healthy land. sustainable future.
November / December 2007 January / February 2006
Number 116 Number 105
Biological Masticators to the Rescue
www.holisticmanagement.org www.holisticmanagement.org
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
ALLAN SAVORY
by Ann Adams
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nyone who has ever met Bill Burrows knows he is a man of seemingly infinite energy. His energy and enthusiasm for life and the work he does is contagious. So you’d think it would have been of little surprise to know that at age 70, Bill is still the coordinator of the 40,000-acre (16,000-ha) Sunflower Coordinated Resource Management Plan (SCRMP). But the scope of work within that plan and the coordination of so many agencies are nothing short of amazing. For Bill Burrows and his biological masticators it’s just another day on the job.
A Slow Start The SCRMP is a chaparral belt beginning 25 miles (40 km) west of Red Bluff, California with elevations from 900-5,500 feet (300-1,833 m). The SCRMP began in 1977 after a catastrophic fire burned 80,000 acres (32,000 ha). A CRMP is a landowner-driven process established to achieve environmental enhancement on a landscape basis.
A memorandum of understanding is developed and signed by landowners and their agency partners. So while the fire had sparked enough interest to actually create a CRMP in 1977, the enthusiasm and follow through waned for the work until 2002 when Bill Burrows took the lead and introduced Holistic Management. As Bill tells the story, “We sent out an invitation to all the landowners in the early months of 2002 asking the question: ‘Do we want to make our area fire safe and productive far into the future?’ We got all sorts of people attending from Buddhists who lived in San Francisco but owned 900 acres nearby to someone who was asked to leave his cross-draw automatic pistols in his pickup.” Bill facilitated that first meeting and worked hard to achieve the best possible outcome. “Thank goodness for my training in Holistic Management,” he says. “I also used Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Bob Chadwick’s Consensus-Building. The only firm agenda item was a question written on a flipchart: ‘Do we want to improve our quality of life, develop profitability, and provide for a safe and productive environment?’ “After 45 minutes of confused interaction, and being continually referred back to the question
Moving governments toward sustainability requires holistically designed policies. Allan Savory has worked for more than fifty years on the major environmental problems and their associated violence in much of Africa from the perspectives of a scientist, soldier, researcher, international consultant, and politician. To learn more about his ideas on how to create sound policy, turn to page four.
FEATURE STORIES Governing for Sustainability ALLAN SAVORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Surving the Worst Drought in 1000 Years— Creative Carbon Cockys LOUISA KIELY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Grazing the Grasslands Could Help The Environment & Economy PETER HOLTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Holistic Management as Service Learning
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R. H. RICHARDSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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LAND & LIVESTOCK Prospecting for Green—The Importance of a Resource Base Reality Check JIM HOWELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Testing the Social Weak Link— Paul and Cheri Little
During a two-day period, the goat herd was placed in an area heavy with star thistle. As you can see from the photos, the goats decimated the star thistle allowing opportunity for the perennial grasses to return.
TONY MALMBERG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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NEWS & NETWORK Grapevine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Readers’ Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Book Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Certified Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
healthy land. sustainable future.
Holistic Management International works to reverse the degradation of private and communal land used for agriculture and conservation, restore its health and productivity, and help create sustainable and viable livelihoods for the people who depend on it. FOUNDERS Allan Savory
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Jody Butterfield
STAFF Shannon Horst, Executive Director Peter Holter, Chief Operating Officer Kelly Bee, Director of Finance & Accounting Jutta von Gontard, Director of Development Craig Leggett, Director of Learning Sites Ann Adams, Managing Editor, IN PRACTICE and Director of Educational Products and Outreach Maryann West, Executive Assistant Donna Torrez, Customer Service Manager Marisa Mancini, Development Assistant
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ben Bartlett, Chair Ron Chapman, Past Chair Roby Wallace, Vice-Chair Gail Hammack, Secretary Christopher Peck, Treasurer Ivan Aguirre Jody Butterfield Sallie Calhoun Mark Gardner Daniela Howell Andrea Malmberg Jim McMullan Ian Mitchell Innes Jim Parker Christopher Peck Sue Probart Jim Shelton Roby Wallace Dennis Wobeser
ADVISORY COUNCIL Robert Anderson, Corrales, NM Michael Bowman,Wray, CO Sam Brown, Austin, TX Lee Dueringer, Scottsdale, AZ Gretel Ehrlich, Gaviota, CA Cynthia Harris, Albuquerque, NM Edward Jackson, San Carlos, CA Clint Josey, Dallas, TX Doug McDaniel, Lostine, OR Guillermo Osuna, Coahuila, Mexico Soren Peters, Santa Fe, NM York Schueller, Ventura, CA Africa Centre for Holistic Management Private Bag 5950, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Tel: (263) (11) 404 979; email: hmatanga@mweb.co.zw Huggins Matanga, Director HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE (ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by Holistic Management International, 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: hmi@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2007.
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Biological Masticators to the Rescue on the board, a very rough holisticgoal emerged. The group then decided that we needed several sub-committees to define the diverse segments and objectives within our holisticgoal. Within two hours the meeting was buzzing with excitement as the landowners began working in their subcommittees and the agency personnel acted as resource consultants to the various subcommittees. “The Finance Sub-Committee determined that we needed some pump-priming funds to support some of the Action Sub-committees recommendations. Someone knew a Bureau of Land Management grant that had some potential for funding, however the grant was due in Sacramento by 5:00 pm that day. The group got together and wrote the grant and one of the landowners drove it to Sacramento and got it there on time. “We received a total of $60,000 that first year and were able to develop 16 miles (26 km) of 300-feet (100-m) wide fuel breaks, constructed two reservoirs and four springs, and prescribed burned 500 acres of chaparral brush and reseeded 300 acres (120 ha) to perennial grasses and forbs. I’m sure our Federal grant people thought we were going to clean up our backyards with the grant money since $60,000 represents a very small grant to them.”
One Big Bite at a Time From that meeting the mission and holisticgoal for the SCRMP emerged—and the enthusiasm and support to drive it forward. The mission was “to enhance 40,000 acres of chaparral belt land and associated areas in order to make the land more productive and safe for the social, financial, and environmental needs of the temporary stewards of the land.” Over the last five years the objectives of this plan have included: • Reduce fuel load
The long-term plan for the SCRMP was to use their biological masticators (goats/hair sheep) to remove biomass and maintain growth in areas that already had biomass removed so that the ecological service paid for itself.
November / December 2007
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• Develop fuel breaks • Enhance game and non-game wildlife habitat • Develop water sources for fire control and wildlife • Extend base flow of streams • Site convert brush to grass and brush to conifers where appropriate • Provide educational opportunities for students • Monitor progress of land treatments • Provide habitat for endangered and/or threatened species • Demonstrate enhancement of chaparral lands To accomplish these efforts, Bill worked to get as many partners and collaborators as he could on board. They have included: Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Natural Resource Conservation Service, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, California Department of Fish and Game, California Department of Water Resources, University of California Cooperative Extension, Humboldt University, Chico State University, Shasta Community College, Tehama County Resource Conservation District, Tehama County Department of Agriculture, University of California, Davis, California Deer Association, Chico State Foundation, Sacramento Regional Foundation, U.S. Forest Service Community Protection, BLM Northwest Forest Plan, USFS Economic Recovery, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, California Fire Safe Council, and 65 Landowners within SCRMP boundaries. To coordinate this effort Bill and the Adaptive Management Team (AMT) has returned to the SCRMP holisticgoal for guidance.
Beyond Technological Masticating As the AMT applied for and received additional grants and continued to develop fuel breaks,
water developments, site conversions, monitoring and prescribed burns, they realized they needed to use another tool. “Our AMT determined that we needed to bring in herbivores (biological masticators) to keep the brush under control and to generate income to support the mob,” says Bill. We bought 600 head of meat goats and 400 head of hair sheep to do this work. We hired a full-time Peruvian herder, secured 10 guard dogs and two herd dogs, and developed the infrastructure to herd the mob in a planned grazing pattern with 11 different camps spread throughout our CRMP. “The animals traversed the 57 miles (91 km) of fuel breaks that had been created with heavy equipment including a large steel ball and anchor chain. The heavy equipment would haul the ball and chain to the top of a fuel break and then push the ball off the edge of the incline and let gravity and metal take their course. “The goats were used to consume regrowth and standing brush as they went. We determined the cost per acre to remove the regrowth was $16.44 and $144 per ton to remove the biomass. Depending on the size of the grazing area and quality of forage, the goats would stay anywhere from eight days to three weeks before moving on. We had more forage than we could get to, but we made sure to graze each area twice a year along the fuel breaks. “We bought this herd from an operation near Salt Lake City, Utah. The goats were supposed to be already trained to reclamation works—eating in wild brush. But they weren’t prepared for what we had for them. Some of them got down to business as soon as we turned them out. But some of them just stood there and looked at the others eating. They just couldn’t make the adjustment. We had to sell the ones who couldn’t adjust before they starved to death.”
Monitoring the Results The AMT is serious about monitoring the results of the decisions they have made to see if
sensitive road maintenance, and a demonstration Using the masticator ball to knock down of the project was given to over 30 landowners brush on either side of the fire break lines, and agency people. Moreover, the NRCS the SCRMP was able to clear 57 miles of established permanent monitoring points. 300-feet wide fuel breaks. All told, the SCRMP held nine major workshops and/or tours to increase public interest, support, and education and provided over 20 jobs for they are moving in the direction of their part-time and full-time employment including: holisticgoal and mission. The one full-time herder, part-time employment for collaborators and partners have helped herbivore management, equipment operators, tremendously to this end, and the results and equipment maintenance and repair have contributed to the buy in from these personnel. groups. The local Audubon chapter has been monitoring the bird response to this Next Steps treatment. Through using recorders they have determined there are 50 percent Ultimately, the primary focus of the SCRMP more nesting birds now that the brush has been was to balance biomass reduction with opened up. nutritional requirements for a financially The AMT is working on some quantifiable productive mob which could partially or fully monitoring of the deer population, but offset the cost of management—a potentially anecdotally, Bill says “We’ve just seen the deer self-sustaining system. The idea was to use the population explode. They come in right after the seed money to develop infrastructure for that herd leaves an area. They want the new green system. To that end, the SCRMP put in shoots coming up.” infrastructure to support 4,000 head of sheep Then there is the macroinvertebrate and/or goats, including five reservoirs and seven monitoring performed by Shasta College. They springs for wildlife, herbivore, and fire control. use a monitoring process that examines numbers Given the massive amount of biomass of indicator species—macroinvertebrates that are in this 40,000-acre area, there is plenty of sensitive to pollution. “When they first started forage available and plenty of job security. monitoring the streams in the SCRMP area, we But Bill already owns a ranch, and he is turning were listed as fair,” says Bill. “The next year we his attention back to the ranch and looking for were listed as good, and for the last two years another coordinator to step up to the plate and we’ve been listed as excellent. They are seeing a orchestrate this plan. They sold off the goats to lot more of those pollution-sensitive species pay for a temporary herder and supplements for because the streams are getting cleaner.” the 400 remaining hair sheep that will continue Bill is particularly proud of the results the fuel break work for four months to maintain they’ve achieved with moving the landscape the work already done. Once a new coordinator from 100 percent high-serial chaparral to 50 takes over, the work can begin in earnest to percent low-serial (less than 18 inches/450 mm rebuild the herd and make use of the tall) and, in some cases, stands of 50 percent infrastructure now in place and the vegetation perennial grasses. ready to be eaten. On top of the environmental success, 13 Shasta College students were trained in heavy To learn more about the Sunflower equipment operations, over 40 landowners and CRMP, contact Bill Burrows at: agency people were trained in environmentally sunflowercrmp@msn.com or 530/529-1535.
Finding a Herder
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ntegral to the success of the Sunflower CRMP was finding a good herder. Because herding animals is a dying art in the U.S., Bill contacted two agencies to find a herder for the project. He contacted Western Range Association from Salt Lake City, Utah (801/486-2004) and Mountain Plains Agricultural Services from Casper, Wyoming (307/472-2105) to find out how to place a herder for this project. “Originally I tried to do it all myself, but the paperwork is a nightmare. Both
agencies worked in a fairly similar fashion,” says Bill. “You basically pay for the transport and paperwork, then a monthly salary of $700, food and lodging, which varies from $50-200 / month, and worker’s comp as it is required by the state. The workers can stay as long as three years, and you must give them at least a twoweek vacation once a year. At the end of the three years, they need to go home for a month before they can return to sign up again.”
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Governing for Sustainability by Allan Savory
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aced with a growing flood of impoverished people streaming into the capital city of Harare in 2000, Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, announced his government’s intention to redistribute the country’s land. Immediately, I flew home to see if the government would be open to my assistance in forming its policies based on the new principles of Holistic Management that I had articulated. Understandably, the bureaucracy, bound within its conventional way of thinking, rejected my offer of help. Nonetheless, my colleagues and I managed to run a workshop based on the “holistic framework” and involving a broad group of Zimbabweans. Conference participants diagnosed the problems in Zimbabwe’s patterns of land ownership, first looking at possible consequences of either redistributing or not redistributing land. This analysis indicated the necessity of land redistribution. The manner in which the government intended to redistribute land was then analyzed, and the group concluded that the government’s redistribution policy would lead to the collapse of agriculture, massive displacement of people, and years of successive problems for future governments, as well as continuing land degradation. Then, using the holistic framework, we formulated a land policy intended to achieve a comprehensive and sustainable national holisticgoal, a guiding statement embodying the short and long-term, comprehensive and environmentally tempered aspirations of all the affected parties. In this way it became apparent that moving toward the holisticgoal would naturally require millions of people to be settled on the land. Now we could begin to develop a land redistribution policy within a larger framework, which the objective of redistributing land could not achieve. In this way we developed a policy and plan that would result in several million people being resettled on land without losing a single farmer or disrupting agriculture. Further, the holistic policy would lead to a greatly expanded tax base for government and the reversal of the current land degradation, which is leading to repeated droughts and international food aid, as well as to greater poverty and urban drift to city slums. In considering this example, it is important to note that while there has been international
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criticism of the Mugabe government’s land redistribution actions, policies favored by the British and American governments, according to our analysis, would have brought similar long-term results (although over a longer time and with less violence). From the perspective of Holistic Management, this projection of similar results from different policies demonstrates a key insight: The single factor most responsible for Zimbabwe’s current disastrous land policy and Mugabe’s increasingly repressive measures to stay in power is the decision-making framework used by the government.
“Governments and countries need to learn to formulate holistically sound policies if they are to reverse the increasingly constraining environmental degradation threatening the world’s peoples.”
The main reason for the inevitable failure of the government’s policy was that it operated within the decision-making framework oriented toward an objective: redistributing land. The government established a policy leading to actions designed to achieve that objective without weighing the social, economic, and environmental consequences. The holistic policy differed in that it was formed toward a generic national holisticgoal that expressed how Zimbabweans want their lives to be tied to their life-supporting environment. Subsequently, measures to achieve the desired way of life sustained by a stable environment and agriculture indicated a policy framework that would result in millions more people on the land, improvement of the economy, and reversal of land degradation. At the beginning of 2007, we can say that as a consequence of faulty policy formation, both the economy and agriculture of Zimbabwe have collapsed. However, even at this late date, the holistic framework could still be used to rectify the situation. Until it is, there is no chance of sustained stable governance.
November / December 2007
The Primacy of Policy The simple fact that the main role of governments is to formulate policies did not register deeply with me until I was faced with the challenge of leading a shadow cabinet in forming a platform and policies for a political party. This task befell me as president of the Rhodesia Party, one of the three main parties in opposition to the then-illegal Smith government during a prolonged civil war that lasted until 1980, when the independent country of Zimbabwe was established. During those years, despite my earlier scientific training as an ecologist, I could not have formulated a sound environmental policy because I had not yet discovered the reason why unsound environmental policies are almost universal with governments throughout history and throughout the world today. In subsequent years, through trying to understand desertification—the degradation of land in arid, semiarid, and other areas— I accidentally discovered that all governments unknowingly employ the same decision-making framework when formulating their policies. The same framework is used not only by governments in formulating policies affecting the environment but by individuals in all walks of life while deciding their daily course. Evidence from common experience and from hundreds of sources supports the claim that this recently discovered framework is universal and has been the underlying basis of decision making throughout human existence, regardless of time or culture. If we take the computer as a metaphor for the human brain, we can characterize humans as having been unaware that the brains of all people use the same specific software operating system when making conscious decisions. And tragically, although that software is used for making all our conscious decisions, it is only appropriate for some of them and is deeply flawed for many others. Our software performs consistently well in all matters linear, mechanical, and complicated. It has taken us from the Stone Age to space exploration. At the same time, however, applying our software in areas that are complex is leading this world to disaster. The planet’s size, abundance, and resilience have fed and sheltered humanity while absorbing assaults escalating in their frequency, intensity, and magnitude. Today the effects of these assaults are reaching a collective and historically cumulative crescendo that cannot be ignored. Worldwide, expanding problems befall humanity, from malfunctioning economies and deteriorating human relations to violence, biodiversity loss, desertification, ever-increasing
frequency and severity of droughts and floods (even without weather change), and, ultimately, human impact on global climate, which began long before the discovery of fossil fuels. The massive rate of consumption of fossil fuels has merely accelerated global climate change.
The Human Decision-Making Process Shortly after I came to the United States as a political refugee in the early 1980s, I was engaged by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to train some two thousand professional people in the use of the holistic framework; at that time, it was still in a process of development that was being followed closely by several U.S. range scientists. After a week of training in the use of the holistic framework, this large sample of professional people analyzed many of their own policies and concluded that none of them could succeed. One group of thirty-five in the training declared, “We now recognize that unsound resource management is universal in the United States.” Because any community or nation depends ultimately on food derived from the photosynthetic process (green plants and healthy soils), common sense leads us to conclude that unsound resource management policies in due time will lead to change and instability of governments and eventually to the downfall of nations. Throughout history, many civilizations have failed, regardless of form of governance, because of environmental degradation. Thus, we know that what is being experienced at the global level today is new only in its scale. The symptoms of environmental degradation, or desertification, that we have come to understand over thousands of years are: increasing frequency and severity of droughts and floods; drying up of rivers, lakes, underground water, springs, and wells; and massive invasions of noxious plants and problem organisms. These environmental symptoms are coupled with numerous social symptoms, including increases in disease, poverty, social breakdown, and violence toward women and children. Additional symptoms include resource scarcity, blaming and victimization often leading to genocide, urban drift to city slums, war, and the breakdown of governments. Centuries ago, environmental degradation symptoms were localized in regions such as the Fertile Crescent of the biblical civilizations or Chaco and Yucatán in the Americas. Now they are global, and countless trillions of dollars have been expended in addressing them. Sadly, the overall result of this investment, despite limited successes, has been exponential global growth of the human population and its use of Earth’s resources.
A Systems View of The World My experience of working for more than fifty years on the major environmental problems and their associated violence in much of Africa has permitted me to study these issues from the perspectives of a scientist, a soldier specializing in guerrilla warfare, a researcher, an international consultant, and a politician. Although my views derive more from experience than from theory, I find modern systems theory to be useful in making some aspects of the ideas more understandable.
“The main reason for the inevitable failure of the [Zimbabwean] government’s policy was that it operated within the decision-making framework oriented toward an objective: redistributing land.” To my observation, there are several core reasons why, despite the best of intentions, good governance breaks down. Some reasons are scientific in the sense that they are related to the environment, while others are structural and result from adoption of concepts of Western democracy in Africa. Obviously, not all the works of modern society are leading to failure or problems, so we need to understand those areas of our lives that are more successful and those that are running into trouble. Here, modern systems theory is helpful. Three broad types of systems are identified in recent scientific systems thinking. • Hard systems are man-made and complicated but not complex—that is, they do not express emergent (unexpected or unplanned) properties and are not self-organizing. The problems arising within them are not too difficult to solve. Examples include cars, weapons, computers, buildings, roads, railways, and airlines. • Soft systems are man-made, complicated, and complex. They demonstrate unexpected emergent properties while being self-organizing. Solving problems that arise in soft systems is extremely difficult. Examples of soft systems are the many various human organizations, including tribes, political parties, corporations, environmental organizations, universities, organized religion, and governments. • Natural systems, which are not made by
humans, are complex, with both emergent and unexpected emergent properties, and selforganizing. Problems arising in them are extremely difficult to solve. Examples of natural systems are everything in nature, including human beings, all other life-forms, and our environment. All three types of systems exist simultaneously in our households and in all walks of life in today’s world. Looking around for examples of apparent success, we find that we are immersed in and fully dependent on rapidly proliferating and highly successful hard systems, including those for transportation (on air, land, and sea), communications (by radio, television, satellite, and Internet), space exploration, computation, medical imaging, and warfare. In contrast, looking around the world for examples of serious and rapidly growing problems, we find them in the realms of soft and natural systems, the complex systems that humans do not really know how to manage well. These include forests and national parks, economies, agriculture and rangelands, global climate, governments, societies, and oceans, rivers, and fisheries. The problems are manifest in such ways as biodiversity loss, desertification, poverty, abusive family relations, violence, and governmental corruption together with global warming and mounting conflicts and wars.
Enter The Policymakers Government policies affect all three types of systems. Unfortunately, policies affecting hard systems seldom, if ever, are formulated by considering the longer-term implications of a technological development or its products on either the environment or society. Government policies affecting hard systems result almost inevitably in corporations benefiting from short-term profits while society shoulders the long-term costs. The field of resource management, which requires the coordination of hard, soft, and natural systems for husbanding, harvesting, and exploiting natural resources, is usually heavily influenced or controlled by government policies. Here again, unfortunately, unsound policy formulation is almost universal because of our human inability to make decisions that can accommodate and embrace the unpredictable emergent properties of complex systems. Stated another way, government policies affecting natural resources are essentially doomed to fail to manage those resources well because making the resources available for human use continued on page 6
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Governing for Sustainability requires the interaction of soft and natural systems, which inevitably exhibit unpredictable emergent properties. Once it is understood that policies today, no matter how costly or well intentioned, cannot address complexity, it becomes clear why, despite vast effort and funding, the symptoms of environmental degradation continue to expand globally. This explanation of why humans have generally failed to deal well with either the longterm effects of hard systems or the complexity of soft and natural systems sheds light on the history of failed civilizations. It also lays the foundation for overcoming their congenital propensity toward failure. Recalling the metaphor of the brain as a computer, we can say again that civilization’s congenital propensity to fail to sustain its resource base derives from faulty decision-making software.
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things as past experience, expert advice, research results, expediency, cultural norms, cost, profitability, cash flow, fear, compromise, a friend’s advice, intuition, laws and regulations, and so on.
Captives of Flawed Software Analysis and reflection show that this framework is employed in the most diverse of situations—from a hunter-gatherer family to an urban household and even to the most sophisticated scientific team involved in space exploration. Politicians and governments also use this same framework, though unknowingly. Identification of the universal decisionmaking framework lays the foundation for understanding flaws that have made it impossible for governments (and people generally) to deal effectively with the complexity of soft and natural
The Universal Decision-Making Framework Lacking knowledge of this faulty software, humans have long believed that they make conscious decisions and form policies in thousands of different ways—including dictatorially, scientifically, democratically, intuitively, emotionally, and culturally. I too believed this when I developed the holistic framework in the early 1980s. Only later was I able to see beyond this embedded presumption to realize that humans have always used one simple underlying framework for all conscious decision making, the universal decision-making framework. This is what I have characterized as our faulty software. Understanding it requires that we strip it to the bare essentials in terms of three aspects: direction, tools, and context. The operation of the universal decisionmaking framework in humans through all cultures and ages has assured that their conscious decisions, whether based on reason and logic or on feelings and intuition, have had a direction. They have been made toward an objective or goal (and through these toward missions and visions). When reduced to their essence, the tools available to meet objectives and goals have been human creativity, money, labor, technology, fire, and rest. Extensive analysis and testing with thousands of professionals have confirmed repeatedly that these are the foundation tools; all others, such as water, law, and the plow, are in one way or another derivatives of the foundation tools. Third, we always make our decisions—from the household to national governance and toward any objective—on the basis of one or more of many considerations or context, including such 6
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“ Government policies affecting hard systems result almost inevitably in corporations benefiting from short-term profits while society shoulders the long-term costs.” systems. The fact that this previously undiscovered framework imposes on people and governments alike the inability to deal with complexity explains not only why so many past civilizations failed but also why—despite an annual philanthropic investment by charitable organizations in the United States of over $200 billion for dealing with social and environmental ills in the country— those ills are often getting worse. And because the only form of wealth that can ultimately sustain any community or nation is derived from the photosynthetic process, understanding this tyranny of the universal decision-making framework also makes it understandable why economies worldwide are inherently unstable. This understanding is the basis for explaining why America, enjoying the greatest concentration of universities, scientists, and wealth ever known, now annually “exports” a greater tonnage of eroding soil than all other exports combined, including grain, beef, timber, and military and commercial hardware. The inability to deal with complexity also explains why, despite so much goodwill and massive
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expenditure, worldwide biodiversity loss continues and why its symptom, desertification with its associated violence, advances exponentially. The flaws in our universal decision-making framework are few but serious. Consider, for example, the fact that conflicts in society commonly arise from people having different objectives or goals and that these differences have historically prevented us from uniting for any prolonged time, other than in war and always against a human enemy. Aside from that, we have typically united only for brief periods in cases of natural catastrophe.
Working within The Holistic Framework The holistic framework allows policymakers at all levels to do things that were simply not possible using the universal decision-making framework. Diagnosing natural resource problems before formulating policies for dealing with them is one such possibility. This diagnosis, previously impossible, is essential because policies are always formed either to deal with a problem or to prevent an anticipated problem. For example, after receiving training in Holistic Management, government officials in both Bhubaneswar in India and Lesotho in Africa determined that their policies did not address the cause of their problems, had no chance of success, and most probably would worsen their problems. NGOs receiving similar training in Africa are realizing that most of the projects they are analyzing have no chance of success and are likely to further damage people’s lives. The sameness of this pattern offers strong support for the view that as nations throughout the world formulate policies using the universal framework, they are most likely supporting projects doomed to failure or even to making problems worse instead of solving them. Here, it is important to note that these failures are not caused by a lack of either knowledge or goodwill. The failures arise because governments using the same framework that created the problems in the first place are unlikely to solve them using that framework over and over again. I believe it was Einstein who said we are never likely to solve our problems with the same thinking that created them. Until governments are able to diagnose resource problems and formulate holistically sound policies, good governance will remain an idea only. Holistic Management is offered as an aid for moving humanity toward that elusive goal of a peaceful, happy world. This excerpt was originally published in World & I: Innovative Approaches to Peace, Spring 2007, p. 20.
Surviving The Worst Drought in 1000 Years— Creative Carbon Cockys by Louisa Kiely
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n Australia, the worst effect of climate change so far is drought. Specifically, the drought of 2005/6 and ongoing is the worst in living memory. Our rivers are dying— the result of poor management as much as lack of rain. The authorities have over-allocated irrigation licences, not understanding the conditions which we might face. Now many irrigation farmers face ruin, with no allocation this year, even though they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their irrigation licences. We have no irrigation licence, but the drought of 2006 was hitting us hard in November. We run pure Australian Super Fine Merino sheep—a commercial flock of 1,500 breeding ewes, around 900 of last year’s lambs, and a mob of rams. We are on 1,760 acres (700 ha) of country in a “normally” 26-inch (600-mm) rainfall area. We have around 50 paddocks only and this is a limiting factor as well. Rain can fall in all seasons here, but we rely on summer storms to a great extent as growth is limited in winter by frosts. This wool is the best in the world, and our type of wool will find its way into the best suits—you grow less of it per sheep, but it sells at a premium. We were trained in Holistic Management by Bruce Ward in 1998. We were lucky to have been trained then because without Holistic Management we wouldn’t be here. We had been on the traditional ‘steep learning curve’ since that time on our property, with varied success. We are classified as “tree changers” having come from the city to fulfill my lifelong dream of having a farm. Naturally our fencing and other rural skills were seriously lacking. We did have creative skills however—in the city we established and ran a successful marketing agency for 10 years. By the time this drought hit, we only had 50 paddocks, some of which still did not have a water solution. So I wasn’t able to save the land as I wanted. The timing was also bad. In November we have young lambs—too young to wean. The wethers (neutered males) had long gone to the slaughterhouse in the first round of drought decision making. So, looking back, our “adoptasheep” program started as an exercise in desperation—or creativity! We had young lambs, and ewes—no feed, and no money to feed. We decided to sleep on it one more night before taking the decision which animals to sell onto a very poor market. Michael
The Kielys’ land is the darker area in the middle. The dark green is an indication of healthier land that hasn’t been overgrazed and more resilient to drought. Because the Kielys pulled their sheep into a sacrifice paddock and feed them purchased feed, they were able to survive the drought with their flock and land intact. To view this picture in color, go to www.holisticmanagement.org. stayed up, worried, of course. This was my dream, and he didn’t want to see it fail. But, the land must come first. As David Marsh says, we should “stock to the capacity of the landscape.” By morning, Michael had a plan, and a press release. “Adoptasheep” (www.adoptasheep.com.au) was born. We were to offer our sheep at $35 for 100 days feed. We would take photos and each adopted parent could name their sheep, and receive a certificate with “their” sheep on it. The words of thanks on the certificate spoke about saving our iconic wool industry from the worst drought in living memory and said “thank you” to the donor. Well, the newspaper printed the story a few days later, and the same day we had a television crew land via helicopter on our front paddock! We had hit a nerve, and everyone wanted to help a struggling farmer. The television piece drew a huge audience for the station, whose crew adopted a lamb while they were here! In the next three months, we raised $70,000 for feed, and fed it all out too! The cards and letters we received were astounding – everyone thanking us for enabling them to find a way to help in this drought. They had felt disempowered, but were not disconnected! We immediately put the sheep in a sacrifice paddock—with the best water and shelter.. Our sheep have been saved, but additionally, our land was able to respond when rains came. We went up in a plane to take photos so that we could help others understand what can happen, with the same rainfall, but just different management.
The Carbon Connection
CMA’s (Catchment Management Authorities), whose work it is to help farmers to farm more sustainably. As a result of this, we were convinced that soil carbon had a critical role to play in the future of Australian Agriculture. Without increased organic matter in our soils, we will not survive the likely reduction in rain which changed climatic conditions will bring here. Let alone the increase in temperatures! We discovered also that carbon was the next biggest currency in the world! Climate change will ensure this, as the world realizes we are facing a carbon-constrained future. Surely, we reasoned, there was an opportunity for Holistic Management farmers (and others) to take advantage of this upcoming market. So, we formed the Carbon Coalition (www.carboncoalition.com.au), and visited the U.S. in October 2006. In the space of three weeks we visited every soil expert we could get an interview with, including Dr. Rattan Lal at Ohio University and Professor Bruce McCarl at Texas A&M University. We knew from our research that the Chicago Climate Exchange was trading in soil carbon and were lucky to be granted a meeting with Mike Walsh, the Founding Director. He let us know that we had a rocky road ahead, but that as soon as we could get scientific peer reviewed data on how much carbon Australian soils could sequester under changed management regimes, he would be happy to trade with us! Our battle for recognition of soil carbon credits as a tradeable commodity has been difficult and exciting. The scientific establishment in Australia
In 2005 we were chosen as innovative farmers to take part in 20 days of training given by our
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These certificates were as good as feed in the barn for the Kielys. Australians poured in $70,000 to help the Kielys survive the drought and adopt a sheep.
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believes that our soils are so ancient and so thin that we have little chance to sequester much carbon. However, there is a general acknowledgement that we have strip mined our topsoils of 80 percent of its carbon over the last 200 years. Groundcover and perennial grasses are two of the most effective soil carbon techniques we use. “Carbon Farming” techniques are the best way to use water where it falls and hold it in the profile— i.e., it is a drought proofing strategy. But we are still aligning it with a future Carbon Market—a new source of income for farmers. We have set up Carbon Farmers of Australia—www.carbonfarmersofaustralia. com.au, and some hardy souls have joined. We also have a half-day seminar where we
help to educate farmers about soil carbon and what it will mean in the future. To keep the debate moving along in Australia, we are holding a two-day conference in November. We are calling it the “World’s First Carbon Farming Expo and Conference.” We are going to also have the first “Carbon Cocky” competition, where we get our best Carbon Farmers, estimate their carbon sequestration efforts using current calculators, and then award a prize to the farmer who has managed to increase their soil carbon the most! We used to think of ourselves as sheep farmers. Then we changed our view, and became soil farmers. But now we believe we are carbon farmers. If your soil carbon is healthy and rising, everything else—soil health, hydrology, biodiversity—should be in good order. Louisa and Michael Kiely live in Goolma, New South Wales, Australia. They can be reached at: louisa@carboncoalition.com.au.
Grazing The Grasslands Could Help The Environment & Economy by Peter Holter
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ecent news reports have told us that ethanol, now the “big player” in the alternative fuels arena, is using up corn that would otherwise be fed to cattle, dairy cows, swine, sheep and fowl. This means that the prices being paid for corn are rising rapidly, and these increases in turn drive up the costs of foods we consume and of livestock feeds that contain corn. The news stories did not pose or answer questions about why livestock are consuming cornbased feed in the first place. The answer would be that our industrial livestock industry confines the animals to pens and barns—therefore, they have to consume manufactured food. It wasn’t always this way. In the 19th century, animals grazed and were sustained on the Great Plains, which were grasslands that covered almost 40 percent of North America. Only about 1 percent of the original ecosystem exists today, because it has been converted to agriculture or is degraded and abandoned. While the Great Plains did support millions of grazing animals and pack-hunting predators that fed on the grazers, the grasslands remained healthy because of the symbiotic and holistic relationship between the land and the animals. 8
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The presence of predators kept the grazing animals on the move, and their hoof action worked the soil so that their manure was quickly absorbed. The soil’s organic matter was increased, thereby fertilizing it and keeping it healthy. Would it be possible to return to a more natural way of raising livestock? Our organization, Holistic Management International, has accumulated abundant evidence—over 23 years of working internationally with farming and ranching families—that this is actually possible. Today, 30 million acres around the world, including the United States, are successfully cultivated using Holistic Management. To change the paradigm of how we raise livestock, we would have to be willing to free up the acreage, grow the grass and restore the grasslands, with the animals present, and manage their grazing in such a way that replicates the behavior of those wild grazers of yesteryear and that permits enough time to elapse for the roots of the plants to rest and recover. If we could bring animals back to the land in a holistically managed way and restore the grasslands, then: • Vast amounts of carbon would end up in plant roots instead of in the atmosphere. This would have a positive effect on global warming.
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• We would increase the water resources of the land, in underground aquifers and in the prairie. Covered soil retains significantly more water than bare ground does. • The overall habitat for wildlife would be improved. • Outbreaks of pests and weeds would decrease, along with the attendant use of herbicides and pesticides. • We could reduce the amount of methane that is produced by livestock in confined feeding operations. • We could produce a high-quality, clean-protein product for human consumption. • We could create another source of biofuels. Research conducted at the University of Minnesota and reported in the December 2006 issue of Science magazine, indicated that biofuels derived from grassland plants yield up to twice as much energy per unit of land as corn-based ethanol does. This exciting development could hold the key to the future of alternative energy production. In the end, we would also improve our rural economies. This commentary appeared in the Albuquerque Tribune on August 21, 2007.
Holistic Management as Service Learning by R. H. Richardson
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he University of Texas at Austin has a new category of courses called “Service Learning.” According to the Provost, “Academic service-learning is a pedagogical model that intentionally integrates community service, academic learning, and civic learning. It is a response to the call for higher education to take responsibility for preparing active citizens for a diverse democracy.” I’ve been teaching “academic” Holistic Management several years under the label of Natural Resource Management. Now this class has become a model for the new Service Learning category of selected courses. We all see people, from individuals to governments, act as if they believe that the ecosystem is predictable and technologically controllable. “Endangered species” and “invasive species” are functional opposites, but the underlying processes are overlooked or over simplified when one reads the “management plans.” I am waiting to see who proposes that we can save the polar bears by floating Styrofoam icebergs in the warming Arctic Ocean. To solve the problems, we protect the endangered ones as “patients” and fight the invasive ones as an enemy. These illusions begin before college, and they are reinforced using published oversimplifications in class. News is a flow of “sound bites” that have no nutritive information, making us intellectually “obese” and lethargic. Students can memorize a “template” of actions to plug into their computer and receive operating instructions to just about anything—or so the educational “theorists” who establish our public school content believe. Such indoctrination creates simplistic thinking and over confidence. In the U.S. we have the politically institutionalized “Let No Child Excel” (aka “Leave No Child Behind”) program, educating students by repeated testing with simplified tests. Students are treated like computers ready to have software installed from a “bubble in” answers exercise. If they have the correct answers “installed,” they are ready for “Life” after school. It is no wonder that our students often cannot write a grammatically correct sentence, express an original idea, or link a sequence of ideas into a personal insight! In my Natural Resource Management courses, there are no prerequisites except that a student must be enrolled in college, breathe air, eat food, drink water and occupy space. If they meet these criteria, they already are managing natural resources, so the class is about how they can do a
“better” job and enjoy living. After an introductory discussion of decision making the students begin crafting their holisticgoal. I can tell they learn from the experience when a curious spouse appears in the class. Since learning is unique, documenting that learning requires a degree of flexibility that is inherent in the learning portfolio as developed by Professor Margaret Syverson (www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~syverson/olr/manifesto .html). Students document what they have learned and note the conditions that contributed to their learning experiences. They learn to
recognize what they learned, ranging from abstract ideas to physical skills. They monitor five criteria, analogous to our monitoring ecosystem dynamics. The five “Dimensions of Learning” are: 1. gained confidence and independence, 2. acquired new knowledge and understanding, 3. acquired new skills and strategies, 4. used prior or emerging experience, 5. acquired new insights through critical reflection. When one or more of these criteria are met, the student has learned something new. Recording the learning context documents the conditions and results from the learning. Compared to “exams,” these criteria drastically change the class dynamic. For example, “cheating” becomes “collaboration” and the activity and learning satisfies the “show me” criteria for a skeptical observer. Students’ attitudes change and self confidence increases. Enthusiasm, initiative and motivation are enhanced. Until the students have a personalized understanding related to their own experience, they likely have not fully absorbed the lesson. They are free to use their own expressions, including choosing different vocabulary that matches their experience and perceptions. Flexibility in communication enhances understanding, and gives students confidence to
share knowledge with others. Field exercises in the class are much like any Holistic Management monitoring exercise. Soil surface, plant growth patterns, animal signs, etc. are indicators of the underlying ecological processes. A group of students reconstruct the recent history of a “site.” Students are asked what tools or management changes may move the functions in a new direction, and support different plant and animal communities. “Reading” the land is a skill they begin to develop. Each individual’s holisticgoal generates many observations of their own resources, and practicing what they learn begins to sharpen their “eye” to what is happening around them. The experiences of building effective collaborations reveals the benefits and improves their skills in listening, monitoring other people’s meaning in statements, The most unusual projects come from graduate students in other disciplines, such as Architecture, Engineering, Kinesiology, Education, and Liberal Arts. These students expose me to new contexts for Holistic Management. It is always gratifying to see how the principles universally apply. Graduate students from these disciplines often learn things they never expected. Sometimes they have changes in perspective and modify the interpretation in their research. The student perspective from the class reaches into the faculty. This class always challenges me. I never teach without learning, and I may be surprised by a student’s question or observation. I am invited to give several “guest lectures” a year in other classes, and I make a practice to include the things I’ve learned, often from what failed to work as expected. Why is this called “service learning”? Since the course has no exams, the students initially consider this a party course. If they are doing it as a project for a client, their motivation is improved, but they discover motivation from what they are learning in an authentic world of experience. The “teaching to the test” syndrome has dulled the students’ minds, and they are bored. The joy of discovering a “story” in the observations is a selfservice experience. If they are motivated by a job “for” another person or organization, they are even more so when they realize that learning is really a self-service—a life-changing experience. I facilitate self discovery, and it becomes a “rehabilitation course” for “human products” from our largely dysfunctional educational assembly line. Dick Richardson is a Certified Educator teaching Integrative Biology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at: d.richardson@mail.utexas.edu. Number 116
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The Importance of a Resource Base Reality Check by Jim Howell
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or a long time, I’ve operated under the assumption that regardless of the resource base’s location, managing holistically would result in its improvement and ever-increasing prosperity of the whole under management. I’ve had experience in winter rainfall coastal California, wet and humid east Texas, droughty New Mexico, and high, cold Colorado. I’ve visited ranches in many environments in Africa, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. In all of these places, my observations and experience have told me that holistically grounded prosperity and long term sustainability are highly achievable. With the right essentials in place—mimicking nature under planned grazing, focusing on solar energy harvest, letting the animals do the work, optimizing stocking rate, keeping overheads at a bare minimum, disciplined financial planning, engaging in enterprises that are personally exciting and motivating, etc.—any place can be managed for holistic soundness. But, for innumerable reasons, there’s a good chance that in the course of our lives we’ll face the necessity to reevaluate the specific resource base from which we derive our sustenance and quality of life. If you are at the point of pondering a change of address, I think there are some serious issues to think through as you go about your new resource base search. Through our ranch tours, we’ve had the great opportunity to visit numerous excellent operations, and watch their evolution over the years. Most of these ranches are sound from most of the points of view mentioned in the preceding paragraph. But, a few of these operations really stand out in terms of their ecological, social, and (most notably) economic abundance. About a year ago I sat down in an attempt to list some traits that appear to be common to these exceptional grass-based, holistically managed livestock operations. The two key factors are scale and ease.
corrals, squeeze chute, loading ramp, portable hot wire) to handle 100 head of cattle than it does to handle 2,000. It takes more land, obviously, but it doesn’t take much more of these basic infrastructure or labor inputs. A big herd requires a big crew a few days a year, but for 95 percent of the time, the big herd doesn’t take any more labor input than the little herd. Most of the actual daily work with grass-based livestock production is directly correlated to the time it takes to get out to the paddock and open the gate into the new pasture. Highly profitable operations spread this labor over lots of critters. Opening and closing gates (and moving portable hot wires) according to a well-conceived grazing plan is also very high marginal reaction work (valuable results for the time and money spent). Time spent fixing fence (contractors can do that), sitting on tractors, or babysitting cows during calving is very low marginal reaction work. Ensuring all your critters are constantly moving onto fresh, recovered, high quality forage is what pays. By doing so, your livestock stays in optimal condition without spending any money, the health of the ecosystem processes consistently improves, and
Numbers Matter If you’ve created a high value, reasonably high volume direct market niche, that’s one way to generate dollars. The other way is to sell lots of numbers—scale. You can sell individual cuts to individual people, but for those of us who don’t have the character, inclination, or aptitude to deal with lots of customers, we have to have scale to make things economically interesting. What’s scale? It’s unique relative to the needs and realities of each of us, but when I think of scale, I think of the number of cattle one full-time labor unit can handle by him/herself in a specific environment. It doesn’t take much more labor or base infrastructure (truck, set of 10
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The pampas of Argentina are world famous as grazing heaven for good reason—it’s flat and productive, dominated by cool season grasses, close to the massive market of Buenos Aires, enjoys reasonably good infrastructure, requires no irrigating or hayfeeding, and has abundant, shallow, easy-to-pump groundwater and lots of surface water.
The High Lonesome Ranch in southwestern New Mexico is a long ways from easy—low productivity, long distances, lots of infrastructure per cow unit, very erratic precipitation patterns, lots of hard-to-get-to, rough country, remoteness, and the need to pump and pipe every bit of water to elaborate cell centers like this one.
carrying capacity increases. When you can spread this high value labor input and base infrastructure investment over a great big herd, you’ve got scale.
The Elements of Easy The second essential ingredient to high profitability is ease of management. Actually, I should probably say “relative” ease of management. Ranching and farming is never easy, but some places are definitely easier than others. There are lots of components to this part of the equation, and they don’t all have to be met to have relative ease of management. But, most of them do. It’s hard to be conscious of how easy (or difficult) your particular area is to manage unless you’ve had the chance to see lots of places outside of your immediate neighborhood. As we’ve traveled to grazing operations around the world, and as I’ve become aware of the limitations and strengths of our own area in Colorado, I’ve gradually developed a list of components that add up to “relative ease of management.”
Up, Down, or Straight Across First, no place that’s steep is easy. The ranch we lease in Colorado has lots of positives, but almost all of it is vertical. This is hard on people (stringing a temporary hot wire across 700-foot deep canyons takes a lot out of you), hard on cattle, hard on horses, hard on vehicles, hard on roads, hard on pumps. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s hard. It’s hard to constantly fight gravity. So, to me, ease of management starts with gentle topography. Flat is great, a little undulation is no problem, but vertical gets old. This probably seems obvious, but it wasn’t to me until I realized there was life beyond the mountains.
Between Steppe and Savanna Inherent primary productivity is also closely correlated with easy— but only to a point. Here I’m talking about how many SDA (stock days per acre) the land can produce. The cold, windswept steppes of Wyoming (very low production—hard to grow grass) are a long, long ways from the tropical savannas of Zimbabwe (very easy to grow lots of grass). The level of productivity correlated with ease of management probably doesn’t line up with either of these extremes. The low production end of the spectrum has a lot of imbedded cost. When I say low production, I’m talking about country that battles to support a cow for a year on 40 acres or more. When productivity drops that low, there is a lot of money tied up in permanent infrastructure investment and maintenance (roads, fences, waterlines) per cow unit. There is also a lot of inefficiency in simply getting around. Whether your means of transport is by truck, 4-wheeler, horse, or your own two legs, big country eats up a lot of time in just getting from one place to another. This is costly not just in the
opportunity cost of your time, but in fuel and vehicle maintenance as well. Most of the time, low production country is sparsely populated. Distance to town, distance to markets, and quality of roads all tend to add cost and make life harder. If the area is also steep and rugged, things are doubletough. This combination characterized my early married life on the High Lonesome Ranch in southwestern New Mexico, but Daniela and I were young and full of enthusiasm, so were naively innocent of the less-than-ideal conditions of our employment. At the other end of the spectrum—the high rainfall, tropical latitude savannas—we have lots of productivity, but this country is a long ways from easy. First, these areas are always dominated by warm-season grasses that produce prodigious amounts of dry matter. This forage loses lots of quality as it dries out going into the dormant season, and even when it’s green and growing it’s not all that wonderful. There are ways to handle this drop in quality (ultra high density grazing, which helps maintain an even plane of nutrition, protein and energy supplements, etc.) but it is a constant battle to maintain animal condition. As a result, it’s tough to get cows bred back and it takes young cattle a long time to reach finish weight. The other major issue with high productivity in the tropics is the parasite burden, both internal and external. I remember Johann Zietsman remarking that the high altitude savannas on Zimbabwe’s central plateau are paradise, but they are “paradise for everything,” including just about every parasite imaginable. You can’t believe the tick loads, and the associated tick-borne diseases, that these guys have to deal with. Again, these things are manageable, but they sure don’t make life easy.
C3 Beats C4 Between these two extremes there is a lot of much easier country. And, the more an environment is dominated by cool season, C3 grasses, the easier it tends to be, even up to very high levels of productivity. Over the course of the year, cool season grasses (both annuals and perennials) tend to maintain a much better ratio of protein to energy relative to warm season plants (C4), especially under good planned grazing. As a result, breed back problems are much less bothersome, and with the right genetics and grazing management, cattle can finish on grass in 18 months. Flat or gently rolling country covered with a dense cover of cool season grasses is grazing heaven. Cool, C3 grass country also tends to be associated with less extreme weather. The constant threat of precipitation failure is more of an issue in hotter country, where precipitation tends to come concentrated in the summer months, and also tends to come as spotty thunderstorms as opposed to broad-sweeping weather fronts. At the High Lonesome, I remember driving continued on page 12 Number 116
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through a flood on the neighbor’s place one night. As soon as we drove through our gate, we started making dust. The rain was that spotty. There were some pastures on the High Lonesome that didn’t grow a blade of grass during the summer monsoons for over two years, because it just flat didn’t rain there. This never happens in cool country. Also, because it’s cool, and because a lot of the precipitation actually arrives during the winter, evaporation is less of an issue and it’s easier to build soil moisture. High quality spring growth is essentially a given. In hot C4 country— especially hot, low production country—nothing is a given.
Water Points One of the positives of our steep country in Colorado is the presence of little creeks and springs all over the place. The canyons are tough, but at least they’ve got water running down the middle. This is another big component of relative ease of management—easy-to-get-to, abundant water. In an ideal situation, water development is unnecessary because of access to springs, creeks, lakes, ponds, or rivers. That tends to be a rare luxury, however, and the costs (in investment and operation) of stockwater systems can be huge. As land becomes steeper and lower in production, these costs tend to amplify. Low production country tends to be dry, which means live running water tends to be scarce. That means you have to trap runoff in ponds (always a risky gamble, again, especially in dry country) or pump it out of the ground. Some places have to pump little bits of water from a long ways down, and sometimes this water is pretty marginal in quality. Then you’ve got to get that water spread out around the property, which means lots of pipe. In cold country, you’ve got to bury that pipe way down deep. At each water point you’ve got to store lots of water, especially if you’ve got scale and great big herds (which you need to have), in case the pump goes down. At each water point, you’ve got to have the necessary infrastructure in place to enable that great big herd to get a drink without stress, which means sufficient trough space and a high flow rate from the storage tank into the trough. This is all doable, and this investment, if well designed and spread over sufficient scale, will pay for itself
many times over. But what if you can find a resource base where, because of live running water, all this investment and associated operating costs are unnecessary, or at least minimal? Believe me, creeks and permanent ponds make life a lot, lot easier.
Grass Gardens I spend a lot of time every summer spreading water around the irrigated ground on our leased place. The irrigated pastures grow about six times more grass per acre as the dryland range country, so it’s worth my effort to do it (at least that’s what I tell myself). It’s all wild flood irrigation out of ditches that divert from creeks, so the infrastructure maintenance costs are minimal, and there is no pumping expense, but it still takes time. The thing that’s hard to stomach is that I know of lots and lots of country that grows just as much or more forage per acre as this irrigated ground (and of similar quality), but it does so thanks to natural precipitation—no ditches, shovels, center pivots, or side rolls necessary. South African holistic manager Ian Mitchell Innes came on a Rocky Mountain ranch tour with us in 2002. At the time we were leasing a productive, but very labor intensive, irrigated ranch next to our low place. I was showing Ian’s group this place, elaborating on how productive it was. I could tell Ian was less than impressed. Finally, he spoke his mind. “You’re not a rancher, Jim. You’re a mudslinging gardener.” He was right. I was doing way too much work, treating that place like a high input garden. Message: easy country is not irrigated.
Get the Hay Out And then there’s the whole haying habit. Some places just have to feed hay. Permanent snow cover demands it, and these places are not easy. They are cold and severe, and the haymaking necessity eats up lots of potential profit. But, lots of folks feed hay where snow cover is minimal or non-existent (i.e. where it’s not necessary). There is lots of this type of country. These areas present big opportunities for those who have developed the art of grazing planning and understand how to manage for quality winter grazing. If these areas are also reasonably productive, flat or rolling, covered with cool season grasses, and have creeks and ponds, then it’s hard not to make money with cows.
Farm to Market Finally, no place is easy if you can’t get your critters to market without a Herculean effort. This is one of Patagonia’s big disadvantages. Isolation means roads are few and far between. Those that do exist are rough and often impassable. The same is true for big stretches of the American West and much of interior Australia. There is quite a bit of good country— country that meets most of the above “easy” criteria—that is very flat and non-scenic (and therefore pretty cheap), but that has excellent road infrastructure. These areas are often located in marginal wheat growing areas, which I presume is why the roads were paved in the first place. It’s good, productive, cool season prairie country in its natural state. Prolonged wheat farming wears it out. If put back to native grasses, this country can grow a lot of beef at minimal cost.
Tapping Potential There is a lot of land just west of the Great Dividing Range in southern New South Wales, Australia that is excellent grazing country. It is dominated by very high quality, cool season annual grasses, is reasonably productive and remarkably flat, has excellent infrastructure, requires no hayfeeding, and many areas have good surface creeks. But, if you’re into gourmet dining and live opera, be prepared to travel. 12
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Apart from scale and ease of management, another factor to keep in mind (as you evaluate a resource base move) is “unrealized potential.” Armed with the insights and skills of holistic grazing, land, and financial planning, there isn’t anyplace that doesn’t present unrealized potential. But, some places present more than others. Moreover, that potential is often much easier to tap into in some environments relative to others. For example, I’ve been on numerous ranches in the American Southwest
The wild Andean foothills of Argentine Patagonia are blessed with spectacular scenery, abundant lakes, rivers, streams, and springs, cool season grasses, lots of flat, easily accessible terrain, and the possibility of hayless wintering. The drawbacks are that most of it is very difficult to access due to sparse infrastructure, and it is very low production country, so distances are excessive and cost of infrastructure development and maintenance per animal unit is very high.
that have lots of grossly underutilized forage. This forage is typically a long ways from existing water (sometimes horizontally, sometimes vertically). Because it’s usually also low production country, so stocking rates are low and distances are long. This means that any investment made in water infrastructure (to make accessible these hard-to-get-to corners and ridges) is usually costly (because of the length of pipe needed) relative to the increased stocking rate. Compare this to the pancake flat, 40-inch (1,000 mm) rainfall Pampas of Argentina, where continuous, year-long grazing is the norm on most ranches. These places often have live water and numerous paddocks, and distances are short because of high productivity. But, they are producing way under their potential due to poor grazing management. By simply combining herds and planning the grazing within the existing infrastructure, with no investment other than a pad of grazing planning charts, lots of unrealized potential can be immediately realized.
The Whole Picture But, you might not like flat, featureless country. Maybe steep, rugged, and dry lines right up with your desired quality of life. Deciding on the right resource base for you and your whole goes deeper than scale, ease of management, or unrealized potential. First and foremost, your quality of life has to enter the picture as you evaluate where to do your sunshine harvesting. If flat and featureless is depressing, and wildness and diverse terrain keeps life interesting, then go where you’re excited to get out of bed in the morning. A good friend of ours has a hard time seeing himself in high production country. As he states it, “I like to be able to turn my horse around, and I need a little gravity to keep his ears snapping.” In my case, the wildness of Colorado—with elk running all over the place, pristine creeks flowing down every canyon, and beautiful views in every direction—goes a long way to canceling out the difficulty created by the steep topography and long winters. We know ranchers in Africa that are acutely aware of the myriad challenges—ecological, political, social, and economic—that dominate their lives, but many of these families can’t imagine life anywhere else. Their lives aren’t easy, but they’re rich and interesting and definitely not boring. At the end of the day, we have to evaluate the extent we’re willing to engage in trade-offs. Another big consideration is the type of community you want to live in. That well-priced, but burnt out, wheat country is, currently at least, typically pretty depressed. The towns in these areas are usually ugly and semiabandoned, and the folks that live there not typically on the leading edge of any sort of agricultural revolution. Could you handle that social environment? Maybe so. Maybe you find the challenges—environmental,
economic, and social—of these regions hard to resist. But if you need access to live opera and abundant gourmet dining options, think twice before heading to the high plains.
Fiduciary Responsibility And obviously, if you’re looking at trading out one asset for another, price of land per animal unit has to work. This issue drives me crazy in Colorado, where land is so insanely overpriced that, if I’m really honest with myself, my family is not acting with fiduciary responsibility by holding onto this place. If we sold our steep, not-very-productive, cold and snowy Colorado landscape, we could replace it in just about anyplace in the world and come out way ahead in terms of increasing our scale and return on investment. For example, let’s say you’re in hard, but scenic and overpriced, country, and the price of land per animal unit is currently $20,000. You’ve got no debt, but your scale is marginal at 300 cows and the return to the value of your land base is negligible. Now let’s say you’ve found some country that meets lots of the “ease of management” criteria, but is valued at only $5,000 per animal unit. It’s more remote, not as scenic, but lots easier. With the same capital base, you can quadruple your scale, probably at a much lower cost of production per pound of beef, and greatly increase your return to capital and your family’s level of prosperity. I’ve been a big proponent of keeping families on the same land base and building on the unique local knowledge that develops through multiple generations. I still do highly value this intergenerational continuity, but as I get older and think about the future of my own family, I realize that honest financial analysis has to be a primary driver of our decision making. I’ve only talked about the land’s value in terms of cows and grazing. Any analysis of any resource base has to look all the other potential value a resource base possesses. The list is inexhaustible, and needs to be determined for every unique situation. You might be close to a growing town, and in twenty years the likelihood that the town will be at your fenceline is high. What’s the value of that? Your ranch might be hard from every angle, but it’s got a herd of desert bighorn sheep that crazy people pay ridiculous amounts of money to come hunt. On top of that, there’s an antenna on the high point of an escarpment that generates a great big dividend with absolutely no expenditure of effort. Do those traits make up for your low stocking rate, high costs in infrastructure maintenance, distance to town, etc.? Each of us has to work through all these issues and considerations for ourselves. There’s no recipe, thank God. All this complexity is what keeps life interesting. But, if we can step back and bring some order to the complexity with a rational approach to evaluating our resource base—we should have a better chance of putting our families in the right place for the right reasons. Number 116
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Testing the Social Weak Link—
Paul and Cheri Little by Tony Malmberg
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aul and Cheri Little waited 15 Social Weak Link years before Holistic Testing Question: Management® Grazing “Have I/we considered Planning didn’t raise red flags and/or addressed any with the social weak link test. Their confusion, anger, or commitment and patience not to outrun opposition this action their headlights offers a lesson on how could create with people slow can be fast. whose support I/we Too often we see people leaving their need in the near or first Holistic Management seminar ecstatic distant future?” and ready to hit the ground running. However, they find themselves returning to a community where they find no support and no one to share their excitement. Without camaraderie the newly planted seed of knowledge withers and dies and Holistic Management becomes a distant memory. At the other end of the spectrum, the newly exposed student becomes a know-it-all evangelist and careens into their community out of control. They are like a speedster driving too fast for their level of knowledge or skill. Sharp corners arrive faster than their headlights can possibly reach. This reckless youth stirs fear of crashing and burning and the community steers wide from Holistic Management. Paul and Cheri Little found the middle way by waiting to implement Holistic Management® Grazing Planning with community support. As a result, their community has moved a step towards the practice of Holistic Management.
Moving to the Cutting Edge The Klamath Basin begins in southern Oregon and goes down into northern California. The Littles’ ranch lies in the Wood River Valley at the upper end of this basin, which is the bottom of an ancient lakebed, near Chiloquin, Oregon. They get 16-20 inches (41-51 cm) of annual precipitation, mostly in the winter. The majority of land in the valley is currently used for cattle grazing, which is supported by extensive irrigation and drainage systems that divert water from the spring-fed creeks and rivers onto pastures.
Much of the valley has 15-25 feet (5-8m) of topsoil and the Littles’ place is on 90 feet (27 m) of mud. Although this valley makes up only five percent of the land area in the upper watershed, almost 25 percent of the water supplied to Upper Klamath Lake originates here due to the high density of artesian springs. The geography has created an epicenter where several ranchers are now working together to try and get more water downstream to support salmon runs. Settled in the 1880s, most in the valley changed to dairy and cheesemaking by the turn of the century. Brucellosis put the dairies out of business and an early winter caught ranchers unaware, resulting in the starvation of many cattle. This event strengthened the practice of moving south in the winter and grazing the high production meadows for six months. The ranchers moved their cattle in and out on the railroad at Chiloquin, Oregon. Today, the Upper Klamath Basin is both the summer range for yearlings on their way to finishing feedlots as well as pasture for pairs, whose calves go on to market and mothers return to California for the winter. Cheri Little’s family, the Bacchis bought their ranch in California after the gold rush in 1851. Cheri’s father, Francis survived the depression and added parcels to the ranch in later years. He sold some of his cattle and paid off his ranch in 1958. He bought the upper Klamath Basin ranch in 1961. Like everyone, they irrigated the deep soils and grazed continuously. Paul and Cheri Little bought into the business in 1985. Shortly thereafter Paul and Cheri went to Fresno, California where Allan Savory taught a Holistic Management® Grazing Planning course. Paul had been exposed to the “Savory Cell System” in college where the teachings focused on increasing productivity by rotating livestock rather than testing towards one’s holisticgoal. “At the seminar in Fresno,” Paul says, “I realized there was a lot more to Holistic Management than rotating pastures. I was impressed that finance, grazing, monitoring, ecosystem processes, regrowth, and recovery, all involve logic, numbers and could be quantified. I knew Allan was at the cutting edge and it got my attention. The idea that one just can’t cut numbers to improve land health really stuck with me.” Paul says his father-in-law, Francis, was a good listener but definitely the final decision maker. They talked a lot about cell grazing but not Holistic Management. At some point, Francis was convinced cell grazing was more work than it returned and that was the end of it. Francis retired in 1988 and Paul’s brother-in-law, Chuck, became the senior partner. Chuck encouraged more discussion and prompted Paul to go ahead and implement holistic grazing planning. But Paul did not want to move ahead without Chuck’s understanding of what was involved. Paul made several attempts to get Chuck to Holistic Management seminars and Chuck in turn encouraged Paul to go ahead. Paul continued to wait rather than strain the relationship. He did not want to proceed until Chuck had a better understanding of what Holistic Management® Grazing Planning was all about.
Taking the Leap Klamath Basin ranchers make more green (money) with less green grass. 14
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Several things changed in 2001. Paul became solely responsible for management of the Klamath Basin ranch. The family decided to lease their water rights to the Bureau of Reclamation to generate income for family members owning an interest in the real estate but not the ranching business. Klamath Basin Rangeland Trust (KBRT), an organization created in response to the current water crisis in the Klamath Basin, organized in the valley. During this period of flux, Paul took the initiative to implement holistic grazing planning. To determine his non-irrigated stocking rate, Paul spent time in the library researching historical accounts of ranchers’ increased hay production after they started irrigating. Most tripled their hay production, so Paul planned
In 2001, the Littles made 65 percent more money with no irrigation.
to reduce his six-month stocking rate from two acres for one cow-calf pair (144 ADA or 346 ADH) to six acres (48 ADA or 118 ADH). The calves weigh 400 lbs (181 kg) when they turn out in May and 780 lbs (355 kg) when they ship the calves in October (a 100 lb / 45 kg increase from 2001). To test the economics of leasing the water rights, we can use the general “rule of thumb” for local yearling-gain operations for an income comparison. Yearlings pasture for $0.32 and $0.35 per pound of gain for steers and heifers respectively. Gains run from 2.5-2.8 pounds per day (1.14-1.27 kg). Therefore, irrigated pasture would gross $141.12 per acre or $57 per hectare, best case (2.8 lbs. X $0.35 X 144 ADA). Using Paul’s estimate of 1/3 production for dryland pasture, it will gross $47.04 per acre or $19 per hectare (2.8 lbs. X $0.35 X 48 ADA). The loss in gross income to stop irrigating would be $94.08 per acre or $38 per hectare. However, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) paid $80 per acre to lease the water rights and the Littles received another $110 per acre for improved management and capital improvements from the Natural Resource Conservation Services (NRCS) in 2001 and $100 in 2002 through 2007. Even though Paul’s dry land stocking rate was 1/3 of the irrigated pasture, these two payments made dry land 68 percent more profitable to use the water for fish. Stocking rate gains have brought the cattle income and water lease to match irrigated pasture yields leaving the payment for management and capital improvements to go toward meaningful changes toward future sustainability and profitability.
Fish Ranching The Klamath Basin Rangeland Trust (KBRT) was founded in 2001, in part to help ranchers toward long-term profitability. Director Shannon Peterson says, “The goal of KBRT is to increase the quantity and quality of water available for use by both farmers and fish, particularly the endangered shortnose and Lost River sucker species that live in Upper Klamath Lake. Downstream the coho and chinook salmon will benefit too.” To improve water quality and quantity, KBRT focused its efforts in the Wood River Valley because with such a large amount of water originating from a relatively small area, land use changes by only about 15 ranching operations could significantly benefit Upper Klamath Lake and other downstream water needs. “In addition to water quality and quantity, we have a goal to support the local livestock industry and match landowners with existing programs that make the economics feasible.” Shannon explains. The final goal of KBRT is to improve riparian areas and stream channel morphology for long-term sustainability. The USDA pays a management and capital improvements fee to land owners ranging from $38 to $110 per acre toward this end. This not only keeps ranchers profitable but it helps keep the
ecosystem processes functional during the transition period. “I lease one ranch that we’ve had a difficult time keeping drained,” Paul muses, “and the plants haven’t adapted and improved their production as well as the ground that we’ve stopped irrigating completely. It took three years for the dry land species to get their roots under them and we increased our stocking rates to 40 percent up from 33 percent of the irrigated pasture yield.” Initial projections of dry land stocking rates ranged from 20 percent to 40 percent of the irrigated stocking rates, once community dynamics made adjustments towards the drier climate. For those leasing their water rights, a quick and smooth transition toward more productive dry land plants became priority. Toward this end, Paul approached the KBRT board in 2007, and offered to organize a holistic grazing planning seminar. Two of the board members, Jim Root and Kurt Thomas, lease their land to Paul and were supportive. The board approved the seminar in principle and Shannon Peterson went to work with Cheri Little to make it happen. After 22 years of plodding along, Paul and Cheri had strengthened their social weak link—and many family members who were not willing to attend a holistic grazing planning course actually attended with enthusiasm. Six weeks after the seminar I asked Paul if any of the participants were still interested in holistic grazing planning. Paul replied, “People’s vocabulary have changed. People are talking about how stock density would create the animal impact necessary to treat the hummocks. They are considering putting in a new fence to reduce “time,” or they are discussing the potential of increased stock density in order to improve grazing uniformity.” Paul is excited to plan for shorter recovery periods and keep more plants in their vegetative state for a longer period of time. He is confident from his observations that the slow growth recovery period is 60 days. This would shorten his grazing period to an average of 10 days from the average of 26 days he grazes presently. I asked Paul what kept his interest in working for 22 years to overcome the social weak link. He said there were several factors: 1) Allan Savory’s ability to explain the benefits of Holistic Management so that he knew it would and could work. 2) His personality is stubborn but not confrontational. This was a good combination for keeping focus while waiting. 3) He watched his neighbors, the Hyde family, turn their ranch around, with the practice of Holistic Management. He went to a field day on their ranch and listened to Allan Savory for a second time. Watching the Hydes’ successes fed his interest. 4) His own success of increasing his stocking rates by 20 percent in the past three years nurtured his interest in learning more about Holistic Management. 5) The Klamath Basin Rangeland Trust brought the final variable into place both in organizing the seminar and in providing an audience of community members motivated to learn more. While Paul and Cheri have made great strides in their own practice of Holistic Management and encouraging others in their practice, they continue to move forward carefully. Paul’s not planning on pushing ahead with other Holistic Management classes. “I don’t think a full slate of seminars would serve us,” he commented. “It’s like responding to changing growth rates in executing our grazing plan. When our community is ready for another seminar, we’ll schedule one. Everybody feels good about what they learned at the grazing planning seminar. If we come in immediately with another seminar, it might offend or confuse someone. We want to figure out the grazing planning first.” It’s good advice. Paul and Cheri have demonstrated that slow can be fast. We don’t want to outrun our headlights or we’ll be running in the dark without our community. Number 116
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news from holistic management international
HMI Receives USAID Funding
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n early September, HMI got word from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that it had approved renewed funding for a project launched by HMI and our Africa Centre for Holistic Management in 2005. The grant, in the amount of $329,750, was awarded through USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to address the drought disaster in Zimbabwe, a situation exacerbated by the country’s economic collapse. We will build on what we learned in 2005-2006 with the first two pilot villages in designing the training and implementation with two new communities that neighbor them. The emphasis in this grant is on providing immediate relief—adequate water for livestock in single, large herds; treatment (with the herd) of cropfields prior to the rains; the planting of nutrition gardens (by and for HIV/AIDS support groups); training of community animal health workers; and a self-sustaining (through sales) veterinary supply store housed at the Africa Centre’s
h people, programs & projects
Dimbangombe Ranch headquarters. The longer term aim is to mitigate the effects of future droughts by improving land health, which each community will begin to do by combining their animals into a community herd under supervision of trained herders who create and implement seasonal grazing plans. Our Africa Centre staff, led by Huggins Matanga, will work closely with local organizations and government veterinarians who will provide expertise we lack. We are grateful to USAID for their support of this work and their belief in the ability of our staff, who remain deeply committed to turning around a desperate situation and whose enthusiasm never wavers.
HMI Receives Dixon Foundation Grant
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he article “Moving the World Towards Sustainablity” by Christopher Peck and Allan Savory in IN PRACTICE #115 makes some excellent points about soil management and climate change. However, there was an important omission, even in a popular article like this one where brevity is essential. The article mentions nuclear power, and briefly outlines the testing procedure. But the decision to build more nuclear plants is not a simple yes or no on a possible opportunity, to be tested by itself. There is ALWAYS an existing situation, a status quo. In the case of baseload power generation in the U.S., that current reality is about 55 percent coal. In testing decisions, we need to compare at least two options. Otherwise, the status quo, the existing situation, is given a free ride. However, the strategy of testing something by itself—testing only the new, not the old—remains broadly popular. In order for a person, a government, an organization, or a corporation to decide not to adopt a new idea, the flimsiest and most transparent excuse will 16
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U.S. State Department Visitor
MI is excited to announce that we received $75,000 from the Dixon Foundation, in Denton, Texas, as the first installment of a $300,000 grant for the next five years focused on data
Readers’ Forum
November / December 2007
collection, research, and documentation. The documentation provided through rigorous, scientific documentation, concerning the relationship between improved grazing management and improved soil, plant and water resources, will help provide a proof of concept to help people understand the value of Holistic Management. It will also help pave the way for opportunities for carbon payments to commercial producers and communal land grazers who are prepared to improve their grazing management. The first phase will be a full literature review specific to the relationship between grazing management and soil and water resources. HMI will also gather data from 25 Holistic Management sites in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, and southern Africa. HMI will also identify 15 sites in three regions—North America, Australia, and southern Africa—where ongoing data can be collected for a period of four years. Craig Leggett, HMI’s Director of Learning Sites, will spearhead this effort.
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n September 24, HMI welcomed its first-ever visitor from China, Zhang Hong, a program manager in the Hefei office of Heifer International. The U.S. State Department made the arrangements for Mr. Zhang’s visit
often suffice. But in order to change what you’ve always been doing, a lawsuit, bankruptcy, revolution, or some other kind of major event is usually required. The way things are (coal power) occupies the ofteninvisible high ground behind us. It becomes part of our identity, on which we have little objectivity or perspective. Testing nuclear power by itself, and then testing nuclear power side by side with coal power, are likely to lead to very different results. Likewise, one hears all sorts of negative things about corn grain ethanol production, often without reference to feed corn production which is typically the status quo. Pollsters are highly aware of the influence of context in the way questions are asked. Categorization comes into play always, as when it is assumed that “beef production” contributes greatly to global warming, and there is no distinction made between feedlot production and grassland production. In addition, testing choices side by side usually spurs creativity. If one option comes out somewhat better than another, one tends to ask, how could we make it much better, or what third option might be better still? One of the starting questions used by consensus facilitator Bob Chadwick is, “what is the current situation and how do you feel about it?” This question encourages self-awareness and the current reality to be part of the picture.
Book Review by Ann Adams
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Chinese visitor, Zhang Hong (top right) visited with Peter Holter and Shannon Horst. because they were aware of our expertise in combating and reversing desertification. Zhang, who previously had not been familiar with HMI’s work and with our contract with Heifer International in Southern Africa, was visiting New Mexico under the auspices of the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. He works in an area located very close to Mongolia, which has a high-desert environment. “Mongolia used to have tall grasses, and we have songs about how the grasses were as high as our horses and cattle, and we could only see them when the winds blew,” Zhang explained. Zhang would like to establish a partnership so that they can introduce Holistic Management to his colleagues and bring this idea to the people involved in herd management in China.
eal Kinsey is one of the more well-known soil consultants within the sustainable agriculture industry. He’s also wellknown within the Holistic Management network because he’s worked with many Holistic Management practitioners to by Neal Kinsey and maximize soil fertility on croplands and pastures. I had never Charles Walters read the first edition of Hands-On Agronomy written in 1993, so I was glad to finally have the opportunity to read the newly Acres USA, 2006 416 pp (2006) revised and expanded version coauthored with Charles ISBN 0-911311-95-5 $30 Walters of Acres USA. The 2006 edition has three new chapters and Charles Walter has worked the text over with a fine tooth comb. Neal is known for his conversational style, so the book is highly entertaining with story upon story of Neal’s ability to read the soil. There is no voodoo magic here—just a clear understanding and practice of the William Albrecht-style of fertility balancing. From the beginning Neal’s fundamental principle is those who are stewards of the land must feed the soil. The book is centered on that philosophy, which meshes well with Holistic Management as Neal takes a holistic approach to soils. He also ascribes to “the law of the little bit”—a caution against assuming that more is better. Likewise, he uses the concept of the weakest link in his work by looking for the imbalanced nutrient that is locking up the other nutrients. What I particularly enjoyed about Hands-On Agronomy is the way Neal explained the concepts of nutrients and healthy soil function with the way in which it translates into plant health. With properly balanced nutrients, the plant roots and stems are supported in more efficient photosynthesis so it can make optimum use of sunlight (improved energy flow). Likewise, it can make better use of water (water cycle) and CO2, nitrogen, and mineral nutrients (mineral cycle). Furthermore, it gives adequate support to the hormone and enzyme systems so the plant can resist threats from insects and diseases. My favorite chapter was “Considering Use of Manures.” Kinsey notes that manures aren’t just adding nutrients, they are helping to stimulate the release of nutrients from the soil. That’s why when you add manure or compost and then take a soil test after growing a crop, you may actually have more of a given nutrient in the soil than was in the original manure. Manure stimulates microbial action and mild organic acids are formed that break down the nutrients plants need. A ton of beef manure with 80 percent moisture will hold 400 pounds of organic matter. That manure, however, needs to be quickly incorporated into the soil as its relative value is reduced by 50 percent after four days. Hands-On Agronomy will give you a solid understanding of the roles of each major mineral and encourage you to take a closer look at your own soils and what you can do to increase soil fertility.
Also, for a thorough comparison of coal versus nuclear power, see Allan Yeomans’s book PRIORITY ONE: Together We Can Beat Global Warming (www.biospheremedia.org). Peter Donovan Enterprise, Oregon
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Hands-On Agronomy: Understanding Soil Fertility and Fertilizer Use
hank you for these comments, Peter, very well reasoned. One point that might not be clear for folks who haven’t read the article yet is that the section where the six sentences on nuclear power appear is titled “Single Problem Decision Making.” The entire essay is addressing itself not just to our current annual carbon output, but to the “legacy carbon” problem, the carbon that has been building up in the atmosphere for the past 200 years, the source of global climate change. One of the points we were making is that in the current flurry of awareness about global climate change, the solutions presented tend to be very narrowly focused, i.e. “reduce carbon!” As you know, Holistic Management® decision making steers us away from such simple minded formulations. You could frame the question in this way: how can we reduce the historic
over-accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere in a way that sustains culture and economy, and generates energy and income, without doing harm to anyone or the biosphere? I don’t pretend to have a comprehensive answer to such a question, but it is hard for me to see how nuclear power rises even to within the top 10 of possible solutions to such a question. That was the context of the question, as I think the article in its entirety makes clear. Another point that I think adds to the good point you make with your posting, is that no testing process has meaning without a reference to a holisticgoal. It is impossible to presume a holisticgoal for the entire planet, 6+ billion people are tough to generalize, but we can probably assume that a point of view like “do no harm” might be included in how we tested proposed solutions. It is possible, though I have not been convinced yet, that a new form of nuclear power could overcome that quality of life line item. I will also state that I am not unequivocally opposed to nuclear power. Several people that I respect such as Stewart Brand and James Lovelock make a strong case for it. My mind is open, but with my holisticgoal and with the information that I’ve seen, I’m not convinced. I have only read portions of Yeoman’s book, but I will give it a second look. Christopher Peck Windsor, California Number 116
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Certified Educators To our knowledge, Certified Educators are the best qualified individuals to help others learn to practice Holistic Management and to provide them with technical assistance when necessary. 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, to seek out opportunities for staying current with the latest developments in Holistic Management and to maintain a high standard of ethical conduct in their work. For more information about or application forms for the HMI’s Certified Educator Training Programs, contact Ann Adams or visit our website at: www.holisticmanagement.org. EDUCATORS PROVIDE HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT INSTRUCTION * THESE ON BEHALF OF THE INSTITUTIONS THEY REPRESENT.
UNITED STATES
UNITED STATES Roland Kroos 4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 • KROOSING@msn.com * Cliff Montagne P.O. Box 173120 Montana State University Department of Land Resources & Environmental Science Bozeman, MT 59717 406/994-5079 • montagne@montana.edu
Terry Gompert P.O. Box 45 Center, NE 68724-0045 402/288-5611 (w) tgompert1@unl.edu
GEORGIA
Bill Burrows 12250 Colyear Springs Road Red Bluff, CA 96080 530/529-1535 • 530/200-2419 (c) sunflowercrmp@msn.com Richard King 1675 Adobe Rd. Petaluma, CA 94954 707/769-1490 707/794-8692(w) richard.king@ca.usda.gov Christopher Peck 6364 Starr Rd. Windsor, CA 95492 707/758-0171 Christopher@naturalinvesting.com * Rob Rutherford CA Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 805/756-1475 rrutherf@calpoly.edu
Constance Neely 1160 Twelve Oaks Circle Watkinsville, GA 30677 706/310-0678 cneely@holisticmanagement.org 39-348-210-6214 (Italy)
* Seth Wilner 24 Main Street, Newport, NH 03773 603/863-4497 (h) • 603/863-9200 (w) seth.wilner@unh.edu
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IN PRACTICE
Tina Pilione P.O. 923, Eunice, LA 70535 phone: 337/580-0068 tina@tinapilione.com MAINE
Joel Benson P.O. Box 4924 Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/395-6119 joel@outburstllc.com Cindy Dvergsten 17702 County Rd. 23 Dolores, CO 81323 970/882-4222 hminfo@wholenewconcepts.com Daniela and Jim Howell P.O. Box 67 Cimarron, CO 81220-0067 970/249-0353 howelljd@montrose.net Craig Leggett 2078 County Rd. 234 Durango, CO 81301 970/946-1771 crleggett@holisticmanagement.org Byron Shelton 33900 Surrey Lane Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/395-8157 landmark@my.amigo.net Tom Walther P.O. Box 1158 Longmont, CO 80502-1158 510/499-7479 tagjag@aol.com
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LOUISIANA
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Vivianne Holmes 239 E. Buckfield Rd. Buckfield, ME 04220-4209 207/336-2484 vholmes@umext.maine.edu Tobey Williamson 52 Center St., Portland, ME 04101 207/774-2458 x115 tobey@bartongingold.com MICHIGAN Ben Bartlett N4632 ET Road, Traunik, MI 49891 906/439-5210 (h) • 906/439-5880 (w) bartle18@msu.edu MINNESOTA Gretchen Blank 4625 Cottonwood Lane N Plymouth, MN 55442-2902 612/670-9606 ouilassie@comcast.net MONTANA Wayne Burleson 322 N. Stillwater Rd., Absarokee, MT 59001 406/328-6808 • rutbuster@montana.net
November / December 2007
Jim Weaver 428 Copp Hollow Rd. Wellsboro, PA 16901-8976 570/724-7788 • jaweaver@epix.net TEXAS
CALIFORNIA
* Margaret Smith Iowa State University, CES Sustainable Agriculture 972 110th St., Hampton, IA 50441-7578 515/294-0887 • mrgsmith@iastate.edu
Larry Dyer Olney Friends School 61830 Sandy Ridge Road Barnesville, OH 47313 740/425-3655 (w) 740/425-2775 (h) larry@olneyfriends.org PENNSYLVANIA
NEBRASKA
NEW HAMPSHIRE
IOWA
OHIO
NEW MEXICO * Ann Adams Holistic Management International 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102 505/842-5252 anna@holisticmanagement.org Kirk Gadzia P.O. Box 1100, Bernalillo, NM 87004 505/867-4685 • (f) 505/867-9952 kgadzia@msn.com David Trew 369 Montezuma Ave. #243 Santa Fe, NM 87501 505/988-1508 • trewearth@gmail.com Vicki Turpen 03 El Nido Amado SW Albuquerque, NM 87121 505/873-0473 • kaytelnido@aol.com Kelly White No. 4 El Nido Amado SW Albuquerque, NM 87121-7300 505/873-1324 (h) • 505/379-1866 (c) kellyw@h-a-s.com
Christina Allday-Bondy 2703 Grennock Dr. Austin, TX 78745 512/441-2019 tododia@sbcglobal.net Guy Glosson 6717 Hwy 380, Snyder, TX 79549 806/237-2554 glosson@caprock-spur.com Peggy Maddox P.O. Box 694 Ozona, TX 76943-0694 325/392-2292 westgift@hughes.net * R. H. (Dick) Richardson University of Texas at Austin Department of Integrative Biology, Austin, TX 78712 512/471-4128 d.richardson@mail.utexas.edu Peggy Sechrist 106 Thunderbird Rd., Fredericksburg, TX 78624 830/990-2529 sechrist@earthtones.com Elizabeth Williams 4106 Avenue B Austin, TX 78751-4220 512/323-2858 e-liz@austin.rr.com
NEW YORK Erica Frenay 454 Old 76 Road Brooktondale, NY 14817 607/539-3246 (h) • 607/279-7978 (c) efrenay22@yahoo.com Phil Metzger 99 N. Broad St. Norwich, NY 13815 607/334-3231 x4 (w) • 607/334-2407 (h) phil.metzger@ny.usda.gov John Thurgood 17 Spruce St., Oneonta, NY 13820 607/432-8714 jthurgood@stny.rr.com NORTH DAKOTA * Wayne Berry Williston State College, P.O. Box 1326 Williston, ND 58802 701/774-4277 wayne.berry@wsc.nodak.edu
WASHINGTON Craig Madsen P.O. Box 107, Edwall, WA 99008 509/236-2451 shepherd@healinghooves.com Sandra Matheson 228 E. Smith Rd., Bellingham, WA 98226 360/398-7866 mathesonsm@verizon.net Doug Warnock 1880 SE Larch Ave. College Place, WA 99324 509/525-3389 (w) • 509/525-3295 (h) 509/856-7101 (c) dwarnock@charter.net WEST VIRGINIA Fred Hays P.O. Box 241, Elkview, WV 25071 304/548-7117 sustainableresources@hotmail.com
UNITED STATES WISCONSIN Heather Flashinski 16294 250th St., Cadott, WI 54727 715/289-4896 amun0069@hotmail.com Andy Hager W. 3597 Pine Ave., Stetsonville, WI 54480-9559 715/678-2465 • ahager@tds.net * Laura Paine Wisconsin DATCP N893 Kranz Rd., Columbus, WI 53925 608/224-5120 (w) • 920/623-4407 (h) laura.paine@datcp.state.wi.us WYOMING Andrea & Tony Malmberg 768 Twin Creek Road, Lander, WY 82520 307/335-7485 (w) • 307/332-5073 (h) 307/349-8624 (c) • Andrea@LifeEnergy.us Tony@LifeEnergy.us
INTERNATIONAL
AUSTRALIA Judi Earl 73 Harding E, Guyra, NSW 2365 61-2-6779-2286 judi@holisticmanagement.org.au Mark Gardner P.O. Box 1395, Dubbo, NSW 2830 61-2-6884-4401 mark.g@ozemail.com.au Paul Griffiths P.O. Box 3045, North Turramura, NSW 2074, Sydney, NSW 61-2-9144-3975 pgpres@geko.net.au George Gundry Willeroo, Tarago, NSW 2580 61-2-4844-6223 ggundry@bigpond.net.au Graeme Hand 150 Caroona Lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h); 61-4-0996-4466 (c) graemeh1@bordernet.com.au
INTERNATIONAL AUSTRALIA Brian Marshall P.O. Box 300, Guyra NSW 2365 61-2-6779-1927 fax: 61-2-6779-1947 bkmrshl@bigpond.com Jason Virtue Mary River Park 1588 Bruce Highway South, Gympie, QLD 4570 61-7-5483-5155 jason@spiderweb.com.au Bruce Ward P.O. Box 103, Milsons Pt., NSW 1565 61-2-9929-5568 fax: 61-2-9929-5569 blward@the-farm-business-gym.com Brian Wehlburg c/o “Sunnyholt”, Injune, QLD 4454 61-7-4626-7187 brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au
CANADA Don Campbell Box 817 Meadow Lake, SK S9X 1Y6 306/236-6088 doncampbell@sasktel.net Len Pigott Box 222, Dysart, SK, SOH 1HO 306/432-4583 JLPigott@sasktel.net Kelly Sidoryk P.O. Box 374, Lloydminster, AB S9V 0Y4 780/875-9806 (h) • 780/875-4418 (c) kjsidoryk@yahoo.ca
KENYA Christine C. Jost International Livestock Research Institute Box 30709, Nairobi 00100 254-20-422-3000 254-736-715-417 (c) christine.jost@tufts.edu
MEXICO
Steve Hailstone “Niwajiri,” 5 Lampert Rd., Crafers, SA 5152 61-4-1882-2212; sh@internode.on.net
Ivan A. Aguirre Ibarra P.O. Box 304 Hermosillo, Sonora 83000 52-1-662-289-0900 (from U.S.) 52-1-662-289-0901 rancho_inmaculada@yahoo.com.mx
Helen Lewis P.O. Box 1263, Warwick, QLD 4370 61-7-46617393 61-7-46670835 helen@insideoutsidemgt.com.au
Arturo Mora Benitez San Juan Bosco 169 Fracc., La Misión Celaya, Guanajuato 38016 52-461-615-7632 jams@prodigy.net.mx
MEXICO
NEW ZEALAND
Elco Blanco-Madrid Hacienda de la Luz 1803 Fracc. Haciendas del Valle II, Chihuahua Chih., 31238 52-614-423-4413 (h) 52-614-107-8960 (c) elco_blanco@hotmail.com
John King P.O. Box 12011, Beckenham, Christchurch 8242 64-3-338-5506 succession@clear.net.nz
Miguel Aguirre Camacho SAGARPA Delegación Estatal en Tlaxcala Libramiento Poniente Número 2 Colonia Unitlax, San Diego Metepec Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala 90110 52-246-465-0700 Adrian Vega Lopez Calle Norte 80 #5913 Col. Gertrudis Sanchez, 2a. Sección Delegación Gustavo A. Madero, México, D.F. 07890 Jorge Efrain Morales Martinez Calle Primero de Mayo #578-A Col. Centro Histórico, Morelia, Michoacán, 58000 52-443-317-4389 Jose Angel Montaño Morales Calle Samuel Arias #111 Fraccionamiento Forjadores de Pachuca Mineral de la Reforma, Hidalgo 42083 Alejandro Miranda Sanchez Calle Cerro Macuiltepec No 23 Col. Campestre Churubusco, Delegación Coyoacán México, D.F. 04200 Jose Ramon “Moncho” Villar Av. Las Americas #1178 Fracc. Cumbres Saltillo, Coahuila 25270 52-844-415-1557 jrvillarm@prodigy.net.mx Silverio Rojas Villegas SAGARPA Avenida Irrigación s/n, Col. Monte de Camargo Celaya, Guanajuato, 38030 52-461-612-0305
SOUTH AFRICA Jozua Lambrechts P.O. Box 5070, Helderberg, Somerset West, Western Cape 7135 27-21-851-5669; 27-21-851-2430 (w) jozua@websurf.co.za Ian Mitchell-Innes P.O. Box 52, Elandslaagte 2900 27-36-421-1747 blanerne@mweb.co.za Dick Richardson P.O. Box 1853, Vryburg 8600 tel/fax: 27-082-934-6139 Dickson@wam.co.za Colleen Todd P.O. Box 20, Bergbron 1712 27-82-335-3901 (cell) colleen@lantic.net
SPAIN Aspen Edge Apartado de Correos 19, 18420 Lanjaron, Granada (0034)-958-347-053 aspen@holisticdecisions.com
UNITED KINGDOM Philip Bubb 32 Dart Close, St. Ives, Cambridge, PE27 3JB 44-1480-496295 philipbubb@onetel.com
ZIMBABWE NAMIBIA Gero Diekmann Ecoso Dynamics CC P.O. Box 363, Okahandja 264-62-518-091 (h) 264-612-51861 (w) 264-812-440-501 (c) dero@mweb.com.na Colin Nott P.O. Box 11977, Windhoek 264-61-225085 canott@iafrica.com.na Wiebke Volkmann P.O. Box 182, Otavi 264-67-234-557 or 264-81-127-0081 wiebke@mweb.com.na
Amanda Atwood 27 Rowland Square, Milton Park, Harare 263-23-233-760 amandlazw@gmail.com Huggins Matanga Africa Centre for Holistic Management P. Bag 5950, Victoria Falls 263-13-42199 (w) 263-11-404-979 (c) hmatanga@mweb.co.zw Elias Ncube Africa Centre for Holistic Management P. Bag 5950, Victoria Falls 263-13-42199 (w) 263-11-214-584 (c) achmcom@africaonline.co.zw
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NATIONWIDE DISTRIBUTION San Angelo, Texas
Proudly serving Holistic Management Practitioners since 1978! En Mexico: Tele y fax: 1-800-640-3156 20
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800 527-0990
November / December 2007
www.twinmountainfence.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)
Holistic Management Handbook HEALTHY LAND, HEALTHY PROFITS By Jody Butterfield, Sam Bingham, and Allan Savory, Holistic Management International
ORDER TODAY!
25
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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.
Learn how to create healthy land and healthy profits.
Call 505/842-5252 or order online at www.holisticmanagement.org! Number 116
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THE MARKETPLACE CORRAL DESIGNS
HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT TRAINING & CONSULTING
Kirk Gadzia Certified Educator
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
Kirk Gadzia has over 15 years experience conducting Holistic Management training sessions worldwide and assisting people on the land in solving real problems. With his hands-on, results-oriented approach, Kirk is uniquely qualified to help your organization achieve its goals. Introduction to Holistic Management Courses February 4-9, 2008 Albuquerque, New Mexico
Contact: Kirk Gadzia P.O. Box 1100 Bernalillo, NM 87004 kgadzia@msn.com www.resourcemanagementservices.com Ph: 505/867-4685 Fax: 505/867-9952
Start Using Holistic Management Today! Join Our Distance Learning Program Stay At Home – All You Need Is A Phone
Apply What You Learn As You Learn With Our Hands On Approach, Step by Step Workbook And Personalized Mentoring. Enjoy Flexible Scheduling. Choose to Work Independently or In Small Groups. Get Started Now.
Realize Immediate Benefits Find More Details On The Web at www.wholenewconcepts.com By Phone at 970-882-4222 or e-mail us at requests@wholenewconcepts.com
FREE CHOICE ENTERPRISES, LTD A Nutritional Consulting Firm
Laboratory Services Free Choice Cafeteria Mineral Program Energy Supplements SPECIALIZING IN NUTRITION FOR THE GRAZING ANIMAL AND THE LAND WHERE THEY GRAZE
Offered By Whole New Concepts, LLC
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P.O. Box 218 Lewis CO 81327 USA
—— C O N T A C T ——
Cindy Dvergsten, a Holistic Management® Certified Educator, has 12 years experience in personal practice, training & facilitation of Holistic Management, and 25 years experience in resource management & agriculture. She offers customized solutions to family farms & ranches, communities and organizations worldwide.
MARK BADER, Free Choice Enterprises, LTD
IN PRACTICE
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November / December 2007
10055 County K Lancaster, WI 53813
608/723-7977 fce@chorus.net
PHONE: EMAIL:
freechoiceminerals.com
THE MARKETPLACE Workshops - Talks - Stop by Visits
Regenerate Land, People & Profit
The Art of Pasture Walking for Solutions Monitor in front of problems (not behind them) A fast easy land health assessment method What’s happening under ground? Where are you on the Slippery Slope? …………….. Holistic Decision Making Getting everyone on the same page How to put your Holisticgoal in a Circle
Contact: Wayne Burleson one of the “old timers” in Holistic Management Phone: 406-328-6808 Email: rutbuster@montana.net Website: PastureManagement.Com
Holistic Management ® Financial Planning Software ORDER NOW! only $249 ■
Eliminates the drudgery of doing all calculations by hand
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Spreadsheet software—works with Office ‘95, ‘97, 2000, XP, and 2003.
Call 505/842-5252
Managing Change Northwest A team of certified Holistic Management educators in Washington State who serve the Pacific Northwest, helping people on their journey toward resource sustainability.
Presenting a series of workshops: December 4-6, 2007
Creating Best Outcomes & Planning for Profit
January 15-17, 2008
Planned Grazing & Optimizing Forage
February 19-21, 2008 March 4-6, 2008
Animal Behavior & Grazing Management Putting It All Together-Managing the Whole
Follow-up with participants is planned. Eastern Washington location to be determined For more information contact:
Managing Change Northwest at 509-525-3389 or dwarnock@charter.net
Advertise in. . .
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Low Rates International Audience
CONTACT ANN ADAMS AT 505/842-5252 or anna@ holisticmanagement.org
F.J. FITZPATRICK • HIGHLY GREGARIOUS DESERT CATTLE 714/749-5717 • P.O. BOX 41 • SILVERADO, CA 92676 frank@5barbeef.com
SUPPLIES
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FREE CATALOG 190 Sanhedrin Circle Willits, CA 95490-9753
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800/616-8321 email: dripwrks@pacific.net
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HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT MAIL ORDER EMPORIUM Subscribe to IN PRACTICE
Software
Holistic Management® Financial Planning (single-user license) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $249
_ A bimonthly journal for Holistic Management practitioners
Please specify PC or Mac, Office ‘95 or ‘97, 2000, XP, or 2003 and version of Excel you are using
Subscribe for 1 year for only $30/U.S. ($35/International) 2 years ($55/U.S.; $65/International) 3 years ($80/U.S.; $90/International)
_ Gift Subscriptions (same prices as above). _ Special Edition: An Introduction to Holistic Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5 _ Compact Disk Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$14 _ Bulk subscriptions available.
Pocket Cards Holistic Management® Framework & testing questions, March 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$4
Planning and Monitoring Guides
One year for $17 each/U.S., or $22 each/International ______ Please indicate number of one-year subscriptions
_ Introduction to Holistic Management August 2007, 128 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$25
_ Back Issues: $5 each; bulk orders (5 or more issues) $3 each. List
_ Financial Planning August 2007, 58 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17
Please indicate issue numbers desired: ___,___,___,___,___,___,___,___,___,___ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$25
_ CD of Back Issues: #71 - 89
_ Aide Memoire for Grazing Planning August 2007, 63 pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17
_ Early Warning Biological Monitoring— Croplands
Books & Multimedia
April 2000, 26 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$14
Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision-Making,
_ Early Warning Biological Monitoring—Rangelands and Grasslands
_ Second Edition, by Allan Savory with Jody Butterfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35 _ Hardcover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $55 _ 15-set CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $99 _ One month rental of CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35 _ Spanish Version (soft). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ Holistic Management Handbook, by Butterfield, Bingham, Savory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ At Home With Holistic Management, by Ann Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20 _ Holistic Management: A New Environmental Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10 _ Improving Whole Farm Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10 _ Video: Creating a Sustainable Civilization—
August 2007, 59 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17
_ Land Planning—For The Rancher or Farmer Running Livestock August 2007, 31 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17
Planning Forms (All forms are padded - 25 sheets per pad) _ Annual Income & Expense Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17 _ Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 7 _ Livestock Production Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17 _ Control Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 5 _ Grazing Plan & Control Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15
An Introduction to Holistic Decision-Making, based on a lecture given by Allan Savory. (VHS/DVD/PAL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $30 Stockmanship, by Steve Cote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35
_ _ The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, by Shannon Hayes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ The Oglin, by Dick Richardson & Rio de la Vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ Gardeners of Eden, by Dan Dagget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ Video: Healing the Land Through Multi-Species Grazing (VHS/DVD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $30 TO ORDER
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