healthy land. sustainable future. NO V E MBER / DECE MBER 20 11
From the Board Chair
NUMBER 1 40
WWW .HO LIST ICMANAGEMENT.O RG
INSIDE THIS ISSUE by Sallie Calhoun
SOIL FERTILITY
A
t the July 2011 meeting the HMI Board of Directors adopted a new holistic goal. Our statement of purpose now says, “We educate people to manage land for a sustainable future.” I am excited about this because in my experience the creation of a well thought out statement of purpose and holistic goal is the most important factor in moving from where you are to where you want to be. At the same meeting we reviewed our strategic planning process and our monitoring of key performance indicators. Our goal is to make sure that everything the organization does ties clearly back to the holistic goal, and that we have good answers to the question, “Are we moving towards our goal?” In “HMI’s mission is to this article I want to share some background on why and how we created our new holistic goal. educate people to When I attended my first HMI Board meeting, 6 or 7 years manage land for a ago, I remember a lively discussion during the development committee meeting. The topic was “the elevator speech.” What sustainable future.” was the 15-second answer when someone asked, “What does HMI do?” Though the discussion was animated and fairly lengthy, there was really no good answer that day. In fact, for years I have struggled with this question. I have practiced a lot of different versions of my own answer on airplanes headed to Albuquerque over the years, and staff has developed a variety of answers. They were called mission statements, vision statements, etc. Over time, a number of us on the Board came to believe that one of the reasons we could not get “the elevator speech” was related to the organization's holistic goal and the questions around whether our statement of purpose was current with our evolving organization. To some of us, the holistic goal seemed too broad and general. We are a small organization, and we have to be very thoughtful about how we can make an impact in the world. When we tested decisions toward our holistic goal, it often seemed as if too many actions could pass, and it did not give much guidance on priorities or focus. It could go wherever the interest of the moment took us. We all understand that holistic goals change with time. They are living documents, meant to be used on a daily basis. This is why the HMI bylaws require that we review the holistic goal every year. We had routinely done the review, but there was always tension between folks who wanted to start from scratch to create a potentially more useful holistic goal, and people who found the existing one useful and did not want to spend the time trying to go through this exercise with so many people. Even the small review often proved exhausting and not particularly useful. In 2010 we launched an effort to strengthen governance at HMI. What are the responsibilities of Board and staff? How do we measure progress? How do we maintain consistency and focus? How do we plan? We decided that a clear, useful holistic goal owned by the Board as much as the staff was the first step in the process. To get there we hired HMI Certified Educator Kirk Gadzia, who has helped many groups over the years with goal creation. We spent a day at our March 2011 meeting with the entire board and many staff members working on the holistic goal. It was hard, and there was a point at about 1:30 in the afternoon when I hung my head, and thought, “We aren't going to get there.” About that time, Kirk kicked into high gear and we had a completed holistic goal two hours later. It was exciting and it united us. We could all see how the forms of production supported the statement CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Photo by Neil Dennis
The vital role of healthy soil in sustainable agriculture is a topic Dr. Patricia Richardson has spoken of for many years. To read an excerpt from her presentation about “Living Soil” and learn about the importance of the critters in the soil, turn to page 16.
FEATURE STORIES GenNext: Montana State University’s Home on the Range SIERRA DAWN STONEBERG HOLT . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Plant Utilization and Multi-species Grazing on the Serengeti FRANK ARAGONA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Beginning Woman Farmer Profile: Spring Chicken Farm JESSIE SCHMIDT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Book Review—Switch ANN ADAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Kids on the Land: A Day on the Farm— Making Connections for Kids VAL & DAVID POGSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Whole Farm Planning with Holistic Management— Making A Difference at Sunshine Farm CINDY DVERGSTEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
LAND and LIVESTOCK Confessions of a Worm Rancher— Soil Life Exploding At Judy Farms GREG JUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Carbon That Counts DR. CHRISTINE JONES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Living Soil—Why We Want to be Outnumbered DR. PATRICIA RICHARDSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Q&A on Animal Performance BEN BARTLETT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
NEWS and NETWORK Grapevine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Certified Educators/Affiliates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20