In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International
M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 2
NUMbEr 143
w w w. h o l i s t i c M A N A g E M E N t. o r g
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Fostering Creativity—
IN THE MIDWEST
Beyond Brainstorming by ELYSA BRYANT
uccess in Holistic Management, to some degree, is built on creativity to make the most of our financial, material, natural and human resources. Finding ways to foster creativity can help us achieve success that we may not have expected outright. Right now, we are in the midst of planning this year’s production. Typically, we’d sit down for a brainstorming session to see what kinds of ideas come up. We wouldn’t debate or censor, we’d just throw it all out there for consideration. It seemed that that is what is good about brainstorming: you don’t censor or criticize anyone because you don’t want to hamper anyone’s creativity. Yet there is lots of research, and personal experience, to show that we do selfcensor. Whether it is family or strangers or co-workers or stakeholders, people self-censor in groups. Groups have a social pressure that can inhibit creativity. There’s lots of research that shows that brainstorming, in its traditional framework, just doesn’t work the way we’ve come to believe it does.
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Three-feet tall grass even in a drought year is what Mark Brownlee was able to accomplish with holistic planned grazing. Learn about his operation and others in the Midwest in the Land & Livestock section beginning on page 8.
FEATURE STORIES
Good Debate To be effective, brainstorming has to be modified. It turns out that the very thing that seems to give brainstorming its greatest advantage, actually works to be its greatest deficit: the criticism-free zone. Critique and debate actually enhance the quality of ideas you end up with, the ones you may end up formulating into decisions to be tested. Debate can identify not only which solutions are problematic, but also major thematic problems. During the process, bad ideas can be debunked, but it is important to identify why these solutions would be ineffective. Identifying not only problems, but also core faults, will ensure that future suggestions will avoid the same problems and will be much more helpful. Debate can also develop effective ideas into full and expansive plans.
From Chef to Farmer—Creating Connections with Food on Mount Vernon Farm MIke PeTeRson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Green Valley Farm—Farrow to Finish Ann ADAMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Making Better Decisions Don CAMPBell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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LAND and LIVESTOCK Maximizing spring Green Up Without Destroying summer Pastures GReG JUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Problems & Complexity
Planned Mob Grazing— A Tool to Improve Pastureland
Another thing that influences creativity is the way you present the subject for consideration. If I say to you, “Create the best system possible to get your products to the customer,” you will likely struggle to think of how to create the best system possible. If you knew it, you’d already have created it. Yet, if I say to you, “What are the problems in your system for getting products to the customer?” you can probably tell me what problems are occurring. By identifying the problems, we can discuss them and determine where the weakest link is and how to address it. Holistic Management has helped us in this way by focusing us on the “weakest link.” Focusing on a problem rather than creating something new stimulates our creativity more productively. We also don’t need to be shy about including the complexities of reality in our discussion, because complexity also serves to help stimulate creativity, up to a point. Too much complexity can overwhelm us, but facilitating a discussion to guide us through increasingly complex dimensions of a particular action allows us to confront the hurdles one by one to either refine and redefine the action, or dismiss it as not worth further consideration.
HeATHeR sMITH THoMAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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What Do We Do now? PeGGY seCHRIsT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Managing Complexity— learning To Use Planned Grazing on the Wilson Farm ToRRAY WIlson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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NEWS and NETWORK Grapevine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 From the Board Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Development Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 kids on the land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Book Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Certified educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Fostering Creativity
continued from page one
Brain Digestion
In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International
Holistic Management International exists to educate people to manage land for a sustainable future.
STAFF Peter holter . . . . . . . Chief Executive Officer tracy Favre. . . . . . . . Chief Operating Officer Kelly King . . . . . . . . . Chief Financial Officer Ann Adams. . . . . . . . Managing Editor, In PRACTICe and Director of Education sandy langelier. . . . Director, Communications and Outreach Frank Aragona . . . . . Director, Research and Development Matt Parrack . . . . . . . Director, Development tom levine. . . . . . . . Senior Development Advisor Peggy sechrist. . . . . Development Advisor Peggy Maddox . . . . . Director, Kids on the Land Program Donna torrez . . . . . . Manager: Administration & Executive Support Peggy cole . . . . . . . . Project Manager, Texas Mary girsch-bock . . Grants Manager Valerie grubbs . . . . . Controller carrie Nelson . . . . . . Store Manager / Customer Support
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Sallie Calhoun, Chair Ben Bartlett, Past Chair Clint Josey, Vice-Chair Jim Shelton, Secretary Ron Chapman, Treasurer Gail Hammack Wayne Knight Judi Earl Zizi Fritz Jim Parker Christopher Peck Kelly Sidoryk
HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT In Practice (ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by: Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: hmi@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org
Copyright © 2012
2 IN PRACTICE
May / June 2012
Passive thinking also serves to stimulate our consideration of a particular problem, idea or action. Passive thinking is the work that goes on in your brain once something has been brought to your attention. An example from my own experience with this is from washing dishes. I used to live in a house without a dishwasher when I went back to school. I often disliked the act of washing dishes because it was so mundane and repetitive. But I then realized that when I was washing dishes, I had my most insightful or inspired thoughts. They would seem to come out of the blue and it seemed that nowhere else did I have the same ability to elicit this as when I thought I was really thinking nothing at all. I was surprised to realize later that there was work going on in my brain that I couldn’t rush or even anticipate; when I was exposed to a new idea or concept, it went into the recesses of my mind to “digest.” over time, I have realized that if someone has a particular challenge that I am helping to think about, it’s better if we can have a brief discussion of it and then forget about until some future time. In the interim I find that spontaneous thoughts occur to me. I write them down or consider them briefly, then just allow them to digest until we talk about it again. In practice, including passive thinking means that I have to build in time for reflection on the matter(s) at hand. Passive thinking is part of something else that seems to be true of exceptionally creative environments: the benefits of happenstance meetings on excelling creativity. Thinking about happenstance highlights what most of us already know, that some of our best conversations, contacts, ideas come from the times where we bump into someone else unexpectedly.
Planning for Happenstance steve Jobs understood this and worked to capitalize on it when the Pixar headquarters were being developed. They already had the creative talent, then he sought to introduce the element of happenstance to the layout of the building. He planned for happenstance. He put the only restrooms in the lobby, forcing everyone to go there at some point during the day. Then he had the mailboxes put in the lobby at one point. These two simple tricks helped create an environment where happenstance was likely to happen. There were some flaws in the setup (not everyone
liked going to the lobby to use the restrooms), but employees have confirmed that it did lead to more happenstance meetings that led to spontaneous conversations about problems or concepts people were working on. The exceptional quality of Pixar films attests to the success of creating an environment that fostered creativity.
Power of Diversity In terms of creativity another piece is perhaps unconventional but incredibly important: diversity. In Holistic Management, we are used to looking for diversity in our natural environment: diversity of forage types or diversity of livestock often reflects greater quality in our natural resources. Diversity in our natural environment means that we are more resilient to problems that might otherwise plague a monoculture landscape. Diversity in fostering creativity means we include people with a variety of experiences, because those differences ensure that we will consider a problem or action in different ways. A historic example of how this plays out is the renowned Building 20 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Building 20 was a place of legendary innovation in a number of different fields, from physics to linguistics. The layout of the building itself was not intended to bring about this; it was designed in an afternoon to be a temporary structure to enable work on radar during WWII. out of necessity, it went on to stand for about fifty years and incredible diversity developed. A unique part of this building was the random assignment of the groups that were housed in Building 20. It was home to a cell-
culture lab, a piano repair facility, the linguistics Department, the RoTC, nuclear science and a particle accelerator, among other transient occupants. The random mix of people meant that there was little familiarity with the backgrounds or subject matter of office or lab neighbors. This diversity, magnified by the proximity to other creative people, which led to happenstance meetings or conversations, and the inherent critique and debate, helped to spur innovation that led to Bose sound systems, microwaves, Chomskyan linguistics and the first video game.
Future Farms From Chef to Farmer— Creating Connections with Food on Mount Vernon Farm
Creativity and Holistic Management
by MIKE PETERSON
If success in Holistic Management is built on our ability to creatively make the most of our resources, it is important to find ways to nurture that creativity. Therein lies the challenge for me because I think of Holistic Management as a practice that calls on me to be methodical and routine, relying on my selfdiscipline to plan: plan my landscape and infrastructure, plan my profit, plan my grazing. Yet the nature of planning itself can inhibit the creativity that yields the best actions or solutions. Given the various ways of nurturing creativity already mentioned, how do I modify our annual planning to reflect some of these insights? • Introduce a problem or idea for discussion a few days ahead of our gathering. If those who are participating in planning are not local, try a conference call, or video chatting session to get the group together ahead of time. Making the effort to include a human connection, either voice or video, as opposed to email that can get overlooked, will help in case there are questions or confusion. • When having a brainstorming session, encourage open debate of ideas. It’s important to remember that by debating, we are really trying to move toward the best ideas. To avoid sensitivity or hurt feelings, remember that you wouldn’t bring ideas to the group to consider unless you were trying to move forward. And by having hurt feelings, you’re not moving toward getting better results; you’re staying stuck in the way you are doing it now. • To add diversity in selecting those that will participate in planning, choose not only stakeholders but also those who may have different experiences, whether because they are older or younger, professional or personal background, or farming approach. This diversity can sometimes provide insight or ideas that are lacking without it. • Incorporate physical activity into planning. I find that by walking the property with my daughters when they come home, and I casually mention things I’m working on or challenges I’m working through, they have a fresh perspective and often have ideas to discuss. Although not mentioned above, physical activity also improves creativity, and incorporating it into planning helps relieve tension and energizes everyone. These are suggestions: this list doesn’t include everything. Building in happenstance is tricky. But I’m going to tap into the diversity of this readership to request that you send in your own practices or ideas on fostering creativity in your planning and operations. Discussing these ideas in a public forum will open those ideas to debate. The great thing is, what I really see clearly now is that while the creative process is often an independent one, it’s the interaction with others that helps bring the fruit of that process to the next level. Though portions of Holistic Management fully rely on the self-discipline to test our decisions and monitor through planning, the success of those plans rests on our ability to creatively develop our resources and move toward the quality of life we really want.
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Elysa Bryant is a Holistic Management Educator trainee. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut and operates Stone Wall Homestead Farm. She can be reached at: elysa.bryant@gmail.com. FOSTERING CREATIVITY: Tell us how you foster creativity as part of your management with your management team. Send stories or ideas to anna@holisticmanagement.org.
hree years ago, I was donning Dalmatianprinted chef pants (standard issue uniform), and on a daily routine of preparing cuisine in one of the finest restaurants in the world—The Inn at little Washington. It’s incredible the change in paradigm that one can incur within a short time frame.
The Search for Local Food Prior to managing and interning at Mount Vernon Farm in Rappahannock County, Virginia, I was a chef for seven years. During that time frame, I became painfully aware of the decline in quality of industrially produced food, shipped all over the world to get to your doorstep with one phone call. It had become obvious to me that one distributor supplying meat, produce, chemicals, pots and pans, and anything else a kitchen might need is not the sustainable answer to supplying a chef’s needs. seeking local alternatives for all of our needs became a priority. Throughout the course of a year, I began researching local alternatives for our menu and came to the conclusion that I needed a stronger connection to my food. An internship at a grass-based farm became my goal of gaining experience in a farm that covers the entire spectrum—conception to consumption. A farm that is environmentally sustainable, focused on soil health, and producing products to sell directly to the consumer was my target. Upon arriving at Mount Vernon, I was fortunate that they had an established list of direct market based loyal customers, infrastructure was in place (fencing and water systems due in large part to the Conservation Reserve enhancement Program), and good grass based genetics had been established in an Angus herd. The farm had been practicing MIG (Managed Intensive Grazing) for roughly 9 years. Bush hogging was a regular practice to keep seed heads off. Two separate calving herds were being managed along with groups of grass finishers, stockers, weaned calves, lambs, Tamworth hogs, and a ‘bull lot’. Hay was made from 30 acres on the farm and we had 220 acres in usable pasture.
Holistic Decisions Holistic Management was first introduced to me from the farm manager at the time along with the farm CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Number 143
IN PRACTICE 3
Future Farms
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owner, Cliff Miller, who attended a weekend workshop about an hour from where Mount Vernon is located. As an intern, it sounded like a great opportunity to broaden my knowledge in farm management. Unbeknownst to me, HMI would soon be playing a critical role in how I would be managing the farm in the very near future. Fast forward one year and I am taking over management at Mount Vernon. Cliff and I went to hear Greg Judy speak at a conference in Virginia to broaden our knowledge base in mob grazing and decided to take the plunge. We opted to combine our herds into one group and made a long-term goal to switch from twice a year calving to only a spring calving herd. What we did not realize at the time was how to effectively test these decisions towards a holistic goal. These changes were made because they seemed like the right changes to make. We had our reasons for doing so, but were still operating somewhat blindly. We went through the first season of mob grazing and made mistakes, but we also came to realize the life changing events that we had undertaken. After all, mistakes simply present more opportunities to learn, not something that we had done wrong.
Future Farms Program I was presented with a very unique opportunity to take part in a one year Future Farms mentor program that HMI was launching. The concept was for HMI to mentor a group of farms within one county that would follow the Holistic Management guidelines and implement them into their farm management strategies. Concepts of grazing planning, financial planning, and land planning were all to be implemented within a 12-month period by way of Holistic Management® Certified educator visits and classroom sessions, field
walks, webinars, conference calls, study groups, as well as independent work—ideally creating a network of like-minded land owners (or managers) to cooperatively establish Holistic Management concepts on each of their operations. Cliff was the individual who was prominent in bringing Holistic Management to Rappahannock County. He had the vision of a program, which would mentor a limited number of farms looking to implement the teachings of Holistic Management into their farm or ranch management on a long-term basis. HMI instruction is a very valuable part of this program, but just as valuable is the camaraderie that is established among the participants in the program. In our pilot program, no two farms are identical in any way. There are decades of experience in agriculture among all of the participants in various facets of farming. We all make an effort to meet in a study group type format once a month. These meetings often times have direction and an overall goal of items we want to discuss, but more often than not, it’s an opportunity for all of us to be together and bounce ideas off one another. We have all received the same instruction from HMI, and how we apply it makes all the difference in the world. Comparing thoughts and notes on grazing planning, financial planning, record keeping, forage samples, soil samples, weather, and other worldly events has proven to be extremely worthwhile. After all, who better to carry on discussions about agriculture in our area than those that are actually doing it? We’re all in this program for various reasons. Whether it is to become profitable (or stay profitable), establish long-term goals, increase stocking rates, cultivate biological diversity, or to gain a greater knowledge of what exactly Holistic Management preaches.
Mount Vernon Farm has changed grazing practices significantly since learning about Holistic Planned Grazing as part of the training in the Future Farms program. 4 IN PRACTICE
May / June 2012
Mike Peterson has successfully made the transition from being a chef to being a farmer in his journey of sustaining a local food system. In the end, it all comes back to the strong desire to earn a living from the land. Improving the land is a very broad statement, but a better understanding of what it takes in all facets of farm management to improve our quality of life is just as important.
The Power of a Holistic Goal The first subject that we all covered in our group was the creation and implementation of a holistic goal. In the past, Cliff and I had good ideas of what we were trying to accomplish on the farm and how we would go about doing that, but having it written in the format of a holistic goal is an incredible tool. There is something to the idea that it isn’t truly a goal until it is written. Up until that point, it’s just an idea or a premonition. Including quality of life, forms of production, and future resource base takes that idea to the next level and puts it into fruition. Another crucial key to this holistic goal, we came to discover, was not to lose it! keep it displayed, look at it, review it, change it if need be, and always challenge it. Base all of your decision making on that goal. During our program, we all had the opportunity to have Ian Mitchell-Innes in our county, and walking all of our farms. His insight and knowledge of range management through livestock impact is incredible. What’s most exciting is that it’s all adaptable to our very specific situations. no part of what Ian taught us is a strict recipe, nor should it be taken that way. The purpose of his visit was to teach all of us the HMI grazing planning guidelines, but also to share his experience and knowledge that he has gathered over several years of experience. It was inspiring to hear that he turned his farm around completely through
grazing planning and the concepts that are all found in our guidebooks and workbooks.
On the Ground Results We have now been mob grazing for roughly two years, but with one year of being mentored in the Future Farms Program, we feel we are in a much better spot than we were last year. last summer, we sold our hay equipment and fenced in our two hay fields for permanent pasture. We fed half the amount of hay as the previous year and extended our grazing season. In my opinion, due to higher quality forage and focusing on getting the best food to the animal at the right times, we have also produced higher quality grass finished beef than has been produced on the farm in the past. We have had a very favorable fall and winter, with mild temperatures and moisture, but our grazing planning has allowed us to spend more time grazing stockpiled fescue and less time running a tractor and rolling out hay.
Financial Analysis As valuable as the grazing planning and Ian’s knowledge was for us, the financial planning was crucial to the continued growth and development of our operation. We are fortunate to have financial records of the farm going back ten years to compare where we stand year to year. To take that one step further and use those figures to their potential was where the real value lies. We can keep records out the wazoo, but if we don’t know how best to use those to their potential, then it becomes a waste of time to keep those records. The same goes for grazing records. It’s wonderful to keep them, but they need to be utilized. As a group and as a community, we were able to take a case-by-case look at the participating farms and help each other go through financial records and projections. offering advice and feedback to one another during our financial planning classroom session
was incredibly valuable. oftentimes it simply takes another set of trusted eyes to look at a document to figure where the weak link may be. Again, the tremendous value of this program is not just the Certified educators, but also the support network that we are growing within our communities. To rely on each other for support and advice is a powerful tool in a network of holistically managed farms.
Improved Utilization through Land Planning Through the land planning portion of our instruction, we were able to spend time in a classroom and think outside the box, constructively, searching for the best possible utilization of our land, whether it be pasture, wooded areas, riparian zones, overgrown or underutilized areas, etc. Through this phase, we were able to determine if we are able to carry any additional species to utilize forage already in place, or using species of animals that we already have in places where they never were on the farm. We were able to use an aerial photo of the farm and look at many locations along a mountain side on our farm where we would be able to raise pigs, run our cattle through portions of the woods, as well as looking at areas where goats would do a great deal of good with little input from us.
Moving Forward While going through the one year Future Farms program, I believe we have all signed up for a commitment longer than one year. To assume that only one year of work with Holistic Management will completely turn around all aspects of our farm is not a realistic assumption. It has taken nearly a year to fully grasp the details of Holistic Management, let alone to put them all into action. little by little, we are seeing the fruits of our labor of our involvement in the Future Farms program come to fruition in our animal performance, soil
and forage quality, and our quality of life. Relative to our holistic goal, we’ve just come off the best sales year to date, expenses have begun to level off, and all of us on the farm are planning and taking vacations. After being “cut loose” from official HMI meetings and conferences, our study group continues to meet, email, and talk about updates with our operations and offering feedback, insight, and even further instruction on the specifics covered in our program. one tool that we have learned and, as a young farmer, I do not want to lose, is the ability and inclination to re-plan. Careful monitoring and observation going through the growing season and in the dormant season will give us valuable details if we simply pay attention and alter our plans to accommodate what is really happening as opposed to what we thought would happen on our plan. Weather patterns change, illness, water complications, and fencing issues are some of the factors that can cause a change to the plan. not only altering the current grazing plan for these changes, but recording these changes and incorporating them into the next year’s grazing plan will make it that much stronger. If asked to put a monetary value on what this program has meant to Cliff, Mount Vernon, Rappahannock County, or myself I would be hard pressed to determine a value. In one year, Holistic Management has allowed Cliff and me to see our goals, both personally, and for the farm. It has allowed us the opportunity to work very closely with other farmers in the County, establishing a long term bond in cooperatively setting a precedent on how we farm for the future. With several years ahead of us to continue what we’ve learned in the Future Farms program and the commitment of another year of this program from Holistic Management, we’re anxious to take the next step in this program—mentoring the next group of farms coming into the program. sharing our experiences and being a support staff for the continued growth of sustainable agriculture in Rappahannock County and the land that supports us all is our goal for our second year. Mike Peterson can be reached at: mikepeterson83@hotmail.com. To learn more about HMI’s Future Farm’s program, contact Tracy Favre at tfavre@holisticmanagement.org. Photo credits all are: MollyMPeterson.com. Certified Educator Ian Mitchell-Innes from South Africa provided training on planned grazing at Mount Vernon Farm. Number 143
IN PRACTICE 5
Green Valley Farm—
Growing the Farm
Farrow to Finish
Right now the Driscolls are farming on 30 acres. However, a farm across the street may be available for them to double their operating base. If they can acquire it they will invest in fencing. “I tried just the one hot wire for the pigs, but they’re too smart,” says Heather. “They know when the fence is grounded out and when one gets out, they all get out. I’m not going to chase pigs through my neighbors anymore. We use the hog fencing with a hot wire to keep them from rooting underneath.” The Driscolls do a farrow to finish operation with one boar and 9 sows. Their farrowing set up is a 42 feet by 90 feet building with each farrowing area at 12 feet by 15 feet. They use woodchips and sawdust for the pigs to farrow in. The pigs are feed organic feed which is a combination of organic grain they purchase at their local co-op and composted fruits and vegetables from The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp (a non-profit summer camp founded by Paul newman for children with cancer and other serious illnesses) which is five-minutes down the road. They use no antibiotics and keep the animals on pasture as a part of their commitment to a quality product. “We take the pigs for slaughter and processing (packaging) to new York once a month,” says Heather. “It’s a one hour and 45 minute drive one way, but I love the facility. There is no facility that does it all in Connecticut, and they are great to work with.”
by ANN ADAMS
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eather and Daniel Driscoll began farming in 2007 at Green Valley Farm in eastford, Connecticut. At that time it was a homestead operation where they raised a few pigs for themselves and family. “It was a lot of work, but we wanted to raise a heritage breed and be able to sell a quality product,” says Heather. “We chose the Berkshire breed because of the great meat quality and how gentle and non-aggressive they are. They’re really great moms.” That commitment to a great product and the desire to make a full-time living from farming is what brought Heather into HMI’s Beginning Women Farmer in 2011.
“I saw an advertisement about the program through northeast organic Farming Association (noFA) in Connecticut,” says Heather. “We have a landscaping and tree removal business and I knew that any business that wants to be viable needs a business plan. The Beginning Women Farmer course would help me create that business plan and be successful.” “I was frustrated when people would tell me you can’t make a living farming. My grandparents raised 7 kids on the profit they created from their dairy farm. I believe you just need to be a good businessperson if you want to be a successful farmer. That’s why I participated in the program.”
Growing the Business After working the kinks out of the system, the Driscolls started to sell to the general public in 2008. They started with a handful of customers. By 2010, they had about 30-40 customers which included organic grocery stores, the University of Connecticut, and some restaurants. Their primary marketing strategy was by word of mouth. They have about a 50/50 split between retail and wholesale customers. But to grow the farm, Heather knew she had to push the marketing. “I really like my retail customers. These people come to the farm with their kids and it’s a great experience
for everyone,” says Heather. “We had 50 pigs in 2011 and we are planning on doubling that to 100 for 2012. We can increase the production so we are working to get all of the products sold.” To address this marketing weak link, Heather worked with Beginning Women Farmer Program mentor, emily Brooks, on her marketing plan. In particular, they focused on gaining clientele from the internet, through their website and social networking. “The marketing is really paying off. We can begin to pay ourselves the wages we want for our work,” says Heather. “I worked as a paralegal before and was making $30/hour. I need to think about making that same wage as a farmer.” “The program really helped me to get a handle on the numbers. You’ve got to be clear about the numbers so you know what you can or can’t do. We were originally thinking about getting into breeding and doing feeder pigs. The good news was we would be able to get rid of the product quickly. Taking the pigs all the way to finish was more of commitment, but when we did the numbers we saw how much more profitable that was. selling them as feeder pigs cut into the profit and just wasn’t worth it.” “I also used to breed horses, but I stopped that because that enterprise was eating into overall farm profit. once I separated out the different farm enterprises, I realized I needed to get rid of the horse breeding enterprise. now I keep a few horses for myself, but I know what it costs me.”
Heather and Daniel Driscoll with children, Megan, Riley, and Gavin. 6 IN PRACTICE
May / June 2012
Growing the Market Heather sells her meat retail through her delivery service and on-farm sales. “I charge a delivery fee, and it does require some additional time,” says Heather. “I feel it’s important to meet the customer and provide them multiple opportunities to sample our products. If they want to avoid the delivery fee, they can come to the farm. I let them know this is a Connecticut farm that has produced this product.” The Driscolls are planning on expanding their on-farm sales by building a farm store with set hours so people can stop and purchase their products more easily. “We currently have six 20 cubic-feet freezers, and we’re in the process of getting a walk-in freezer,” says Heather. “I’d like to have all of my inventory sold as soon as it is processed, and we’re getting there. We’re at half right now. We were invited to an area farmer’s market, but I’ve been able to sell it all through my current channels so I had to decline the offer.” “I’m looking at starting a meat CsA to help with getting the rest of my product sold. I’d like
The advantages of fresh air for animal health on pasture and forest-raised pigs.
Making Better Decisions— One At a Time by DON CAMPBELL
to start a co-op with other farmers in the area so we can all supply the different meats to round out the CsA. This type of cooperation is the only way we farmers are going to make it work, by standing together.” Currently Heather is charging an average of $5.50/lb wholesale for her products. she had been selling at $8/lb retail, but noticed that even the conventionally grown bacon at the grocery Berkshire sows make great mothers. store was selling for $7/lb. “I began to wonder if I wasn’t charging enough for my product given that I’m selling this incredibly healthy and tasty product grown locally for only a little more than for a conventionally produced product,” says Heather. Heather still is doing the marketing work for the family’s landscaping business, but she is working on the business plan for the farm so they can sell the landscaping business and devote themselves full-time to the farm. “We’re still in startup mode,” says Heather. “We are investing in infrastructure and doing the return on investment analysis to figure out what we need to do now and what will pay for itself quickly. The next step is to improve our grazing planning and do the analysis on whether we want to grow our own grain on our expanded land base. We now have the increased business to invest in that infrastructure. Because of the program, we have had a $20,000 increase in gross revenue.” With the Driscolls’ focus on good business planning, Green Valley Farm is moving toward being a steady supplier of premium Berkshire pork products and an integral part of the local food system in Connecticut. Heather can be reached at: driscoll.h@gmail.com
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e all know that the basis of Holistic Management is to make better decisions. However, knowing this and doing it can be two different things. The start of a new year filled with opportunity and challenge might be an ideal time to refine and improve our decision making. We can be confident that the better our decision making, the better our year will be. It’s up to us. The testing questions are designed to break our decision making down into small easy to take steps. By the end of the process we should be confident that we have covered all the bases and that our decision will be a good one. In fact it will be the best one for that moment in time given the current situation and our knowledge and skills. When you follow this up with monitoring, we can have extreme confidence in our decision making. If you are having trouble using the testing questions, or if you are not using them at all, it may be that you are not clear on what you are actually trying to test. When the question is clear, the testing tends to go quite smoothly. Making decisions becomes easier if you focus on one decision at a time. so often we are trying to make a decision, and we let secondary points cloud and confuse the process. let me give you a personal example. Just recently we were deciding where and how to winter our bulls. The primary decision was: should we bale graze the bulls or feed them every 3 or 4 days. The decision was going nowhere. The discussion soon evolved toward water concerns, bedding, time, excess residual and location. We were confused and making no progress. one of our team members suggested “let’s make one decision at a time." We tried this and it became amazingly easy and simple. Bale grazing was the most economical way to winter the bulls. We had unanimous agreement. As we tested the other issues such as water, bedding, time, excess residual and location, we were able to come up with a good decision for each concern, one at a time. Don Campbell is a Holistic Management Certified Educator who ranches in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada. He can be reached at: doncampbell@sasktel.net.
The farrowing facility the Driscolls developed as they increased their production. Number 143
IN PRACTICE 7
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Maximizing Spring Green Up Without Destroying Summer Pastures by GREG JUDY
O
ne of the toughest grazing management periods for livestock producers is spring green-up. It offers all kinds of challenging variables. It is hard to imagine a more optimistic feeling when everything is turning green after a long dreary winter of brown. The buds of the trees are starting to form, flocks of robins grace our pastures, green grass is inching up out of the ground, geese are flying back north, buzzards are coming back, turkeys gobbling. The earth is waking up from its deep winter sleep. The ground is no longer freezing at night; the frog peepers are deafening the air with their happy chorus of songs. It is one of my favorite times of the year for sure. With early spring grazing we have to be extremely careful not to overgraze the young immature plants. You can choose to start grazing your plants early, before they have a chance to send down a strong root system. If you do this, just be prepared to possibly run out of grass when the summer heat comes accompanied by lower precipitation. We grazed our pastures early for many years, to keep the plants vegetative. The result was the same every year, we ran out of forage every summer when it got hot and dry. There simply was not an adequate root system under our plants and zero litter covering our soil surface. Folks, we are dealing with herbivores that eat plants. once we destroy our plant community by un-wise grazing practices, we are in
trouble. We may go broke or have a hobby of feeding animals purchased supplements. Beginning in 2006 we switched to Holistic Planned Mob grazing and begin focusing on the whole. We have learned that our farms are a whole complex web of life. Any action that you take on your farm affects “the whole,� so that guides us to be mindful of all management decisions we make every day.
Herd Management In 2011 we changed our spring green-up grazing practices based on some observations from the previous years. once the plants reached the boot stage (3-1/2 leaves), 10-12 inches of height, we busted our mob into two separate groups. The cows that were starting to calve made up one mob, and the second mob was made of yearlings, two year old grass-finished beeves and bulls. Why did we make two mobs? There are three reasons.
Calving We have 11 grazing farms that are spread across five miles. eight of those farms are leased, and three farms are owned. We walk animals to the next farm when we finish grazing the previous farm. With cows calving and baby calves in the mob, it was tough to walk them 5 miles and not leave a new calf behind. I now want to discuss the results of this management change that we implemented. By separating the cows that were calving, it sure made life easier during calving season by not having to walk them down the road 5 miles. The cows are now completely calved on five connecting farms without major road cattle drives. It has made calving season a real pleasure. We always leave the gates open when we move the mob into the next pasture during calving season. some of the time, the new mother cow will move with the mob and leave her new calf behind. With the gate left open, cows can go back and gather their calf without any stress. If you move the mob from one end of your farm to the other to begin your grazing rotation over again, always leave a temporary poly-braid travel lane in place to allow the cow to gather her calf. This temporary lane also allows the cow to stay behind with her new calf when you move the mob. When she feels like it is safe and less hectic, she will leisurely bring her new calf up to the new paddock. Also by leaving this temporary lane up, we have never had cows go back to the old paddock unless they had left their calf.
Increasing Mass Here is Greg’s mid March grazing picture with cattle on quality stockpile. This allows them to stay off their new spring grass until it reaches the 3 1/2 leaf stage. This sets up their pastures for the entire growing season. 8
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By having the second mob in the spring it allowed us to get over the whole farm quicker when plants were reaching maturity. It also gave us more tillering of the plants. Any time you take a trimming off the plant,
you get more tillering of leaves from the parent plant. This added more mass to our forage base. Plant spacing is now much closer together. The tighter plant spacing in our pasture swards will allow even higher stocking rates in the future.
Level of Energy This allowed us to capture the highest level of energy in the plant tips, right when the plants were reaching maturity. The cows only took one bite of the plant tip and were moved. We were completely focused on animal performance first and foremost during our first grazing pass across our farms. To get over our farms quickly after the plants were close to maturity required reducing the livestock density. We were not focused on density or trampling, just capturing high energy plant tips. The animal health absolutely exploded in both mobs. The cows slicked off all their winter hair coat immediately and started packing on weight. The stockers, bulls and grass finishers did the same. one surprising development that occurred was how quickly the near mature plants recovered by only having one bite removed from their leaf tip. not only did we get maximum animal performance from the complete diet of high energy plant tips, we also got maximum plant recovery after being lightly grazed. Then things got really interesting as spring progressed. our pastures in front of us that had not been grazed yet were setting mature seed heads. We had a decision to make, keep grazing like we were doing or stop and return to where we started grazing in the spring. The first paddock that we started on in the spring was already fully recovered in 25 days. These plants needed to be grazed right now to capture the energy at its fullest. The decision was made to ignore the farms that were not grazed yet and return to the first paddock that we started the spring grazing at. It would have been nice to wave a magic wand and have extra cows appear out of thin air to eat all the grass in front of us to help us control the abundance of forage!
Summer Drought Insurance We just acted like we did not have the un-grazed pastures. In other words they were allowed to fully re-cover to their mature growth stage. All roots under these plants had 100% stored reserves of carbohydrates. This is the exact stage of production where I believe most folks make a drastic mistake. They fire up the hay mower or bush hog and clip off the excess plant growth to bring the plant back to a growing stage. Very bad idea; bank the extra forage. We just looked at these areas as summer drought insurance if we needed it. little did we know what type of weather pattern was coming right at us early last summer. Walt Davis has replied many times, “Manage your grass like you are in a drought every day.” Pretty sage advice from a very successful rancher, I believe. Major drought hit in late June 2011 in central Missouri. There was a drought line that extended into our area of central Missouri that had the major effects on Texas, oklahoma and kansas. Rain would go north and south of us every week, much like an umbrella being placed over the farm. extremely hot temperatures continued through the summer and fall without any precipitation. It literally saved our grazing operation by having all those farms that we left un-grazed and the remaining farms lightly grazed in the spring for our summer and fall drought reserve. There were some darn exciting developments that we encountered in the drought of 2011 that I will cover once we exit the drought. As of February 2012, we have received 5 inches of rain since June 2011. Mother nature will throw us a curve ball from time to time. That is what makes grazing very challenging and exciting; we must stay focused on what is happening on the land every day. The quicker we respond to adverse growing conditions, the less negative the impact will be on our land, personal stress level and pocketbook. We can do it folks, let’s keep our eyes on what nature is telling us daily and manage accordingly.
Planned Mob Grazing— A Tool to Improve Pastureland by HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
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he term mob grazing is often used to describe short duration high-intensity grazing—with many cattle on a small area of pasture, moved once a day or even several times a day to a new section of pasture. This is a vague term, however, and not everyone has the same definition when they think about mob grazing. Mark Brownlee, a Missouri cattleman near lowry City, says some people try it and then think it doesn’t work. “It does work, but it has to be done right.”
Finding Mentors He began mob grazing out of necessity. “In the spring of 2008 when fertilizer went to $1000 per ton and fuel went to $4 a gallon, I knew I had to make some changes, but I didn’t know what. I worked for the soil and Water District and we’d sat around the office and discussed all kinds of options. We had a grazing meeting planned, with Greg Judy as a speaker. I’d read some of his articles in the Stockman GrassFarmer but I hadn’t thought much about them. He had some interesting pictures but I just thought someone is always doing something new and exotic,” says Brownlee. “Greg came on a saturday and as an employee of the soil and Water District I thought I should at least attend. By noon I had a page of notes and stayed for the whole day. I wondered if this guy was for real, so afterward I did a lot of research and reading—checking things out on the internet and reading all the old issues of the Stockman GrassFarmer, and anything else I could find to read. And I talked to anybody I could find to talk to on this subject,” says Brownlee. “Doug Peterson (in Missouri) and I used to work together and even though he left our office a long time ago we’d kept in contact. He was always my personal grazing expert. I called Doug and we had a long talk. He knew some people who had tried the mob grazing and thought it worked, but he also knew just as many people who had tried it and had a wreck. I asked him, ‘If I give my cows enough to eat every day, to meet their needs, does it matter how many times I move the fence?’ He said no, but make sure you feed those cows enough. This is exactly what Greg Judy CONTINUED ON PAGE 10
Greg Judy farms in Missouri and can be reached at: gtjudyhighdensity@live.com. Number 143
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Planned Mob Grazing
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emphasized in his talks, too, and I think that’s the key,” says Brownlee. The mistake a lot of people make is that they have the stock density, but shortchange the cattle. “They are not calculating it like they should. You can still get the density, but you do that with more moves,” he says.
On Farm Research He started his grazing program May 5, 2008. This year is his 4th growing season. He mob grazes on 450 acres of his own, and 100 adjoining acres of his dad’s grazing land, where he does mob grazing with cows in partnership with his dad. “I also have cows in another partnership where we don’t mob graze. I wanted some comparable groups. I wanted to prove that it would work, or not work. As an employee of the soil and Water District, where we do grazing systems and help people with grazing systems, I knew there were other folks in the same boat. I did not set out to prove that this did work. I just wanted to prove it one way or the other,” he explains. “I move 2 sets of cows, twice a day (for comparison), and have other cows in a continuous grazing system, in a partnership where I don’t have any other grazing choice. But this helps me compare the same kind of cows and compare animal performance. so that’s how I got started doing this,” says Brownlee.
Results Pay Off He used to feed about 5 big round bales per cow per winter. “now I am down to one bale or less per cow. I figure it saved me $100 per cow last year. This year it will probably save me more than that because hay prices are higher. I used to buy fertilizer every year, but the last time I put on fertilizer of any kind was in the spring of 2008, and that was only because I had prepaid it,” he says. “I am still running the same number of cows—actually a few more. I have not tried to increase my cow numbers dramatically. I am a big believer in thinking it’s better to have too much grass than not enough. I have friends who I would call excellent grazers who would argue that point. They feel a person is better off to stock the pasture fully and then get rid of cows if you get in trouble. Most people get in trouble and then start getting rid of cows, and they are behind the curve. I don’t like to be behind the curve or behind the eight ball,” he says. He likes to play it safe and feel comfortable that he’ll always have enough grass. “That’s just a lot easier, and stress-free for me. This summer we had the driest summer I’ve seen since 1980. I have grazed all the way through it. some land owners near me have fed hay through a good part of the summer, and probably should have fed more than they did; you can tell that by looking at their cattle. But I am pleased with my situation. I have a built-in stockpile of feed for the summer, and also for winter. It’s been a life-saver for me,” says Brownlee. “I have warm season grasses coming into my pastures, where I have not had any—on the same farm I’ve grazed for 20 years. They are coming in like crazy, and I didn’t plant them.” The conditions now are better for a variety of species. The land and vegetation is a lot healthier. “I have another farm I bought 5 years ago, that was primarily fescue. I don’t have as much diversity on it. But on the farm I’ve had for 20 years, last fall in my most diverse pasture I counted species and came up with over 50 kinds of plants. It hurts us a little bit in the winter because we rely heavily on fescue fall regrowth. If you have that many species it means you have less fescue, and have some plants that are not regrowing. so it hurts me a little then, but I think it’s a good trade-off. 10
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Having the diversity in the summer is extremely important for animal performance. It offers the cattle maximum ability to be selective in their diet,” he explains. “Doug Peterson says that we should have 100 species in a pasture. I don’t argue with that, but I am happy with 50. Most people would drive by my pasture and think it’s a mess, but I like it,” says Brownlee. His advice for people who want to try mob grazing is to find someone who has done it successfully and learn from them, or someone who knows how to accurately measure forage—like the local nRCs office. Then concentrate on animal performance. Monitor the cattle closely and keep a fine-tuned feel on what they are doing. “Monitor the cattle every day. If you see some that are losing weight, or are not quite full when you move them, you need to change what you are doing,” he says. “If there isn’t forage left over, that they could have grazed, then you didn’t move them often enough. It’s better to ‘waste’ a little, and move them a little quicker than you would have had to. You can sacrifice a little stock density and keep animal performance up,” he explains.
Rethink Waste over the long term, this gives payback in increased soil fertility and pasture production. We have to rethink ideas about waste. “When I started studying this and researching this idea, I already had some animal performance issues I was dealing with, and I didn’t want any more. This had to work. I studied it hard, and I was scared to death that I might do something that would become a disaster, and I didn’t need that.” He found that when he studied the soils, the soil life, plants, and the animals and wildlife, all the pieces fit now. “They didn’t used to. I worked a long time for the soil and Water District and was around a lot of people who dealt with soils and animal health, and things just didn’t fit together—but they do now. When you look at it from a holistic viewpoint, everything works. It finally made sense to me.” “The only way to have a lot of plant diversity that includes native prairie species is to have long rest periods. That means we will be grazing mature, fully recovered forage. My rest periods are often over 120 days,” says Brownlee.
Focus on Animal Performance “I went to a seminar that Greg Judy and Ian Mitchell-Innes put on in 2008, and Walt Davis was there. Walt made a comment that really helped me. He said that if you do this, and you don’t improve animal performance, you are doing it wrong. That was a profound statement for me, because I’d been scared to death that I was going to do something that would hurt me. When Walt said that, I realized that by trying mob grazing I was on the right track.” Mark’s seen many people get excited about this and start doing it, and have disasters. “I think that’s very unfortunate, because it doesn’t have to be that way. It takes commitment to move the cattle often, but I think growing up on a dairy farm probably helped prepare me for this. I was used to having chores morning and evening. This was not a new concept to me,” he says.
Forty Minutes “I don’t know where we got into the idea that farming should be just working when we feel like it. Is this a business or not? If you treat it like it’s not, you probably won’t get as much out of it. one of the guys at work kept asking me how long it takes me to move my cows. I didn’t
Cutting Inputs
Photo on left shows how nearby continuous grazed pastures are a stark contrast to Mark’s pastures. Photo on right shows an explosion of warm season grasses on Mark's farm since he implemented high stock density with long recovery periods. Both pictures were taken at the same time. know, so one day I timed it. I went from my house across the pasture, about a quarter of a mile, and moved a quarter mile of front fence and a quarter mile of back fence and drove back to the house, and the whole thing took me 20 minutes. I do 2 sets per day,” says Brownlee. “I don’t see it as a big issue. I have people tell me they can’t move their cows every day. I ask them how often they go look at their cows. They tell me they see their cows every day so I ask why they don’t move them. It wouldn’t take much longer. It’s just a big deal in their minds, but once they start doing it, they like it. They find the time. Most people spend that much time in the coffee shop or in front of the TV.” He markets his calves as weanlings (8 to 10 months old) and takes them to a sale barn. “eventually I may try to do more, carrying some over another year and grass finishing them. At this point I’ve just focused on the one thing, making the mob grazing work. I’m taking it one step at a time,” he says.
Through the Minefield “I didn’t have anyone to show me how to do this, except Greg Judy, and he lives 4 hours away. I had to do a lot on my own, through trial and error and observation. I thank God for Doug, because he came and checked on me fairly regularly, to make sure I didn’t get off on the wrong foot. He was a great help. I also read all the articles written by Greg Judy, Ian Mitchell-Innes, and neil Dennis. The best way to go through a mine-field is to follow someone else who did it successfully. That’s been my attitude. You can find plenty of people who failed at it, but I’m not really interested in what they do. I want to follow the ones who blazed the trail and made it work.”
Growing in a Drought Many people have heard about it, but they haven’t seen it or tried it, so it’s a learning process. “I was recently at a soil and Water District meeting and we were talking about grazing. I said something about moving my fence the night before and they said, ‘You still have grass? It must have rained more at your place!’ It didn’t rain on my neighbors. They are feeding hay. one neighbor asked one of my boys if we still had cows. He hadn’t seen any cows for awhile and he’d seen the pastures.” The pastures looked like they weren’t being grazed because they looked so good. “That made me feel pretty good! It’s been interesting and it’s been fun. I’ve spent my whole life on a farm. We’ve had hogs, milk cows, row crops, the whole gamut, and this has been the most interesting and rewarding thing I’ve ever done on the farm. I feel like I am finally making progress. I have pastures that I’ve grazed for years and years and now I see them suddenly changing and improving, and I didn’t have to buy a lot of inputs to do it,” says Brownlee.
“You go to sales meetings and feed salesmen’s meetings and they are always wanting to sell me something to improve things, but I’d have to buy something. With this grazing system I don’t have to buy anything. All I had to do was think. But a lot of people don’t want to change what they have always done.” You usually don’t see mob grazing being promoted by academia. “They often tell people it won’t work—that it won’t do this or that, or you can’t do this. It’s unfortunate because the universities are the ones saying we must cut input costs. But they need to give more answers on how to do that. What are we going to cut out? If they don’t have an answer to that, they have no business in the argument. I have cut my inputs to bare-bones minimum and I have no idea how I could have done it any other way. If anyone has a better idea, I am open to it, but this sure beat what I was doing earlier,” says Brownlee. A version of this article was first published in the stockman Grassfarmer. Mark Brownlee can be contacted at: mark.brownlee@mo.nacdnet.net.
What Do We Do Now?
by PEGGY SECHRIST
t’s likely that you heard the news that Texas had their worst drought ever in recorded history during 2011. surrounding states also experienced unprecedented drought conditions. According to the U.s. Drought Monitor, 38% of the contiguous U.s. was still classified as experiencing moderate to exceptional drought at the end of January 2012. In Texas, the scramble is on to secure, if possible, a reliable water source. The news is all about water conservation technologies as well as water rights. It’s quickly shaping up to be a fight. so what do we do now? I’m going to say it’s a perfect opportunity to holistically manage our land. And in Texas, where we are mostly privately owned property with 92.6 million acres categorized as native rangeland, we can either gear up for the fight or we can join up for the challenge to manage our soils for increasing organic matter, to decrease bare ground, to increase forage species diversity all which improves rainfall capture, infiltration and water retention in the best “reservoir” imaginable—the earth. All of this can be done free, and even improve the economic conditions of the landowners who participate. landowners can team up with nRCs to monitor soil conditions and adjust management practices. My friend, Dr. Richard Teague, Range ecologist with Texas Agrilife Research in Vernon, Texas published in 2011 the results of a nine-year research project measuring the impacts on vegetation and soils from three different grazing management strategies as well as an ungrazed area. The research concluded that “multipaddock grazing improves vegetation, soil health and animal production relative to continuous grazing in large-scale ranches.” Relative to our current water crisis, Dr. Teague is quoted to say, “The fungal/bacterial ratio was highest with multi-paddock grazing as a result of the greater amounts of tall grass species indicating superior water-holding capacity and nutrient availability and retention.” To see Dr. Teague’s research go to: http://agrilife.org/today/ 2011/06/15/agrilife-research-multi-paddock-grazing-is-superior-tocontinuous-grazing/
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Number 143
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Managing Complexity— Learning To Use Planned Grazing on the Wilson Farm by TORRAY WILSON
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y family farms in northwest Iowa, and we receive approximately 26-30 inches of rain annually with the majority of that coming in the summer growing months of April-september. We have approximately 150 days between the last frost and the first frost. Most of the farms in our area consist of corn and soybeans along with confinement feeding operations of hogs, chickens, and beef. The cow-calf enterprises are mostly limited to the marginal ground along streams and rivers. My parents, my brother, and my wife, erin, and I are all active in the daily activities of the farm. We manage around 420 acres of rented land (rented from family) and 80 acres of owned land that is being transitioned to certified organic production.
Cattle and sheep mow down thistle when put to the task.
Implementing the Practices Mother Knows Best My exposure to Holistic Management came through my mother; she came across Holistic Management in the 1990s while looking for a better way to make decisions with my father and his brother, who were farming in a partnership at the time. I was away at college when she read the book, but she shared much of what she was reading with us. However, that was pretty much all that we did with it. By 2006 a lot of things had changed. My dad was farming by himself after his brother decided to quit in 2004. I had just finished my bachelor’s degree and was gung ho to come home and farm. Certified educator Terry Gompert was offering Holistic Management training that winter and spring and my mother signed us up for the Introduction and Financial Planning sections. By this time I had read portions of the textbook but still found the discussion about wholes and holistic goals confusing. Terry’s training was wonderful and we came away with a “temporary” holistic goal and an image of what we wanted to happen on our farm/whole that we managed. After taking the Holistic Management course we realized that we wanted to see the ground covered and be more reliant on livestock that thrived on perennial grasslands and not annual crops.
Soil testing by Practical Farmers of Iowa shows the Wilson farm as having some of the healthiest soils in Iowa due to their grazing planning. 12
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May / June 2012
I became interested in managed grazing when I was in 8th grade. At that time I began managing some marginal crop ground that had been seeded down to grass because it tended to flood. I was just learning about management intensive grazing principles and grazing rotations at that time. By the time I took the planned grazing part of Holistic Management in 2007 I knew I needed something different in my grazing system. I was not seeing the longevity in my pastures, thistles were beginning to be a problem, and I needed something to handle the complexity of grazing and animal impact, as well as maintaining animal performance and utilizing crop residues. I was also questioning intensive short rotations (20-40 days recovery). After taking the planned grazing course I had the tool I was missing to manage the complexity of grazing and multi-species grazing. so from 2007 on I began learning how to make and implement grazing plans. erin and I have a good working relationship with my parents so we are able to share the land base between row crops and livestock. erin and I created our own “whole” to help us manage our portion of the farm, but our goals dovetail right into my brother and parents’ goal. our resources include personal connections to people, colleges, businesses, and government agencies from both sides of Iowa and surrounding states. For money we have income from livestock and crops, skills (artificial insemination of cattle, sheep shearing, pottery, organic inspecting) and various savings accounts and banks. For livestock we have our “Mob” consisting of beef cows, dairy cows, wool and hair sheep, and a small laying hen flock, equaling 80-190 sAU depending on how long the calves and lambs stay on the farm or if we have a custom grazing herd or not. The cattle and sheep are almost equally split. All of the ground we farm is prime number one farm ground, with organic matter ranging from 4-5%. My key learnings from our grazing implementations are: 1) For the past 4 years I have made an open plan and for the past 2 years I have made a closed season plan. It is becoming more apparent that the open plan feeds off of the closed plan and vise versa. 2) next time I will plan for grazing year round, but include the hay ground in the paddocks available so that I don’t let my stocking rate outpace forage production. 3) To turn crop ground into pasture I now see that it is much easier to purchase hay with seed in it than to till and plant seed. The several experiments that I have done with unrolling mature hay over bare spots
in pastures have resulted in 90-100% ground cover. 4) There is an interconnected relationship between all of the planning procedures and I wish I had made that connection sooner because it would have helped me make better decisions on stocking rate and seed purchases. 5) I should not have been so optimistic on the ability of row crop ground to produce forage. extra forage needs to be present before stocking rate is increased. 6) I enjoy making the open season plan, but have struggled to use it to its full capacity. Rainfall data I find hard to track on the chart because of the small space on the chart and the numerous rain events that we have almost every year. It is a constant chore remembering and writing down rainfall. However this chore has become much easier Large amounts of litter were created by the mob with this annual cocktail forage mix. with the addition of the grazing planning software. The first 3 plans I made were more like a fancy record keeping system rather than a plan. This I pastures and to build a drought reserve. believe is one of my problems with grazing planning. I seldom follow the The best thing about planned grazing has been the ability to plan out steps in the order they are presented in the handbook, hence the reason all of the events in the year whether it is livestock or human related. why I run into confusion and mistakes in the data and compilation at the We have been gone a fair amount with training and other events, and end of the year. However I think I needed to go through that to see why planned grazing has allowed us to be prepared to leave the farm with the steps are in the order that they are in. This year I have been minimal stress on the family members and the livestock while we are rereading the Holistic Management Handbook and following the design away. Also being able to control weeds like Canadian thistle and of the grazing planning manual. It has been good and much less cockleburs has been greatly helped. Where we have failed to follow the confusion is occurring. even though I have not used the grazing plan has been where infrastructure was lacking and moving livestock from planning process perfectly, the planning has proven very useful in one paddock/field to the next required extra labor and time to make it controlling the movement of livestock and management of livestock happen and that was not taken into account when the plan was created. events, and personal events. now I feel insecure if I don’t have a so a connection to land planning was made and we are in the process of grazing plan. Grazing planning gives me a bird’s eye view of where putting that together so that infrastructure issues can be addressed. everything should go and if my stocking rate The year 2010 was extremely wet during the open season (but it was will match what will probably be grown in the open season. warmer than 2009), and several paddocks experienced flooding. one paddock experienced several weeks of constant flooding right after Adaptive Grazing being grazed, and it destroyed the plants that were growing. earthworms We have been successful at integrating crop residues into our and much of the soil life died for lack of oxygen. grazing plan, but have struggled to get enough animal impact and We used some animal impact along with some unrolled hay bales on grazing to prepare seedbeds for the next growing season, other than the drowned out paddock to try and stimulate establishment of new where we grazed off crops that were too weedy to harvest as a grain plants. To keep the livestock on track for the year we used 6 hay bales crop. We still tend to use tillage to make the final seedbed preparation. and 1 road ditch to gain back the grazing days we lost due to the I am hopeful that in the future we will use more and more animal labor in flooding. Also, production in other paddocks offset the lack of production our cropping especially as we implement more intercropping and cover in those paddocks. cropping into our crop enterprises. It is wonderful to have the crop residues to graze to extend the recovery period on the perennial CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
The flooding of 2010 created challenges for the Wilsons. But with grazing planning they were able to make up lost grazing in those areas with other grazing areas and increased productivity in other areas. Number 143
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Managing Complexity
continued from page thirteen
Productivity Gain I don’t know if we have really seen an increase in production based on animal days per acre harvested, but I do see us gaining on the amount of litter we are putting down and the extension of the grazing period into what has normally been a stored feed period. grazing Productivity
Average AD
No. of Acres
total AD harvested
Est. total AD Produced based on residual
2007 2008 2009 2010
216.45 146.98 192.42 162.77
103 176.2 216.5 257.5
22,295 25,898 41,659.63 41,913.76
22,295 25,898 41,659.63 83,827.52
In 2007 the recorded average ADA (Animal Days an Acre) was 216.45 and 22,295 total ADs off of 103 acres. This did not include the closed season because the forage was used up by the time the closed season came around. no closed plan was created. In 2008 the average ADA dropped to only 146.98 and 25,898 ADs off of 176.2 acres. However 6117.4 ADs were harvested in the closed season or 23% of total ADs produced. The drop in ADA’s was due to including crop residues in the calculations, and we grazed paddocks that were just getting established and did not have much production. In 2009 the average ADA was 192.42 with a total of 41,659.63 ADs produced off of 216.5 acres. The open season of 2009 was abnormally cool (only 3 days above 90 degrees) and damp and the closed season recorded the most snowfall we had seen in 20+ years. so the utilization in ADA’s was a bit disappointing on many of the paddocks. It was about 50 ADs lower than we had planned for. The heavy snowfall prevented most of the grazing in the closed season, so closed season ADs were only 12% (4999 ADs) of total ADs harvested. Because of the adverse weather conditions we did not have enough of a drought reserve, and we had not created a way to have a flexible stocking rate and were forced to decide between buying feed or selling sheep. However because we had our grazing plan I knew how much feed we would need to buy or how many sheep we would need to sell to
Multi-species grazing means better utilization of forage and a more diverse and resilient income stream. make it to the next growing season. In the end it was easy to see that selling sheep passed the testing questions the best. In 2010 we grazed everything using one herd. We had a good growing season with lots of rain events and good heat units. since we had combined all of our herds into one mob it was a lot simpler to manage the grazing. The data seems to show a decrease in ADAs with the average ADA at 162.77 and a total of 41,913.76 AD’s harvested from 257.5 acres. However, we actually had stockpiled forage on 80 acres that we were able to ration out until snow cover became too great (Jan. 8th). We were able to continue grazing in the early spring as the snow melted and more stockpile was uncovered. We also had a drought reserve in hay and stockpile to use this spring as the new growth began to come on. It was the most stress-free closed season I have had in a very long time. Although the utilization may have gone down I actually think we put half of our production back onto the soil surface. I wish I had a biological monitoring sheet to show the difference in litter that we were able to put down last year. The long rest periods and the single herd are probably the biggest factors in producing the litter. The performance of the animals did not suffer even though they were grazing more mature and less palatable forage. In fact, we had better performance than 2009. We were able to achieve minimum recovery periods of 70 days on the perennial pastures with most of the recovery periods in the 80-90 day range. Precipitation was tracked, significant growth was marked in the spring, the volume taken from each paddock was recorded and the severity of the grazing was recorded.
Challenges of Herds
Determined to address the issue of how to integrate their dairy cows into their one multi-species herd, the Wilsons developed a portable milking parlor so they can milk their cows out on pasture. 14
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For the growing season of 2009 we used one planning sheet to record multiple herds (between 2 and 4 herds at different times of the year). What a huge learning curve that was. First of all, the grazing cell was 282.5 acres, with about 1/3 of that in row crops. The residue was available at select times for grazing (usually in the closed plan which ended up not becoming available at the time we had planned for because of snow fall). The stocking rate was 2.1 acres /sAU and the desired recovery periods were 40-75 days. We did not implement “one herd” in 2009. We did run the beef cattle with our sheep, but still ran our dairy cows separate. The fourth herd was the dairy calves. I had fenced most of our pastures for sheep before we got cattle, so very little extra fencing was required. With the sheep alone we were finding it hard to graze down taller more mature pasture. so the addition of cattle was a big help in utilizing the more mature
build a portable milking system. Concerns were raised, but none that creativity could not overcome. We had dairy cattle, finishing dairy steers, dairy yearling heifers and steers, cow/calf pairs, and sheep all in one herd, all moving as one mob. only one water point to take care of! What a difference one herd has made. We figure it takes 1 hour per herd per day, thus it saved us between 2-4 hours a day. We still implemented a leader-follower system to some extent with the dairy herd by milking once in the morning and then turning them back in with their calves during the day. Then in the evening calling the dairy cows out of the mob and into the paddock for tomorrow morning’s grazing period. By running only one herd we also had zero predator problems with our sheep even when they were lambing. one herd definitely helped our workload and stress level. One-herd means less fencing (labor costs) which leads to reduced stress and improved profit.
Many Benefits
so in looking back at where we have come from and where it appears we are heading, it is amazing to me how much of a difference forage that our 40-75 day rest period brought. Plus, the cattle added holistic planned grazing has made. Within our family there is a peace another income stream, which strengthened our financial plan a lot. about the livestock because we know where they are going next and for We had no problems running our sheep with the beef cattle until how long. We also have a built in drought reserve so that if the weather we started to do ultra high density grazing. At over 500,000#/acre we does not do what we think it should, we have already accounted for it. started to get sheep trampled, and we were ending up with broken legs. I can easily share with my family where the “mob” needs to be and for The trampling was happening when we would turn into a new paddock. how long, and we can plan out when To rectify this issue, we had to be and where extra labor may be needed. careful not to let the mob get hungry. As a result we can leave the farm Backing off to 150,000# saved the more easily. issue too. “After taking the planned grazing By moving the livestock frequently Another observation was that the course I had the tool I was missing (every 12-24 hrs) and reducing the labor for taking care of more than one of herds the livestock have herd was causing us to not have enough to manage the complexity of grazing number tamed down and it is easier to observe time to watch our animals the way we their health and to know if the plan is wanted, and the work of managing 4 and multi-species grazing.” meeting their needs which has in turn fence moves and two water tanks every helped our financial plan by lowering day was driving us crazy. We kept the our vet bills. Planned grazing has also dairy cows separate the whole season decreased our need for purchased feed to almost nothing, which has and found that they did a very poor job as a herd by themselves partly also helped our financial plan. because they were too small of a herd (16 sAUs) and also because Although we have not seen large increases in harvest production per dairy animals tend to be very calm. We could not get the excitement and acre, we know that it will happen at some point as we focus our grazing herd effect out of them that we could get with the sheep and beef cattle. planning to address the weak link in the ecosystem processes. The most With the beef cattle we could really trample down litter while with just drastic and amazing change has been to the soil health. our water cycle the sheep alone it was difficult to get them to trample down older plant is functioning as well as it has ever worked because of the litter and material. We are trying to build up the organic matter in our soil, so putting down litter to feed the soil biology is a big focus of our grazing increase in plants that are now covering the soil surface. We have been planning. Also because our farm has not been extensively developed for doing some soil quality testing through a grass roots farmer organization grazing, we had to use a lot of temporary fence, and we were getting called Practical Farmers of Iowa, and they have found our soil to be the stretched too thin on fencing infrastructure having 2-4 herds to fence for. best in the state. our shallow well, which supplies the farm the majority of its water, is much more reliable and the quality of the water has improved. We have Stress-Free Grazing very low levels of nitrates in our water because of all the plants that are When we began planning for 2010’s open plan we started thinking using them up before they get to our well. It has been an amazing about how we could manage things differently to move closer to our transformation to watch. quality of life statements. We thought about having one cell for each To graze without a grazing plan is not an option for us after using herd, or two herds in one cell in a leader/follower strategy. But none of it and seeing the results achieved with it. We spend more time doing the these options seemed to fit our desires for our land and ourselves, things that matter and less time doing things that don’t. Without Holistic namely more rest for the land and our bodies. We were stumped until Management we would not be where we are today, and we are much an ad in the Stockman Grass Farmer sparked our creativity. “Portable closer to where we want because of it. milking parlor” the ad said, so we gave them a call. We talked to the gentlemen that had posted the ad and found out how he had built his Torray Wilson is a Holistic Management Certified Educator who farms and got the general idea of what he was doing. With that information in near Paulina, Iowa with his wife Erin and the Wilson family. He can be our heads we tested and passed the decision to move to one herd and reached at: torray@gmail.com. Number 143
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HMI at Organic Conference n February Frank Aragona, HMI’s Director of Research and Development, attended the New Mexico organic Farming conference in Albuquerque. over 500 organic farmers, extension agents, and small businesses were in attendance. Topics of discussion were varied, with sessions on everything from seed production, to fire management, and plant pathology. Frank presented his research on the science of grazing. Included in this presentation were many topics that are familiar to readers of the “Data Mine” series—the serengeti as a model for grassland ecology, compensatory responses to grazing, and the Grazing optimization hypothesis were all presented as a part of a scientific endorsement for planned grazing.
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news from holistic management international
people, programs & projects
Canadian Conference a Success he 4th annual western canadian holistic Management conference was held in Yorkton, saskatchewan on February 21st and 22nd. There were over 200 delegates in attendance. The event was kicked off with a wine and cheese reception in which many delegates and speakers had the opportunity to network, connect and make new acquaintances. The conference began with a very comical and visionary session on making light of every day challenges. Arlene Jorgenson began the conference entertaining the delegates with audio visual problems in her presentation and even made light of that. wayne berry spoke to the conference on land management and the benefits that can be accomplished in good grazing management. roland Kroos, a well know Holistic Management Certified educator spoke on the importance of financial planning and his role in establishing working relationships with farms/operations that were in real trouble. He was able to discipline the managers of these operations and work with them until they were debt free. Joshua Dukart, another Holistic Management Certified educator from Hazen, north Dakota also spoke to the conference on Holistic Management as it refers to cropping management. He enlightened the crowd with Joshua Dukart cropping options, including spoke on Holistic cover crops and nutrient Cropping management planning. last, but not least, was David irvine who brought tears to everyone’s eyes during his presentations. His sensitivity, kind heart and unlimited ability to relate to a crowd of over 200 agricultural producers in the crowd were indescribable. His personal message of being able to stick to your goals and make sure that your purpose in life is in focus was truly an inspiration to all. of course the most popular sessions of the entire conference were the producer panels.
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This year the planning committee held two producer panels during the conference, in which one focused on intergenerational transfers and the other on converting to Holistic Management. Both sessions were indescribable in terms of the quality of producers who presented. Their stories were truly an inspiration to all. A special thank you to all those who participated, and a special thank you to the planning committee and to naomi Paley from the saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture.
Calling All Holistic Management Practitioners he Holistic Management community has a strong history of practitioners supporting and helping each other—either informally, or through Management Clubs and learning Circles. HMI is making it easier than ever to connect practitioners and Certified educators with farmers and ranchers that are new to Holistic Management. one of the most visited pages on our new website is our community map and directory and it includes a list of practitioners that are willing to share their experiences and knowledge, answer questions, and possibly host farm tours, etc. You do not have to be an “expert” on Holistic Management. even newbies can help and support each other. If you are willing to help others and want to be listed, please send an email to sandyl@ holisticmanagement.org or call sandy at 505/842-5252.
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David Irvine facilitated an intergenerational producer panel that was a big hit at the conference.
2012 Carbon Farming Course r. Ann Adams taught an Introduction to Holistic Management workshop to kick off an 18+ day Carbon Farming Course. over 400 people attended this course from 23 U.s. states and 8 countries. other workshops included keyline Farming with Darren Doherty, Perennial Agriculture with Wes Jackson and Dave Jacke, Tree Crops & Agroforestry with eric Toensmeier, living soils with Dr. elaine Ingham, Biochar with Jason Aramburu, and local Food systems with Joel salatin. This course was produced by Gaia northeast llC and sponsored by slow Money nYC and stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.
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In Memoriam t is with great sadness that HMI learned of the passing of long time Holistic Management practitioner Doc hatfield. Doc and his wife, Connie, founded the cooperative Country natural Beef that included the “Grazewell Principles” of good animal and land stewardship. The cooperative was founded in 1986 with 14 families and has grown to 100 families in 13 states. Doc died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 74 in sisters, oregon.
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From the Board Chair HMI Missouri Training Course n February, HMI was contracted by the greenhills Farm Project in northwest Missouri to provide a Holistic Management workshop. Frank Aragona, HMI’s Director of Research and Development, facilitated the workshop. For many small farms and ranches, the potential to add additional enterprises to the existing land base is an attractive and potentially profitable option. For that reason, the workshop agenda focused on exploring the following topics: pasture cropping, tree cropping, holistic decision making, and keyline design. The format for this workshop was participatory, and everybody contributed their knowledge and skills to the experience. Many of the participants indicated that they would be applying some of the ideas they learned during the workshop on their own farms.
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Canadian Tours UK anadian Holistic Management practitioner and grazing mentor, Neil Dennis, toured the United kingdom during the month of March to share Holistic Management and mob grazing with interested farmers there. north Yorkshire farmer David Hugill was responsible for bringing neil to the Uk because he thought that the grazing process had plenty to offer the Uk beef industry. of particular interest to these farmers was the 75% reduction in mineral consumption by neil’s cattle. Holistic Management practitioner and ranch consultant Gregg simonds was also part of the tour sharing his knowledge of the grazing planning process.
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by SALLIE CALHOUN
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s I have gotten older, I have become more aware of how important words, diversity, and relationships are in all the areas I work in. This has been resonating with me as I think about my engagement with Holistic Management this month. earlier this year I had the privilege of hosting Peter Holter, HMI Ceo, and Matt Parrack, HMI Director of Development, here in central California for a few days. We spent time with current HMI supporters and possible future collaborators, and it was really interesting for me to hear the resulting conversations. I was especially struck by how our new mission statement—To educate people to manage land for a sustainable future—resonated with both groups. one long-time supporter commented that with that statement we had clarified the important work that needed to be done. People just learning about HMI quickly understood what we are about and could see how our efforts and expertise might complement or enhance theirs. I felt that being able to lead with that statement got the conversation headed in the right direction and connected with people who share our passion for the land and the people who work it. one focus of the visit was the possible launch of a Beginning Women Farmer program in central California in 2013. Though there are a number of Holistic Management practitioners and Certified educators in the state, this would, as far as I know, be the first time that HMI has organized a significant program here. It is an exciting possibility to me for two reasons. First would be the opportunity to work with an amazing community of new women farmers and ranchers in this state, helping their operations to be more successful and sustainable. The second is the opportunity to use this program as a way to grow and energize the Holistic Management community here. The development of collaborators and funding sources will spread information about Holistic Management and HMI and develop relationships with other organizations. The diverse group of women who complete the program will form a new community of their own that should be connected in a variety of ways to our existing community. I have been thinking about the concept of community dynamics applied to groups of people. If we have people of all different ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, and interests involved we will be a more vibrant, healthier community, and a Beginning Women Farmer program is the perfect opportunity to get to work on that. Beginning farmers and ranchers can more easily “take root” if they can tap into communities of support. Just as a young oak tree can connect to the mycorrhizal fungi that connects huge networks of established oak trees to share nutrients and water, new farmers should be able to benefit from experience, assistance, land and capital in established networks. such a program would be one way to take up severine Fleming’s challenge from her article in the last IN PRACTICE which asked us to take the long view and support the newcomers, or greenhorns, in every way that we can. Also this month, I have been busily working to prepare for one of the highlights of my year, our annual Holistic Management workshop held at the Paicines Ranch. By the time you read this article, kirk Gadzia will have presented a 3-day workshop on goal setting, decision making, and land use planning, followed by a field day on managing and monitoring through drought. last year we had Ian Mitchell-Innes on holistic planned grazing, and we will complete the cycle next year with financial planning and biological monitoring. While the learning from the presenters is great, my real goal with these workshops is to create community. By coming together for 3 or 4 days, and spending time learning together, eating together, walking the land, and sitting around the campfire, we are all growing our web of relationships and creating a network that we can tap into to help us thrive. I am pleased this year that we will have a couple of young women farmers and some folks from the permaculture community joining us and that about half of our attendees were with us last year. I will let you know how it went in my next article. so, as I head off for my week of fun, learning, and relationship building, I encourage all of you to think about something you can do to support a young farmer or rancher or to build a connection with someone outside of your everyday network. It makes life more interesting, and it will make us all more successful. And if you live in California, think about getting involved with the upcoming Beginning Women Farmer Program. Number 143
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DEVELOPMENT CORNER Beginning Women Conference a Success he Beginning Women Conference: exploring Whole Farm Planning was a huge success. over 200 participants, including those traveling from as far away as Washington state, converged at the University of Massachusetts (UMAss) in Amherst, Massachusetts on March 22nd-23rd. Besides keynotes from tracy Favre, HMI’s Coo, tricia Park, Beginning Women Farmer Program participant and mentor, and Mary Peabody, University of Vermont extension and founder of Women’s Agricultural network, there were 28 breakout sessions covering a range of topic including a Holistic Management track. UsDA Deputy secretary Dr. Kathleen Merrigan also sent a special video of her speaking to the Beginning Women Farmer Program participants for the Beginning Women Farmer Conference. she expressed her support for more women farmers and noted the growing numbers of women farmers in the U.s. The conference coordinator for this event was Community Involved in sustaining Agriculture (CIsA). CIsA did a great job of sourcing local food for the menu and coordinating childcare as well as keeping things running smoothly at the conference. HMI, UsDA national Institute of Food and Agriculture Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (UsDA/nIFA BFRDP), and UMAss College of natural sciences and the Center for Agriculture co-sponsored this event as part of HMI’s UsDA/nIFA BFRDP grant. Thanks to all our sponsors, presenters, and participants for making this a great event!
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Vermont state coordinator, Jessie Schmidt, presented on permaculture and land planning as well as business planning.
Ellen Gibson presented a breakout session on Agrability, how to adapt farm practices for different levels of physical ability.
Tracy Favre spoke about Whole Farm Planning Success stories.
HMI’s Project Director, Ann Adams, presented a workshop on enterprise analysis.
May / June 2012
Mi is honored to receive a $50,000 grant from the Dixon Water Foundation. The Dixon water Foundation promotes healthy watersheds through sustainable land management to ensure that we have the water resources we need for now and for generations to come. The grant money is being used in support of our curriculum revision project. The project will update existing curriculum as well as create more on-line and distance learning courses in support of our mission to educate people to manage land for a sustainable future.
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Cows & Quails ild bobwhite quail are disappearing from West Texas, where until recently they thrived. HMI is developing a program called “Cows and Quail” to look at ways to integrate wildlife, livestock, and land to benefit all three, including specifically quail. The first program will be at the Circle Ranch in Van Horn, Texas on July 12-14, 2012. This program focuses on sustaining and growing a healthy, diverse landscape and wildlife habitat that also supports profitable livestock operations. It will provide a realitybased, practical “how to” get started program with action steps landowners can initiate to improve land health. HMI will bring together an interdisciplinary, collaborative team to provide training in numerous areas of wildlife habitat needs. Participants will come away with a better understanding of wildlife needs and a draft grazing plan to address wildlife and livestock needs. To learn more about this program or to schedule one in your area, contact HMI at 505/842-5252.
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Thanks to CISA of Massachusetts for running the registration table for the conference.
18 IN PRACTICE
Dixon Water Foundation Grant
Kids on the Land Why Outdoor Education? by PEGGY MADDOX
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MI’s slogan, “healthy land, sustainable future,” reflects our philosophy of educating land stewards about smart land use, while assisting them to enhance the land’s natural productivity. HMI’s kids on the land (kol) program reflects that belief and also the idea that a healthy appreciation for nature education can be learned at a young age. Recent books and articles support this idea of reconnecting kids to the land. Robert Cook of Texas Parks & Wildlife Department stated, “A good dose of the outdoors may prove to be a powerful antidote for many of the things that ail kids today!” The national Football league even has commercials encouraging kids to get outside. Richard louv, in his book, Last Child Left In the Woods, and on his website says children no longer have places to play. He reminds us to think about our relationship with nature and how it was formed. Those of us who grew up in the ‘40s and ‘50s can do that, but for many today sending kids outside to play is increasingly difficult. Computers, television, and video games compete for their time. Also our fears of traffic, strangers, and both parents working keep children indoors or in organized activities. schools have become more test-oriented and even recess is being cut out of daily school schedules. What we have been left with are eight year old kids who are better able to identify cartoon characters than native species, such as beetles and oak trees in their neighborhood. Finally, he challenges those in agriculture to use your farms or ranches as the new school yards. The oxford Junior Dictionary’s newest edition no longer defines more than 30 nature words, including “dandelion,” “otter,” “acorn” and “beaver.” In their place, a child will now find definitions for such terms as “MP3 player,” “blog” and “cut and paste.” “Making room in the junior dictionary for a new lexicon of technology and communications may be a good thing for children, provided they are not also denied definitions as basic as that of the flower growing on their own lawn,” says kevin Coyle, national Wildlife Federation vice president for education and training. Do you remember the first time your curiosity was stirred by nature? Rachel Carson is quoted in the book, The earth speaks, that every child needs the companionship of one adult who can introduce them to nature, rediscovering with them the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. HMI’s kol program is now scheduling its 2012 activities and we will be connecting over 300 children to nature and the land where they live. There is a guide for developing your own program offered as a free download on the HMI website. Check it out and see if you want to be the adult who introduced a child to the wonders of nature or used his farm/ranch as the next school yard.
To learn more about HMI’s KOL program, contact Peggy Maddox at westgift@hughes.net.
Book Review
by ANN ADAMS
The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way by MICHAEL PHILLIPS Chelsea Green Publishing • 2012, 432 pp
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hen I first began reading The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phillips, I was struck by his ability to distill down to the essence the paradigm by which we must view orchards to work with them holistically. He explains that the orchard ecosystem (forest edge ecology) is best served by listening to tree wisdom. It seems rather obvious, but most common sense ideas are. Just as many holistic managers are learning to listen and observe the ecosystem processes at the soil surface, the holistic orchardist must do so as well. Phillips talks about how the soil food web needs to be fungal dominate for healthy fruit production. We must focus on a healthy mineral cycle rather than appearances. Feed the soil with wood chips, rotted hay, compost, and shredded leaves. He notes that not all wood chips are alike. Most commercial wood chips are from soft woods, like pine, that are high in tannins and suppress the healthy growth of deciduous trees. likewise he advocates that people not use weed barriers as they negatively impact the ecosystem function. This book is not only a great resource of knowledge but also has great pictures of practices and microscopic views of leaf surfaces and illustrations of below the soil surface that bring these ideas alive. He covers individual chapters on all the major tree and berry fruits with great details on numerous other topics including varieties, horticultural skills, companion planting, and techniques for building soil. Phillips is able to inspire the beginner and still offers the experienced grower in-depth information and new research on ways to address pest and disease issues. My one criticism is that he does write predominantly from a less brittle perspective, but most of his knowledge can be applied across different eco-regions. In fact, he includes case studies/success stories from different climates. His second chapter is all about orchard life and considering the timeframe of the management of the orchard. of even greater importance is the big picture thinking of how much is enough so that we balance production/profit with quality of life. I was particularly interested in the “orchard Dynamics” chapter where he explores the concept of community dynamics within an orchard into play. As Phillips notes, “stewarding what needs to be right while intelligently setting limits on what might go wrong describes health-based orcharding to a tee.” [emphasis added by author]. This means building system health within the orchard and moving beyond the focus of weed and pest to look at the orchard dynamics. Diversity of plants and animals (including bugs) is key. In fact, he also suggests integrating livestock as holistic approach to orchard health. With a focus on the importance of biodiversity and building on system health, The Holistic Orchard is an essential book for any holistic manager who manages an orchard, big or small.
Number 143
IN PRACTICE 19
Certified Educators
U N I T E D S TAT E S
The following Certified educators listed have been trained to teach and coach individuals in Holistic Management. on a yearly basis, Certified educators renew their agreement to be affiliated with HMI. This agreement requires their commitment to practice Holistic Management in their own lives and to seek out opportunities for staying current with the latest developments in Holistic Management.
◆ These educators provide Holistic
For more information about or application forms for the hMi’s certified Educator training Programs, contact Ann Adams or visit our website at: www.holisticmanagement.org.
Management instruction on behalf of the institutions they represent.
These associate educators provide * educational services to their communities and peer groups.
Jeff goebel 5105 Guadalupe Trail nW Albuquerque, nM 87107 • 541/610-7084 goebel@aboutlistening.com
NEW YORK Erica Frenay 454 old 76 Road Brooktondale, nY 14817 607/539-3246 • efrenay22@gmail.com Phillip Metzger 120 Thompson Creek Rd. norwich, nY 13815 607/316-4182 • pmetzger17@gmail.com
NORTH DAKOTA
U N I T E D S TAT E S ARIZONA
MICHIGAN
tim Mcgaffic P.o. Box 1903, Cave Creek, AZ 85331 808/936-5749 • tim@timmcgaffic.com
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larry Dyer 1113 klondike Ave, Petoskey, MI 49770 231/347-7162 (h) • 231/881-2784 (c) ldyer3913@gmail.com
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CALIFORNIA owen hablutzel 4235 W. 63rd st., los Angeles, CA 90043 310/567-6862 • go2owen@gmail.com richard King Poppy Hill Farm, 1675 Adobe Rd., Petaluma, CA 94954 rking1675@gmail.com • 707/217-2308 cell christopher Peck 1330 Gumview Road, Windsor, CA 95492 707/758-0171 Christopher@naturalinvesting.com ◆ rob rutherford CA Polytechnic state University san luis obispo, CA 93407 805/756-1475 • rrutherf@calpoly.edu
*
COLORADO cindy Dvergsten 17702 County Rd. 23, Dolores, Co 81323 970/882-4222 hminfo@wholenewconcepts.com Katie belle Miller 22755 e. Garrett, Calhan, Co 80808 970/310-0852 heritagebellefarms@gmail.com
*
GEORGIA constance Neely 1421 Rockinwood Dr., Athens, GA 30606 706/540-2878 • clneely@earthlink.net
torray & Erin wilson 4375 Pierce Ave., Paullina, IA 51046-7401 712/448-3870 • torray@gmail.com curlywilly@gmail.com
MAINE Vivianne holmes 239 e Buckfield Road Buckfield, Me 04220-4209 207/336-2484 • vholmes@umext.maine.edu tobey williamson 52 Center street, Portland, Me 04101 c: 207-332-9941 • tobey@bartongingold.com
20 IN PRACTICE
*
NEBRASKA Mae rose Petrehn *86904 Delmar Ave., newport, ne 68759
913/707-7723 treadearthintometaphor@gmail.com Paul swanson 5155 West 12th st., Hastings, ne 68901 402/463-8507 • swanson@inebraska.com ralph tate 1109 Timber Dr., Papillion, ne 68046 402/932-3405 • Tater2d2@cox.net
NEW HAMPSHIRE ◆ seth wilner 24 Main street, newport, nH 03773 603/863-4497 (h) • 603/863-9200 (w) seth.wilner@unh.edu
NEW MEXICO
IOWA
*
MONTANA roland Kroos 4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 • kroosing@msn.com cliff Montagne P.o. Box 173120, Montana state University Department of land Resources & environmental science, Bozeman, MT 59717 406/994-5079 • montagne@montana.edu
◆ Ann Adams Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson st. ne, suite B Albuquerque, nM 87109 505/842-5252 anna@holisticmanagement.org Kelly boney 4865 Quay Road l, san Jon, nM 88434 575/268-1162 kboney@plateautel.net Kirk gadzia P.o. Box 1100, Bernalillo, nM 87004 505/867-4685, (f) 505/867-9952 kirk@rmsgadzia.com
May / June 2012
wayne berry 1611 11th Ave. West Williston, nD 58801 701/572-9183 • wberry@wil.midco.net Joshua Dukart 2539 Clover Place Bismarck, nD 58503 701/870-1184 Joshua_dukart@yahoo.com
PENNSYLVANIA Jim weaver 428 Copp Hollow Road Wellsboro, PA 16901 570/724-4955 • jaweaver@epix.net
TEXAS guy glosson 6717 Hwy. 380, snyder, TX 79549 806/237-2554 • glosson@caprock-spur.com Peggy Maddox P.o. Box 694, ozona, TX 76943-0694 325/392-2292 • westgift@hughes.net Peggy sechrist 106 Thunderbird Ranch Road, Fredericksburg, TX 78624 (C)830/456-5587 • peggysechrist@gmail.com
WASHINGTON sandra Matheson 228 e. smith Rd., Bellingham, WA 98226 360/398-7866 • mathesonsm@frontier.com ◆ Don Nelson Department of Animal sciences 116 Clark Hall, Washington state University Pullman, WA 99164-6310 509/335-2922 • nelsond@wsu.edu Doug warnock Po Box 48, Prescott, WA 99348 509/629-1671 (c) • 509/849-2264 (h) dwarnock@columbianet.com Wisconsin laura Paine Wisconsin DATCP n893 kranz Rd., Columbus, WI 53925 608/224-5120 (w) • 920/623-4407 (h) laura.paine@datcp.state.wi.us
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I N T E R N AT I O N A L AUSTRALIA Judi Earl “Glen orton” 3843 Warialda Rd., Coolatai nsW 2402 judiearl@auzzie.net 61-2- 0409-151-969 george gundry Willeroo, Tarago, nsW 2580 61-2-4844-6223 g.gundry@bigpond.com graeme hand 150 Caroona lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h) 61-4-1853-2130 (c) graeme.hand@bigpond.com Dick richardson Frogmore, Boorowa nsW 2586 61-0-263853217 (w) 61-0-263856224 (h) 61-0-429069001 (c) dick@hanaminno.com.au brian wehlburg Pine scrub Creek, kindee, nsW, 2446 61-2-6587-4353 brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au
CANADA Don campbell Box 817 Meadow lake, sk s9X 1Y6 306/236-6088 doncampbell@sasktel.net
linda & ralph corcoran Box 36, langbank, sk s0G 2X0 306/532-4778 rlcorcoran@sasktel.net Allison guichon Box 10, Quilchena, BC V0e 2R0 250/378-4535 allison@guichonranch.ca
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blain hjertaas Box 760, Redvers, saskatchewan soC 2Ho 306/452-3882 bhjer@sasktel.net brian luce RR #4, Ponoka, AB T4J 1R4 403/783-6518 lucends@cciwireless.ca tony McQuail 86016 Creek line, RR#1, lucknow, on n0G 2H0 519/528-2493 mcqufarm@hurontel.on.ca len Pigott Box 222, Dysart, sk, soH 1Ho 306/432-4583 JlPigott@sasktel.net Kelly sidoryk P.o. Box 374, lloydminster, AB s9V 0Y4 780/875-9806 (h) 780/875-4418 (c) sidorykk@yahoo.ca
I N T E R N AT I O N A L KENYA richard hatfield P.o. Box 10091-00100, nairobi 254-0723-506-331; rhatfield@obufield.com christine c. Jost International livestock Research Institute Box 30709, nairobi 00100 254-20-422-3000; 254-736-715-417 (c) c.jost@cgiar.org belinda Mackey P.o. Box 15109, langata, nairobi 254-727-288-039 belinda@grevyszebratrust.org
*
MEXICO ivan A. Aguirre ibarra P.o. Box 304, Hermosillo, sonora 83000 52-1-662-281-0990 (from U.s.) 51-1-662-281-0901 Rancho_inmaculada@yahoo.com.mx
NAMIBIA Usiel Kandjii P.o. Box 23319, Windhoek 264-61-205-2324 • kandjiiu@gmail.com colin Nott P.o. Box 11977, Windhoek 264/61-225085 (h) 264/81-2418778 canott@iafrica.com.na wiebke Volkmann P.o. Box 9285, Windhoek 264-61-225183 or 264-81-127-0081 wiebke@mweb.com.na
Holistic Goal Setting & Facilitation Services
NEW ZEALAND John King P.o. Box 12011 Beckenham, Christchurch 8242 64-276-737-885 • succession@clear.net.nz
*
Are you ready to make the most out of your resources? Do you need help dealing with critical human resource issues? Has change taken you by surprise?
SOUTH AFRICA Jozua lambrechts P.o. Box 5070 Helderberg, somerset West Western Cape 7135 27-83-310-1940 • 27-21-851-2430 (w) jozua@websurf.co.za wayne Knight solar Addicts Po Box 537 Mokopane, 0600 south Africa 27-0-15-491-5286 theknights@mweb.com.za ian Mitchell-innes P.o. Box 52, elandslaagte 2900 27-36-421-1747 blanerne@mweb.co.za
HMI provides skilled, objective facilitators to help you achieve your goals! Benefits of Holistic Management Facilitation Include: • elicits key motivators and values To learn more, call HMI from the group for more effective at 505/842-5252 or group decision making email Tracy at tfavre@ • Improves communication holisticmanagement.org. • Improves conflict resolution • Creates a safe environment to have crucial conversations including generational transfer • Creates common ground from which to make management decisions and plans
UNITED KINGDOM Philip bubb *32 Dart Close, st. Ives,
Cambridge, Pe27 3JB 44-1480-496-2925 (h) +44 7837 405483 (w) philipbubb@onetel.com
thE MArKEtPlAcE
SOIL FERTILITY FOR WINE GRAPES Determining & Calculating Needed Nutrients July 30-31 & Aug. 1, 2012 LOCATION: THE EMBASSY SUITES, NAPA, CALIFORNIA
—SPONSORED BY —
KINSEY AGRICULTURAL SERVICES, INC. CONDUCTED BY NEAL KINSEY
Use 100 new and updated vineyard soils on the Albrecht System to explain how to determine each formula and calculate nutrient requirements for grape production.
— MONDAY — Working with Soil Tests, pH and Liming REGISTRATION: $1,200 per person, including lunch each day. Or, $1,550/person, includes breakfast, lunch and lodging for July 29, 30, and 31. For room reservations call Kinsey Ag. Services, Inc. (573) 683-3880
— TUESDAY — Building Vineyard Fertility with Major Nutrients
— WEDNESDAY — Working with Micronutrients
For consulting or educational services contact:
Kinsey Agricultural Services, Inc. 297 County Highway 357 Charleston, Missouri 63834
Ph: 573/683-3880, Fax: 573/683-6227 www.kinseyag.com • neal@kinseyag.com
— THURSDAY — WE ACCEPT CREDIT CARD ORDERS (VISA, MC)
Optional Vineyard Soils Tour
Number 143
IN PRACTICE 21
thE MArKEtPlAcE
.!4)/.7)$% . !4)/.7)$% $)342)"54)/. $ ) 3 4 2 )"5 4 )/ .
2012
Spain - UK - Germany
CORRAL DESIGNS Remount
Enterprises
Holistic Management Courses with Certified Educator
Kirk Gadzia April 20-22 Euskal (Basque Country, Spain) Contact: Ana Digon anadigonelsden@googlemail.com April 27-29 LaDonaira (Andalucia, Spain) Contact: Melanie Hammer cursos@ladonaira.com May 5-7 Cowdray (Wessex, UK) Contact: Mel Chambers mail@regenerativeagriculture.co.uk May 11-13 Germany (hour north of Berlin) Contact: Oliver Karolius oliverkarolius@web.de Resource Management Services, LLC PO Box 1100 Bernalillo, NM 87004 505-263-8677, kirk@rmsgadzia.com 22 IN PRACTICE
May / June 2012
By World Famous Dr. Grandin Originator of Curved Ranch Corrals The wide curved Lane makes filling the crowding tub easy. Includes detailed drawings for loading ramp, V chute, round crowd pen, dip vat, gates and hinges. Plus cell center layouts and layouts compatible with electronic sorting systems. Articles on cattle behavior. 27 corral layouts. $55. Low Stress Cattle Handling Video $59. Send checks/money order to:
EXPERIENCED MANAGEMENT AND CONSULTING SERVICES Specializing in comprehensive planning and problem solving for enterprise and project development
THE BIG PICTURE Stockmanship, Horsemanship Related Canine Behaviors
GRANDIN LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS 2918 Silver Plume Dr., Unit C-3 Fort Collins, CO 80526
970/229-0703 www.grandin.com
TIM MCGAFFIC P.O. Box 1903 • Cave Creek, AZ 85331 808-936-5749 tim@timmcgaffic.com
thE MArKEtPlAcE
Dick Richardson
HMI GRAZING PLANNING SOFTWARE UPGRADE
CONSULTING Dick consults and offers Holistic Management courses and workshops in and around Australia. His practical experience and success makes his programs highly effective and valuable. Because Dick has extensive international experience, he is able to work effectively in any country. For more information: 61-0-429069001 dick@bdynamic.org
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The HMI Grazing Planning software is an electronic version of the Holistic Management Grazing Plan and Control Chart. This software tool does all the grazing planning calculations for as many as 100 paddocks.
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Don’t change your life to learn. Let your education change your life! Visit: www.wholenewconcepts.com Email: hminfo@wholenewconcepts.com Call Cindy at 970/882-4222 for a free consultation! Cindy Dvergsten, is a Holistic Management® Certified Educator, offering you over 15 years experience in training, mentoring, and facilitation; 30 years in natural resource management; and a lifetime of experience in diversified farming.
Offered By Whole New Concepts, LLC P.O. Box 218 Lewis CO 81327 Number 143
IN PRACTICE 23
non-PRoFIT oRGAnIZATIon U.s. PosTAGe PAID AlBUQUeRQUe, nM PeRMIT no 880
a publication of Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson st. ne, suite B Albuquerque, nM 87109 UsA return service requested
please send address corrections before moving so that we do not incur unnecessary postal fees
Holistic Management Mail Order Emporium Subscribe to IN PRACTICE, a bimonthly journal for Holistic Management practicioners
Software
___ one-year subscription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35 U.s. ($40 International)
___ grazing Planning software (single-user license) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $100
___ two-year subscription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $65 U.s. ($70 International)
___ Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . electronic $30, hardcopy $45
___ three-year subscription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $95 U.s. ($105 International) ___ gift subscription. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (same Prices As Above) ___ special Edition: An introduction to holistic Management . . . . . . . . $5
Pocket Cards ___ holistic Management® Framework and testing Questions, March 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4
Planning and Monitoring Guides
FrEE DowNloADs of many of HMI’s educational materials are now available on HMI’s website, http://www.holisticmanagement.org. Click on the Free Downloads link on the homepage to learn more.
___ Policy/Project Analysis & Design, August 2008, 61 pages. . . . . . . . . $17 ___ introduction to holistic Management, August 2007, 128 pages . . . . $25 ___ Financial Planning, August 2007, 58 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $17 ___ Aide Memoire for grazing Planning, August 2007, 63 pages. . . . . . . $17
Books and Multimedia ___ holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision-Making, second edition, by Allan savory with Jody Butterfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $60 ___ spanish Version (soft). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $40 ___ holistic Management handbook, by Butterfield, Bingham, savory. . . $40 ___ At home with holistic Management, by Ann Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20
___ Early warning biological Monitoring—croplands April 2000, 26 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15 ___ Early warning biological Monitoring— rangelands and grasslands, August 2007, 59 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . $17 ___ land Planning—For the rancher or Farmer running livestock, August 2007, 31 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15
___ holistic Management: A New Environmental intelligence . . . . . . . . $10
Planning Forms
___ improving whole Farm Planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $13
___ Annual income & Expense Plan, padded, 25 sheets/pad . . . . . . . . . . $17
___ Video: creating a sustainable civilization—An Introduction to Holistic Decision-Making, based on a lecture given by Allan savory (DVD) . . . $30
___ livestock Production worksheet, padded, 25 sheets/pad . . . . . . . . . $17
___ stockmanship, by steve Cote. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35
___ grazing Plan & control chart, padded, 25 sheets/pad . . . . . . . . . . . . $17
___ worksheet, padded, 25 sheets/pad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7
___ the grassfed gourmet cookbook, by shannon Hayes . . . . . . . . . . . $25 ___ the oglin, by Dick Richardson & Rio de la Vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25
I would like to make a Tax Deductible Donation
___ gardeners of Eden, by Dan Dagget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 ___ Video: healing the land through Multi-species grazing (DVD) . . . $30
In the amount of $_____________. Please designate the program you would like
___ PBS Video: the First Millimeter: healing the Earth (DVD) . . . . . . . . $25
us to apply contribution toward ________________________________________
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