#079, In Practice, Sept/Oct 2001

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT

IN PRACTICE

Providing the link between a healthy environment and a sound economy SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2001 NUMBER 79

in this Issue

GRETEL EHRLICH

Positive Deviants

by Ann Adams

I

’m sure some of you are wondering if this will be the name for the rock band the Savory Center is starting as a new income-generating enterprise. Moreover, you are probably wondering whether Allan Savory will be playing bass or drums. But I actually came up with the idea for this issue from a story about a man named Jerry Sternin.

Jerry works for Save the Children. In the 1990s he had the challenging task of figuring out how to help create lasting change in Vietnamese communities with chronic problems of childhood malnutrition. He decided to use the positive deviant theory developed at Tufts University by Marian Zeitlin. The theory is simple: “In every community, organization, or social group, there are individuals whose exceptional behaviors or practices enable them to get better results than their neighbors with the exact same resources.”

So Jerry set about finding out which of the poor families in villages had children that weren’t suffering from malnutrition.

Those were the positive deviants in those communities. These parents had the same resources as the other families whose children did suffer from malnutrition, but somehow they had figured out how to use the existing resources in a way that served their children.

Often the reason for their success is that they didn’t follow “conventional” wisdom.

For example, conventional wisdom in many villages was that you shouldn’t feed a child with diarrhea (which leads to a worsening of the condition). Also, certain foods that were actually very nutritious were considered low-class or common. Because of the food’s status, the mothers didn’t feed their children that food. Last, mothers didn’t actively encourage the children to eat. They would put the food out, but it was up to the children to eat it.

In contrast, the positive deviants fed their children small portions throughout the day (small starved stomachs can only handle so much food), and they had learned where to find the nutritious foods for free (such as harvesting tiny shrimps and crabs to mix into the rice), even if they were considered low-class. Lastly, they fed their children even when they had diarrhea.

Jerry had the mothers in the village identify this conventional wisdom and the positive deviants. He also had them analyze the situation, so the mothers had ownership in the information that came from such analysis. The next step was critical: He didn’t try to import best behavior from somewhere else, or change behavior; he encouraged new behavior by offering incentives to adopt it.

For example, a health volunteer might invite some of the women in the village to a workshop on medicinal-food training. The price for entry would be a contribution of the shrimp or crabs or whatever local food the positive deviants were harvesting. The groups would then make a meal from the contributions so the women not only learned how to harvest the food but also how to cook it. This training would go on for two weeks and usually by the end the mothers continued the behavior with their children. Those that didn’t continue this new behavior could repeat the course.

The results? Malnutrition dropped 65-85 percent in a two-year period. Even when the Harvard School of Public Health did an independent study, they found that children who hadn’t even been born when Jerry had been in the villages had achieved the same enhanced nutritional level as those children in the original study. That meant the behaviors stuck.

continued on page 2

This woman, and other women like her in Zimbabwe, is trying to support herself and her children on an income of less than 50 (U.S.) cents per day. Learn ho w our village banks have helped women in Zimbabwe impro ve their families' quality of life through a better understanding of Holistic Management and a chance to succeed in their own businesses.

(See page 3.)

Holistic Management & Village Banking Jody Butterfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Synergy in Cyberspace Dan Daggett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Foodsheds: How to Feed a Region Sustainably Ray Kirsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

LAND & LIVESTOCK— A special section of IN PRACTICE Keeping Things Simple Jim Howell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Bull Beef Finishing in New Zealand Jim Howell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Savory Center Bulletin Board . . . . . . .16 Development Corner Marketplace

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

The Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management

Positive Deviants continued from page 1

Ad definitum finem

The ALLAN SAVORY CENTER FOR HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization. The center works to restore the vitality of communities and the natural resources on which they depend by advancing the practice of Holistic Management and coordinating its development worldwide.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Lois Trevino, Chair Rio de la Vista, Vice Chair Ann Adams, Secretary Manuel Casas, Treasurer Gary Rodgers Allan Savory

ADVISORY BOARD Robert Anderson, Chair, Corrales, NM Ron Brandes, New York, NY Sam Brown, Austin, TX Leslie Christian, Portland, OR Gretel Ehrlich, Gaviota, CA Clint Josey, Dallas, TX Christine Jurzykowski, Glen Rose, TX Doug McDaniel, Lostine, OR Guillermo Osuna, Coahuila, Mexico Bunker Sands, Dallas, TX York Schueller, Santa Barbara, CA Jim Shelton, Vinita, OK Richard Smith, Houston, TX

STAFF Shannon Horst, Executive Director; Kate Bradshaw, Associate Director; Allan Savory, Founding Director; Jody Butterfield, Co-Founder and Research and Educational Materials Coordinator ; Kelly Pasztor, Director of Educational Services; Andy Braman, Development Director; Ann Adams, Managing Editor, IN PRACTICE and Membership Support Coordinator Africa Centre for Holistic Management Private Bag 5950, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe tel: (263) (11) 213529; email: rogpachm@africaonline.co.zw Huggins Matanga, Director; Roger Parry, Manager, Regional Training Centre; Elias Ncube, Hwange Project Manager/Training Coordinator

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE (ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by The Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management, 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: savorycenter@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2001.

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Hiding Under a Bushel That story has stuck with me because it is such an elegantly simple solution. If you look around you, you will see the positive deviants in your community. Maybe you are one of them. Jerry’s story also made me think about how Holistic Management has helped many people in their communities become those positive deviants. These are people with the exact same resources who seem suddenly able to carry twice the number of animals on their land, or have less bare ground, or get twice the profit from the same number of livestock, or get people willing to work on community projects while others struggle to find participants.

The interesting thing is that sometimes people hide these successes or amazing results under a bushel basket (so to speak).

They may be so busy getting those results that they haven’t figured out how they did it or how to explain how they did it. I continue to be amazed at how reticent people can be about telling their stories. It’s as if they believe their success was dumb luck or that telling the story might bring the wrath of neighbors, the government, or, perhaps, one deity or the other.

Some folks who do share their successes are reticent to mention that their practice of Holistic Management helped them achieve such results. The irony, of course, is that for most of us, Holistic Management helped us break from the conventional wisdom that held us back from the success we were seeking. While we might spout off words like marginal reaction, brittleness, or animal impact , most of the world doesn’t have a clue what we are talking about. Building that knowledge requires a certain amount of education (sharing of information), persistence, and, above all, engaging others.

Communities and Positive Deviants I don’t mean to imply that we should cram Holistic Management into every agenda possible, but I do believe that the more people hear about Holistic Management (in all the arenas in which it is being practiced), the more likely they will consider adopting that new behavior. Like the mother of a child with malnutrition, those people hearing about Holistic Management for the first time need

to see people from their “community” getting the results they would like in their own lives.

Ironically, sometimes it helps to have someone from outside the situation point out what is happening in the community.

In the case of Jerry Sternin, the answers were already in the village. The women in the village knew who was feeding their children what food. It just took someone asking the right questions and providing incentive for the new behavior. We’ve found the same thing to be true with our village banking project in Zimbabwe (see page 3).

This project is a collaboration involving our U.S. staff, Africa Centre for Holistic Management staff, and our Holistic Management™ village-based trainers in Zimbabwe. We’ve taken the village banking concept used by various international nonprofits and added a holistic twist. I believe the result is an even better service because these women are not only concerned about their banking circle, but also the larger community that supports and depends upon the banking circle. They are not only better able to feed their children, they are also contributing to their communities in other ways because they have a holistic goal, not just a business plan.

While positive deviants will benefit themselves, with Holistic Management they are more likely to benefit their community as well because the community is part of their whole. In other words, they are interested in helping others be positive deviants because such improvement benefits everyone.

Competition is less of an issue. Women in the banking circle want all the businesses of each participant to do well because if one fails it negatively affects the others through the inability of that woman to pay back her loan.

It seems to me that such a perception of community and business will do far more to sustain that community and the businesses that depend upon them. It feels good to be involved in such a venture.

While the Savory Center in all likelihood will never have a rock group called Positive Deviants, we are proud to serve a global movement of positive deviants who have made their communities a better place to live and have provided insight into how some of the problems in their community could be addressed. Even more exciting, we know that in the years to come we will be able to report on even more new ideas generated by people who have taken Holistic Management and figured out how to create the outcome they wanted with the resources they already had.

Holistic Management and Village Banking

by Jody Butterfield

W

hen we set out to introduce Holistic Management to villagers in Zimbabwe, near the property we jointly own with the Africa Centre for Holistic Management, we were walking in the dark. We genuinely believed that Holistic Management would enable the villagers to restore their rapidly desertifying land to health, while greatly enhancing their economic well being and the quality of their lives. But achieving that outcome within a reasonable timeframe proved much harder than we anticipated. We had always known this project was not one that could be accomplished in a three- or fiveyear plan—we liked to say it was a 100-year project. But, given some training and a little encouragement, we were sure these villagers would move as fast as anyone.

The villagers really were excited by the new knowledge and within a fairly short time seven villages had created their own holistic goals and tested some decisions toward them.

In the years that followed, some progress was made, but things didn’t really change until two years ago when we initiated our village banking program. This program enables small groups of women to develop micro-enterprises using low-interest loans from banks they run themselves.

Why did this make such a difference?

Because we were able to target the segment of the population that was key to getting things done—the women. And because they were able, through this program, to effectively address their number one concern—the ability to feed their families—and, almost as important, to send their children to school. First there were five banks, then seven, then 9, and now 12, with two more about to be inaugurated.

The Training The banks are formed by 15 to 30 women who know each other well, trust each other, and have solidarity among them. Together, they undergo five weeks of training with our Africa Centre staff and a Holistic Management™ village-based trainer who serves as their “bank officer.” The latter audits the books each week as members make loan repayments, and serves as an enterprise advisor.

The five-week training is much more than a crash course in micro-lending. It starts with a session on communication skills and group dynamics—an important topic for a group that is in effect acting as guarantor for every member’s loan. Next, the group forms a holistic goal for their bank (see “Kwejani Bank’s Holistic Goal”) and then develops the bylaws under which they will operate and govern themselves.

The remainder of the training deals with

Kwejani Bank’s Holistic Goal Statement of Purpose The purpose of our village bank is to improve the members' knowledge of business management, financial management and thereby improve our economic well-being.

Quality of Life To have adequate nutritious food, respectful and educated children, and plenty of livestock; to be hard-working, self-employed and trustworthy women; to have beautiful homesteads, many hospitals, and reliable transport; to maintain our traditions; to have a well-maintained environment.

Forms of Production To attain that quality of life, we must produce: Diverse cropping patterns, many schools and teachers, well maintained grazing areas, self respect, income from crops and livestock, successful businesses, a variety of transport, pride and respect for our traditions, and well-preserved soils.

Future Resource Base To sustain all of this, we must create: Knowledgeable and progressive people, fertile soils, plenty of clean flowing water, varied transport systems, many businesses, a variety of wild life, and covered soils.

Over a period of two years, or six loan cycles, the typical bank member will not only finance a new business, she will accumulate close to US $100 in savings (despite the extremely hard times). business skills development and, of course, the ins and outs of micro-lending. An important part of this segment is the discussion of what businesses the women want to pursue and ensuring that each of these businesses is in line with their village bank’s holistic goal.

Throughout the training period each woman is required to save 25 percent of the loan amount she anticipates borrowing. This is good practice because once she receives a loan and is making weekly re-payments (over a 16-week cycle), she must at the same time put 20 percent of the loan amount into the group savings account.

Launching the Bank When the training is complete, the bank is launched with an official inauguration presided over by a chief, or one of his representatives. The whole village is invited to attend. The women are introduced and sworn in by the chief and then given their first loans.

In accepting the money they state out loud to the whole village what business it will be used for. This lets everyone know that the money can only be used for that particular business and that the woman should not be pressured to make the funds available for other purposes.

The very next week, the bank members

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Holistic Management and Village Banking

continued from page 3

Weekly Meetings

B

ank members meet weekly to conduct their banking business, to test decisions toward their holistic goal, and to further their understanding of Holistic Management. Here's a self-profile of one member: “At the age of 67, I, Sarah Ncube, am still energetic and compete with the young ladies in business. I make and sell grass baskets and mats.

The tomatoes in my garden are now ready for marketing. I also sell sweet reeds, groundnuts, sweet potatoes, cowpeas and mfushwa (dried cowpea leaves).

So far, I have managed to pay school fees for my grandchildren and I bought four goats with my savings.

Holistic Management has taught me: 1. How to sell my goods and save some money for future use.

2. That ground cover is the key to successful businesses.

3. To think before I act.

meet to make their first loan repayment-principal plus 15 percent interest (local banks charge 70 percent). But more than banking goes on at these meetings. A bank officer/Holistic Management™ village-based facilitator is always present to provide assistance. He or she has a copy of the Holistic Management testing questions, which have been translated into Ndebele and Nambya, and makes sure the women get practice using them each week. Each time the women borrow additional funds, which most do at the end of each 16-week loan cycle, their use of these funds must pass the testing. They must also check to make sure their business is still taking them toward their holistic goal.

Each bank has a modified version of the Holistic Management™ model that hangs on the wall of the meeting room. Arrows move around this version of the model illustrating, for instance, that the village banks were brought about through the tools of creativity (“ideas”) and money, and that the microbusinesses they produce lead directly to the quality of life described in the holistic goal.

The Tie to the Land Arrows also illustrate how critical the tools of “grazing livestock” and animal impact are to creating ground cover and restoring their water

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cycle to health, as described in their holistic goal. The women, although not responsible for livestock herding, now realize that if their village water sources dry up, all their businesses will eventually fail. They are beginning to discuss this with their relatives and neighbors and the awareness throughout the community is growing. Village songs and slogans now point out the damage done by “too few animals wandering around.”

The men in one village were taught how to plan their grazing and managed to combine their animals into one larger herd of about 500 for a season. But the exercise was both impractical and premature. They had no facilities for watering a large herd—each animal had to drink from a bowl of handpumped water, and only about half the herd could water in a single day. Nonetheless the men stuck with it and by the end of the season had grown more grass than most ever remembered seeing. But, it was soon “poached” by herds from neighboring villages that had long ago run short of grass.

We’ve now established banks in those villages, however, and the women are talking.

We’re working on a plan to assist the villagers in building adequate watering facilities (using solar pumps and inexpensive reservoirs) to make the larger herds feasible. And one day

soon, we believe grass poaching will be a thing of the past, because each of the villages, starting with the core we are working with now and radiating out from there, will be planning their grazing, seeing the benefits, and understanding whythings are improving.

Something to Be Proud of That we have achieved as much as we have in a country that is so heavily mired in political and economic turmoil (Zimbabwe’s is currently the world’s fastest shrinking economy) is amazing even to us here in Albuquerque. Just consider these statistics from our village banks: ■ Accumulated savings of the members in our 12 village banks, which have been operating from two months to two years, is just under US$15,000.

■ A typical bank member is a mother who is trying to support herself and her children, or grandchildren, on an income of less than 50 U.S. cents per day.

■ Over a period of two years, or six loan cycles, the typical bank member will not only finance a new business, she will accumulate close to US$100 in savings (despite the extremely hard times).

■ As a bank member’s business grows, family income will double, enabling the member to meet her family’s basic food needs.

(Note: We’ve used the official exchange rate of 55 Z$ to 1 US$ to arrive at these figures.

The “unofficial rate” varies between Z$120-200 to 1 US$.)

Less tangible is the change in the women themselves—in their levels of confidence and feelings of empowerment. The Federation for International Community Assistance (FINCA), who trained our staff in village banking, mentions this specifically: “Poverty is not only the lack of money,” they say in a brochure, “it is also a lack of self-confidence” revealed in such statements as: “I can’t. I am illiterate. I am alone, dependent.” It is a mental trap. Village banking can change that attitude.

That it really can is borne out in a statement made to us by Monica Sibanda, a member of the Vusisizwe Village Bank: “I can neither read nor write, but I know business.

I sell tobacco, sugar, salt and opaque beer that I brew myself. I have never failed to make my repayments. Thanks to Holistic Management, I can now walk into any bank with confidence.”

Synergy in Cyberspace

by Dan Daggett

A

s commodity prices continue the overall downward trend that is characteristic of an economy based on growth and increasing productivity, a lot of holistic managers are looking for new goods and services to market to supplement their income and support their quality of life.

Not surprisingly, some have come up with the idea of marketing the enhanced environmental health Holistic Management creates on their ranches.

Some ranchers have been able to do this by marketing their beef or other products as environmentally beneficial, predator friendly, etc. A few have begun marketing the additional wildlife that their stewardship produces to wildlife watchers, photographers, and to hunters where state laws permit.

Some market the open space their ranches produce by selling conservation easements or by selling a few trophy homesites placed so they don’t interfere with stewardship operations. A growing number of ranchers have even begun to seek grants to fund management projects directed at making the land healthier or at creating some specific environmental value such as habitat for an endangered species.

An Environmental Value In spite of all this, in a price-driven marketplace, “niche” marketing seems to be proving too limited to support the full scope of the demand for environmental restoration and sustainable stewardship. It’s not doing the job for ranchers either. One measure of this shortfall is the fact that agricultural land in the West, including ranch land, is being converted to development at a rate that has been estimated at an acre a minute.

Ranchers thus find themselves in the extremely odd situation of being able to produce a type of value most in demand by contemporary society, environmental value, but going out of business because there is no effective way to market that value.

This is beginning to change, albeit slowly.

Some members of the environmentally concerned public have realized that ranchers can produce one product for which they are quite willing to pay. That product is open

space. Whatever you think of conservation easements, they form an example of a direct production and consumption relationship of an environmental value between ranching and the environmentally concerned public.

Having realized that ranchers produce open space, a few of us within the urban environmental community are becoming aware of the fact that they produce other kinds of environmental value, too. And while it’s true that some of them do it better than others, it’s also true that, in some cases, ranchers can produce certain kinds of environmental results more effectively than anyone else.

“One thing we have found is that all of the projects that have qualified for inclusion in EcoResults have been firmly rooted in Holistic Management.”

The kind of environmental value I’m talking about, here, is the kind that Arizona rancher Terry Wheeler produces when he transforms piles of barren mine tailings into functioning grasslands using livestock as the agent to facilitate the application of several of the Holistic Management tools, (animal impact, living organisms, rest, human creativity, and money and labor). Another example is provided by David Ogilvie, who restored the riparian forest along the Gila River that flows through his ranch to such a state of health that it now supports the largest known population of an endangered bird, the southwestern willow flycatcher, and significant populations of several other threatened, endangered, and sensitive species.

Ogilvie’s U-Bar has out paced all preservationist efforts to increase numbers of this bird by a minimum of 40 percent.

There are plenty of other examples of this

sort, scores of which have been described within the pages of IN PRACTICE.

Restoration as Product The challenge here is to find a way for us to stop preaching to one another. I know ranchers can produce this kind of value, and you know it, but the general public doesn’t know it. The problem is, I’ve been in the business of telling the public about ranchers producing environmental value for long enough to be painfully aware that just telling them doesn’t work. I wrote a book about it, Beyond the Rangeland Conflict: T oward a West That Works, that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and sold relatively well, and I have given well over a hundred talks about ranchers producing environmental value all over the West to audiences that range from ranchers to environmental activists to activist vegetarians. In spite of my efforts and the efforts a lot of other very good communicators, including Allan Savory, the fact that ranchers can actually restore ecosystems to a state of health and sustain them that way is so far off the general public’s radar screen that most media treat it as a total impossibility too inconceivable to even mention in any article about rangeland issues. In those articles, “cattle grazing” or “ranching” is treated as a synonym for “devastating,” and all ranching is treated as if it is uniformly and universally destructive.

Puzzling over how to deal with this dilemma it occurred to me that the most effective way to convince anyone that you can produce anything is to sell it to them and make good on the delivery. No one debates the existence of Big Macs. They just buy them and eat them. Nor does anyone argue about where Big Macs come from the way lots of people argue about whether environmental restorations come from ranchers or from Nature.

With that in mind, working with Norm Lowe who has a B.S. in Range Management, and his wife Gail, a Certified Public Accountant, I created an environmental organization named EcoResults. EcoResults continued on page 6

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2001 5

Synergy in Cyberspace continued from page 5

is an internet-based catalog of sorts filled with the kinds of ecological restorations produced by rural stewards that I described above. EcoResults’ mission has three parts.

The first is to let people know in terms that are as undeniable as possible (dramatic before and after photos is the best way I know) that rural land managers can and do restore ecosystems to health and sustain them that way.

EcoResults also provides a means by which those of us who value healthy ecosystems can reward those who produce them by providing monetary support or at least by giving the ecosystem restorers credit for doing so. EcoResults raises monetary support for rangeland restorations via grants, individual contributions, which we accept right over the web, and sponsorships from for-profit businesses. To date we have received a startup grant from the Collective Heritage Institute of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a project sponsorship from Teva Sports Sandals for a watershed restoration in the Rio Puerco watershed near Cuba, New Mexico, and several individual contributions. And we have a number of additional grants and sponsorships pending.

The third component of our mission is to promote the restoration of ecosystems of the American West to a state of health and sustainability by rewarding rural land managers who produce that result. On our web site, we try to achieve our mission in terms that are as undeniable as possible by presenting a series of Success Stories before we offer our Restorations in Progress. Thus we provide potential contributors with evidence of the effectiveness of the methods used in our restorations, and of the stewards who apply them, before we offer them an opportunity to support an ongoing or proposed restoration.

Holistic Management. In fact, we use the model to help us select projects that qualify.

Once EcoResults gets going we expect to feature a lot of Success Stories and Restorations in Progress that come to us Tony and Jerrie Tipton's restoration of a gold mine site in central Nevada provides the dramatic before and after images that get EcoResults' point across.

Before

Next Spring

Spreading the Word Readers of IN PRACTICE will recognize many of our success stories and many of the stewards responsible for them. Absolutely, you will recognize the practices those stewards use to get their results. One thing that we have found is that all of the projects that have qualified for inclusion in EcoResults have been firmly rooted in

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At the end of the summer growing season

via the Holistic Management network. We also hope to earn support from individuals, foundations, and businesses that the Savory Center has influenced. Those who understand that ranchers really can produce environmental value may be interested in the projects we offer. At the same time, we expect that our activities will create greater support and acceptance for Holistic Management and the Savory Center. In fact, I’ve been told we’ve already done that.

The value of expanding this synergy seems obvious. A lot of people who thought the idea that livestock can be used to benefit the land was absurd, changed their minds after seeing the results this approach can produce in my slide show. And a lot of people, both urban and rural, who didn’t know anything about Holistic Management were a lot more interested in learning about it after seeing those same slides. Now tens of thousands can see them via the EcoResults web site.

At present EcoResults is still a startup, but a pretty successful one. We first went on line at the end of November 2000. As of June, 2001 our web site had received more than 25,000 hits.

What readers of IN PRACTICE can do to expand this record of success and to expand our synergy with the Holistic Management community is to tell others about us. Give them our web address, www.ecoresults.org, and suggest that they give us a look.

Environmentalist and writer, Dan Dagget, wrote Beyond The Rangeland Conflict: Toward a West That Works and was honored as one of the top one hundred grass roots environmental activists in America by the Sierra Club for its centennial celebration in 1992.

He is a sought-after speaker who has given more than a hundred talks around the West on the outstanding results environmentalists and ranchers can achieve by working together in a collaborative, goal-directed manner.

Foodsheds—How to Feed a Region Sustainably

by Ray Kirsch

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Even worse, the expression is a sham. The ith the rise of consumer interest United States doesn’t feed the world; we sell in healthy foods and a healthy commodities to those in the world who can environment has come an interest afford to buy them. The hungry in developing in the idea of the foodshed, or regional food countries aren’t buying hams from Minnesota system. Just as environmentalists use the or even our corn and soybeans; most of these “boundaries” of ecosystems and watersheds to crops are exported for use as animal feed. assess environmental health, those consumers Danish hams aren’t found on the table of and producers interested in creating a truly hungry Africans or Asians either. No one can sustainable agriculture (and, therefore, deny that the world must be fed, but the civilization) are using the idea of foodsheds system dominated by the likes of Archer as a practical organizing tool for applying Daniels Midland—self proclaimed “supermarket holistic principles. to the world”—won’t do it.

Communities need holistic approaches to monitoring and decision-making; they need opportunities to put into practice identifiable steps toward common goals.

Even individuals doing good things for their land or community must sometimes be encouraged to see the link between land management, environmental health, clean food, and thriving communities.

The health of one affects the health of all.

When communities adopt this health equivalency, and if they combine it with systems thinking and Holistic Management, then regional food systems begin to Holistic Managers Jennifer, Johanna, and Mike happen. Not independent cul-de-sacs of Rupprecht are contributing to their foodshed. food, but self-reliant, interdependent regions that produce food, fiber, and the Think what it would mean if farmers and means to preserve this production. In the other people in the agricultural sector found a Upper Midwest, Land Stewardship Project noble mission in the expression, “We must feed (LSP)—a non-profit, membership organization— the region.” If we think like a foodshed, if we is thinking like a foodshed. LSP is think holistically, then the only long-term, demonstrating and celebrating the connection sustainable way to feed the world is for farmers between food and farms, personal health in each region to produce as much of the food and community health. We’re empowering needed in that area as possible, using practices communities to identify small, practical that do not degrade the land, and receive a fair steps toward health and sustainability. share of the money people pay for their food.

Feeding the World

Too often the refrain is, “We must feed the world.” This expression has been used by U. S. Department of Agriculture officials, county extension agents, faculty of agricultural colleges, and even farmers, to give a noble purpose to their work. It has implied that without a large supply of cheap grains produced by American farmers, the world will go hungry. It has justified the focus on increasing crop yields through large-scale operations at the expense of the environment, independent family-sized farms, and healthy rural communities.

Addressing the Root Cause For Jennifer and Mike Rupprecht, the success of their farming enterprise isn’t just based on bushels of corn or pounds of beef produced per acre. It goes much deeper than that. “Our longer term goal is to keep building up the land and leave it in better condition than we found it,” says Mike, who farms near the southeast Minnesota community of Lewiston. “That starts with the soil.”

Good care of the soil is tough in the Rupprechts’ part of the state—steep land that

is underlain with porous limestone means surface and sub-surface runoff are major environmental concerns. But in 1987, their Earth-Be-Glad farm started switching crop acres to paddocks for management-intensive rotational grazing. And in the early 1990s, the Rupprechts adopted Holistic Management as a way of melding their goal of protecting the land with the desire to provide a good living for themselves.

And true to the Holistic Management principle of taking the time to monitor progress, the Rupprechts are constantly on the lookout for indications that what they are doing is right for the land, as well as themselves and the community.

There are plenty of signs they are indeed on the right track.

For example, a recent early summer hike across the more than 250 acres the Rupprechts farm revealed a thriving cowcalf herd and a distinct lack of erosion (despite a recent gully-washer rain that had left deep rills in neighboring crop fields). Mike, Jennifer and their teenaged daughter, Johanna, identified several grassland songbirds—both visually and by song—as they walked through the paddocks. To them, the presence of bobolinks and dickcissels is more than a pleasant distraction during chore time: the birds also tell them that their farm is healthy from the ground up. “We kind of came at it from the soils perspective and then discovered birds and went from there,” says Mike. “That was exciting.”

Environmentalists and natural resource professionals are excited about the Rupprechts’ good stewardship as well. Soil scientists have expressed amazement at the level of organic activity in their fields. The family has hosted visitors from a local state park on “farm conservation tours,” as well as participants in an eight-state environmental education conference.

A favorite stop on these tours is a heavy-duty stone erosion control structure built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934. It was constructed because of horrendous gully erosion in the area. But today the structure is surrounded by deep-rooted grasses and stable continued on page 8

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2001 7

Foodsheds—How to Feed a Region Sustainably continued from page 7 soil; it’s a mute monument to the regenerative capabilities of the land if we work with it.

Toward a Holistic Foodshed Improving the land is important, but the Rupprechts also have bills to pay. For several years now, the Rupprechts have been capturing more of the food dollar by direct marketing beef and chickens to consumers in the area.

These products are free of antibiotics, pesticides, growth hormones, and genetically modified organisms. And, as visitors to the farm can attest, the beef and chicken are also very friendly to the land. When marketing their products, the Rupprechts promote the earthfriendly nature of their farming systems, giving some ecologically-conscious consumers in the area a chance to shop their beliefs.

The family would like to market more of their production straight to appreciative consumers. But farming the land in a sustainable manner is more than a full time job. There are only so many farmers’ markets one can attend, only so much time for contacting retailers and consumers through phone calls and personal visits. So as Land Stewardship Project members, the Rupprechts took some “practical foodshed steps” including the decision to join a Stewardship Food Network and to certify their beef with the Midwest Food Alliance.

Practical Foodshed Steps Land Stewardship Project began working with farmers in the 1980s to develop farming practices that were better for the land and more profitable for the farmer. We realized in the mid-’90s that even the best stewards of the land were not going to survive economically unless they received better prices. As a result, LSP and its member farmers began to focus on marketing as a means to keep sustainable farmers on the land. “Linking Food, Land and People” became a larger part of LSP’s mission as we developed several programs to make the connection between consumers, farms, and communities. Two of the more innovative programs are the Midwest Food Alliance and the Stewardship Food Network.

LSP has collaborated with Cooperative Development Services (a Wisconsin-based nonprofit) to create a “seal of approval” program known as the Midwest Food Alliance (MWFA).

This program uses a seal (eco-label) to point

8 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #79

out and celebrate local, sustainably produced foods. Additionally, the seal directs consumers to educational food-buying information that helps them make the link between their food choices and their health. The long-term goal of the program is to reward good stewardship and help farms and ranches become more economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially responsible.

Approximately a third of LSP members are farmers, a third are non-farm rural residents and a third are city/suburban dwellers. We thought we should take advantage of that mix and connect these people, so we developed the Stewardship Food Network. The network is a group of over 100 farmers who direct-market a variety of foods—vegetables, meat, cheese, eggs, honey. They range from farmers who are very sophisticated about marketing, to people who are just getting started. LSP distributes basic information about these farms to all of its members in hopes of making food connections that cross the rural-urban “boundary.” We’re helping our non-farmer members “put a face on their food.” Whenever possible, people should know who’s producing their food and how

they’re producing it. That’s also why we pioneered a web site (www.prairiefare.com) for local farmers marketing meat and produce directly to consumers.

Our hope at LSP is that the combination of these small, practical steps will begin to expand the discussion and implementation of a sustainable, regional foodshed. Each of these steps/programs needs to be nurtured, to be put into a context where they are viable and can grow. So we try to think and work like a foodshed; to cultivate relationships and the equivalency of personal and community health.

We’re on the right path—using practical steps and holistic foodshed thinking—to sustainable farms, foods, and communities. We’re setting our goals, we’re monitoring, we’re assessing our results on a foodshed scale. We have to; our health and our future depend upon it.

Ray Kirsch is an LSP staff member and Farm Coordinator for the Midwest Food Alliance. He can be reached by calling 651/653-0618, or e-mailing: rkirsch@landste wardshipproject.org.

Information about the Food Alliance and its programs in the Midwest and Northwest can be found at: www.thefoodalliance.org.

Information about all of LSP’s programs can be found at www.landstewardshipproject.org.

Your Turn Here are three things you can do to help support a sustainable regional food system.

1. Help people vote with their food dollar—be an active producer and consumer. If you would like to make the switch to feeding your community rather than playing the commodities market or being a victim to it, LSP has several food and farm connection resources available in print and on their web site (www.landstewardshipproject.org).

2. Get involved—be an active citizen. You can also make a difference with the votes you cast or the projects you contribute your time and energy toward. We need elected officials that recognize the problems of our existing food system—officials who will fight subsidies for industrial agriculture and support programs that reward farmers for land stewardship. LSP fights for fair markets and state and federal policies that support independent, sustainable farmers. We need your participation to make sustainable policies a reality.

3. Join the Land Stewardship Project. To learn more about what we are doing and how you can do the same thing in your area, become a member of the Land Stewardship Project.

Membership includes a year’s subscription to our nationally recognized publication, the Land Ste wardship Letter , regular updates on food and agriculture issues that affect you, and the political power that comes from joining together with others who share your values.

Mention that you saw this article and you can join today for $30—$5 off our regular dues.

You can join with a credit card by calling 651/653-0618 or by visiting our secure website: www.landstewardshipproject.org. Or send your membership dues to: Land Stewardship Project, 2200 Fourth Street, White Bear Lake, MN 55110.

LAND&LIVESTOCK A Special Section of

IN PRACTICE SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2001

#79

When Starting Out—

Keeping Things Simple

Anna and Michael Coughlan with daughter, Isabelle.

by Jim Howell

I

n today’s livestock economy, there is a lot of talk about being a low-cost producer. In Australia, where livestock prices are less than half what they are in North America, and where most input costs are greater, there is no choice but to produce at low cost. But just like most commodity businesses, most Australian beef producers let cost of production rise to the breakeven point and end up living on a pretty thin line. If they had a North American price structure, they’d be getting rich.

Then there are a few guys like Michael Coughlan, who have figured out how to keep costs so low that even 40 U.S. cents a pound for a 1,000-pound steer results in a healthy gross profit. Michael and his wife Anna are Holistic Management practitioners who also are keenly aware that a vigorous and regenerating land base is key to maintaining a steady and sustainable flow of solar dollars. To that end, they have drastically changed the management of their livestock within their existing fence and water infrastructure. They are now covering and building soil and increasing biodiversity instead of gradually losing it. The great part of this story is that they have done all this without major capital inputs or going into crippling debt. The major impetus behind their success has been a simple change in the way they think and make their decisions. We’ll get into the details of their story below, but first a little background on the Coughlans and their operation.

The Coughlans currently run close to 2,000 cows, 2,000 yearlings, and 8,000 sheep on two separate, and very different, properties in southern New South Wales. Their western place, Tarabah, the focus of this story, has been Michael’s home since childhood. It’s in a 17-inch (430-mm) rainfall zone, is mostly flat as a pancake, and including the neighbor’s place, which they have recently purchased, comprises 45,000 acres (18,200 hectares). Half the cows and yearlings, and all the sheep graze on Tarabah. The second place, which lies at the base of the Snowy Mountains is much wetter and supports the other 1,000

cows and 1,000 yearlings on 6,000 acres (2,400 hectares). Michael and one permanent hired man do most of the work on both places, with contractors brought in for big jobs, like shearing and fence building.

Tarabah With just 17 inches of expected rainfall, it’s amazing how much grass this country can grow. The pattern is spread over the whole year, with a little more coming in the fall, winter, and early spring months from May to October. Summer rain, unless overly abundant, tends to be ineffective due to the extremely hot temperatures and high evaporation rates. Extended periods with daytime highs over 105 F (40 C) are the norm. Nonetheless, as ground cover improves and surface evaporation diminishes, the Coughlans are seeing improved responses from summer precipitation. We’ll get into why that’s happening below.

On our visit in late April, an inch (25 mm) of rain had just fallen and the annual cool season grasses were germinating everywhere.

The cool season perennials were starting to green up too. Mild temperatures allow this high quality forage to keep growing straight through the winter before really taking off in the spring. As spring approaches and daytime highs rise, warm season perennials also start to come on, and if lucky enough to receive some of those summer thunderstorms, they’ll hold their green after the cool season plants have died or gone into dormancy. Historically, seven out of ten years result in decent to excellent winter growing seasons, with very poor years to total failures occurring the other three.

The eastern half of the property is rolling savanna-woodland country blessed with several large, meandering creeks that make this part of the property easier to utilize with the livestock. On the west end of the property, or “out on the plains,” as Michael says, stock water

IN PRACTICE • SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2001

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Keeping Things Simple continued from page 9

is supplied by windmills. Trees are conspicuously absent, but Michael is planting tree seedlings in shelterbelts, with early success. What most definitely isn’t lacking is grass. Even in late April, typically their toughest time of the year, there was a virtual sea of grass.

Becoming Holistic

little bit of rain can now do some good. All stock are moved with a whistle. In the old days when stock were rarely moved, Michael said making a paddock shift “was always a bloody circus.” Now it’s a pleasure to go out and move to the next paddock.

The Coughlans do two grazing plans a year, one for the dormant season, which lasts during the hot months, from the first of November through the end of April, and one for the cool season, when their predictable growth occurs, from early May through the end of October. They plan to take one selection over the course of the 180day dormant season, and to graze twice during the growing season, allowing 90 days of recovery between grazing periods. These fairly long growing season recovery periods are necessary because their main growing season is in fact during the cool time of the year, so even though growth is fairly predictable, it’s never very fast compared to areas that get good rains in the warm months of the year.

Michael and Anna took Australian Holistic Management™ Certified Educator Bruce Ward’s multi-module course in 1997, and it opened their eyes to a new world of possibility. It became clear that with healthy ecosystem processes, everything else—finances, lifestyle, etc.— would fall into place. But what I love about the Coughlan’s story is Cattle Management: Focus on Function that they haven’t gone gung ho in converting to a new production model. I’ve seen so many cases, mine included, where initial naive The Coughlans manage their cattle following a well-defined, very enthusiasm has led to hard knocks and setbacks. Many of us want simple, and straightforward policy. With only two men doing most of everything to be perfect over night, but that’s not realistic. If we the work, they can’t afford to get fancy. The calving season lasts for really are testing our decisions, quick 50 days, from March 1 to April 20, finishing just conversion is seldom holistically sound. before the fall rains commence. Cows are typically With the new knowledge gained through in excellent condition by March 1, despite having their Holistic Management training, the just weathered a long, hot summer, and by the The great part of this Coughlans have taken stock of their existing time the bulls go out, green grass is growing well. story is that they have resources, including livestock, land, and existing Conception rates therefore approach 90 percent. fence and water infrastructure, and figured On May 10, any cow that hasn’t calved is sorted done all this without out how to make it work, economically and off, preg checked, and sold if open. That’s the major capital inputs or ecologically, before going into a development only time during the year the cows are worked. mode. Essentially, this has entailed simplifying They aren’t vaccinated, dewormed, deloused, or going into crippling debt. everything down to essential basics, and anything else. If they can’t perform without these devising sound, well-conceived grazing plans. expensive crutches, the Coughlans don’t want Admittedly, Michael and Anna are fortunate them around. Nor are they individually in that they were able to start with a reasonable identified in any way. level of paddocking—71 paddocks on the 45,000 acres, each paddock It’s a simple culling strategy—no calf, no home. Calves are all averaging just under a square mile at 633 acres. Before acquiring the weaned into one mob on February 1, but by that time many will have neighbor’s property, total paddock numbers were only about 30, and already weaned themselves. On May 15, at about 14 months of age, the historically, Tarabah ran many small herds of stock—young cows, old yearlings are sexed, the top heifers are sorted off as replacements and cows, yearling steers, yearling heifers, old ewes, young ewes, hoggets, put directly into the cowherd, and the cull heifers are sold. The steers wethers, ram lambs, ewe lambs, etc.—so there were always just a few are run through their second green season and sold in October at paddocks per herd. As on most places, fences were originally built to about 450 kg (990 lbs) live weight at 18 months of age. No protein keep classes of stock separated, rather than to create more effective or energy supplements are fed at any time of the year. graze/trample : recovery ratios. Now Tarabah runs three herds— Their bull-to-cow ratio is 1 to 40. All bulls are selected from low breeding cows, yearling cattle, and sheep (all classes in one giant input seedstock producers. When they arrive at Tarabah they’ve never mob of 8,000)—on the 71 total paddocks, so number of paddocks had a bite of grain. You’re probably wondering which breed they use. per herd has increased dramatically.

Believe it or not, all you can find on Tarabah are old-fashioned straight This has allowed for much better time control, more sunlight Herefords. “Ever thought about crossbreeding?” our group asked in harvest, adequate recovery periods, and much more well-spread unison. “No, I just want to keep things simple,” said Michael. animal impact. The result has been (without making any great capital It’s Raining Solar Dollars improvements) drastically improved ecosystem processes—more grass over more of the year, a more diverse forage species mix, greatly The Coughlans budget on getting to 14 months post calving (when increased ground cover, and highly effective rates of dung and litter the yearlings are worked) with an 80 percent yearling crop, but incorporation into the topsoil. Numerous photo points, as well as they’ve been doing better than that the past few years. That’s 360 kg of good old-fashioned observation, document these changes. Summer beef per cow per year, and that’s costing them $.30 Australian/kg to precipitation, which used to be largely ineffective due to quick surface produce, including drawings for family living expenses (and they have evaporation, now holds in the covered soil, bringing life to the warm four kids with another one on the way). In American dollars, that season perennials. Dry cool seasons now aren’t so dry, since every works out to a phenomenally low cost of production of $.075/lb.

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That doesn’t include the value of their grass, however.

Leased grazing in their part of Australia costs about US$8/month, so if we figure in the opportunity cost of that expense, that adds another US$.12/lb., for a total cost of US$.195/lb. Michael had budgeted a US$.40/lb. selling price, but at the time of our visit that price had risen to an all time high of US$.50/lb. So for every pound sold, that’s a gross profit of US$.20 to .30. Plus, they of course don’t have the out of pocket expense of a monthly grazing fee. Their realized gross profit is therefore US$.32 to .42/lb, for a total profit per head per year of US$250 to US$340. Not bad for a bunch of straight Herefords.

No wonder they bought the neighbor’s place.

windmills—no fancy troughs and plumbing, just a hole in the ground.

The water will be pumped directly to whatever pond the cattle are currently using to water. With a 3-inch line, they’d be able to pump 220,000 liters (55,000 gallons) per day.

Michael asked me to find something to criticize about his operation, and the only thing I could think to comment on was his seemingly conservative stocking rate. Again, we were there at the worst time of the year (end of dormant season), after a season slightly below average, and it seemed like they had grass coming out their ears.

Michael concurred, but drew our attention to the fact that it probably looked like they had more grass than they really did. The sea of grass that impressed us so much was Next Steps mostly stems. Michael pointed out that “they’ve grazed the base out of Again, this has all been it.” Moreover, the cattle, which had achieved with a change in recently finished calving, were in thinking, a change in focus, a ideal condition, but they weren’t shift in priorities, a change in rolling in fat by any means. With decision-making. Now that their a heavier stocking rate, body base operation is operating condition would have probably profitably and the land is been poorer, with definite financial improving, they are well consequences.

Considering that positioned to go the next step yearlings-sold-per-cows-exposed is and start refining. This will entail about 80 percent, they don’t want a few major steps. One will be to to let body condition fall much sell the sheep and replace them below their current level. with cattle, building up to a base Finally, they do live in Australia, herd of 2,500 breeding cows on one of the world’s most droughtTarabah. The sheep are too much prone countries.

Remember those work, claims Michael, and he three years in ten that don’t grow doesn’t much care for sheep much new grass.

Michael figures anyway. Another will be to begin that with their current stocking implementing their land plan, the rate, they’ll be able to survive the aim being to eventually increase worst drought without significant to about 180 paddocks, or enough destocking.

I also wondered if all to allow daily moves through that stemmy material would their 180-day dormant season accumulate and eventually cause grazing plan.

A windmill out on the plains with adjacent pond added for water plants to suffer or die from A third will be the storage.

Photographer is standing on the pile of earth excavated to overrest, but during their wet cool development of a more reliable make the pond. season, Michael and Anna assured stock water system on the open us that enough biological decay plains country. As mentioned takes place to rot off all those above, a bottleneck to creating stems at the base and lay them on the soil surface. larger herds on that part of the property is stock water. Since they We learned several valuable lessons from Michael and Anna: have gone to managing fewer herds, most of their windmills don’t 1) Taking things slowly and thinking things through results in a much have stock watering on them most of the time. To create a water less precipitous learning curve; 2) Keeping things simple minimizes buffer, they have dug deep holes next to each windmill, and when headaches and keeps the coffers full; and, 3) Focusing on true the stock are away during the recovery period, the windmills keep generators of wealth, like healthy ecosystem processes, instead of pumping, filling up these ponds once the storage tank is full. Then recreational things, like breeds of cattle, leads to true wealth and when the stock return, and as the storage tank gets low, they pump sustainability. out of the pond back into the storage tank. With current herd size, I also appreciated Michael and Anna’s deep knowledge of their this works fine, but to get to a herd size of 2,500 cows (or potentially land.

They intimately know and understand their environment, and 5,000 head altogether—they’re considering not weaning, and managing through this knowledge one can sense the genuine love they feel for everything as one giant herd), they’ll need more water capacity. it as well.

And maybe that was the greatest lesson we learned. If we The plan now is to bury, in phases, 60 km (37 miles) of 3-inch don’t love the land, and know it as well as our human perception will (76-mm) pipe. The water source will be one of their perennial creeks. allow us, can we ever truly be stewards? I doubt that we can.

The pipeline will empty into a series of simple ponds, much like the Thanks, Michael and Anna, for sharing so much with us. deep holes in the ground they have developed next to their

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The Technosystem—

Bull Beef Finishing in New Zealand

by Jim Howell

M

anaging grazing animals at high stock densities requires good planning, a high skill level, and a commitment to close daily observation. Without these components, lots of problems can ensue. Animal performance can crash, widespread overgrazing can occur, and animal behavior problems can drive an inexperienced manager crazy. A new practitioner of this style of management has to be committed to working through the learning curve till the kinks are worked out.

Because of the complexities involved with managing natural processes, that can take a long time. The Holistic Management™ Grazing Planning procedure can be of tremendous benefit in successfully dealing with these numerous complexities. But even then, fine tuning a highly intensive grazing program (aggressive stocking rate, high paddock numbers, extensive use of temporary electric fencing to control time and stock density, frequent stock moves, etc.) to the point that it’s truly humming often requires several years, at least.

When I say “truly humming,” I’m referring to a point where the manager can genuinely say stock performance is generating a handsome profit, the land and forage are measurably improving,

and daily operations are so easy and labor-efficient that the program almost runs itself. The more we can do from a technical perspective to take the vagaries out of managing natural processes and to make the job as labor-efficient as possible, the easier it may be to arrive at, or at least approach, this state where everything is working efficiently and smoothly.

This is especially true when managing animals with both high production potential and unique behavioral characteristics that are grazing fast growing, very productive pastures—such as bulls on irrigated cool-season forage. In New Zealand, bull grazing is a commonplace enterprise, with bulls of dairy breeding being used almost exclusively. Instead of castrating bull calves and raising veal or shoving them into feedlots, New Zealand dairy bulls are left intact and grown out to maturity on forage, with the bulk of the beef entering the export ground beef market. The dairy farmers themselves are too busy milking cows to complicate their lives growing out bulls, so this enterprise is primarily undertaken by other stock farmers, many, if not most, of whom specialize in only growing out dairy bulls. If this sounds like kind of a crazy idea, just keep reading.

When you see the financial possibilities you may change your mind.

A Common Technosystem Design Each small rectangle delineates a “cell.” Vertical lines indicate where temporary wires would run. Three temporary wires would be up at a time—a front, a back, and a front wire for the next move.

40 m Dots indicate fiberglass post placement on lane fences—these posts serve as guides for temporary fences.

Solid dark lines are permanent lane boundaries made with spider fences.

•••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• 400 m

•••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• 1000 m

Each lane contains a herd of bulls whose density and speed of movement down the lane is controlled by the temporary wires running perpendicular to the lanes.

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Every other lane fence has a permanent water line running under it with quick-connect hydrants for Microtrough attachment.

The Technosystem - A Holistic Fit? This story is about a package of technology designed to make bull beef grazing operations “hum” (as well as any other highly intensive, high performance grazing enterprise). It is called the Technosystem,™ and was developed by Harry Wier. It integrates a complete set of technologies, including fencing and watering hardware, mapping and GPS technology, and practical know-how. The Technosystem is a tool, nothing more, nothing less. It may have the potential to take you toward your holistic goal, and it may not. If you have the appropriate forage resource, economically this one looks like a winner. Whether it wins over what you’re already doing is the question.

Ecologically, it can undoubtedly be designed and managed to build soil and increase plant vigor and overall biodiversity. Whether or not you really want to adopt this set of technology, in terms of how it will affect your lifestyle, is what it really comes down to. If you think you may want to try out actually grazing bulls within the Technosystem, it probably won’t be holistically sound for your situation without a great attitude and a healthy sense of humor, at least while initially riding the learning curve.

The Technosystem was inspired by the research of Dr. Ray Brougham at the Aorangi Research Unit in the Manawatu region of New Zealand’s North Island. Dr. Brougham’s bull beef grazing trials yielded over 1100 kg of net carcass production per hectare per year (980 lbs/acre per year). The challenge was to then take these results and replicate them on a farm scale.

Dr. Brougham’s grazing approach required a huge number of paddock subdivisions in winter, when plant recovery times are longest.

This can only be practically achieved through the extensive use of temporary electric fencing and an extensive network of water pipes.

Because of the intensity of subdivision, different approaches to accessing and working within the fencing infrastructure (by the stock and the manager), stock handling, and layout of permanent paddocks also had to be worked out. The result is the Technosystem.

Our tour group was able to witness a Technosystem on the property of Herstall and Allison Ulrich, owners of Rock Farm and Emma Flat, near Cave, New Zealand. This part of the South Island receives an average of 625 mm (25 inches) of annual precipitation, with summers tending to be dry. Rock Farm consists of 485 hectares (1200 acres) of steep hills, supporting 2600 ewes. Emma Flat, just down the road, contains 104 mostly-flat hectares (260 acres), 40 hectares (100 acres) of which are developed as a Technosystem. Emma Flat is used to finish lambs and bulls, with 65 hectares under irrigation, including the 40-hectare Technosystem.

A Microtrough. Animal pushes float with muzzle and trough rapidly fills with water. Up to 60 bulls can water on a single Microtrough— they learn to take turns.

same exact total area and carries the same mob of stock for the entire grazing season. A set of lanes run together as a single unit defines a “system.” One system, therefore, might have 10 lanes with 10 separate mobs, one mob within each lane.

Each lane is additionally calibrated into equally sized “cells” (not to be confused with a grazing cell as defined in the Holistic Management™ Grazing Planning procedure) using GPS equipment.

Think of the cell as a grazing block within the lane. The cell borders

Technosystem 101 Before we get into the particulars of Ulrich’s operation, I’ll describe a few key features of the Technosystem. The permanent fences are known as “spider fences,”and they consist of 12.5-gauge (1.6-mm) high-tensile wire, springs, and fiberglass posts. They’re made to drive over and bounce right back. (More on that later.) These fences delineate long, narrow, lane-type paddocks, running parallel to one another—like the lanes in a bowling alley. Each lane contains the

Device that “lets go of” temporary wire with a few good tugs on opposite end of wire.

continued on page 14

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Bull Beef Finishing in New Zealand continued from page 13

are delineated by the fiberglass fence posts supporting the permanent high-tensile wires. If the posts on a particular lane fence are 10 meters apart and the lane itself is 40 meters wide, each cell within that lane is therefore 400 square meters.

The cells are arranged so that the posts (which again mark the boundary of a cell) define a straight line when connected from lane to lane across the system. This straight line provides a guide for the temporary fence placement. When the temporary wire is run across the lanes (i.e., perpendicular to the lanes), 10 mini-paddocks are thus formed (assuming the system has 10 lanes). When running a class of stock that can be controlled by one wire, this temporary wire is laid over the top of the lane fences. When using multi-wire temporary fences, the wires are run through the permanent lane fences.

A water line runs down every second lane fenceline and there is a hydrant point every 2 or 3 cells down the lane. A small Microtrough— designed to water one animal at a time—is connected to the hydrant where the stock are grazing. Water enters the trough when the animal’s muzzle depresses the float valve. It’s specially designed for portable applications with small mobs of stock. If all this sounds confusing, see the diagram. It’s actually pretty simple.

When it’s time for the daily move onto the new cell or cells (how many new cells are allocated depends on how fast the stock are being moved, which depends on growth rate of the forage), the temporary wire is simply dropped to the ground and the stock walk over it, all 10 mobs (or however many there happen to be) at the same time. One end of the temporary wire is connected to a slick little patented device (see photo, page 13) that will “let go” of the wire with four or five good tugs on the other end of the wire. Before letting the wire fall, a new front wire has already been constructed delineating the 10 new minipaddocks. When the stock move, the wire the stock walked over is then reconnected and now serves as the back wire. The back wire from the previous day is then pulled around with the four-wheeler and becomes the front wire for the next day’s move. The four-wheeler is equipped with special runners that enable the manager to drive right over the spider fences (see photo, page 15).

But that’s only one reason for all the lanes. The other primary reason is one of per-hectare productivity. Each lane, which is identical in area and therefore total productivity (assuming a uniform pasture, for which the Technosystem is intended and designed), is stocked with the same exact total pounds of live weight. Grazing pressure is therefore kept constant over every square meter. This results in extremely even forage utilization, with very few severely grazed plants and very few ungrazed plants. That translates into most plants retaining an optimum amount of leaf area post-grazing, which results in greater overall dry matter production and higher pasture quality.

Dung and urine are also spread extremely uniformly.

It turns out as long as It also enables the manager to be very there aren’t more than precise in terms of the about 30 bulls in a amount of forage allocated per day. Daily growth group, they behave like rates of stock can of bunch of little angels therefore be controlled with precision as well. once they decide who’s That is, the manager can boss . . . All of a sudden ensure excellent average daily gains over the course grazing bulls becomes of the grazing season, a viable proposition. and thus high per hectare production. For the above reasons, the Technosystem is not only applicable to bull grazing, but can yield positive results when growing and finishing any class of stock. Again, this amount of precision is only possible on very uniform planted pastures. In the western USA, that means irrigated pasture. Over most of the central and eastern United States and Canada, however, with abundant and predictable growing season moisture, this grazing model has huge potential.

Why All That Wire?

The Ulrichs’ Place

I can hear what you’re all thinking. Why so many small mobs and all those permanent lanes? Why not have just one mob grazing a long narrow strip instead of 10 small mobs grazing 10 little blocks? Isn’t that a lot of infrastructure for no good reason? Okay, fair enough. Here are the reasons. Ever try to manage 200 bulls going on two years of age in one herd, at super high density with one-wire electric fence? I didn’t think so. That scenario spells chaos. That many bulls have an awfully hard time working out a pecking order. Consequently, they spend too much time squabbling and breaking down fences and too little time grazing and gaining weight. But if you split those 200 bulls up into 10 herds of 20, and never mix them again, they have no problem figuring out how to get along. It turns out as long as there aren’t more than about 30 bulls in a group, they behave like of bunch of little angels once they decide who’s boss, and behavioral problems are eliminated. All of a sudden grazing bulls becomes a viable proposition.

Now, back to the specific case of the Ulrich’s operation. Their “system” encompasses a 40-hectare area, 400 meters wide and 1,000 meters long. Some 260 Fresian bulls (a Fresian is basically a small Holstein, one of the main dairy breeds in New Zealand) are grown and finished annually. They arrive at Emma Flats at 18 months of age and go off between 2-1/4 to 2-1/2 years. With 10 lanes, each lane is therefore 40 meters wide and 1,000 meters long (4 hectares or 10 acres total area).

Depending on the time of year and therefore the growth rate of the forage, recovery periods range from 110 days in the winter to 30 days in the spring. In other words, during the winter, the bulls take 110 days to graze the length of each lane. In the spring, they only take 30 days. More area (i.e., more cells or mini-paddocks) is therefore allocated per day during the spring than in the slow growth times.

With much smaller daily areas allocated during the winter, daily gains

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LAND & LIVESTOCK

IN PRACTICE #79

are obviously much lower. hectares on Emma Flats) is In fact, the bulls only irrigated. Every 22 days, maintain their weight during 65 mm (2.5 inches) is the dead of winter. applied over the course of As spring comes and they an 8-hour run with a start to move down the lanes traveling gun. Herstall also quicker, however, gains jump follows a highly precise soil up to 2 kg per day (4.4 fertility program to ensure lbs/day). The Ulrichs shoot high levels of forage for a total gain in carcass production. He uses what’s weight per hectare of 1,000 called a Perry Test, which kg (they get paid based indicates exactly what’s on carcass weight, so needed to precisely balance they convert liveweight the soil’s fertility. Since gain/hectare to carcass using the Perry Test weight gain/hectare), and amending the soil Four-wheeler equipped with special runners driving o ver a spider fence. which would equate to accordingly, forage about 1800 kg of liveweight, production and quality have or 1600 pounds of liveweight improved dramatically. gain per acre. That’s like having 4 steers per acre gain 400 pounds And the Cost? each! At NZ$3.80/kg carcass weight, that’s a gross income of NZ$3,800/hectare, or US$600/acre. That NZ$3.80/kg carcass weight What does it cost to set up a Technosystem? That depends equates to about US$ . 38/lbs liveweight. With fat bulls bringing $.55/lb somewhat on the lay of the land, how fancy you want to get with in the USA, that $600/acre would turn into $870/acre. Maybe all the fencing and watering hardware, how regular the boundaries are, those fences make sense after all. But again, here is where you need and whether or not it is adapted to sheep. The simplest and cheapest to step back and reassess holistically. Maybe the best spot for a estimate, which would be designed for cattle on flat land utilizing Technosystem on your place is right where your highly prized the most basic hardware, works out to NZ$281/hectare. The most upland game bird habitat happens to be, and you not only love game expensive application (on hilly ground, fancier hardware, birds, but the patch of ground they call home generates $800/acre in accommodates sheep, irregular boundaries) would cost around annual hunting fees. Converting that piece of ground to uniform NZ$468/hectare (in US$/acre, this is a range from $45 to $76). That’s cool-season pasture with fences all over it probably wouldn’t be the pretty cheap considering the potential returns. best decision in your case.

Unfortunately for our tour group, our visit in mid-April just When the bulls reach the end of the lane, it’s time to go back to happened to coincide with the short window of the year when no the front and start all over. Again, this would happen at the end of bulls are on the place. The Ulrichs aim to have all the bulls sold by 30 days in the spring to a maximum of 110 days in the winter.

March (late summer in New Zealand). They begin sorting off and According to Herstall, that’s when the track meet starts. When the selling the biggest bulls in December (mid summer), and this bulls realize they have a free run for 1,000 meters, the race is on. The continues through February. When the bulls are gone they bring on further they go back up the lane, however, the better the grass gets weaned lambs from the other property, The Rock, to finish on the (since it’s had the longest to recover), so they start getting distracted Technosystem into the fall. Nonetheless, we got to see how the fences and slowing down, regaining their composure without busting and water system are laid out, how the four-wheeler drives right over through the top of the lane. the high tensile wires, and we sure asked Herstall and Harry a lot of The bulls in two of the ten lanes are weighed once per month questions, which they patiently and thoroughly answered. during the winter, to make sure the bulls are at least maintaining their The Technosystem isn’t for everyone. Right in the Technosystem weight. All the bulls are weighed at least twice over the course of literature, it states that one “should not proceed unless you can see their time in the system, just to make sure gains are on track. Herstall yourself accepting a radical change and enjoying this style of farming.” likes to use straight Fresian bulls, since Jerseys and Jersey crosses tend This brings us back to the holistic perspective once again. The to get too fat before reaching the desired target finish carcass weight Technosystem is a tool just like anything else. It has the potential to of 340 kg (750 lbs), or a liveweight of 620 kg (1,360 lbs). Sourcing fit into a holistically managed operation if it passes towards that these straight Fresian genetics is becoming tougher to do, since most operation’s holistic goal. Only you can decide if it fits or not.

New Zealand dairy genetics are now at least part Jersey.

To ensure adequate gains during their typically dry summers, Harry Wier can be reached at kiwitechint@xtra.co.nz, the 40 hectares under the Technosystem (as well as 25 more and Herstall Ulrich at h-ulrich@xtra.co.nz

IN PRACTICE • SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2001 LAND & LIVESTOCK

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Savory Center Bulletin Board

Shannon Horst (right) and WLC Land Manager, Paul Buch, (left) and interns monitoring land health.

Rocky Mountain Institute Project

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arly this year, the Savory Center and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) formed a partnership to incorporate Holistic Management into RMI’s responsibilities for managing the lands of the Windstar Land Conservancy (WLC).

RMI and the Savory Center have had a long, but informal, association. It is not unusual to find both Hunter Lovins (one of RMI’s founders) and Allan Savory at the same conferences providing back-to-back keynote talks. This project gives us our first opportunity to really work together, and both organizations plan to make it an enduring partnership.

WLC is a joint effort of RMI and the Windstar Foundation (WF), founded by John Denver and Aikido master Tom Crumb to hold and manage about 1,000 acres of prime land in Pitkin County—near Aspen, Colorado.

The land, which includes a key elk corridor, encompasses a small valley and the slopes that form its water catchment. It was purchased and put in trust for the use of RMI and WF and the enjoyment of the public. RMI houses a portion of its activities in a facility on the land.

The purpose of the work we are doing on the land is to produce an overall, restorative land-use plan that provides educational opportunities for the public, and opportunities for both RMI and the Savory Center to educate people in a variety of land rehabilitation technologies.

This year we have focused on creating a holistic goal and a holistic land plan and the basic ideas of the educational programming we want in the future. Because the land is experiencing some invasion of noxious weeds and soil erosion, the RMI/Savory Center team also decided to bring in livestock—cattle and

16 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #79

goats—to be used as tools to cycle carbon, cover soil, invigorate perennial grasslands and irrigated pasture, and to browse the invasive plants. A nearby rancher, Steve Childs, is providing the animals.

RMI has also invested a lot of time and resources into developing and restoring wetlands in the lower reaches of the valley.

Over Memorial Day and again in July for two weeks, volunteers, including Windstar members and the Landmark Volunteers, spent time developing a hiking trail that wanders throughout the bottomlands, slopes and aspen forests.

The county where the WLC land lies is facing serious issues of urbanization, a growing gap between the extremely wealthy and the population that serves them (i.e. affordable housing), and deteriorating health of the land. Thus, the RMI/Savory Center team have identified that the educational opportunities— hiking, bird and game viewing, horseback riding and cross-country skiing in the winter—on this land must result in influencing the way people live their lives as part of the greater ecosystem.

Windstar Land Conservancy (WLC)

One of the key challenges of the growth patterns in Pitkin County is the splitting up of large ranches into small 3- to 1,000-acre lots, so called “ranchettes.” These holdings are extremely difficult to mange from a biological standpoint, and often new owners arrive with no skills or knowledge when it comes to managing rangelands, forested areas, or river valleys and wetlands.

On the other hand, they also have no preconceived notions about resource management. Thus, the RMI/Savory Center team hope that we will create, through education, an effective way to share with dwellers, recreationists, business owners and

others in the community, the results we achieve with Holistic Management and what it can produce in managing small plots. This will help residents of this area find improved ways to bring living, agriculture, recreation, and conservation together as the interdependent “wholes” they already are.

Allan Savory leading workshop.

California Agriculture Leadership Workshops

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n June, Allan Savory (with assistance from Executive Director Shannon Horst) provided three workshops for rural communities in California. These workshops were hosted by the Agriculture Education Foundation of California, which is the oldest—and widely considered the best—leadership program in the US for people in the agriculture industry.

The workshops were held in and around the Central Valley, including Morgan Hill, Santa Margarita and the Harris Ranch on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. These communities are facing everything from rapid urbanization and the loss of farms, to contamination from selenium, and the drying up and diversion of groundwater resources.

The Savory Center and the Foundation provided the workshops as an opportunity for the community members to see whether the Holistic Management™ decision-making process might help them in managing their future growth and addressing the root cause of these serious problems.

Savory Center members in California were instrumental in supporting these workshops, and we are grateful for their help. To find out more about the Foundation, visit their website at www.agleaders.org

Colorado Holistic Management Gathering The Colorado Branch did a great job of organizing Whole Land: Healthy People, a celebration of Holistic Management on July 27-29th at the Chico Basin Ranch near

Colorado Springs, Colorado. Approximately 200 people attended this gathering and there were many positive comments about what they learned. One participant noted that the conversations alone were worth the price of admission.

Allan Savory gave the keynote address to kick off the conference, and he exhorted everyone to be a leader in bringing Holistic Management to their communities.

He also asked people who do win awards for their work on the land to acknowledge how Holistic Management helped them create the results they have achieved.

Excellent workshops followed this keynote over the next two days led by practitioners and educators in the areas of biological monitoring, riparian area management, birding, grass identification, and families and farming.

“The conversations alone were worth the price of admission.”

Participants rounded out their day with chuckwagon style food and Cajun and country western music at night. At the closing session the Colorado Branch challenged the Texas Branch to organize the next international gathering in the U.S. We hope to hear back from the Texans if they will accept the challenge and tell us when we can expect the next gathering. Our sincere thanks go out to the Colorado Branch, especially Cindy Dvergsten, and Duke Phillips and the Chico Basin Ranch staff for all their hard work.

New Products

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he Savory Center is pleased to announce two new products. We now offer organic cotton t-shirts manufactured by Patagonia decorated with a silkscreened Savory Center logo. They cost $15 for U.S. residents and additional shipping information is on the back page.

We also recently published a 44-page booklet of Holistic Management “success stories” titled Holistic Management: A New Environmental Intelligence . This publication is a good companion piece to the Holistic Management IN PRACTICE Special Edition because it provides specific examples of what people have accomplished with Holistic Management, particularly in the context of wildlife habitat loss and environmental conflicts. This publication costs $15 (U.S. residents), and can be ordered using the form on the back page.

Development Corner

by Andy Braman

Savory Center Named in Charitable Remainder Trust

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he Savory Center was recently named in a charitable remainder trust created by Kim McDodge of Portland, Oregon. Kim became involved with the Savory Center about three years ago after hearing Allan Savory speak at a Natural Step Conference. She really liked what he had to say about the “triple bottom Kim McDodge and her partner, Terence Dodge line.” But as she learned about Holistic Management, she felt that the financial planning was particularly helpful and accessible at the household level.

After that conference, Kim went home and ordered materials from the Savory Center and taught herself Holistic Management. When she received an unexpected inheritance, she contacted Holistic Management™ Certified Educator Christopher Peck who specializes in financial planning.

Christopher suggested that she create a charitable remainder trust as a win-win situation for Kim. She wanted to use the money to support organizations that do good work, provide diversity, and work toward a regenerative process. She didn’t want the money lost to taxes. She particularly named the Savory Center because she wanted to help move our work forward and get the word out about Holistic Management because she feels it is a sensible solution to many of the issues we face today.

Kim was also interested in pursuing this type of investment because it kept her life simple, which is important to her. Christopher worked with Kim to help her determine the best investment of her money, given her holistic goal. The charitable remainder trust fit the bill.

With a charitable remainder trust, the donor transfers income to a trust and receives an annual income from the interest. Upon the donor’s death, the remainder of the trust is given to the charity named by the donor. In this case, the Savory Center will share the trust with the Land Institute, and Pattern Language Foundation. Even though the charity does not receive the trust, until after the donor is deceased, the donor receives an immediate income tax deduction.

While the percentage that can be used for income tax deduction will vary depending on your income, the charity that you are giving to, and other variables, a basic example might look something like this.

You decide to set up a charitable remainder trust of $50,000 (this type of trust is irrevocable). Instead of being taxed on this $50,000 of income, you would receive a tax break of around 43 percent, which means you would be taxed on $28,500 instead. As well as the $21,500 tax break, you could expect an annual income of five percent or more of the trust’s value. You can even add to the trust to increase your tax break and receive greater annual income.

For more information about Charitable Remainder Trusts, contact Christopher Peck at: ctopherp@holistic-solutions.net, or 707/824-5650.

Training Program Grant

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he Savory Center recently received an anonymous $5,000 donation to support the 2001 Holistic Management™ Certified Educator Training Program to be held in upstate New York. The training program begins on October 27, 2001 and currently is at maximum capacity with a diverse pool of trainees from the government, non-profit, and private sectors.

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2001 17