust perennial grass sward.

from the following practices you can reduce concerns of pugging:

• Long recoveries of approximately 12 months (Gabe Brown suggests even longer up to 15 months—with even six months for wet, humid areas),

• High stock density > 400 cows/acre (1,000 cows/ha), and

• High utilization >70% (we shift the animals slightly quicker through more moves per day not bigger areas).

The photo on page 15 is during a 12-inch (300 mm) rainfall on a flat creek. The next strip is ready to go and animals look like they have to step up into the grassland.

Please do a safe to fail trial before thinking why this would not work on your land. This management is very inconvenient and requires adapted animals.

—Graeme Hand

A: There is a wide range of quality on California’s annual grasslands. I have been on some where grass was sparse even in the best of seasons and others where the sward was really, really thick. Depending on prior management, you may need a transition period to get to healthy, thick swards, and you may consider changing type of livestock or class of livestock or season of use. It is important the grasses have a chance to set seed in the spring. Many operations keep their cattle on the dryland until they get the first cutting of hay off the irrigated land, which in many places, means the dryland grasses are severely grubbed and the soil moisture is too low to allow the grasses to regrow and set seed.

With this in mind, you may also consider the stocking rate to determine if you have too many animals to allow the proper rest at the most critical times of year so the desired species can set seed.

—Angela Boudro

A: I don’t have any moist soils that don’t compact from livestock (or vehicles or my footprints) on my small ranch, and I think compaction in various degrees is present on all my soil types when I compare with areas cattle don’t step on.

Here’s what I know about the extensive areas of heavy black clay (high shrink-swell) here on my small ranch in northern California and their relationship to livestock and wetness. I’ve found the excessive damage occurs only when the herd is on too long while it is raining and the upper soil profile is fully saturated. By excessive damage, I mean killing annual plants from the serious deep pugging rather than just compaction. Once that upper part of the profile has a chance to drain, cattle no longer are doing the extensive damage.

I don’t have any significant cover of perennials on the majority of my clay soil acreage. Where I do have small patches of robust perennials, pugging is not an issue; excessive damage or compaction is of no concern due to the strength of the root mass.

I have come to believe it is the soil macro-pores (within and between the big clay clods that shrink-swell) that are fully saturated before the serious pugging damage to plants/soils occurs. My fields with clay soil are dominated by annual grasses/forbs. I remove the herd from such paddocks as soon as I see severe pugging is occurring, which only occurs with prolonged rains. I simply move the herd into a paddock with

loamy soil that is not the plastic clay. It usually takes only a day (two at most) after the rain stops and I can safely put the herd back into that clay paddock, even if on relatively flat terrain with a few puddles. My experience is that the internal soil drainage provides a much firmer footing for cattle. It happens much more quickly than I would have expected on my place, even on flat terrain, after the rain stops

When doing the grazing planning, this can be a very important issue when the number of paddocks available shrinks, particularly in wetter years if/when the “available paddocks” shrinks for a considerable amount of time and will affect grazing and recovery periods for the other paddocks. We can also calculate two different sets of grazing periods to guide us in dry and wet years when doing the planning chart work for the upcoming growing season. That helps keep us on track with the planned recovery for all the paddocks in both wet and dry years.

Thirty years ago, I put cattle onto my paddocks after the area had been farmed (plowed, disced, harrowed) year after year by my previous generations to raise oat/ryegrass/vetch hay. I could not avoid serious pugging on any soil type. I think that was because annual tillage provided better macro-pores to the depth of tillage (except at the soil surface where light capping would quickly develop when the rains began). Cattle legs could easily sink into any fully saturated soil that was tilled the year before. But because I stopped all tillage and managed for plant vigor of all the annual volunteer species (annuals), their seed production and soil cover, such pugging damage quickly disappeared and only happens now on the clay soils with the prolonged rains (and lack of good perennial sod). The pugging damage on other soils, which are loamy soils that are much less plastic, is far less even when they are fully saturated.

I haven’t been concerned about stock density and timing on my place, except when the herd crowds a paddock corner or fence line during prolonged windy rainstorms while soils are fully saturated. But those are very small areas. With a very large herd, that could be a very large area. I find these occasional sore spots add plant diversity in various directions, and they are almost like a small unplanned ‘safe to fail’ trial because they can happen anytime during the months of winter’s slow growth. How that very small site responds to excessive pugging damage can be quite variable because of timing, amount of litter, and size/amount of perennials if present. And I’ve learned monitoring is key to learn what these unplanned trials are telling me about the ecosystem process changes after extensive pugging and about recovery period needs.

Another trial I conduct and watch carefully is a small paddock in which I ‘rest’ year after year. I’m curious about how the brittleness in my area affects the kind of speed of successional change on different soil types and in comparison to planned grazing; and I do it so that people who want to visit my place can see a significant area that receives no grazing. Soil compaction appears to have fully recovered in the top foot after many years, but the paddock has become an annual weed patch. No soil compaction, but energy flow is very minimal during the winter months because of the poor biological litter decay and excessive litter. I do see a few more perennial grasses slowly ‘invading’ this over-rested paddock than I see on the adjacent grazed paddocks, but that may be because of the prevailing wind direction from on old fence where birds drop seed, or because the paddock excluded from grazing hadn’t been farmed every year by my family. Soil microbiology may be quite different from adjacent paddocks that were farmed since my great grandfather’s day or more.

—Richard King

Supporting Urban Agriculture

an important part of the experiment. The Gadzias have been holistically managing their pastures for over 15 years and have a very diverse vegetation composition. They were also able to move the birds two to three times per day, which was especially important during extreme heat days. Most of the dressed birds that came off their pasture weighed upwards of eight pounds. In 2020, Sage began holistically managing his pastures so his species mix was not as diverse and dressed birds coming off his pasture were somewhat lighter.

premise because they wanted to support Tierra Sagrada’s growth as an agricultural resource in the area and to help Sage get a leg up. Their work with the chicken tractors was payment for pasture improvement.

In the past, cattle were brought on at the beginning of the dormant season (October-December) to graze the pasture for 2.5 months and were moved through 17 paddocks over two pastures. In 2020, the two batches of chickens were on pasture for 12 weeks, but only utilized half the land. With the summer “chicken treatment”, and recovery, the Gadzia believe their pasture is better than it has ever been. “All the scratching and other benefits the chickens provided, really helped” says Tamara. “They were a new grazing species for the pasture. But, from our homesteading perspective the chickens are more labor intensive than larger herbivores. Now that we can travel again, we are considering other species that might better fit with a travel schedule. We want animals that can be easily managed for pasture improvement and cycling of nutrients. We did learn a lot and it was a great experience!”

Also in 2020, extreme heat in August required more management with each tractor needing a fan to keep the chickens cool, and luckily, there were no predator issues. Despite a known population of skunks, coyotes, and raccoons, the sturdy hardware cloth on the lower portion of the tractor did its job protecting the chickens.

While Kirk and Tamara helped out with moving the tractors and processing the chickens, they purchased the final product from Sage. They started with that

The Gadzias are pleased with the outcome of this pilot project as they recognize the challenge of land access near urban centers, especially for beginning farmers. Sage has now been able to fine tune his broiler enterprise and the Gadzias will have more Tandoori

in the future.

chicken dinners

Each of the Cornish crosses consumed an average of 12.5 pounds of feed during the six weeks they were on pasture.

Each chicken tractor was appropriately named given the enterprise.

Note the impact that the tractors had on the pasture as they were moved twice daily. In August, 2020 during days of extreme heat, the chickens needed to be cooled by fans.

PROGRAM ROUND UP

Low-Cost, Low-Risk Grazing Workshop

Low-risk, low-cost grazing was the focus of HMI’s two-day workshop on August 12-13, 2021. Hosted at the beautiful 3R Ranch of Beulah, Colorado by long-time practitioners of Holistic Management, Reeves & Betsy Brown and Chad Helvey. The event provided an overview of how to plan and monitor animal productivity and ecosystem improvement in a way that reduces business risk to 20 participants who manage 32,350 acres and influence over 841,360 acres.

Because changing grazing management from traditional to more regenerative practices is perceived as risky and expensive, the workshop put forward techniques and plans to lower the cost and risk of starting out with Holistic Planned Grazing

The 3R has been awarded the “Excellence in Rangeland Conservation Award” in 2020 by the Colorado Section of the Society for Range Management and the Southern Colorado Conservation Award in 2010 for its accomplishments over the years.

should be, to observe the trial’s influence on soil cover. Anticipated results include longer recovery times with different grass species and changed “growth habit” of the species that were already there, more diverse plant communities, faster nutrient cycling, and improved water infiltration and recovery.

Other workshop’s activities included:

• Establishing the priorities—a case for low-cost, low-risk ranching

• The importance of ecosystem health and key monitoring to ensure results

• Identifying risks and how to manage, monitor, and correct deviations from the plan

• Steps to accelerate learning with certainty and confidence

• Determining optimal plant recovery times for your land

• Financial considerations and decisions for healthy profits

• Considering risk, stress, and quality of life in production decisions

• Takeaway actions for managers to implement on their ranch or as they help others to better manage lands.

Here are some of the comments and outcomes from participants:

• Wonderful! Comprehensive yet concise course. I’m excited to have actionable steps to take and implement today.

• It was an amazing event, a great group of people. Host location was amazing!

• Excellent blend of lecture, discussion, and practical exercises. This course provided me with resources to be a better steward of the land and our animals.

• Exceeded expectations. Gave me methods to take home and use to plan, monitor, evaluate, and correct as needed.

Participants also observed and learned how to use a Safe to Fail Trial on their own lands to safely and effectively learn the impact of enhanced grazing management on their own land, in a low-cost, low-risk way.

With the obviously well-managed pastures, diverse plant species, high productivity covered soil and stable grass sward, participants could easily appreciate the inspiring results Reeves and Betsy have achieved using Holistic Management since the late 1980s. As the Browns say, HMI has been their “leader and teacher and joy.”

Participants eagerly practiced ecosystem health evaluations, forage assessments, and livestock monitoring techniques over the 2 days. On day two, the group was able to see a Safe to Fail Trial in action as approximately animal densities of over 100,000lbs/ acre were tested for a short time span. Pulled from the 3R herd of Black Angus/Simmy cross cows, these animals did what was intended, they ate and trampled the grass and ground in the trial area. As a follow-up to this initial trial, Betsy, Reeves, and Chad will monitor the grass regrowth to determine what recovery periods

We had a diverse group of participants, from experienced practitioners to novices, young and old who traveled from as far away as Texas, Ohio, and Arkansas. There was lively discussion and sharing of experiences throughout the workshop.

• I loved the class. Every time I take an HMI class, I learn such valuable, practical information that I can immediately apply.

• 85% of attendees felt the workshop was excellent and 95% would recommend it to others

• 100% indicated a significant increase in their ability to run trials to learn about ecosystem function on their land

• 95% reported learning around animal production targets

• 95% reported learning on how to monitor and correct management decisions

Thank you to our funders, Martha Records and Rich Rainaldi, who made this event possible. Thank you also to our sponsors and collaborators: CO NRCS and the Conservation Tax Credit Transfer.

Grow the Growers Program Update

In June and July HMI led a 12-hour Holistic Crop Planning workshop for the Albuquerque Grow the Growers Program participants. Grow the Growers is a comprehensive farm training and business acceleration initiative designed to attract new and emerging farmers into professional food production.

During the workshop, instructor Sarah Williford covered the necessary material for participants to begin a successful holistic crop plan. We began with a review of Whole Farm Resource Inventory and Holistic Goal Setting and talked about how a holistic crop plan is directly related to and reliant on both of these foundational documents. Sarah also shared the benefits of creating a holistic crop plan.

Key learning points and outcomes of the workshop were:

• Key crop planning principles and guidelines

• Ecosystem Processes & Soil facts and terms

• Tools for Managing Ecosystem Processes

• Farm Ecosystem Strategies

• Crop Rotation and Sequencing

• How to develop your Holistic Crop Plan

• Bio-monitoring techniques

We had five in-class activities plus four homework assignments throughout the workshop guiding us to and through the first four steps of creating a holistic crop plan including a Farm/Garden Resource Inventory, a field map and identifying management priorities.

Participants finished with a list of next steps for their personal garden plots as well as steps towards ways Grow the Growers can spend time together more effectively. Thank you to the Thornburg Foundation for making this training possible.

New Mexico Open Gate Report

Twenty-seven participants who manage 35,828 acres from Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mississippi attended HMI’s Lazy M Ranch Open Gate near Angel Fire, New Mexico. The focus of this Open Gate was looking at how regenerative grazing practices can improve soil health and productivity.

Shawn Howard purchased this 230–acre ranch and has spent the last six years on this regenerative agriculture experiment which has increased forage production and diversity as well as improved ecosystem function.

We started out the day at the Angel Fire Community Center where participants heard how Shawn began his journey into regenerative ranching. As he explained his practices, HMI Education Director Ann

From the Board Chair

BY WALTER LYNN

In this month’s musing, I will be sharing about two awesome HMI practitioners from the great state of Kansas—Gail Fuller and Lynnette Miller. What is so special about their joint work?

Gail and Lynnette operate a diverse 160 + acre grass-based farm near Severy, Kansas. The current farm is approximately 70 miles east of Wichita, Kansas.

How is their farm making a difference in rural America? First, some about their production system. Gail and Lynnette understand so much of the Kansas agriculture is a food desert, where most of the rural Kansas crop production is for corn, beans, and milo. They have stepped into the space of producing a meat protein for their customers. The customer has a choice of different cuts of beef, pork, chicken, or lamb.

But we need to think about the transformation they are fostering and nurturing. I first met Gail on December 13, 2013, at a dinner on a snowy Friday evening. Gail was attending an ACRES USA conference here in Springfield, Illinois. 28 people attended the dinner I helped organize for some of the speakers and attendees. After the conference, I stayed in contact with Gail and found out about his Fuller Field School. (FYI—Ann Adams was at the HMI booth at the trade show. It was my first-time meeting, Ann!!).

The first Field Day School was in 2012 and this was the 10th School Anniversary. The speakers at the school are the Who’s Who of Regenerative

Adams directed the conversation to clarify the key tools that Shawn was using as well as highlight key grazing principles like grazing and recovery periods, carrying capacity, forage inventory strategies, and stock density.

Shawn was then joined by northern NM ranchers Robert Martinez and Pat Pacheco who shared their experiences of ranching. Pat is currently running his cattle on the Lazy M Ranch and talked about how much he had learned about regenerative ranching from working with Shawn on this project. They have now been able to run 65 cow/ calf pairs on the 150 acres of the ranch they are grazing and they think with continued forage production increases they may be able to run 100 cow/calf pairs next year during the five-month growing season.

After the panel, Tyler Eschelman spoke about the NM Coalition to Enhance Working Lands and the grant-funded opportunities of soil health in New Mexico. Then, Amy Erikson spoke about Audubon’s Bird-Friendly Beef program. Then right before lunch, Micah Roseberry and Robert Martinez

Agriculture in the world. The 2012 speakers were Jill Clapperton (plus 2 times more), Jonathan Lundgren (plus 2 times more), Doug Peterson, and David Brandt. Gail notes this was the first time he heard a presentation on food. Subsequent speakers over the next 8 years include Kim Barker, Paul Brown, Abe Collins, Peter Donovan, Kelly Griffeth, Christine Jones, Gabe Brown, Kris Nichols, Didi Pershouse, Colin Seis, Ray Archuleta, Walt Davis, Don Huber, Walter Jehne, Judith Schwartz, Zach Bush, Fred Provenza, and Doniga Markegard. The 10th anniversary speakers were Sara Keough, Econutrtionist, and Nicole Masters, New Zealand Agro-ecologist. Many of our world current concerns are tied to our soils in so many ways.

I have personally attended 7 of the 10 events. The current year’s demographics are interesting.

• 54 women, 54 men, 5 kids

• 15 states

• 38 working as large farmers or in consulting

• 3 Grass-based dairies

• 43 worked in urban ag or small rural farms

2020 and 2021 were at their new Severy farm and held outside. Who would have thought 10 years ago that the gender’ splits would be equal in 2021? Many attending were repeating, which enhances the social connection between attendees. Interaction between attendees is huge and demonstrations are used as a part of the Field School. The school has been a safe place to share. This Kansas event has been the birthing of new entities, the prediction of an upcoming virus, and a respite for speakers’ well-being.

Shawn Howard explaining his grazing strategies.

Shawn Howard in front of Pat Pacheco’s 65 cow/calf pairs feeding for the day on approximately one acre.

Program Roundup

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

spoke about the Ranching to School program in which they have been able to get funding to purchase local beef to sell into the Taos School System’s lunch program.

After a delicious beef enchilada lunch featuring local beef cooked by the Farm House Café, the participants caravaned over to the Lazy M Ranch for a field tour led by Shawn and Pat. Participants were able to see almost completely covered soil on the areas where cattle had been grazing as well as the infrastructure that was being used to control the cattle and regenerate the land.

Participants greatly appreciated the opportunity to see the results of Shawn’s increased stock density as we toured the ranch as well as

Book Review

Redefining Rich: Achieving True Wealth with Small Business, Side Hustles, & Smart Living

Written by Shannon Hayes

BY ANN ADAMS

If you are looking for a feel-good book, I highly recommend Redefining Rich: Achieving True Wealth with Small Business, Side Hustles, & Smart Living by Shannon Hayes of Sap Bush Hollow Farm in upstate New York. Shannon is also the author of The Grassfed Gourmet and Radical Homemakers and is the daughter of long-time Holistic Management practitioners, Adele and Jim Hayes. Shannon and her husband, Bob, with help from daughters, Saoirse and Ula, are now the managers of the farm and their café. Redefining Rich is the saga of their lives in quest of true wealth as they spurn the constant push to participate in an extractive economy.

Even if you are past the age of starting up a business, I recommend Redefining Rich as a reminder that there are many people out there who are using their creativity and passion for the environment, social justice, and their community, living lives of meaning and contentment. But, of course, where Redefining Rich really shines is as the “Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Galaxy of Small Business Challenges & Opportunities.”

Shannon takes us on a quick journey of her efforts to go down the normal route of leaving the farm, going to college (getting a PhD) and getting an off-farm job. But when she does the math and calculates what they would have to give up to go work somewhere else, it doesn’t add up, and she and her family decide to stay, redefining what rich means to them and getting to experience the true wealth of family, community, fulfilling work, financial security, and the opportunity to help heal the planet instead of destroying it through the extractive economy.

Shannon is quick to point out that in order to make the finances work, they had to right size the farm with a succession transfer to her and Bob from Adele and Jim as well as get the café running to create an opportunity for value adding and working with inventory on the farm. To make sure they still had a good quality of life, the café is only open on Saturday and the whole family pitches in to make it work. They also run an AirBnB as

to see his fencing and water system. They also got to see what great shape Pat’s cattle were and how tightly bunched they were for the day. 100% of participants said they were satisfied with the program and would recommend this type of program to others. 88% of the participants said they had expanded their network and 65% said they would change their management practices. 85% of participants said they had increased knowledge in ability to measure forage quantity, determine animals’ forage needs, carrying capacity, and adequate recovery, as well as increase their ability to assess ecosystem health and adapt grazing practices.

Thanks to the Thornburg Foundation for their support of this event and to Shawn Howard for opening up his ranch to us. Also thanks to our sponsors the Farm House Café, NM Coalition to Enhance Working Lands, Ranching to School Program, and Audubon SW.

additional income.

The key to creating a “Life-Serving Economy” and true wealth, according to Shannon, is to shift from a perception of scarcity to one of abundance and then use that paradigm to cultivate and reinvest in your vision of what true wealth means to you beyond financial security. Ultimately, that shift is a shift from fear to love. Shannon also makes the distinction between ownership and possession. While Shannon may “own” the land, it is really her daughters, and decisions need to be made in a way that honors future generations and what they can inherit.

Sap Bush Hollow Café is an hour from Albany in the small hamlet of West Fulton, which had started to decline, making an investment in a building purchase and developing a café risky. But, as Shannon, points out, this reinvestment in the community meant other small businesses emerged that have helped the café and the community as a form of rural economic development.

Shannon mentions that she and Bob wrote their Quality of Life Statement (QOLS) and put it on their fridge where it has been a touchstone for their decisions and helped them address the challenges that inevitably arise in life. Those challenges can also bring meaning to life as you wrestle with how to keep moving your life in the direction you want to go. It also helps you learn to say “No.” If you start getting off track it brings you back. Of course, you still need to do the other planning that goes along with any business, but it all gets done in the context of your QOLS. She has a worksheet with questions to help you develop your QOLS.

If you have an aspiring entrepreneur in your life, giving them this book may fire them up to take the next step and start their own business. She makes owning a business look like the great option it is for those who have a passion to do so and demonstrates the potential for a higher net income than if you are an employee.

Ultimately, as Shannon notes, love keeps farmers and ranchers on the land. She encourages people to develop their business to engage in the life serving economy that can feed your community and you. The passion for your work is what will give you the motivation to do the planning and hard work necessary to create a business that can be successful through challenges and lean years as well as the rewards that you don’t even know are there.

To order Redefining Rich go to: https://benbellabooks.com/shop/ redefining-rich/

Certified Educators

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.

UNITED STATES

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Seth Wilner

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

NEW MEXICO

Ann Adams

Holistic Management International

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

Kirk Gadzia

Bernalillo

505/263-8677 (c) • kirk@rmsgadzia.com

Jeff Goebel

Belen

Deborah Clark

Henrietta

940/328-5542

TEXAS

deborah@birdwellandclarkranch.com

Kathryn Frisch

Dallas 214/417-6583

kathytx@pm.me

Wayne Knight

Holistic Management International

Van Alstyne 940/626-9820

waynek@holisticmanagement.org

Tracy Litle

CALIFORNIA

* 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

Don Nelson 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 cadwnc@gmail.com

Tim McGaffic Dolores 808/936-5749 tim@timmcgaffic.com

* Katie Belle Miller Calhan 970/310-0852 heritagebellefarms@gmail.com

IDAHO

Angela Boudro Moyie Springs 541/ 890-4014 angelaboudro@gmail.com

KANSAS

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

MARYLAND

Christine C. Jost

Silver Springs

773/706-2705 • christinejost42@gmail.com

MICHIGAN

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

MISSISSIPPI

* Preston Sullivan Meadville 601/384-5310 (h) preston.sullivan@hughes.net

MONTANA

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

* Cliff Montagne Montana State University 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

INTERNATIONAL

AUSTRALIA

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

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

Helen Lewis

Warwick, QLD 61-4-1878-5285 hello@decisiondesignhub.com.au

Dick Richardson Mt. Pleasant, SA 61-4-2906-9001 dick@grazingnaturally.com.au

* Jason Virtue Cooran QLD 61-4-27 199 766 jason@spiderweb.com.au

Brian Wehlburg Wauchope NSW 61-0408-704-431 brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au

CANADA

Don Campbell Meadow Lake, SK 306/236-6088 • doncampbell@sasktel.net

541/610-7084 • goebel@aboutlistening.com

NEW YORK

* Erica Frenay

Brooktondale

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

* Craig Leggett

Chestertown

518/491-1979 • craigrleggett@gmail.com

Elizabeth Marks

Chatham

518/567-9476 (c) • elizabeth_marks@hotmail.com

Phillip Metzger

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

NORTH CAROLINA

Christina Allday-Bondy

Hendersonville

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

NORTH DAKOTA

* Joshua Dukart

Hazen

701/870-1184 • joshua_dukart@yahoo.com

SOUTH DAKOTA

* Randal Holmquist

Mitchell 605/730-0550 • randy@zhvalley.com

Ralph Corcoran Langbank, SK 306/434-9772 • rlcorcoran@sasktel.net

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

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

Noel McNaughton Edmonton, AB 780/432-5492 noel@mcnaughton.ca

Tony McQuail Lucknow, ON 519/440-2511 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

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

Peggy Maddox

Hermleigh

325/226-3042 (c) • peggy@kidsontheland.org

Peggy Sechrist

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

WISCONSIN

* Larry Johnson

Madison 608/665-3835 • larrystillpointfarm@gmail.com

* Laura Paine Columbus 608/338-9039 (c) • lkpaine@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.

NAMIBIA

Usiel Seuakouje Kandjii

Windhoek 264-812840426

kandjiiu@gmail.com

* 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

Jozua Lambrechts

Somerset West, Western Cape +27-83-310-1940

jozua@websurf.co.za

* Ian Mitchell-Innes

Ladysmith, Kwa-Zulu Natal +27-83-262-9030

ian@mitchell-innes.co.za

Resource Management Services, LLC

Simple,

How

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

Revolutionize Your Production Holistic Management Immersion Workshop

January-February 2022

Instructor: HMI Certified Educator

Ralph Tate

Central Community College

Hastings, NE

This Holistic Management workshop includes: mini lectures, examples, demonstrations and supervised practice in using the Holistic Management® Model in decision making, producing more profit, and increasing your quality of life. Covers Introduction to Holistic Management, Holistic Financial Planning, and Holistic Grazing Planning. $850.00 Includes Workbook and Software

To Register: Bob Shields (308) 379-1361 or bob.shields01@gmail.com

Rangeland can provide an abundance of plant varieties for livestock nutrition. But what about the more “developed” pastures and hay meadows? Soil tests from all types of livestock producers show 95+% of all such soils do not have the correct nutrient levels to provide the best nutrition for livestock. You can change that! Choose an area, split it and soil test both sides separately. Test your hay or forage from both sides too. Treat one side as normal. On the other side, correct the fertility based on soil tests using the Kinsey/Albrecht fertility program.

Test feed quality from both sides again next year. Take soil tests again and treat accordingly. Depending on nutrients requirements it may take two or three years to achieve the top potential. Test each year and, as fertility needs are met, feed value and yield tend to increase for all three years.

Increased yields will more than pay for the investment with increased feed quality as a bonus. Prove it for yourself!

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

CORNER Supporting Urban Agriculture

DEVELOPMENT

Kirk and Tamara Gadzia have a small twoacre suburban homestead on the outskirts of Bernalillo, New Mexico, which includes irrigated pasture land watered from the local acequia (ditch) system. Over the years they have had a friend’s Highland cattle grazing on that pasture, but in 2020, they decided to partner with a local farmer grazing pastured chickens.

Tierra Sagrada is a small farm that usually sells vegetables through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) structure as well as at the local farmer’s market. Farmers Sage and Andrea wanted to add broilers to the mix they were offering at the farmer’s market. In the spring of 2020, they enlisted the help of Kirk, Tamara, and some other

friends and family to help get them started on this enterprise. As part of this experiment, Tierra Sagrada and the Gadzias were able to raise, process and sell 140 chickens both in 2020 and then again in 2021.

The first step was to select a design for the chicken tractors and build them. They ended up choosing a walk-in design that was

The tractors were built to handle 25 fully grown birds and tall enough to walk in easily to make moving easy along with opportunity to use tractors for other enterprises like layers or ducks.

approximately 10 feet long by 6 feet wide and 6 feet high in the center. Sage, Kirk and Tamara built four tractors to be used on the Gadzia property and they were aptly named: Pot Pie, Marcella, Coq au Vin, and Tandoori. Sage built another two for his property. Each tractor holds 25 birds. Cornish crosses spend two weeks in a brooder and six weeks on pasture and over the two years, each bird consumed approximately 12.5 pounds of non-GMO and/or organic feed. The tractors were moved off the pasture one day per each irrigation cycle, which happened every two to three weeks.

Having two types of pastures turned out to be

CONTINUED ON PAGE 17

The tractors were pulled off for one day of irrigation every three weeks.

Overset text for Board Chair