#148 In Practice, March/April 2013

In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International

MARCH / APRIL 2013

The Business of Growing

NuMbeR 148

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 ~

by MISSY BAHRET

Innovative Solutions

W

e too often fall prey to only growing crops without due attention to the business of growing. As a result, we experience poor financial returns, overworked schedules, and a bad case of “farmers amnesia” that creeps in and makes us remember each year in a eschewed way that makes us keep doing the same things year after year with minimal changes.

Luckily, we Northeast growers have winter to help us regroup and recalibrate.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (allowing ample introspection time), minimal day length (which helps prioritize outdoor and indoor tasks), poor circulation (due to cold temperatures causing contemplative time in front of the wood stove), and isolation issues (which lends itself to ample research) are just a few of the free “apps” you can use to your benefit. These tools help growers grow—even in the dead of winter, at 17 below, and under 20 inches of snow, without batteries. Wow!

Common Traps

Employ Your Noodle Do what you are good at and hire out what you aren’t good at. If you feel skilled at the business aspects but can’t find time to do those tasks, rearrange who does what.

Make sure you are doing the $40 per hour work and hiring out the $9 per hour work.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

FEATURE STORIES

The first way to avoid the “grower traps” is to manage your business. Plan your future. If you have a chance, watch the YouTube video “Honda—Dream the Impossible.”

Think ahead, and you’ll be surprised how much comes true. Let your business just happen to you, and you’ll be dismayed at how many times you are looking at the eight ball. There are many different ways to plan and manage your business, but I offer minimal and ultimate options here.

Minimally: Grab a pen and go to a diner. Get a cup of coffee and a stack of napkins.

Label each napkin with a month of the year and write out what tasks and crops happen each month. Add any big projects to the given month you want them to happen in. The big picture now is in front of you. This is what you are going to do, not what is going to happen to you.

Ultimately: Take the time to make a full business plan. Chip away at it and you will always find that it gives you a valuable perspective for your enterprise. Include short and long-term financials, as well as short and long-term business goals. Dare yourself to be a future thinker.

Land & Livestock

Manage Your Business

Drought and insect infestations have plagued agricultural producers year in and year out. This issue provides a look at some of the innovative solutions people are coming up with to address these problems. Read how Julie Sullivan and George Whitten see drought as inspiration on page 3.

News & Network

There are a number of traps that growers can fall prey to. They include: • Letting your business manage you • Being too busy to think about what you are doing • Doing the same thing over and over • Using a crisis management approach • Never saying no

Drought as Inspiration

JULIe SULLIvAN AND GeorGe WHITTeN . . . . . . . . . . 3

Holistic Management for Dummies— A Future Farm Participant’s Perspective

DAvID SCHoUMACHer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

This is Your Business—Incorporating Yearly reviews MISSY BAHreT

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Cows & Desert Bighorn Sheep

BY CHrIS GILL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Ponoholo ranch—Diverse ecology Aids Grazing Management

HeATHer SMITH THoMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Drought—The “opportunities” for Graziers

BeN BArTLeTT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Grazeheart Combats the Armyworms

TroY BISHoPP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

From the Board Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 readers Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Development Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Data Mine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Book review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Certified educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Growing

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 Kelly King . . . . . . . . . Chief Financial Officer Ann Adams. . . . . . . . Managing Editor, IN PrACTICe and Director, Community Services sandy Langelier. . . . Director, Communications and Outreach Frank Aragona . . . . . Director, Programs Matt Parrack . . . . . . . Director, Development Peggy sechrist. . . . . Development Advisor Peggy Maddox . . . . . Program Advisor Peggy Cole . . . . . . . . Project Manager, Texas Mary girsch-bock . . Grants Manager Carrie Nelson . . . . . . Store Manager / Customer Support

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Sallie Calhoun, Chair Ben Bartlett, Past Chair Kelly Sidoryk, Vice-Chair Jim Shelton, Treasurer Judi Earl, Secretary Ron Chapman Zizi Fritz Laura Gill Gail Hammack Clint Josey Wayne Knight Sam Montoya Jim Parker Michael Podolny

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 © 2013

2 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

continued from page one

And if you aren’t the person to be doing the business-thinker jobs, hire someone. This might look like an office keeper, an accountant, a marketer, a harvester, a designer—it could make a world of difference! The first time we looked into tax prep service the fee seemed too expensive to justify. So, for years we trudged blindly through the forms, racking up hours of stress and misallocated skills, just to end up with mistakes and more work filling out forms.

Then we got smart and hired out, and we were pleased to save more than ever (even after the prep fees were paid)! This was a sure case of selecting the right person for the right job. Do you really have to do it all?

Embrace Change “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” While that’s a decent mantra, remember that it is good to change things to make them work even better.

Here’s some suggestions.

Minimally: Back to those napkins with your crop overview on them. order another cup of joe and put a star next to each crop or tasks that you feel you do well. Put an arrow next to things that you could (or want to) do better. This has now turned into a homework list of topics you need to research as to how to get better at.

You might feel alone at times (and heck, you have been sitting alone at the diner for hours now), but you aren’t alone when it comes to growing production innovation. Scour your favorite internet sites, visit other farms and studios, go to conferences, meetings, and trade shows. reps can be an endless source of really valuable information—call them!

Ultimately: Implement a feedback loop system for each crop and/or each crop system.

Stay abreast on new technology. Ask questions, use your resources, implement annual changes on your farm that support your short- and longterm personal and business goals. Allocate professional development for all employees and owners.

Shift Your Approach Be on offense instead of defense. Sure there will always be things that come up that you will need to adapt to, fix or manage, but for all the rest of the time you can be ready. This year we encouraged our crew to frequently ask of themselves “Where am I in 15 minutes?” This helped to speed up transitions on our transitionheavy diversified farm. one day I overheard by husband asking another crew member because she seemed to do that so well, how she did it.

She replied with a smile, “I’m 16 minutes ahead.”

Minimally: recognize when you (and others) are at your most effective state. Try to correlate appropriate jobs and tasks with that timing.

Ultimately: Using the time management quadrant tool developed by Stephen Covey (First Things First, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People), focus your time and energy in the Important/Not Urgent block. Try to project what might come up in the Important/Urgent block and take steps to curb them. Manage against focusing on the Not Important/Not Urgent block. This matrix can be especially helpful when prioritizing lists.

Just Say No I’m talking crops here. This is a basic concept. Do what you can afford to do and stop doing what you can’t afford to do. You need to grow what makes sense (and cents) for your skills, market, land, and interests.

Minimally: Back to your napkins and another cup of coffee. Put a line through any crop that your gut says is not financially profitable. Go through each one and weigh the costs and the gains associated with it. remember not to take it personally. If you are feeling emotional about those flowers that just aren’t cutting it, get another napkin. Label it “A Few Plants Just for Me” and list the crossed off flowers there. You can still have a love for a certain flower and not grow it for production. voila! Now you have a more profitable crop composition!

Ultimately: Time-track your crops. Look at that analysis and use the finds to decide what to expand and what to terminate. I can’t speak more highly of this endeavor and I also can’t rightly say that it is easy to do. It takes time, diligence, and a massive spreadsheet to record all the ins and outs of a given crop, but it is the only way you can get the most accurate analysis of what you are making on the crop.

This is an excellent job to delegate to an employee. We use reminder flags for our time track crops (we only track a few a year), which we clip the seed packet in the winter, and then it travels with the crop for its entire life (to the flat, to the field, reminding us to track every cultivation, harvest, and eventually, the clean up and turning in). This reminds us that if we are doing anything with this crop, we need to write down the time spent, task and quantity (of harvest).

This article is an excerpt from an article written for The Cut Flower Quarterly. Missy Bahret is a mentor for HMI’s Beginning Women Farmer program. She can be reached at: grow@oldfriendsfarm.com.

Drought as Inspiration

by JULIE SULLIVAN and GEORGE WHITTEN

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from a presentation for the 2012 Quivira Coalition Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

nce upon a time there was a small house on a small ranch in the middle of a big valley.

Halfway to the sky and surrounded by tall mountains, the valley was often cold, sometimes hot, and almost always dry.

A man and a woman lived there, with their cats, dogs, horses and cows. They worked hard, and knew what they worked for: happy land, happy cows, happy cats, happy people, happy everything.

The valley was high and dry and cold, but it had a wonderful treasure in a deep two-layered aquifer. The peoples who had lived and traveled through this valley for eons knew that water could fling itself up into the sky, if you dug a hole in the right place. This underground water was so close to the surface that even a shallow hole might fill with water. Trees, berry bushes, seas of grasses thick with nourishing seed heads grew all over the valley. For all that it was a harsh place, it was also a generous place.

O

one year the rain fell hardly at all. Then it rained and snowed, for a few years. And then it didn’t rain again. For one year. For two.

Would it ever rain again?

The man and the woman tried all sorts of things to figure out what they were doing wrong, what they could do differently to live in an even drier place.

They talked and they met, and met and they talked; they changed their Holistic Goal.

They tried Appreciative Inquiry and Signature Strengths, Gross Profit Analysis and Gross Happiness Analysis. High Density Mob Grazing.

Direct marketing.

Still, it didn’t rain. everyday they looked at the sky and hoped for rain, but all they saw was the same pale blue sky. And the farmers with their big center pivot sprinklers kept pumping the water from the ground, further drying up the land until the cottonwoods and heirloom apple trees, even the tenacious plants that need little water to thrive, were turning to dust and blowing to Kansas.

So they decided to learn more. To ask questions. To meet new people and re-meet old friends.

with us, which can move us individually and collectively towards an agriculture and a society that is truly resilient.

We don’t pretend to know what to do in the face of unprecedented climate instability, and peak oil. We don’t think anyone does—not the land grant universities, not the biologists, and not the ranchers. The old-timers say they’ve never seen weather like we had this year and last. Hottest summer on record. Arctic ice cap melted 45%. Animal migrations altered.

Drought. Flood. In our valley, wells are drying up and the aquifer has dropped 2 million acre feet below the original water table. Whatever the cause, climatic instability is the new norm.

Agricultural practices, the result of generations of collective experience with a particular piece of land, no longer work. How are we to plan our pastures, move our livestock,

make a living and enhance the health of our land when the weather rages in extremes?

How do we find new ways to ranch, farm, build a house or sewer system and design cities, while we are continuing to stay in business. The challenges are enormous, paralyzing. And, as George says, “You can’t hang the cows on a clothesline while you figure out what to do.”

While there aren’t magic beans or magic pasture plans that offer us a sure-fire way to survive, there are a few things that give us hope.

1. People learn quickly when they realize that their wellbeing depends on new skills and information. If something will change our lives, help us accomplish what is important to us, we become eager, rapid learners. And we learn best when we are engaged with others who are also learning—everyone is a student and everyone is a teacher.

2. Nature creates solutions from the bottomup and in context. Nature does not wait for a leader or think tank to come up with an idea, and Nature doesn’t experiment with her solutions in a lab, isolated from real world, real-time circumstances. As a society we’ve been looking for the wrong sort of solutions in the wrong places—the big solution that will fix it all. The solutions waiting to be found will be found on the ground, on each farm and ranch, CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

Relationships & Resilience When the Quivira Coalition asked us to do a presentation at this conference on how to grow food in a hotter, drier world, we thought about 40 people would come, that we would sit in a circle and speak from our hearts. The people who would come would be those ready to ask tough questions of themselves, with a willingness to change their practices and paradigms in order to do something. Then we found out that it would be 300 people.

There may be more of you, but our question remains the same: How do we stay on the land, stay in the business, hold onto hope, and discover actions we can each take home

George and Julie’s commitment to diversity and reaching out to many different populations was demonstrated in a soil health tour with farmers, NRCS, U.S. Forest Service, ranchers, agronomists in the San Luis Valley.

Number 148

IN PRACTICE 3

Drought as Inspiration in groups of people like this one.

3. Nature has already solved many of the problems we are dealing with—energy, food production, climate stability—with millions of examples, evolved in context, tested over eons, and shown to be safe for generations into the future.

4. And, we have one another. one of the fundamental laws of Nature is that life is built on cooperation and relationship, and that any system is more resilient when it is diverse. one of the best and first ways we can move towards resilience is by working together to understand what is happening.

In 2003, during the last “worst drought in 700 years,” George and I learned that our survival depended on our ability to turn outward, to open our minds and our lives to new people and ideas, rather than hunker down with what we already know and close ourselves off from everyone else who is in trouble.

We learned that hardship forces change, but that if we jump aboard the change, embrace the adventure that it offers, we are more likely to find inspiration, good new ideas, mentors and allies. As Paul Hawkin states in Blessed Unrest,

continued from page three

“Inspiration is not garnered from the recitation of what is flawed; it resides, rather, in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.”

We’re in This Together Perhaps the most important thing we realized back in 2003 was that everything we do is about relationship. We reconnected with Holistic Management International and found pasture with a restoration project they were planning in Albuquerque. We joined the Quivira Coalition, and we began our apprentice program. And we also really got that we’re in relationship with the cows, the grass, the sun, the range, the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, our apprentices. With earthworms and dung beetles. With ecological processes. In Nature as well as our own lives, everything is about relationship.

Be it your body or the Atlantic ocean, relationship is a basic building principle of living organisms. Life is made up of complex webs This fence line contrast photo shows the before and after of grazing in a wet meadow at River Ranch on the Rio Grande River in the summer of 2012.

Apprentice Martha Skelley herds the cattle on across the Rio Grande River on the Green Ranch.

4 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

of relationships that create larger, complex systems of interconnected elements that link individual actions to larger grids of movement and knowledge. organisms continually respond to their environments and neighbors, coevolving and co-creating what we call Nature.

These organisms assemble themselves into a diversity of life forms and develop intelligence by responding to the new information and new relationships this diversity offers. The more relationships, the more possibilities for successful adaptation. relationship and diversity are inescapable, undeniable foundations of all life Yet we humans often find relationships and diversity problematic, and limit ourselves to a handful of people who are just like us. We limit our capacity to learn and our options to thrive by doing so and prove true the African proverb: “Alone, I have seen many marvelous things, none of which were true.”

If we are to find solutions to the problems we face, we need to do as Nature does: build relationships. And we need to do this with people and ideas that will stretch us beyond our comfort zone.

George and I inadvertently did this, when we fell in love. We couldn’t have grown up more different from one another. I grew up in a small city, began acting lessons at 7, spent every summer day at the beach, and wanted to be a dryad (a tree spirit). George grew up on the family sheep ranch in the high lonesome San Luis valley, playing in the dirt, building “Freeze Bugs” from old car parts, and walking behind the sheep from the valley floor to the high country every summer. I never had a date in high school because I was shy. He didn’t have one because he went to school smelling like the milk cow. I protested the vietnam War; he wanted to enlist.

everywhere in Nature, you find examples of diverse species living together in mutually supportive relationships that benefit the individual as well as the community. New capacities, new talents emerge from these interactions. George and I are the same species, but the differences were and continue to be real. Yet we have found that our creativity, strength, and momentum as a team is far greater than we ever had individually.

Navigating Terra Incognita As noted earlier, we don’t think anyone has a road map for how to navigate the changes that are upon us in agriculture. It’s as if we are explorers facing Terra Incognita—sailing across seas with no charts, no guarantees that we’ll find a safe harbor out in the unknown. I’d prefer a little more certainty, myself. I’d prefer a clothesline for those cows while we figure out the next pasture to lease, or whether to sell out and get jobs as baggage handlers at Denver International Airport.

There are a few tools George and I return to over and over, when we are facing adversity and change. We truly believe that the most sustainable and resilient solutions are those that use Nature as a model. We have learned that most crises have an opportunity hidden within them. And the lens of Holistic Management, particularly the triple bottom line, can guide us to innovative and useful options by revealing the intended and unintended consequences of an action. Let us offer an example.

Due to the current drought, we’ve leased land on two ranches on the rio Grande river, 50 miles one way from home. In the driest year in decades our cows are in thick grass. This might seem like a solution: we are helping the landowner restore a large piece of land that needs conscientious management, the cattle are happy and well. But it’s a fossil fuel-created band aid because there is nothing sustainable about a 100-mile round trip drive to move a fence, no matter how biologically vibrant those pastures might be due to our management. We can rationalize it 10,000 ways to Sunday, but the truth is that this solution, for all its short-term benefits (for which we are profoundly grateful) won’t meet the triple bottom line over time.

solved the problem of inconsistent rainfall but led to dewatering the aquifer, water tables so reduced that streams don’t run, and adversarial relations between once-friends. The second kind of solution is one that worsens the initial problem—a big tractor lets you cultivate more ground, which leads to the need for a bigger tractor, which requires more production to pay for it. A bad solution is bad because it compromises the larger patterns in which it is contained—“the health of the soil, of plants and animals, of farm and farmer, of farm family and farm community, all involved in interlocking pattern—patterns of patterns.”

The third kind of solution is “is good because it is in harmony with those larger patterns”. The solution of leased land along the rio Grande falls short of this third kind of solution, but if we migrated with the animals we might just approach the type of solution Berry believes we must employ. The more creatively George and I apply Nature’s examples of interrelationships to our quest for solutions, the more resilience will be built into those solutions.

Things That Work Drought, like any hardship, can force us out of our comfort zone and from known practices, and in this way it can lead us to inspired, creative solutions we would never consider in easier times. Using our Holistic Goal as our North Star, the principles of living systems as a map, and Nature as our model, we’ve taken on a number of projects, striving for resilience in our ranch operation and our personal life. one of the most meaningful is our apprentice program.

George always wanted to bring young adults to the ranch and pass on all he had learned— his 3 kids love having a ranch in the family, but none of them want it as their life. I was a college

professor when we met, having taught for a decade in an unusual, interdisciplinary program that had the students and faculty living outside all semester, studying ecology, land use, and other subjects experientially as well as in conventional academic ways.

In 2003 we took in our first apprentice, and continued to bring interns to the ranch until 2008. We decided it was time to focus on young adults who had already decided they were committed to a life in sustainable agriculture, and hired our first year-long apprentice. During that year we began working with the Quivira Coalition to create the New Agrarian Program and we’ve graduated three and now have our fourth Quivira apprentice.

These young people support our ranch with their strong bodies, hard work, their willingness to learn, their passion for a life on the land— a life most of them have no access to as their families are not in agriculture. Their open minds help us learn and the generation difference enriches our life. They bring scientific knowledge, and because they haven’t grown up in agriculture, they see things differently, and ask questions that don’t occur to us. And they bring us joy, music, and a reason to cultivate hope. We firmly believe that the best way to feed 9 billion is to teach them how to feed themselves and give them the tools and opportunity they want and need to do so.

The benefits of relationships pops up again in the example of Sweet Grass Coop, which was founded three years ago based on the principle of cooperation between ranchers rather than competition. every one of the founding members had been selling meat directly to consumers for some time and had individually come to the conclusion that due to location or personal quality of life issues they would prefer to combine those efforts. We work CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Julie Sullivan and Amy Wright work on a report for the apprentice program.

The Third Kind of Solution In his 1981 essay, “Solving for Pattern,” Wendell Berry implored us to look for “the third kind of solution. The first kinds of solution are those that, while solving the initial problem cause a series of new and additional problems.

Sprinkler irrigation is a case in point: sprinklers Number 148

IN PRACTICE 5

Drought as Inspiration together to find and price pasture and hay as well as attract farmers as members who have a need to improve soil quality while supplying reliable finishing forage for member cattle. We are committed to returning the maximum to the producer with a very streamlined operation that serves the consumer as well. It is a part of our commitment to our community and making the production of beef and farming as sustainable as we can.

We now have 19 members and associate producers who help us supply the ever-growing local grassfed beef market. We are currently the sole grassfed meat supplier for La Montanita Coop in New Mexico, and sell through Panorama Meats to supply Whole Foods with an all-organic product in truckload lots when possible. We are expanding into the Denver Front range area and have begun negotiating with larger processors and a distribution company to facilitate our growth.

The ongoing drought has forced us to reach out to unusual partners when it comes to finding forage. We’re working with several organic farmers in our valley, encouraging the planting of forage-appropriate cover crops that 1) increase soil fertility and rebuild soil structure, 2) reduce erosion and troublesome insects without the use of chemicals, and 3) provide high-quality forage for calves and finishing cattle. As the cost of trucking in organic compost increases, these farmers are ahead of the pack in finding local, win-win solutions that build real resilience into our regional ecosystem and economy. our conversations with farmers introduce them to the value of urine and manure as part of the mineral cycle on their fields, as well as a way to add much-needed organic matter to enhance the water cycle. The split between the pastoral and agrarian worlds needs to be mended, as farms need livestock, and it is becoming clear that, at least in the Intermountain West, livestock need farm fields.

Next Steps For all our intention to use Nature as our model, we fall short and get stuck, proving that Albert einstein was right when he said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

In order to get different results, we need to have different information, just like organisms use new and different information to adapt.

Biology, ecology, and other life sciences continue to deepen and widen our understanding of Nature, demonstrating that Nature as model goes far beyond mimicking the 6 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

continued from page five

grazer-grassland relationships when planning pasture moves. Measuring our current operation against the principles of living systems, we see some strengths and we also see lots of room for improvement—improvements that we hope will help us live and work with the land as it is now, not as it used to be.

• Nature runs on sunlight • Nature fits form to function • Nature recycles everything/all processes are cyclical, every scrap of matter is reused and repurpose—dead animals turn into soil that turn into plants and new animals • Nature rewards cooperation • Life assembles into chains— linking/relationship is the basic function • Nature banks on diversity and stability and health achieved through diversity—one way ecosystems survive drought is with a diversity of plant species with different time scales • Nature demands local expertise— site-specific land management knowledge, for example • Living systems seek the edge between chaos and stability to avoid becoming static and atrophying, or being so chaotic that there is no memory or pattern • Life builds from the bottom up An initial reaction to these principles is often “Wow, there sure are a lot of things we can’t do.”

We’ve built a society that pretends most limits don’t exist, and certainly large scale production agriculture acts as if we can just keep manipulating Nature with no regard for the feedback loops built into living systems. But limits have their purpose: without the limiting structure of a riverbank, a river would be a shallow spreading pool. We can choose to see them as Duke ellington saw the limits of his trumpet player, who could only play a few notes. rather than fire the musician, Duke incorporated the limits into his compositions, and his distinctive sound arose from this “limitation”. We can choose to be inspired by Nature’s parameters, and find ways to make our ranches and lives sustainable well into the future. our current apprentice is helping us design a future land plan using Permaculture principles in conjunction with Holistic decision-making processes. As our valley dries and the plant community changes, we need to plan for changes in land use and livestock species, as well as look into how our land base can provide more of our own food. How might wind breaks also be food-bearing shrubs for wildlife or for us? How will the microhabitats in the meadows shift and could we seed different grasses and legumes into the current plant community to

prepare for the loss of irrigation water as well as drier conditions? How can Permaculture’s design phase help us consider different livestock species and cash crops?

Daring Greatly Changing your operation and a way of life you love takes courage, which isn’t the absence of fear, but the ability to act wisely in the face of fear. The root of the word “courage” is Coeur—heart. It takes heart to examine one’s actions and operation and realize you can do better. It takes heart to stay on the land and adapt your life to what the land can offer.

And it takes courage to acknowledge and act on the undeniable biological fact that we, all of us this planet, humans and other biota, are in this together. We can find our way through Terra Incognito by remembering that we are a part of a larger pattern of life and living systems and remembering older ways of agrarian and pastoral practices as well as discovering new ways.

In April 1910 Theodore roosevelt gave his “The Man in the Arena” speech, at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France. In it he said: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again.

Because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; “But who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; “Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”

People of the land have faced fears over and over again, every season sometimes, and overcome them. We live with uncertainty and change and backbreaking work all the time— and actually find our joy in this challenge and this life. We do remember, in our genes and souls, how to explore, invent, and adapt in order to make a living and a livelihood. We can dare greatly in this time of change.

We will find our way, with Nature as our guide and our path, and one another as companions on the journey.

Julie Sullivan and George Whitten own and operate the San Juan Ranch near Saguache, Colorado. They can be reached at moovcows@gmail.com.

Holistic Management for Dummies—

A Future Farm Participant’s Perspective

by DAVID SCHOUMACHER

ook, we both know Greg Judy,” my wife, Wooz, was saying.

“If Greg Judy can do this stuff, we certainly should be able to do it.”

The “stuff” was Holistic Management and, reflecting on the Greg Judy I know and love, I had to admit she had a point. But I wasn’t about to surrender so easily.

“Well, you have a point” I answered, getting her leaning the wrong way, before trumping.

“But Greg Judy’s wife does all the work while he jets around the country making big money for speeches telling everybody how easy it is.”

I had looked into this, and it is a fact that only when Judy Judy* collapses from exhaustion twice a year, does Greg return home for a few days. That’s when he schedules his on-farm seminars and charges his students $2,000 a head to move his fences.

Not since Tom Sawyer was painting wooden fences, has anyone had such a sweet deal. Nor would even Tom have had the entrepreneurial imagination (none dare call it chutzpah) to charge his neighbors for the privilege of moving his cows across their lawns while Greg goes ahead to look out for barking dogs. It’s right there in Chapter 33 of his latest book. Did I mention he writes books, too, about how easy it is for any wife to move electric fencing four times a day?

Speaking of books, I must confess I was actually somewhat familiar with Holistic Management before the Future Farms program because several years ago I’d picked up The Big Green Book and read it straight through to the second page of the Introduction to Chapter one. I gave up there. To borrow a phrase so beloved by these HMI folks, let’s say I found the writing a bit too “brittle”.

So let’s just say I had something of a chip on my shoulder (did I mention that my wife won our argument?) the day I walked into our first session of HMI Future Farm Upper Piedmont Project.

For many of my fellow students clearly the big draw for the program was some fella named Ian Mitchell-Innes. He seemed a jovial, regular sort of man despite the handicap of lugging around two last names. His ruddy face and powerful build seemed to indicate he wasn’t one of those faculty lounge types.

And, as he began, it was immediately clear that english was not his native language.

Nevertheless, he won me over with his opening

“L

statement. I wish I’d written it down but I wasn’t planning to take notes. Said he (roughly) holding up The Big Green Book: “Now this Holistic Management book has everything you could possibly want to know in it. It will answer all your questions. You should probably try to read it sometime. Let’s get started.”

I borrowed a pencil and piece of paper from my wife. Let’s get started!

Grazing Planning For two days Ian went over the basic principles of Holistic Management and he made it easy to understand despite the funny way he spoke english. He made it even easier by assuring us that we didn’t have to do it all . . . we didn’t even have to do it right. A rough approximation was good enough to start seeing results that would be sure to encourage us to try more.

A quick note about my classmates. We were about as diverse a group as any pilot project could hope for. We ranged from a major cowcalf producer all the way to an earnest young man with one cow. There was also a horse breeder, a chicken farmer, even a farmer who runs a kind of New Age school and bed and breakfast as sidelines.

There were also the die-hard, show-me types: a grizzled old farmer staggering through the last stages of conventional farming that had him about worn out, an only somewhat younger farmer who had just about decided to give up but thought he’d check Holistic Management on the way out the door, and me. The woman who got me into this was taking the course, too. It’s her

family farm and we raise pure bred Devon and direct market grass fed meat in a limited way.

Now some things Ian discussed were less interesting than others. Take “long range planning,” for instance. When you’re almost 78-years-old long range planning is being sure, when you come into a new building, you make a note of just where the men’s room is.

But in a few subjects, I must admit I excelled. Playground, for instance. We went outside and threw darts over our shoulders and where they fell we looked for grass and dirt and things. I spotted the first two pretty quick as well as a “thing” that indicated a canine had passed this way once. And grazing charts. Mine, I was sure, must have been the best Ian ever saw.

I was certainly the envy of the class with my brand new set of 12 coloring pencils. I had to invent some new problem areas in our pastures just to make sure I used them all.

Finally, the theoretical behind us, it was Day Three and the part of the program we were all looking forward to. Ian was to visit each of our farms, analyze our problems, and give us a nudge in the right direction. Now when you have 50 cows, it is a bit intimidating to play host to a guy who back home has something like 10,000 cows and is looking for more.

I had volunteered us to be the last farm of the day. I knew it would be a grueling schedule and I figured Ian would be happy to crash for a while and relax with something cold in his hot hands after eight hours in the sun. But Ian does not relax, even with a hand cooler. We went over three of our pastures, looked for where to route the electric wire, possible watering points, and necessary lanes.

Ian was even nice enough to compliment our grass. “It’s better than I expected,” he said.

Now we are not total strangers to using electric wire to set up paddocks. We had done some rotational grazing and discovered that beneath CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

Like any management team there are planners and implementers.

Wooz and David seem to have worked out their roles.

Number 148

IN PRACTICE 7

Holistic Management for Dummies those weeds (we’re not named “Thistle Hill” for nothing) there lays a soil officially classified by the virginia Department of Agriculture as shale and, within an inch or two becomes solid rock.

In fact, we look forward to the first freeze because the step-in posts go in easier.

All that rock does contain minerals, though, and Ian was actually pleased when he pulled out a piece of litmus paper and tested the urine of one of our cows. Perfect pH! our classmates were more impressed with that soggy piece of litmus paper than they had been with my coloring pencils. I noted that in our long range plan this would be my wife’s area of responsibility.

From Theory to Practice But all too soon, our field day was over and we were on our own. Not since I soloed in my pilot training days did I feel so lonely. But, as Ian had counseled, just get started. So with an armful of posts and a reel of wire we set off to instruct our heifers in mob grazing. When your business is raising seed stock, it’s not practical to keep your herd together. Would-be buyers want to be able to walk among the heifers that are for sale without dealing with a bunch of mamas and their babies and the occasional territorial bull.

So we started with our heifers and ran into a problem right away. How do you get 200,000 pounds of pressure from a small group of heifers?

You can do the math. What percentage is 6,900 of 200,000? What’s the square root of an eighth of an acre? You can do the math; I guessed.

And that’s how we started: little postage stamp paddocks. right away it became clear that our amateur electric energizers weren’t

continued from page seven

going to hold our animals in a tight bunch. After all, our grandsons’ favorite game was to see who could hold onto the electric wire the longest. our energizers could barely manage 1,200 volts going downhill.

We postponed our personal pilot project for a week while we strung heavy duty wire around the exterior fencing, hooked up a wicked-looking red box made in Germany, pounded in seven long grounding rods, and checked the results with the voltmeter. 12,800 volts! Take that Greg Judy! our heifers came strolling back into the pasture ready to walk through the wire as usual.

The leader sensed there was something wrong just a split second before her nose made contact. She bounced back with an “AWWrK” that could be heard all the way to Albuquerque!

And the message was received clearly all across Thistle Hill. Wherever cows of whatever class were gathered, they all became instant converts to mob grazing without further ruminating.

Those first days were truly exciting. The animals understood the long range plan even without my charts. on the third day they were not only standing, waiting to be moved, they were standing right where the insulator was in the corner, leading to the next paddock. You could even try to fool them; go to the wrong corner. They would watch with curiosity…but not really commit. Just stand there until you opened the proper wire.

Now Devon are docile animals. They are comfortable around people. But our cows quickly developed a relationship with us we hadn’t experienced before. They clearly thought mob grazing was a good thing and they appreciated the personal attention every day. If there was any problem, it was that they wouldn’t David’s wife, Wooz moving the bred heifers to fresh grass.

The grass is looking good despite the drought.

get out of the way. our customers loved it. Accustomed to seeing prospective cows run to the opposite corner of the pasture, our Devon stood there quietly as total strangers moved among them. even people who didn’t want to buy came to watch these little old holistic farmers and their trained cows.

There were other things that I noticed in that first season of grazing, too: The grass where the cows had been just a few weeks earlier regrew more quickly than we’d ever seen. And by the third pass through an area, we could actually feel that the ground beneath our feet was getting softer. on occasion, one of the step-in posts would sink all the way in! Finally, there was my wife’s undiminished, child-like faith when I assured her that, yes, I had turned off the power and it was safe to disconnect that fence. Her “AWWrK” is as clear in my memory as though it was only yesterday. Well, in fact . . .

Measuring Outcomes Best of all came the day when we looked at the calendar—December 1st—and we were still grazing. All our neighbors had long since been feeding hay. Finally, keeping in mind that we wanted to save some pasture for early spring growth, we finally ended our personal pilot project. We had saved about more than 60 days of feeding hay . . . about 40% less than what we had once budgeted for hay. There was a suspicion as well, which we were to confirm the following spring, that we had indeed increased organic matter.

We also had totally eliminated our fertilizer budget . . . and that meant no diesel fuel expense, just when the prices started to soar.

But, of course, there were a few downsides: the cows never did eat some of the mature grass and so we had to get accustomed to something less than the lawn we had prided ourselves on. And we were not able to escape all our previous diesel expense. When I turned the ignition on our big tractor (did I mention we have two, thanks to a special offer John Deere has for beginning farmers?) it caught, sputtered and died. Apparently if you don’t bush hog regularly, algae grow in your diesel fuel. But even with the new fuel pump, filter and strainer, I figure in total—hay, fertilizer, tractor operation—our savings were in the neighborhood of $7,000.

Not bad for our first year and our cows look better than ever! As I write this, halfway through Year Two, the summer slump has struck. But, checking my multi-color grazing chart in a folder to my right, I see I had miscalculated only CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

8 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

This is Your Business—

Incorporating Yearly Reviews

Farm Life Pie Chart

by MISSY BAHRET

A

s a producer you have to look at your farm as a business.

It should meet your needs. There are no excuses for not creating the business you want. You need to plan and implement the plan and you can make it happen. This is our 9th year on old Friend Farm, a certified organic farm, and we’ve found that a key step to successful planning and implementation is reviewing what worked and what didn’t in the previous year. To make sure you actually hold that review session, you need to plan for it and develop it in such a way that is a treat, not a hardship. on our farm, we hold a series of five meetings. Some of them might be off farm. The focus of the meetings is: Things I want to change in the coming year. employees are encouraged to write suggestions as there are some really good ideas that come from this—like how to make the washer area better. But the ownership for the business is mostly with the shareholders and they are the ones that actually physically participate in the review.

The review begins using the financial weak link test/logjam. We are looking for the overall weak link as well as the weak link for each enterprise. We use colors and look at resource conversion (yellow), product conversion (purple) and market conversion (green).

We write down how we can improve or strengthen the weak link in the enterprise and do some investigative research. We then can determine which enterprises we want to drop. We also are clear that we don’t add an enterprise if we haven’t dropped one. We’ve found that cut flowers and salad greens are our big earners, but we’re considering incorporating in laying hens to improve soil fertility while providing income. We market both through retail at the farmer’s markets and wholesale and have analyzed the profit from those markets. With the review we’ve been able to determine which accounts to drop and new ones to pick up. It’s allowed us to improve profitability and labor management.

This review helps up drill down and really do the numbers. It works if you take it seriously and commit to it. The secret to success in business is change and adaptation. You have to look at what is working and what

Holistic Management for Dummies continued from page eight slightly. The green line turns to brown the day after tomorrow and we will slow up the cattle moves. Ian would be proud.

And just like Greg, I am now looking forward to lucrative engagements. And, even if that doesn’t happen, I will know that out there somewhere a devoted wife will be saying: “Look, if David can do it, we can do it!” *Author’s Note: Ms. Judy’s name is actually “Jan”, but what fun is that? And we have to admit that, in his book, Greg actually pays Jan quite a tribute: “I would rather sort and load cattle with Jan, than any other person I know. She can string up a fence or take one down in the time it takes to tell you about it. I never saw a woman any stouter for her size than she is.” That Greg Judy still has all his teeth after writing such beautiful verse makes it clear than Jan is indeed a saint.

David Schoumacher and Wooz Matthews farm in Rappahannock County, Virginia. David can be reached at: david@thistlehill.net.

Put a dot in each segment based on your feeling of success for each topic. The closer the dot is to the outside ring, the more successful you feel. A dot towards the center is an area which you need more help with or need to allocate more attention to. Connect the dots to reveal the "shape" of your “Holistic Net Worth”. Compare each year. Remember: Change the labels to best address the different realms of your Farm Life.

The template for this pie chart located at: http://holisticmanagement.org/ wp-content/uploads/2012/04/The-Value-of-a-Whole-Farm-Review-1.pdf

isn’t and be willing to respond to that information. We find it helpful to practice looking ahead at all the potential challenges that may occur and consider responses. It’s like a coach practicing defense. It helps to be prepared. This allows us to check on all the different variables like inputs or labor on different crops. We delegate different people to follow up on each of these issues and report on what they’ve learned.

This type of review has helped us grow and improve management.

We’ve grown from ¼ acre the first year to managing 21 acres. Likewise, we’re better able to manage for cover crops to build soil fertility. We had some challenges in making the review effective, but over time we developed a template that helped us step through each piece of the review and prioritize our activities.

This type of prioritization is critical for the sustainability of the farm and the farmer. With improved profitability you can determine which investments will improve the quality of life, like the purchase of a transplanter or a salad cutter that means less wear and tear on the farmers’ joints and allow for scalability.

We’ve found that the holistic goal helps us arrive at consensus and helps us to prioritize ideas. We have a weekly sheet that is a mini calendar that allows us to easily develop daily action lists and know who is responsible and the amount that is to be accomplished as well as take into account things like the weather. once we complete those tasks we have the weekly sheets as a journal and a record for next year’s planning.

In this way we can manage resources better which reduces stress.

We’ve also used the Whole Farm Life Pie chart to review all aspects of the farm. We can track year to year how we are doing in such areas as: physical and mental health, financial security, personal enjoyment, animal and plant health, and our relationships in the community.

We have a growing season from mid-March to the end of December, so we try to use the winter when we don’t have employees to manage as a time to get the bulk of planning and review done. That time and effort has made our business more successful.

Number 148

IN PRACTICE 9

Cows and Desert Bighorn Sheep

T

he desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) is one of the four subspecies of desert bighorn sheep that occur in North America. The desert bighorn is named for the American naturalist, edward William Nelson and is found in the desert Southwest and Northern Mexico. experts today say that prior to european settlement, there were 1.5 to 2-million bighorn of which about 7,000 were desert bighorn.

However around 1604 early Spanish explorer, Don Juan de oñate y Salazar, described desert bighorn skull piles at bighorn-hunting Indian villages which would indicate far-greater numbers, and that bighorn were out on grasslands.

Today desert bighorn are found in the highdesert mountains. Desert bighorn generally behave like all bighorn, with one exception: They can go for long times without free water.

They are similar in size to mule deer with rams weighing 115–280 pounds and ewes less.

Bighorn have unique concave hooves which allow them to climb steep rocky terrain quickly.

They use this ability and keen eyesight to avoid predators like lions, coyotes and bobcats.

Horns develop soon after birth and continue to grow throughout the animal’s life. Mature rams have enormous curling horns which measure over 3 feet long and can have more than 12 inches of circumference at the base. ewes’ horns are smaller, lighter and straighter.

At age 8 an adult ram may have 30 pounds of horns. They sometimes rub (“broom”) their horns to improve their field of view. rams and ewes use their horns to break open cactus and to fight. They live 10 to 20 years. Desert bighorn are primarily browsers and weed (forb) eaters, and eat mostly perennials. Like mule deer and

antelope, when they can find tender, green succulent grass, they eat it; otherwise they are seeking out the higher nutrition provided by browse and weeds. rams fight each other for the ewes during the rut but for the rest of the year rams and ewes live apart. The breeding season is usually July through october but specific weather conditions could trigger breeding at anytime. Lambs are born after 180 days usually in late winter.

Bighorn can go for long periods without water, and can lose 30% of their body weight.

After they drink water this is quickly recovered.

This adaptive strategy has allowed bands of bighorn to survive in areas too dry for their predators.

Restoring Bighorn Populations Bighorn in Texas were virtually wiped out by 1960. Today, after fifty years of restoration, the state population of desert bighorn is estimated at around 1,200 animals of which 400-500 are in the Sierra Diablos. We believe that at any given time we have about 100 sheep on Circle ranch depending on season and rainfall.

Desert bighorn sheep are the rarest of the four subspecies of bighorn sheep. Permits to hunt one are extremely valuable. All funds we receive from permit sales, and much more, is spent on our wildlife restoration programs. our primary tools for our desert bighorn are permanent water, holistic planned grazing, and net-fence modifications to help sheep move around. Since predator eradications seem to backfire, we avoid them.

Circle ranch has 170 permanent water points on 32,000 acres. Several dozen of these are in the high mountains above the

“Desert bighorn sheep live in family units of around 10 individuals although sometimes herds will reach 100 in size.”

10 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

by CHRIS GILL

escarpments used by sheep. Although sheep would be there without permanent water, we are able to maintain larger numbers and also elk, pronghorn, mule deer and periodically up to 1,000 cattle in the high country because of water.

Texas’ sheep managers believe natives like elk also harm bighorn and plants. They plan to ‘lethally-remove’ all elk on state-managed lands in far-West Texas. Yet, for hundreds of millennia desert bighorn, elk and bison shared Western ranges along with other species including pronghorn, mule deer and their predators.

We know those shared ranges were far-more productive back when lots of different animals were in them so we encourage all these species on the Circle ranch.

Until europeans hunted them out, bison were the primary large grazers on the plains and in the mountains. They were replaced with domestic cattle which are very similar in their animal impact and are manageable. While plants on Western ranges were often overutilized, the land got animal impact. But over the last 30 years the ranges have been destocked as cattle have moved to feedlots.

Without animal impact they are in decline.

That is why we use cattle as our land reclamation tool at the Circle ranch.

Using Flerds Do cows hurt sheep or sheep habitat? Let’s go “down-under” for answers. Quoting Quivera Coalition’s Courtney White, “In seven years eric Harvey expanded plant species numbers on his farm in New South Wales from 7 to 136. He did this with a “flerd,” a co-mingled flock of sheep and a herd of cattle.

To eric, this situation represents a missed opportunity both ecologically and economically.

Years ago he saw sheep and cattle grazing in a farm in Africa and thought, “That makes sense!” When eric purchased Gilgai Farm after a successful career as a wool trader, he knew right from the start that he wanted to run a flerd. The reason was simple: He needed to re-carbonize the land soil.

“Poor stewardship of Gilgai over the years— mostly out of ignorance—had depleted the farm’s soils of essential elements, especially carbon which is critical to microbial life and thus to plant life. eric intended to reverse this. But where were the minerals going to come from?

Trucks? A mine? A factory? A talk with a neighbor provided the answer: the sky. Carbon was freely available in the air; all he had to do was to get it into the soil via photosynthesis and planned grazing practices. eric set out to try.

“In 2005 he put together his first flerd CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

LIVESTOCK

&

Ponoholo Ranch—

Diverse Ecology Aids Grazing Management

by HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

T

he von Holt family has been ranching in Hawaii for 3 generations.

Pono von Holt has used rotational and holistic grazing strategies for several decades to improve pasture production on their ranch in Kohala, Hawaii. “our ranch was originally part of a larger operation called Kahua ranch in 1928 when my father and his partner were ranching together.

My father died in 1953, and when I came home from college I began working for his partner who had the majority control. In the mid 1970s my dad’s partner passed away and we went through more estate planning issues between the families and decided to split the property. We formed Ponoholo ranch in 1980,” he says.

Improved Grazing Cuts Costs “In the process of doing that, we felt things were working pretty well the way they were, so we stayed in a joint venture for another 8 years. In 1989 we completely split apart and became two independent ranches— Kahua ranch and Ponoholo ranch. Shortly after our initial split, Allan Savory came to our island in 1981, at the request of one of our extension Agents. He looked at the different ranching practices here, and gave us his classic understocked/overgrazing spiel. We couldn’t figure that out, so he invited us to attend his school,” says von Holt.

A group of ranchers from Hawaii went to the Holistic resource Management [now known as Holistic Management] course at Albuquerque that Savory and Stan Parsons taught. “We learned about the Savory grazing method and became excited about it. We came back and implemented a one-year trial on a couple areas of our ranch—one in very dry country and the other in our more highly productive region. We found that our payback on the higher production pasture was about 6 months and in the dry portion it would take about 6 years,” he says.

“It still made economic sense to do it, so we put a 7-year plan together to develop the whole ranch. This doubled our stocking capacity. We originally ran about 2,600 cows and 1,000 head of sheep, keeping all our calves as stockers to put into a local feed yard at about 650 to 700 pounds. It took us 5 years to put in the infrastructure, and we built our herd to full production within 7 years—increasing our herd to a little more than 5,000 cows and keeping all our calves here,” he says.

“We looked at what we were doing and we were still having problems.

I called Allan, and he said we were doing what most ranchers do—letting our costs rise to our level of production. He told me he had a ‘generating wealth’ course and suggested I come to that! We did, and found out that we were a typical rancher/farmer, loving production, and were not addressing the cost end of it,” explains von Holt.

At that point they ended the joint venture with the neighboring ranch and became independent, focusing on the cattle. “We cut back our costs and have been doing this since 1990. In the early 1990s we made a switch from producing calves and stocker cattle for the feed yards and ended up going to a cow-calf operation and exporting our calves to the mainland.

We knew we could raise cattle year-round here and our grass is very CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

The Ponoholo Ranch covers 11,000 acres and has rainfall ranging from 110 inches to 6 inches.

Number 148

Land & Livestock

11

Ponoholo Ranch

continued from page eleven

competitive for producing calves. We were not competitive in economics of scale in processing and importing feed to Hawaii (for the feedlot calves), with very few by-products here that we could feed,” he says.

Natural Beef “our packing plants were small and inefficient so we had higher processing costs. It made a lot more sense to spend the money on freight to the mainland rather than spend it on the processing and feeding.

Because we used to market our cattle here in Hawaii (as a co-op with a bunch of ranchers) we knew that quality paid. our cattle are bred to be very quality-oriented in terms of grading and performance, so we like to retain ownership all the way through to the rail in our marketing on the mainland,” he says.

The ranch eventually formed markets through several alliances on the mainland. Between a third to a half of their beef goes through Country Natural Beef in oregon, which was started many years ago by Holistic Management practitioners Doc and Connie Hatfield. “We got involved in this one in the late 1990s. This has been a great program for us. At one time we had a stocker ranch near enterprise, oregon. our calves coming over to the mainland spent the winter in California and summer grazing in oregon. eventually that ranch became too valuable as a real estate venture and we sold it,” says von Holt.

Now they do contracts with various stocker operators or feeders who have access to grazing. “About half our cattle go through a program called ranchers renaissance in Texas—an alliance with Cargill and several feed yards in Texas. They market a product in various stores, one of the largest being Safeway with their ranchers reserve program.

Another third of our cattle end up in Decatur, Kansas in an alliance with Decatur County Feedyards that have a special marketing grid with Cargill.

They provided individual electronic management of cattle early on. This was very advantageous in getting data back to the ranch regarding their performance. That way we can manipulate our genetics to try to address any weaknesses in our cattle,” he says.

“This is what we’ve been doing now for a number of years. We like the diversification provided by several markets, giving us more flexibility in weather risk and market risk. The export program has worked well; we’ve seen our mainland costs double, but at the same time the value of the

animals has more than doubled, so those markets are still there for us,” he says. It just takes a lot more money to get the cattle to market today.

“When we started out, the industry was pretty much commodity based. over the course of the last 20 years it has developed a lot of branded programs and niche marketing. There is an opportunity here now for grass-finished cattle. We are starting to take a hard look at that. We have some rancher partners in a packing plant here, with some funding from the state and the county to increase infrastructure so we can process more cattle and target the grass market here in Hawaii. We should have the infrastructure completed by the middle of 2013. We are excited about doing some grass-finished cattle, even though we probably won’t be able to get all of our cattle into that program. It will certainly spread the risk and allow us to keep some of the animals here.”

Grass-finishing and branded beef programs are becoming more prevalent in the industry today. “People have different perceptions about what they want to eat, and this gives us the opportunity to target certain customers,” says von Holt.

Climate and Forage Opportunities & Challenges Hawaii has many different climates. “I’m told there are 13 ecosystem climates in the world and there only 2 we don’t have here—the Sahara Desert climate and Antarctica. We have wetter conditions on our mountains than what we have on the lower elevations of the ranch,” he says.

The Ponoholo ranch has about 11,000 acres. This region goes from the tropical rain forest climate at the mountaintops to sea level at the ocean. “We go from 110 inches of rainfall per year in the rain forest, down to 6 inches. We have some country on our ranch that looks like West Texas and some that looks like New Zealand or oregon in the springtime.

This gives us flexibility in seasonality of production and breeding seasons. It allows us to be more flexible in our marketing. We basically have 2 breeding seasons, due to the seasonality of our different areas.

This helps us diversify a little when we market cattle,” he says.

The ranch has a wide variety of forage plants. “In our better grazing areas we have predominantly Kikuyu grass which was brought here from Kenya in the 1920s. It is a very productive semi-temperate type of grass.

It’s tropical, but has some temperate characteristics that allow it to prosper at higher elevations. In our lower elevation dry country we have buffalo grass, which is a native of Texas. on the windward side of the

The Ponoholo has run as much as 5,000 cows but with current drought conditions are down to 3,500 cows— still up from the 2,600 they originally ran before Holistic Management training.

12

Land & Livestock

March / April 2013

island at lower elevation there are bunch grasses called Guinea and a variety of that called green panic grass, and another one we call California that’s a Para Grass.” one of the challenges on the Ponoholo ranch is the wide variation in what they need to manage for; it’s not easy to ranch in several eco-zones and try to manage for the seasonality in each one of those. At the same time, this is also a wonderful opportunity because it allows for better yearround production.

“We don’t do much mob grazing, but we do stock our pastures heavily, moving the cattle every one to three days. We use our dry cows for what we call cow dozing. This practice has had a huge beneficial impact on brush control. We’ve wiped out most of the brush in the area where we have a transition zone between the wetter, higher-production country and our dry zone which has open ground from past grazing. It used to have a lot of brush, and we’ve been able to cow doze that area pretty well. Now, when we get moisture, that area is very nicely grassed over with Green Panic and a tropical legume. This has greatly increased our forage production,” he says.

“With the dry years we have reduced our stocking rate, but we have increased our animal performance. If we go through a wet period again sometime, we will probably increase our stocking rate. our plan is to optimize what we have, depending on what Mother Nature gives us,” says von Holt.

“We have what we call a drought trigger, with a drought monitor for our own property because of our rainfall variations. We have a trigger point; if moisture gets down to 80% of normal, this is when we start to destock. our decisions on this are all data driven, so they are not affected by emotion. I’m always an optimist and think it’s going to rain! It’s better to work with data points to guide our decisions,” he explains. “even though we don’t like the dry weather, we’ve been able to work through it. We have a lot of country that is extremely productive if we have wet conditions. one of the problems with tropical grasses is that they do not defer very well; you can’t leave them to use later. They lose their nutritional value very quickly. We try to utilize them as much as we can, given the drought conditions, but we may only graze them twice each year when it’s dry. Much of the ranch right now has been resting for 6 months, waiting for rain,” says von Holt.

The island has been in a long-term drought and this has been a challenge. This is the eighth consecutive year with below-normal rainfall.

Tourist Opportunity

T

he Ponoholo ranch has a riding concession where tourists can book a time to go horseback riding. This program is called Paniolo riding Adventures. “This is a business operation that is independent from us. We’ve given them a license to operate on our land. We just charge a license fee every month and don’t have to worry about doing it ourselves. For us, this is the best way to do business and have a good job done. What we found in the past, when we tried to diversify into different agricultural crops and other projects, was that we didn’t have the management capability to do a good job with any of these extra things,” says von Holt. It’s been best just to focus on what they can do well.

“If opportunities come up, or better uses of some of the land, or uses that are symbiotic with what we are doing (such as wind power) we will certainly take a look at it, and may decide to do it—as long as we aren’t having to do it ourselves.”

“our mother cow herd has been reduced by about 1,500 head; we’ve tried to balance our stocking rate with the resource and we’ve come through it very well. our cattle are still doing well; we just don’t have very many. This past year was probably our biggest challenge because every year the soil moisture is more depleted,” he says.

The flexibility in pastures and management has helped, along with the ability to move Sabrina White and Pono Von Holt cattle to the mainland. “Some of our advantage is that we do have pastures in high rainfall areas. If the 110-inch rainfall area is in a drought and only gets 70 or 80 inches, it’s still not too bad. Some of our areas haven’t had much problem for production, while other pastures have been completely wiped out,” he explains.

Plans for the Future “one of the great things about going through the Holistic resource Management courses is that it has expanded our thinking. Any newly hired employee goes through the course, so everyone is on the same page. We are focused on the whole, which is very important. As we get older, we’ve completed an estate plan and are transitioning into new leadership. I will be out of the business end of it—from an operating standpoint—by the end of 2013,” says von Holt.

He has four children, but the middle daughter Sabrina White has always had an interest in the ranch, and she is now stepping into the organization. “We’ve put a management team together with her and a gentleman, Chris english, who has been with us a long time. He started working for me out of college, and comes from a long-term ranching family from the east side of this island. We have partnered through an LLC on some of his family properties for the operation. He is part of our team on the production side, and my daughter will be focused mainly on marketing and administrative support,” he says.

They all work together as a team whenever they work cattle. “everyone gets on a horse or a 4-wheeler when we need to work the cattle. With intensive grazing as a tool, our cattle are well trained to follow us to new pastures, and we’ve implemented a lot of the animal handling techniques that have been taught to us. This makes it easier and safer for us. We do most of our moves using an ATv, but when we are actually doing cattle work we use the horses in the corral area. We do have some pasture agreements on other parts of the island that are more extensive, and we go over there and help drive cattle on horseback,” he says.

Another employee, Alan Gottlieb, has been with them for 30 years and not only helps operate the property but has been instrumental in financial matters and helping with family planning and administration of the family trust. “We have a very good team and I feel confident that we will make the transition smoothly to the third generation. With the proper business structure and a strong board of directors, I feel we can continue our business for a long time,” says von Holt.

Pono Von Holt ranches near Kohala, Hawaii. You can learn more about their ranch at: ponoholo.com.

Number 148

Land & Livestock

13

Drought—

The “Opportunities” for Graziers

by BEN BARTLETT

M

y title is not meant to offend all those people who have been stressed and suffered so by the drought of 2012. The reality is that the lack of timely rains and the extreme evaporation happened and there’s not much we can do about it now.

The bigger loss would be to suffer so from the drought and not learn any of the lessons this challenge offered us. Here is a quote from ray Dalio, founder of the Bridgewater investment firm. “Nature gave us pain as a messaging device to tell us that we are approaching, or that we have exceeded, our limits in some way. When we encounter pain, we are at an important juncture in our decision making process. Most people react to pain badly. They have a ‘fight or flight’ reaction to it: they either strike out at whatever brought them the pain or they try to run away from it. As a result, they don’t learn to find ways around their barriers, so they encounter them over and over again and make little or no progress toward what they want.”

What can we learn from last year’s drought? First—let’s keep our discussion of the drought to the lack of forage due to the lack of moisture. I know some people also lacked drinking water for their stock, but the lack of feed is by far the most widespread impact of a drought. If a drought is a lack of feed, when is a drought a drought? It seems like a silly question and the experts have official drought designations, but is a drought for you a drought for me?

I have visited with graziers from Ireland and New Zealand and two weeks without rain is a drought based on what they consider normal. on the other hand, some parts of the U.S. get dry every summer and a number of producers in Kansas have gone to a split grazing season with a break in the summer. So we can generalize that different grazing areas will have both different amounts of rainfall but also a difference in ranges of what is normal.

This is a critical point—the wider your year to year variation from average, the more likely you will suffer very significant feed shortages. If your average yield is “5” with variations of 4-6 , that’s a lot different than an average yield of “5” with a variation of 1-9. The bottom line is if your variation is 4-6, you can stock at “4” and be in good shape for all but the most unusual years. If your variation is 1-9, you better have a way to carry feed from year to year or be ready to destock.

With this in mind, consider Lesson #1: Did you have a “drought” or were your overstocked? The wider your normal yield variation the more flexible your harvest plan must be.

Another important lesson from this year’s drought is to think back over your farm or ranch and remember which fields or pieces of land actually did pretty well even with the lack of rain and which were the spots that gave up early. I am not thinking about the obvious rocky hill top versus riparian area. I am thinking about those spots that were better and it’s not obvious why. I had a friend in Texas tell me about a spot that always did better and the rest of the story was that the good spot was where grandpa buried the mule, many, many years before. Soil with more organic matter can hold more water.

Hudson (1994) showed that within all soil texture groups, as organic matter increases from 1% to 3%, the available water capacity approximately doubles. In addition, healthy plants with long roots can withstand longer periods with less moisture. In addition, soil that is covered with litter will not lose as much moisture and be cooler than bare soil. And, soil covered with litter and good levels of organic matter will absorb more of the rains when they do come. All these grazing practices 14

Land & Livestock

March / April 2013

are not so important when it rains regularly; it’s when it is dry that your past grazing practices really come home to haunt you.

So Lesson #2 is: What did your pastures look like before the drought? Did you have good soil cover, both litter and grazing plants?

Were your grazing plants healthy with long roots before the big dry?

A drought can sneak up on people, and they sometimes forget to pull their stock off pastures that are long out of feed and are being eaten too short. I know the reply. “We were short of feed and needed to eat it all” and my reply is that you were not short of feed; you had too many mouths to feed. Farmers have a saying about “don’t eat the seed” and when you graze too short, you are eating that plant’s ability to grow when it does rain. Too often people expect the “next rain” to save them, and as the many drought articles suggest, hope is not a strategy.

Lesson #3: After it started getting dry, did you take aggressive action to match stocking rate to feed available? Do you have a written feed budget or can you keep your feed budget on hundreds/thousands of acres in your head?

Did you get rain? Do you think your drought is over? I think many people know that the stressed plants will take time to recover. It will take time for plants to recover and their lower harvestable production will limit your capacity to increase your stocking rates. The lack of rain has been hard on the plants, hard on the grazing stock and hard on people. It’s never fun to be broke, and it’s not fun to not have enough feed. When you are short of money, you make a budget so you can pay the bills and make sure the money gets spent the best way possible. The same lesson goes for your reduced forage supply. You need to let the plants get healthy again, you need to feed the stock you still have, and if you know how much feed you have and can grow, you may be able to take advantage of some of the good deals on grazing stock that will happen.

Lesson #4: Begin a “new and improved” written grazing plan.

Don’t let the lessons that are so obvious because of the drought go to waste: • #1—Match stocking rate to realistic levels of year to year feed production; • #2—enhance your soil and plant health: more organic matter, more litter and plant soil cover, and a healthy and diverse plant community; #3—Know your feed supply so you can take aggressive • stocking actions; • #4—Take the weak links this drought has identified and make a plan to enhance your farm’s/ranch’s long term grazing potential.

Do not let the pain go to waste—make the end of this drought be the beginning of your stronger grazing program.

Ben Bartlett is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Stockman, Grazing Specialist, and Holistic Management® Certified Educator.

He can be reached at: bartle18@msu.edu. This article first appeared in Graze, a magazine about managed grazing and family-scale agriculture.

608-455-3311; www.grazeonline.com.

Reference: Hudson, B.D. 1994. Soil organic matter and available water capacity. J. Soil Wat. Con., 49(2): 189-194.

Grazeheart Combats the Armyworms The dreaded armyworm.

by TROY BISHOPP

I

t was back in 2001 when I first met the dreaded armyworms marching through my neighborhood munching and crunching on mine and other farmers’ grass plants at night and bivouacking under the cool litter during the day only to return the next evening to eat even more plants. As we returned to this epic battle being waged on farms in 2012, what lessons from the past have we learned to defeat these hungry, slithering soldiers?

For me, the two biggest decisions in agriculture (is or should) surround the lasting effects of whether to plow land or to spray chemicals. regarding the latter in dealing with these pests, too often our agricultural advisors are prescribing the bottle and are too linear in their thinking. But who could argue their merits when you are under attack and seeing your sweat equity being wiped out daily. I was in the same mindset back in 2001. However, I chose a different path based on my financial, environmental and personal goals bucking the trend reported heavily in the newspaper that I too should spray my way to victory.

Dialogue from the movie, “Braveheart,” got me thinking: Young William Wallace says to his father, “I can fight,” and Malcolm Wallace responds, “I know. I know you can fight. But it's our wits that make us men.”

I thought long and hard about the impending battle plan as this ravenous army marched on acre by acre. Questions arose in my head: What’s the worm’s lifecycle, habits and weaknesses? How will an insecticide-laden worm affect the wildlife that will eat them? Will the spray kill all my beneficial insects too? Can I afford it? What other alternative measures are there? What is the cost of letting nature take its course and doing nothing?

The hardest thing, and yet the easiest personal and environmental decision, was not to spray. The next strategy was to spend some time with my enemies in the field. They shared vividly what they like to eat which of course was orchardgrass, ryegrass, timothy, and bromegrass.

But, they had an aversion to my clovers, dandelions, plantain and other forbs. I was learning the true value of diversity right before my eyes.

To me they looked like mini-cows grazing; and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. To control them take away their food, water and shelter and expose them to a nice shearing char from the sun. But how?

An army of cows, that’s how. reminiscent of a civil war battlefield, the two armies met in the middle of a sunny, ten-acre pasture with a band of ½”poly-tape and I being the generals. You can only imagine the scene as 80 closely flanked 1,000-pound steers launched into this leguminous, “forbious,” succulent sward stomping and chomping their way through the hiding guerilla worms. As I left the skirmish and let the combatants to their devices, I wondered how this decision would play out.

I remember the morning after like it was yesterday. In what was probably the most profound moment of my grazing life, I crested the plateau to see literally hundreds of turkeys and crows in a feeding frenzy intermixed with the puzzled but contented steers resting after the battle.

At one point I saw a turkey toss a fatty worm in the air like she was playing catch. They were actually having fun with these new found caterpillars of protein.

The good and bad thing about monitoring such a colossal aftermath is I’m the only recorder of history. In the wake of the cattle’s high density grazing and manure, lay a flurry of beneficial insects and wildlife either eating the worms or laying eggs on their now exposed bodies. others were crushed, fried on a stalk or passing through the gut of a steer to enhance the fertilizer factory. To be honest, some of my motivation to quell the invasion was to stop the fertility transfer—worms leaving with my grass.

While Troy was not able to capture the routing of the armyworm, this photo shows the drastic difference between pre- and post-graze which shows how the armyworm would be exposed to many predators after a grazing.

As I surveyed the land then and in the following days, I became very aware of the synergistic nature between cows, wildlife, insects and diverse grasslands. It’s like this pest problem heightened my thinking but also showed my inadequacies, given all the tools at my disposal that could win the battle but not the war. I actually sighed with relief that I chose this path because I could not fathom the future consequences of my nature’s workers dying along with the targeted species or ingesting chemically-laden worms deemed “safe” by the USDA. My approach is not specifically trying to denigrate the status quo of control measures currently in use but can serve as an alternative given you have a similar set of tools as I. As one who networks with many graziers in the realities of local environments and goals, I’ve been called to farms in the heat of this latest armyworm onslaught also worried about the decisions they will make for the future of their farm.

We have brainstormed most of the current tools plus some new fresh ideas: Spray them with molasses to draw in more beneficial critters, hit them with lime or liquid manure, combine a community of chicken tractors into the war zone, and even using a vacuum truck. While all these could be stalwart remedies there are some common practices we should all be committed to in an effort to stop pest invasions before they start.

In the interest of space, I’m just suggesting these 3 tenets for implementing successful pest management: Diversity of plant and animal communities, soil health including topsoil management and incorporating herds of grazing animals (along with wildlife) into a crop rotation.

The army came to my farm again this year but they were ill-equipped to handle the thick, diverse sward with good organic matter, active biological life and heavy dose of high density grazing. You see, I’ve been secretly waiting and honing my ecosystem for eleven years to win this war, organically and respectfully.

Troy Bishopp works as the Regional Grassland Conservation Professional for the Upper Susquehanna Coalition and the Madison County Soil and Water Conservation District in Hamilton, New York.

He can be reached at:troy-bishopp@verizon.net.

Number 148

Land & Livestock

15

From the BOD Chair

by SALLIE CALHOUN

Working for What You Want

F

or me, the most important concept in Holistic Management is the idea that it is more effective to manage for something that you want than to attempt to get rid of something you do not want.

I tell groups I speak with that if they remember only one thing about the decision-making process it should be that. Unfortunately, I often feel silly saying that to people because on first hearing it seems obvious. They give me a look that says, “Well, duh.” You have to really stop and think about the way the world works to realize that it is quite a revolutionary, lifechanging idea.

Since I have been involved with Holistic Management, I have become much more aware of how much time people and societies spend working to get rid of things they don't want. The number of readily available examples is quite discouraging. At the Federal level we have wars on poverty, crime, drugs, and terrorism, to name just a few from my lifetime. It seems that declaring war on a societal problem guarantees that we will spend much time and money on the “problem,” and not make terribly much progress.

It is not just the government. ranchers wage war on weeds and environmentalists rage against non-native or invasive plants. Nonprofits work to stop teen pregnancy, high school dropouts, or homelessness. In spite of the time and money invested, these problems often

Cows and Bighorn Sheep

prove to be intractable.

There are many examples close to home.

A few years ago I was at a meeting of ranchers and academics to review annual monitoring on 10-12 ranches and parks. By the end of the presentation, it became clear that there was a basic difference in the way the two groups were looking at the monitoring. The academics had set out to find “problems” that they could identify and get the ranchers to “fix.” They felt the monitoring was successful because it showed no such “problems.” The ranchers knew there weren't problems, but they were hoping that the monitoring would give them insight on how to make their land, animals, and bottom lines healthier, which surprised the academics. The ensuing conversation just frustrated everyone in the room, and it was the last year that the monitoring was undertaken.

Imagine how the Holistic Management perspective could change our conversations and our actions. We would not be trying to “fight” homelessness. We would be talking about adequate housing for every American, with the necessary support services. We would be talking about making sure that teenagers have self-esteem, knowledge, and a plan for the future, rather than “reducing teen pregnancy rates.” We would be looking at root causes of society's problems rather than whacking away at symptoms for decades at a

continued from page ten

eventually raising totals to 5,000 sheep and 600 cows. His goal was to use the different grazing behaviors of sheep and cattle to benefit plant vigor diversity and density. Cattle will knock over tall, dry grass, for instance, while sheep graze close to the ground. As eric described it, herbivory creates an organic “pulse” below the ground surface as roots grow and contract with grazing. This feeds carbon and other elements to hungry fungi, protozoa and nematodes, which in turn feed grass plants.

The manure “pulse” helps too. In short order soil fertility returned to Gilgai. As an added bonus nothing had to come from a factory!”

Says eric, “We have found that running cattle and sheep together has given us a powerful ecological tool for repair and rehabilitation. The livestock are grazed at a very high density for a very short period of time across 196 paddocks. Most paddocks are only grazed for one day and then rested 180 days. The effect is a tremendous pulse of organic matter in our soils each grazing, from plants as well as urine and manure.

Having dung beetles “follow” the herd as soil renovators and aerators means paddocks get healthier with each grazing and organic carbon is increasing. organic carbon holds 7 times its own weight in water so the 16 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

time. We would understand that the thistle is there because of management, soil characteristics, and weather, and that spraying with herbicides will only kill this year's thistle.

There are certainly times when a problem just has to be addressed right now because of its seriousness, but to do that year after year without addressing the root causes and the desired outcomes seems crazy.

I think that the power of this concept, even it was primarily just a change of language to start, is vastly underestimated. Words have a huge effect on how people see things and think about them, and we do not understand that well.

There is a great deal of recent brain research demonstrating that the words people hear prior to taking a test or negotiating a price have a large unexpected impact on their behavior. our brains do not work in as rational a way as we think. So, if we could change both our words and actions change might happen more quickly.

Tomorrow I head off for a conference organized by the Greenhorns organization to discuss support for the next generation of farmers and ranchers. We will spend time thinking about what farming needs to look like in 25 years to grow the good food we all need in a way that benefits people and the planet.

And then time thinking about what we need to do to make that happen. It is a large and complicated example of working towards what we want. Thinking about the future this way makes me hopeful, optimistic, and energized.

It is a seemingly simple concept that has changed my life and has the potential to change the world in ways that we cannot even imagine.

cumulative effect of a continual increase in carbon is a massive continual increase in the water holding capacity of soil. The action of herd effect and animal impact are tools that we have used through our grazing system to repair and restore problem areas, e.g. scalded country and gully erosion.”

So why do folks claim cattle and sheep don’t mix? “It must be a paradigm thing with humans says eric with a smile. It’s not an issue in Nature.”

So back home at the Circle ranch, we’ve added winter-grazed cattle to free-ranging sheep, elk, mule deer, pronghorn and aoudad to help the cows, the bighorn, and the plants all need to thrive. It takes some effort to cattle up into the sheep country with ledges, but we are committed to restoring wildlife habitat on the Circle ranch.

In 2013, HMI is organizing two classes based on the use of cattle to help wildlife. “Cows and Quail” is the only wildlife and habitat class based on the recognition that plants need animals as much as animals need plants. Watch for one near you: http://holisticmanagement.org/featuredblog-posts/cattle-and-quail-management-requires-a-plan/.

Chris Gill and his family own the Circle Ranch near Van Horn, Texas where they are, using cattle to improve wildlife habitat. www.circleranchtx.com

READER’S FORUM How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Test Decisions

by OWEN HABLUTZEL

T

he road ahead was serpentine. Idaho fell deeper into shadow. Night was coming sure and fast. Through several sharp curves the canyon lurched and swung across my windshield. Mountains lunged sideways! After fourteen hours of driving my mind had swerved onto a road of its own.

Sky beauty and lucid emerging starlight was lost on me. All day there had been no stopping through the desert country to smell the wildflowers. or to smile on springing antelope bounding up the distances. No visits with rocky Mountain area graziers. No time to appreciate the land I sped through. The focus was only on the short-term goal of reaching my western Montana destination “on-time.”

Salmon river spring-melt charged forward aggressively, left of the highway. voluminous greens, parallel with purples, all wild with whitecaps and eddies. Mirror to a turbulent disquiet in my own head and gut. I would never make it to Montana tonight. Unfit to drive. Was that failure creeping in with the dark?

I was racing to a practicum workshop in Montana with Sepp Holzer—”rebel Farmer”— 70 year old master Permaculture land steward from Austria. A great learning opportunity with extra-ordinary folks. I did not want to miss one minute. Learning was important to my holistic goal, after all. Though I’d planned the trip months earlier that plan was slipping away. extra work had emerged as the leave date approached. A regional land and livelihood proposal came due for the Western Sahara job.

NGo clients up against funding deadlines.

A whole-farm plan for a Texas ranch elongated.

Clients eager to implement prior to the summer rains. And, though the workshop had been scheduled first, this work also fit well my holistic goal. Trade-offs.

Not so surprising, yet somehow still tough to plan for, the projects took longer than planned.

After a marathon push I finally left California for Montana. Much later than intended. With much less sleep than desired.

A recent speeding ticket fresh in memory slowed my travel from there. Great Basin Desert was the first overnight resting place on the journey. Pale moon. A restless sleep. Three hours at most. Comic-anxious dreams.

This second night on the road the continuing sleep-lack and too long drive resigned me to overnight well short of my goal. Though such sights and sounds usually soothe, even the

surging Salmon river felt worrisome through the filter of my hurried, harried state.

Motel neon glowed a wide amber circle while I raced through a plan, once stopped. I was till six hours from the Flathead Lake workshop location. To be on-time I would have to drive away from my Idaho motel room by 2 a.m. Yet another very short night of sleep loomed.

Something felt impossible. But I’d been planning it for months. It was important. Could I give up now? As I closed down Google maps and my laptop, another thought emerged. of course! The Holistic Decision Tool!

What light could the Holistic Management testing questions shed on the situation? After all I did have a holistic goal. A source of guidance. even inspiration! A track-record of good advice! enacted and aided by the testing questions. outside the river kept crashing its way through a fully fallen darkness. My vehicle engine cooled and settled its complaints.

Cattle called anxious across the creek.

Taking a step back, I began to think about my situation through the perspective of my holistic goal. Big picture context. Thinking whole pasture, not just the blades of grass.

A quick look at the testing questions came next.

Would it cause any confusion or issues with folks at Flathead if I were to show up late?

Doubtful! It may create poorer social outcomes in fact if I arrived ‘on-time’ but ‘out-of-it.’

And further thinking through the comparison of the two options, was an exercise in

Editor’s Note: A creative response to Elysa Bryant’s article in the last issue of IN PRACTICE, “To Seed or Not to Seed.”

To Seed or not to seed, that is the question Whether tis more economic to drag out the seed drill or to suffer the sceptical look of neighbors unconvinced by intensive grazing till they With their own eyes behold a multitude of plants burst forth from that sweet slumbering seed bank lay dormant lo these many years. (paraphrased from William Shakeseed— an early pasture manager)

by Tony McQuail, Lucknow, Ontario Canada

realization and relief. Arrive at 8 a.m. ‘as planned,’ or arrive whenever I can comfortably do so? This marginal reaction was the crux of my issue. What good would it do to be there physically if I would be significantly impaired mentally? And emotionally? What benefit?

In a matter of a few moments my mood turned around. Weight was removed. The gut check test confirmed this with clarity. Arriving tomorrow afternoon, after getting proper rest was a better fit to my holistic goal. If I was to “dwell relatedly and with an open, present, aware, embodied heart, mind, and will” (as my evolving quality of life statement proclaims) then adequate sleep was not optional! If I recommended plenty of plant recovery time to clientele, should I not recognize my own recovery needs!?

Just a simple goal check and thinking over the testing questions had worked as a stress-relief, a sleep-aid, a mood changer and a decision tool all in one! In retrospect it all seems such a simple thing. Kind of obvious. Why had it not occurred to me sooner? Lost in the minutia and details, shortterm goals, hypnosis of the road. . .

Literally a moment was all it had taken to lose the worries. To experience the warmth of relief. To renew inspiration. re-grasp purpose.

And all the joy that comes with it! Yes! All of the previous weeks hustle, bustle, and overconcern had evaporated like a desert raindrop meeting hot bare ground! Turbulence navigated. . .

Tomorrow was for sleeping as late as I liked.

For smelling the ponderosas. Perhaps some playing in the snow on the pass. I would arrive refreshed. Well fed. Well rested. ready. Fully present. Curious about the world and each person I would meet. Alive to the possibilities for an improved future resource base. And tonight the river would rise deeper still and affirm my full and dreamless sleep.

With gratitude for the effectiveness of these adaptive navigation tools, I took a last walk over to the water’s edge. Under sousing firs and firepoker stars. The flexible moonlight surfed the ruffled flow. Knowing how to play amongst the riot. How to work with its powers. How to invite these waters to bring what they may.

Transforming arduous challenges to energizing adventures.

Owen Hablutzel is a Certified Educator who can be reached at: go2owen@gmail.com.

Number 148

IN PRACTICE 17

DEVELOPMENT CORNER New Grants MI is honored and pleased to announce that we have received grants from two well respected organizations.

The Clif bar Family Foundation has awarded HMI $5,000 in support of our work.

They state, “Among the hundreds of proposals we have received, your organization stands out as one that will offer social and environmental change.”

Farm Aid, which is a past supporter of HMI, is continuing their support with a $7,500 grant. The grant will go toward continuing development of our Holistic Management whole farm planning curriculum.

H

Beginning Women Farmer Program he Beginning Women Farmers and ranchers: Women in Texas met for the third time the beginning of December for Marketing and Business Planning. The first day of the session was a field day at Betsy ross ranch near Granger, Texas. The entire class was invited to bring their team members so they would get a chance to learn more about marketing and business planning.

Betsy is one of HMI’s farmer mentors who teaches others about the forage-increasing techniques of mob grazing as well as what she has learned from soil food web guru elaine Ingham. After explaining what the soil microorganisms need to thrive at each level, Betsy led a field tour and demonstrated how the land gives us clues to how well it is working and in what ways we can collaborate. There was also Small group work to generate land simple cross-fencing and animal handling planning ideas is an essential demonstrations, and Betsy gave pointers component of HMI’s Land Planning about cattle selection and monitoring for grass curriculum. finishing and for temperament.

The following day included exercises to help build the beginning women farmer network as well as a focus on market considerations with experiential activities followed by marketing presentations from two specialists from Austin’s Sustainable Food Center on farmers markets and how to sell your production to institutions like schools and hospitals as well as to employees at various workplaces through programs already in place. This session also included time for one-on-one mentoring for work on business plans.

Then on January 14-15 the Texas Beginning Women Farmer group met at the red Corral ranch in Wimberley, Texas. red Corral ranch has been involved with Holistic Management since the mid 1980s. Today the ranch is a retreat/event center that still has cattle and hunting enterprises.

During the program, participants were able to take what they learned about the biological monitoring process and go out into the field to practice how to collect data and be able to ask questions of their mentors. Participants were quick to transfer the classroom information to actual knowledge transfer as they practiced analyzing what they saw in the monitoring transects. They quickly were able to read the land and analyze how management practices may affect ecosystem health.

For the land planning portion of the program, instructor Peggy Sechrist had the class work in small groups to develop the ideal layout for paddocks and water for a sample ranch. each group presented their ideas.

This is an amazing group of women who are excited to be in this class and so capable of teaching each other. They are an inspiration of passion and willingness to learn and share. Some sections of this class are already developing management clubs based on geographic area.

T

18 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

The Challenge of Scale and Profit

by FRANK ARAGONA

S

mall and medium-sized agricultural producers in the United States face a number of challenges that are not easily overcome. economies of scale and the structures associated with industrial agriculture present an enormous challenge for small producers. Central New Mexico, the location of HMI’s headquarters, offers an interesting case study of the structure of the U.S. farm economy.

According to the 2007 USDA agriculture census, there are 6,807 farms in this part of the state; 39% of these farms are between 1 and 9 acres, and 63% are less than 50 acres in size.

694 farms, 11% of the total, accounted for $694 million of total sales of agricultural products.

3,934 farms, or 65% of the region’s total, had a gross revenue of less than $10,000. These figures show that although small farmers represent a majority of land holders in the region, they are woefully underrepresented in the marketplace. In fact, only $9.4 million of total farm sales came from farms with under $10,000 in total aggregate revenue, which is 1% of total farm sales for the region. While these specific figures from our region may not translate precisely to the nation at large, the distribution of production is the same all over the United States; industrial agriculture accounts for the vast majority of the nation’s food supply.

These numbers don’t necessarily reflect exactly what is happening in the real world.

For a number of reasons, many small producers don’t participate in the agricultural census. Larger farmers and ranchers are more likely to participate in the census, hence they may be more thoroughly represented in the data. Direct sales and small farmers markets are probably underrepresented in the census as well. Many of the small farms are probably hobby or part-time farms, therefore productivity, profitability, and market share are not necessarily priorities for these operations.

Nevertheless, the overall pattern is clear: small farms and ranches are numerous but have minimal market participation.

Gross revenue is highly correlated to farm profitability. As can be seen in the accompanying figure, farms below $10,000 in gross revenue operate at an unsustainable loss.

In fact, most enterprises operating below $250,000 in gross revenue tend not to be profitable. Although statistics and averages may mask the occasional success story, the odds certainly seem to be stacked against the small producer.

This sobering look at reality should be a wake-up call for those of us who believe that small producers will be critical players in rebuilding a national food system in crisis.

Small producers tend to have an ethic of land stewardship and a sense of community that is often lacking in the monocultures of industrial agriculture. But if these small producers are unable to turn a profit, or if they live in constant fear of bankruptcy and financial ruin, then there is little hope that they will have the opportunity to participate in a new agricultural revolution. regulations, subsidies, and market access all play a critical role in creating an unlevel playing field for the small producer. Yet small producers must focus on what is directly under their own control. Holistic Management practitioner Walt Davis frames this point nicely within the context of his own experience:

Book Review

“I was putting more money at risk every year than the potential for profit justified. Any time that you have to come out of pocket with cash in an agricultural situation—almost any situation I can think of but in agriculture it’s particularly true because we have control of such a small portion of the factors that affect us—we can’t control the market, we can’t control the weather, we can’t control the political situation— the one thing that we can control is what we spend.”

To be effective, then, farmers and ranchers

need good financial planning and management tools. This need has never been greater. This is why, at HMI, we believe so strongly in our training programs. one of the most important pieces of Holistic Management training involves education in financial planning. In 2013 and beyond, we will renew our commitment to providing producers with the best financial planning training available, thereby helping farmers and ranchers to be ecologically sustainable, socially responsible, and financially viable.

by ANN ADAMS

Farms with a Future: Creating and Growing a Sustainable Farm Business

by REBECCA THISTLETHWAITE • Chelsea Green Publishing • 2012 • pp. 284

W

ith the rise of interest in farming, there are more farming books than ever to choose from. rebecca Thistlethwaite’s Farms with a Future is one essential book for the beginning farmer. As richard Wiswall notes in his introduction to the book, “rarely does a book effectively encompass all the facets of the whole farm and how to map it out in a clear and concise fashion.” Farms with a Future covers such topics as Identifying Your Market Niche, Finding and Securing Land, Financing the Dream, Farm Planning for Success, equipment Infrastructure, Soil and Water Management, Harvest and Processing, Marketing and relationship Building, record-Keeping, Accounting and Financial Management, Human resources, and value-Added Products. The writing is clear and concise and comes from Thistlethwaite’s knowledge as a farmer and as a farm consultant. She traveled the country to find and write case studies from farms around the country that give more specific detail to each of these topics.

Thistlethwaite has also studied Holistic Management and references it as a key tool for growing a sustainable farm business. It comes up in Farm Planning for Success and in the Accounting and Financial Management chapters. She clearly demonstrates how this type of whole farm planning is a critical component of strategic

planning which must be a living document and adapted to the realities of working in one of the most challenging of industries— farming. She notes that your holistic goal is used to help you determine key business strategies at various points in a farm/ranch development including: growth, stability, downsizing, succession, and exit.

The case studies are both educational and inspirational with a wide range of farm operations and geography. I was particularly intrigued by the subsidized CSA in which low-income families pay half-price for the food with the farm raising donations to over one quarter of the cost and a non-profit, Northeast organic Farming Association (NoFA) vermont covering the other quarter. The CSA also offers $10/hour food credit earned from work trade opportunities.

Likewise, the case study of a farmer who raises meat goats and then sells the meat through a food concession trailer at fairs and earns $36/pound of meat from this value-added product also makes the reader think outside the box on just about every aspect of a farm or ranch operation. even for the experienced farmer, this book will CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

Number 148

IN PRACTICE 19

Certified

Educators

◆ These educators provide Holistic

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.

Management instruction on behalf of the institutions they represent.

*

These associate educators provide educational services to their communities and peer groups.

ARIZONA

MAINE

tim Mcgaffic P.o. Box 1903, Cave Creek, AZ 85331 808/936-5749 • tim@timmcgaffic.com

Vivianne Holmes 239 e Buckfield rd, Buckfield, Me 04220-4209 207/336-2484 • vholmes@maine.edu

*

MICHIGAN

CALIFORNIA

Larry Dyer 1113 Klondike Ave, Petoskey, MI 49770 231/347-7162 (h) • 231/881-2784 (c) ldyer3913@gmail.com

Lee Altier College of Agriculture, CSU 400 West First St. Chico, CA 95929-0310 laltier@csuchico.edu • 530/636-2525

*

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 (c)

MONTANA Roland Kroos 4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 • 406/581-3038 (c) kroosing@msn.com Montagne *P.o.Cliff Box 173120, Montana State University

Department of Land resources and environmental Science, Bozeman, MT 59717 406/994-5079 • montagne@montana.edu

◆ Rob Rutherford CA Polytechnic State University San Luis obispo, CA 93407 805/756-1475 • rrutherf@calpoly.edu

NEBRASKA

COLORADO

Paul swanson 5155 West 12th St., Hastings, Ne 68901 402/463-8507 • 402/705-1241 (c) swanson5155@windstream.net

Cindy Dvergsten 17702 County rd. 23 Dolores, Co 81323 970/882-4222 hminfo@wholenewconcepts.com

Ralph tate 1109 Timber Dr., Papillion, Ne 68046 402/932-3405 • Tater2d2@cox.net

IOWA torray & erin wilson 4375 Pierce Ave., Paullina, IA 51046-7401 712/448-3870 • wilsonee3@gmail.com

*

Mae Rose Petrehn 1122 Woodburn Dr., Spearfish, SD 57783 913/707-7723 (c) Treadearthintometaphor@gmail.com TEXAS

NEW HAMPSHIRE

U N I T E D S TAT E S

SOUTH DAKOTA

◆ seth wilner 24 Main Street, Newport, NH 03773 603/863-4497 (h) • 603/863-9200 (w) seth.wilner@unh.edu NEW MEXICO ◆ Ann Adams Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. Ne, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 • 505/842-5252 anna@holisticmanagement.org Kirk gadzia P.o. Box 1100, Bernalillo, NM 87004 505/867-4685 • 505/867-9952 (f) kirk@rmsgadzia.com

Peggy Maddox P.o. Box 694, ozona, TX 76943-0694 325/392-2292 • 325/226-3042 (c) westgift@hughes.net Peggy sechrist 106 Thunderbird ranch road Fredericksburg, TX 78624 830/456-5587 (c) peggysechrist@gmail.com VERMONT Calley Hastings 787 Kibbee rd., Brookfield, vT 05036 802/279-3893 Calley.hastings@gmail.com WASHINGTON

NEW YORK erica Frenay 454 old 76 rd. • 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 Joshua Dukart 2539 Clover Place, Bismarck, ND 58503 701/870-1184 • Joshua_dukart@yahoo.com OREGON Jeff goebel 52 NW Macleay Blvd, Portland, or 97210 541/610-7084 • goebel@aboutlistening.com

sandra Matheson 228 e. Smith rd., Bellingham, WA 98226 360/220-5103 • mathesonsm@frontier.com ◆ Don Nelson Washington State University 121 Clark Hall, Pullman, WA 99164-6310 509/335-2922 • nelsond@wsu.edu Doug warnock 6684 e. Highway 124, Prescott, WA 99348 509/629-1671 (c) • 509/849-2264 (h) dwarnock@columbiainet.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

*

For more information about or application forms for the HMI’s Certified educator training Programs, contact Ann Adams or visit our website: www.holisticmanagement.org.

I N T E R N AT I O N A L AUSTRALIA Judi earl 3843 Warialda rd., Coolatai, NSW 2402 61267296185 • 409151969 (c) judiearl@auzzie.net graeme Hand 150 Caroona Lane, Branxholme, vIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h) • 61-4-1853-2130 (c) graeme.hand@bigpond.com brian wehlburg Pine Scrub Creek, Kindee, NSW 2446 61-2-6587-4353 brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au CANADA

20 IN PRACTICE

250/378-4535 • allison@guichonranch.ca

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

Don Campbell Box 817 Meadow Lake, S0X 1Y6 306/236-6088 • doncampbell@sasktel.net Linda & Ralph Corcoran Box 36, Langbank, SK S0G 2X0 306/532-4778 • rlcorcoran@sasktel.net

guichon *BoxAllison 10, Quilchena, BC v0e 2r0

KENYA Christine C. Jost International Livestock research Institute Box 30709, Nairobi 00100 254-20-422-3000 • 254-736-715-417 (c) c.jost@cgiar.org Mackey *P.o.belinda Box 15109, Langata, Nairobi

254-727-288-039 belinda@grevyszebratrust.org

Len Pigott Box 222, Dysart, SK, SoH 1Ho 306/432-4583 • JLPigott@sasktel.net

NAMIBIA usiel Kandjii P.o. Box 23319, Windhoek 264-61-205-2324 kandjiiu@gmail.com

Kelly sidoryk P.o. Box 374, Lloydminster, AB S9v 0Y4 780/875-9806 (h) • 780/875-4418 (c) sidorykk@yahoo.ca

wiebke Volkmann P.o. Box 9285, Windhoek 264-61-225183 or 264-81-127-0081 wiebke@mweb.com.na

March / April 2013

NEW ZEALAND John King P.o. Box 12011 Beckenham, Christchurch 8242 64-276-737-885 john@succession.co.nz

*

SOUTH AFRICA wayne Knight Solar Addicts Po Box 537, Mokopane, 0600 South Africa 27-0-15-491-5286 +27 15 491 3451 (h) • +27 82 805 3274 (c) theknights@mweb.com.za UNITED KINGDOM Philip bubb 32 Dart Close, St. Ives Cambridge, Pe27 3JB 44-1480-496-2925 (h) +44 7837 405483 (w) pjbubb99@gmail.com

*

Book Review

Holistic Goal Setting & Facilitation Services

continued from page nineteen

update you on some of the new opportunities for financing including references to prosper.com, lending club.com, and kickstart.com Thistlethwaite consistently encourages the reader to stay focused on the reality of the farming challenges and opportunities that you are faced with. Without the systems and information necessary to make informed decisions, farmers can’t sustain their businesses. She encourages readers to know what they are capable of and what they need to source to others. If $36/pound excites you but you aren’t a people person, find the people person that will be able to sell the meat at that price. These concepts may seem obvious to people who have already learned those lessons, but Farms with a Future helps those who haven’t hopefully reduce their learning curve. Little nuggets like, “If you always sell out early, your price is too low,” are good tidbits to get early in your farming career.

If you are looking for a book that gets you to solidly focus on building a sustainable agricultural operation, Farms with a Future will provide you that focus and some inspiration to encourage you to take your farm to the next level.

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?

HMI provides skilled, objective facilitators to help you achieve your goals!

Benefits of Holistic Management Facilitation Include:

,

To learn more • elicits key motivators and values contact Frank Aragona from the group for more effective at 505/842-5252 group decision making or by email at • Improves communication franka@ • Improves conflict resolution holisticmanagement.org.

• Creates common ground from which to make management decisions and plans • Creates a safe environment to have crucial conversations including generational transfer

To learn more about this book go to: http://www.chelseagreen.com/.

tHe MARKetPLACe

HANDS-ON AGRONOMY BASIC SOIL FERTILITY GUIDELINES Now Available on DVD

BUY THE DVD TODAY! Runs 80 minutes and covers the following topics:

$30

• Feeding and Balancing the Soil • The Albrecht System • Soil Testing • Considering Soil Test Results • Sulfur • Calcium, pH, and Liming • Potassium and Sodium • Nitrogen • Manures, Green Manures

(postpaid to US addresses)

For consulting or educational services contact:

Kinsey Agricultural Services, Inc. $30 (plus shipping) (PAL orders add $5)

297 County Highway 357, Charleston, Missouri 63834 Phone: 573/683-3880; Fax: 573/683-6227, neal@kinseyag.com WE ACCEPT CREDIT CARD ORDERS (VISA, MC)

Number 148

IN PRACTICE 21

tHe MARKetPLACe

.!4)/.7)$% . !4)/.7)$% $)342)"54)/. $ ) 3 4 2 )"5 4 )/ .

Resource Management Services, LLC

CORRAL DESIGNS

Kirk L. Gadzia, Certified Educator PO Box 1100 Bernalillo, NM 87004 Pasture Scene 505-263-8677 kirk@rmsgadzia.com Investigation www.rmsgadzia.com

JEFF

GOEBEL

How can RMS, LLC help you?

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

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

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

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

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

22 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2013

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:

GRANDIN LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS 2918 Silver Plume Dr., Unit C-3 Fort Collins, CO 80526

970/229-0703 www.grandin.com

Helping People Solve Complex Problems ✦ Increase profitability ✦ Effective conflict resolution with diverse issues like estate transfers ✦ Successful goal achievement by overcoming limiting beliefs ✦ Large scale holistic planning and effective implementation To learn more, contact: JEFF GOEBEL • 541/610-7084 goebel@aboutlistening.com www.aboutlistening.com

tHe MARKetPLACe

Seth Wilner

Remount

Enterprises

SETH HAS OVER 10 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH FARMERS AND FARM FAMILIES As a Certified Educator and a New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Educator, Seth offers effective, hands-on, practical consulting and training in: • PROGRAM EVALUATION • VISION AND VALUES CLARIFICATION • FINANCIAL PLANNING • BUSINESS PLANNING • WHOLE FARM PLANNING • BUDGETING • GOALSETTING • CONFLICT RESOLUTION

To learn more about these consulting and training opportunities, contact Seth at: seth.wilner@unh.edu • 603/863-4497

$

20

To order call 505/842-5252 or visit www.holisticmanagement.org

The Holistic Management Handbook gives you step-by-step guidance for managing a ranch or farm holistically.

It is essential reading for anyone involved with land management and stewardship.

40

THE BIG PICTURE

As a Holistic Management Certified educator, mediator, and mother, Ann Adams has created a workbook that helps individuals and families easily understand Holistic Management and put it into practice.

Healthy Land, Healthy Profits

$

Specializing in comprehensive planning and problem solving for enterprise and project development

At Home with Holistic Management

Holistic Management Handbook

ORDER! TODAY

EXPERIENCED MANAGEMENT AND CONSULTING SERVICES

Learn how to create healthy land and healthy profits.

Call 505/842-5252 or order online at www.holisticmanagement.org!

Stockmanship, Horsemanship Related Canine Behaviors

TIM MCGAFFIC P.O. Box 1903 • Cave Creek, AZ 85331 808-936-5749 tim@timmcgaffic.com

See the Big Picture ~ Respond to Change ~ Be Sustainable

Get Started Today – Join Our

Holistic Management Distance Learning & Mentoring Program Realize Immediate Benefits Save money on education — and get more for your money with highly personalized training.

All you need is a telephone, a computer is NOT needed. Learn at your own pace; apply what you learn to your situation and get results now!

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 148

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 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.

Pocket Cards ___ Holistic Management® Framework and testing Questions, March 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4

Planning and Monitoring Guides ___ Introduction to Holistic Management, August 2012, 128 pages . . . . $25 ___ Holistic Financial Planning, August 2012, 58 pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . $17 ___ Holistic grazing Planning, August 2012, 63 pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $17

Books and Multimedia ___ Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision-Making, Second edition, by Allan Savory with Jody Butterfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $60

___ Holistic biological Monitoring—Croplands August 2012, 26 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15

___ spanish Version (soft). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $40

___ Holistic biological Monitoring— Rangelands and grasslands, August 2012, 59 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . $17

___ Holistic Management Handbook, by Butterfield, Bingham, Savory. . . $40

___ Holistic Land Planning, August 2012, 31 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15

___ At Home with Holistic Management, by Ann Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20 ___ Holistic Management: A New environmental Intelligence . . . . . . . . $10

Planning Forms

___ How to Not grow broke Ranching

by Walt Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $30

___ Annual Income & expense Plan, padded, 25 sheets/pad . . . . . . . . . . $17 ___ worksheet, padded, 25 sheets/pad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7

___ 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

___ Comeback Farms, by Greg Judy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $32 ___ the oglin, by Dick richardson & rio de la vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15 ___ gardeners of eden, by Dan Dagget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 ___ Video: Healing the Land through Multi-species grazing (DvD) . . . $30 ___ PBS Video: the First Millimeter: Healing the earth (DvD) . . . . . . . . $25 ___ wise Money game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35

TO ORDER:

I would like to make a Tax Deductible Donation In the amount of $_____________. Please designate the program you would like us to apply contribution toward ________________________________________

Questions? 505/842-5252 or hmi@holisticmanagement.org

■

Indicate quantity on line next to item, make sure your shipping address is correct, mail this page (or a copy) and your check or money order payable in U.S. funds from a U.S. bank, oR your credit card number and expiration date to: Holistic Management International, 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B, Albuquerque, NM 87109.

■

You can also call in or fax credit card orders. Place phone calls to 505/842-5252, or fax to 505/843-7900.

For online ordering, visit our secure website at: www.holisticmanagement.org.

Printed on recycled Paper

Shipping and handling costs are for U.S. media mail only.

Call 505/842-5252 for all other shipping rates.

Shipping & Handling up to $15: $16 to $35: $36 to $50: $51 to $70: $71 to $90: over $91:

add add add add add add

$5 $6 $8 $9 $10 $12