#166, In Practice, March/April 2016

In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International MARCH / APRIL 2016

NUMBER 166

W W W. H O L I S T I C M A N A G E M E N T. O R G

Covering Ground: A Holistic Approach

BY ANN ADAMS

s I write this article, we are thick in the middle of our planning for HMI’s 2016 Conference that will be held in Paicines, California on October 1416th. It may seem like a long way’s off, but we know October will be here in the blink of an eye.

That’s why we’ve already scheduled many of our speakers including:

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• Greg Judy • Brock Dolman • Owen Hablutzel • Richard Wiswall • Jessica Prentice • Charlotte Smith • Dr. Thomas Cowan • Paul Kaiser

• Rebecca Burgess • Kelly Mulville • Joe and Julie Morris • Tina Williams • Allen Williams • Leslie Dorrance • Judi Earl

And more speakers we will confirm in the next issue of IN PRACTICE For those of you not from California, the weather is beautiful in Paicines in October.

Sunny blue skies and warm, pleasant weather is the norm at this time of year, so moving from one venue to another on the ranch headquarters is a pleasant break from being

Save the Date!

HMI 2016 Conference October 14-16, 2016 At the beautiful Paicines Ranch in Central California 20+ speakers

Details will be emailed soon.

To get on HMI’s email list, contact hmi@holisticmanagement.org

indoors. This is a conference on the land but with plenty of amenities. And with Monterey and the Pacific Ocean only an hour away, you may want to expand your trip around the conference to see more of what this part of California has to offer.

We will be offering 3 different breakout sessions between the main presentations and keynotes. The beautiful Paicines Ranch is wellknown as a wedding venue, with beautiful vistas. While there will be some lodging available on the ranch, we have also reserved rooms at the Best Western in Hollister, California, just 15 minutes away. We are also working with local caterers that source local farm and ranch products for the meals they prepare for this event.

On Oct. 14th, we will start off the Gathering

The Holistic Management community is a global community. Holistic Management is practiced on 6 continents and over 130 countries. In this issue of IN PRACTICE we hear about some of our practitioners from Namibia (page 3) and New Zealand (page 9).

Photo of Judith Isele from Namibia far left.

with an Open Gate Ranch Day featuring the Paicines Ranch. This ranch, owned by Sallie Calhoun and Matt Christiano, is managed by Holistic Management Certified Educator Kelly Mulville who is working on developing the ranch as a demonstration site for Holistic Management and regenerative agriculture. He will be presenting on all the different practices they are implementing at Pacines Ranch as well as the decision-making utilized to improve the triple bottom line for the ranch.

Long-time Holistic Management practitioner, Joe Morris, also has the grazing lease on the ranch and will share what practices they have been able to incorporate in the grazing planning for the ranch. Lastly, Point Blue Conservation have been involved in the rangeland monitoring for the ranch to determine soil health and bird habitat (as a critical soil health indicator). They

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

A Global Community

From the Board Chair

BY DANIEL NUCKOLS, PhD

In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International

Holistic Management International exists to educate people to manage land for a sustainable future.

STAFF

Ann Adams . . . . . . . . . . . Executive Director Kelly Curtis . . . . . . . . . . . Finance and Operations Director Kathy Harris . . . . . . . . . . Program Director Peggy Cole . . . . . . . . . . . Program Manager, Texas Mary Girsch-Bock. . . . . . Development Manager Carrie Stearns. . . . . . . . . Communications & Outreach Manager Valerie Grubbs . . . . . . . . Accountanting Manager Julie Fierro . . . . . . . . . . . Education Manager Stephanie Von Ancken. . Programs / Office Assistant

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Daniel Nuckols, Chair

Walter Lynn, Vice-Chair

Kelly Sidoryk, Past Board Chair

Ben Bartlett Gerardo Bezanilla Kirrily Blomfield Kevin Boyer Laura Gill Guy Glosson Wayne Knight Jim Shelton Sarah Williford

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT In Practice

(ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by: Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109

505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: hmi@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2016 Holistic Management® is a registered trademark of Holistic Management International

From the Board Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2

WIEBKE VOLKMANN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

HEATHER SMITH THOMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Helder~Herdwyck Farm— Developing a Multi-Species, Value-Added Farm

2 IN PRACTICE

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LAND & LIVESTOCK

FEATURE STORIES A First for Namibia

hen I was a small boy growing up on the outskirts of East Dallas, Texas, my father and I would spend much of his leisure time, as little as it was, bird hunting and bass fishing, all within a 60 mile radius of home. The kindness and generosity of many local farmers and ranchers permitted our access to their relatively small acreage (if memory serves, never more than 10-50 acres) and stock tanks. I came to learn that in these earlier years, many nearby small scale ranchers were not finishing their livestock on corn, or administering growth hormones; nor were produce farmers using chemicals, such as glyphosate. It seemed these small-scale ranchers and farmers were practicing sustainable agriculture, and to a large extent producing organically.

However, further study and observation shed light on the fact that this was not the norm, and that in reality for hundreds, if not thousands, of years man has engaged in poor ranching, farming, and land practices. And with her book The Soil Will Save Us, Kristen Ohlson shows, along with other researchers, how this has led to the loss of 80 billion tons of carbon from the world’s soil. Ohlson calls for a renewed partnership between plants and microorganisms, one that could return carbon to the soil. She desires that we recognize the enormous domain of creatures beneath our feet—billions of microorganisms in a tablespoon of soil—that take the carbon dioxide that plants pull from the atmosphere and turn it into lifegiving soil carbon.

While Ohlson’s plea for us to recognize the importance of healthy soil is certainly correct and welcomed, it is tempting, however, to accept the naïve notion that all that is needed is for us to recreate a much earlier period where pristine nature existed; or at the very least, replicate a time where the human footprint on nature was barely visible and hence, supposedly sustainable. Historian William Cronon challenges, correctly I feel, this more

March / April 2016

Hawkes Bay Farm— How Drought Changed Farm Logic and Observation

NEWS & NETWORK

JOHN KING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fouch Farms— Making a Farm Cash Flow

HEATHER SMITH THOMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“hands-off” philosophy. In his 1995 essay, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” Cronon warns of the dangers of deifying such prior time and places, creating the erroneous belief that we can simply look askance at our ecological problems and “escape history and the obligation to take responsibility for our own actions.”

With its strong emphasis on healthy land management in general, and soil rejuvenation in particular, the programs offered by HMI certainly capture, in a pragmatic way, the spirit behind Ohlson’s cry for a resilient remarriage between the soil, plants, livestock and profitable farming operations. Moreover, Holistic Management argues in favor of a strong and robust interaction between livestock and the land.

In the spirit of Cronon’s appeal for man to resist any fancy to “leave the land alone and everything will be OK; mother nature will solve all problems,” HMI instead deliberately promotes the kinds of programs that demand vibrant human interaction with nature, such as the November 14, 2015 Open Gate Farm Day at Tracy Little’s Faith Hollow Farm in Orange Grove, Texas, which I was fortunate to attend.

With the helpful aid of Certified Educators, participants learned: how to regenerate the land by grazing livestock; how to meet and nurture our invisible allies—the microbes beneath our feet; how Holistic Management empowers farmers and ranchers to effectively manage the risks associated with production and finance; and how to evaluate and replicate ecosystems through solar collection, ground cover, water cycle, and plant diversity.

In essence, HMI prefers not to dwell on some perceived past idyllic time, or argue that we are incapable of sustainable land management. Instead, HMI has a documented history of showing land managers how to make the right decisions for enhancing the resilience, productivity and profitability of the land, which ultimately pays off with the ultimate reward: healthy families with sustainable livelihoods.

That’s a mission I think we can all support.

Grapevine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

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12

Book Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Development Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Certified Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

A First for Namibia

BY WIEBKE VOLKMANN

s one of many practitioners and educators in Southern Africa, I want to share with the international community of Holistic Management practitioners an exciting story about one producer in Namibia.

Twelve years ago the Namibian Agricultural Union (to which most commercial farmers belong who operate on free hold land) started to award the “Young Farmer of the Year” prize. Farmers up to the age of 40 can apply. They receive a comprehensive set of assessment criteria that the judges use when visiting their operation.

In 2015, Judith Isele, widow of Ekkehard Kuelbs who passed away in January 2012, decided to enter the competition, and in October 2015 was chosen as Young Farmer of the Year on the farm Springbockvley. Judith manages up to 950 Nguni cattle and 4,500 Damara sheep on 19,000 acres (9,500 hectares) in the Kalahari.

The average annual rainfall here is a little over 10 inches (260 mm).

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Judith has improved her knowledge of grazing and animal nutrition to continue to build resilience for her business.

This is not only the first time that a woman applied and received this recognition in Namibia, but also that an operation won that is managed according to Holistic Management principles and processes and that complies with the certification rules of the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) of the Namibia Organic Association (with full organic status since end of 2013).

The operation and successes on Springbockvley have been presented and published in various places, since Ekkehard

Kuelbs started to implement Holistic Management in 1990. He, then Judith and Ekkehard together, and in the past four years Judith alone, spoke at many national and international conferences, always amazing the audience with convincing production records and presentations that reflected the tripleHolistic Management (on right) shows how good management can bottom-line approach, improve land resilience and productivity even in drought years. holistic decision making and transparent results. Over management. It is therefore no surprise that the past four years Judith invested in Judith had the following answer to an interviewer consultations with Ian Mitchell-Innes and Mark when asked: Bader to help improve livestock production and “What is your biggest opportunity?” To keep she visited other holistically managed farms in learning everyday how to improve growing South Africa and Botswana to keep honing conditions for grass and to better manage livestock her skills. for improved forage and meat production.

Although the Namibian National Rangeland Judith currently carries out on-farm Management Policy and Strategy focuses on the experiments and field research on Springbockvley principle of production per hectare, the common as part of her PhD studies with the Heinrich von thinking in Namibia still measures success by the Thuenen institute for Organic Agriculture and the production per animal and not by herd production German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical or kilogram per hectare or triple-bottom-line profitability. On livestock auctions, the indigenous Agriculture. The research focuses on what Nguni and Damara breeds are regularly penalized practical assessment method can be recommended for biomass evaluation and on a with lower prices and so Judith tends to market comparison of grazing regimes and their effects her animals directly to slaughterhouses. And the on biomass. judges of this year’s award were no exception, The livestock farming community in Namibia saying: “This really is an “alternative operation” looks forward to an information day on farm but with such good evidence of high production Springbockvley on 9 March 2016. Here Judith will over many variable years.” not only present her production results in the Popular and scientific publications help to context of “conventional” farming success criteria, spread the word. In the process not only Judith’s but will also invite another young farmer to speak achievement is celebrated, but the reliability of on his reliance on Holistic Management.

Holistic Management and organic production receive a boost. In an interview with the South To learn more, contact Judith Isele: African Landbou Weekblad Judith answered to iselkuel@iway.na the following questions: What is the best advice you ever received? To keep trusting my skills and abilities and the principles of Holistic Management.

What was your best farming decision? To install solar pumps next to the wind pumps to improve water supply for the large herds.

What was the biggest farming mistake you made? To implement management changes during a drought.

Talking of drought: This year’s award falls in the second year of very low and badly spaced rainfall in Namibia. The operation on Judith Isele is the first women to receive the Young Farmer Springbokvley shows how resilience of the Year award in Namibia and has recently received can be built with pro-active grazing Namibia Organic certification.

Number 166

IN PRACTICE 3

Helder~Herdwyck Farm—

Developing a Multi-Species, Value-Added Farm

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

rin and her husband Ray are farming holistically in East Berne, New York, near Albany. The name, Helder~Herdwyck Farm, was chosen because they are located in the Helderberg Mountains. “The word ‘helderberg’ is Dutch for clear mountain. The old Norse word for sheep pasture is ‘herdvyck’. So we melded the Norse spelling of the name of our sheep breed with the current Herdwick, and combined it with helder, to create our farm name. So it basically means ‘clear mountain sheep pasture’,” says Erin.

The property was part of the 1,200 square mile Van Rensselaer estate (16301899), known as Rensselaerwyck. “It was called a patroonship, and operated like a serfdom.

Tenants of those days, as they were never owners, paid rent in the form of bushels of wheat, fattened hogs, or fat fowl, as well as spun wool.

Every household, especially that of a widowed farmer, kept a daughter at home to fulfill the spinning requirements of the household, hence the term “Spinster” for an unmarried woman,” she says.

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A Love Affair With Farming

“I am a 4th generation farmer, though I am not farming on my dad’s farm. I’ve always been drawn to farms and barns and livestock. When I was growing up I had several aunts and uncles who ran dairy farms. I had one aunt and uncle who we would go visit every Easter and they had a huge dairy barn that was close to 200 years old. It had a big hay mow and one of my fondest memories was swinging on a big 4-inch diameter tugboat rope that was tied to the peak of the barn. A person could get it swinging out over the barn bridge, sitting on the big knot at the end of the rope. This was awesome to a 5year-old kid! It felt like I was in slow motion, with the wind in my hair,” recalls Erin.

“I enjoyed our visits there, and watching them milk the cows. They let me help feed calves, and when I was older, I helped milk. My mom and my aunt grew up on a diversified 4 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2016

family farm, and both married dairy farmers.”

Erin’s parents were dairy farmers, but sold their dairy herd in the early 1960’s before she was born. “My uncles kept telling my dad that he sold out too early, because here’s your farmer (pointing to me). Mom and Dad got my sister and me sheep when we were quite young,” says Erin.

“My sister and I raised Montadale cross market lambs through high school and college.

Erin Bradt moving the coop, a daily chore.

That got me into spinning and weaving, and we showed lambs and chickens awhile. I was an avid 4-H member from middle-school on. After I got out of college I focused more on the fibers and started The Wren’s Nest in 2002, which is a fiber art supply business. I sell frame looms, and rug making equipment, among other fiber tools. It’s been a lot of fun working with fiber people and utilizing wool. After shepherding my sister’s flock while she finished college, I eventually started out on my own, just before my husband Ray and I bought this property, with a few Romney sheep,” Erin says.

Getting Started

“Unfortunately we had a foot rot issue, so I brought the 2 most resistant sheep to the new farm and culled the rest. These initial sheep were employed in the early rotational grazing program on the farm. They still had signs of foot rot, so we culled them and waited a year to buy

any more sheep. We continued to sell pastured eggs from our small flock which we free-ranged on the property. Then we saw a special program on PBS about livestock-herding dogs.

It showed some border collies running up and down steep hills herding some very unusuallycolored sheep in England that I had never seen before. They were black with white faces and white legs,” she recalls.

“They looked like sheep wearing a tuxedo and were very fancy-looking. I kept thinking about these sheep for more than a year. I finally googled PBS and found that episode, and eventually discovered that these were Herdwick sheep. I looked them up and found that a breeder in Oregon had brought the genetics to the U.S. in 2007. I was thrilled to find that there were some in this country,” she says.

“We now feel that we have been given this path to follow and just have to keep working at it. A year after I found out what those unusual-looking sheep were and where they were, we had our first flock of Herdwick crossbred sheep— in September of 2012--and Helder~Herdwyck Farm began. We debated about raising beef or sheep as our focus. After comparing 18 months of input before realizing income with beef, to about 6 months with lamb, plus the benefit of multiple products from sheep – meat, milk for soap, fleeces, and hides from the marketed lamb and other value added products such as roving and yarn, we chose sheep. We started out with 4 ewes and 2 rams, and we now have 11 ewes, one of those rams and 7 new lambs. Additionally, last fall we acquired the last 4 remaining straws of Herdwick genetics in the U.S.,” says Erin.

“We are working on getting more genetics, if possible. There are many hurdles, but in the meantime we are using the ram we have, and the first batch of ewe lambs born in 2013 are now lambing. The resulting lambs from them are 72% Herdwick.”

One of the unique things about this breed is that the black color fades with age. The (purebred) lambs are born mostly black, and then during their first summer their faces and legs turn white. “As they get older, their fleeces become lighter and lighter, so my oldest ewes are now almost white—a very pale gray,” she says.

Rehabilitating the Land

“When we first moved to this property, a mile from where I grew up, it had been used for growing hay for the last 40 years. It had been a dairy farm until the 1960’s. Some of the fields on the 101 acre farm had been plowed for corn.

The farmer who works my dad’s place had also been using this one in a rotational crop program growing corn, oats, and seeding back to hay,” Erin says.

“Taxes remain very high in this area so we’ve gotten our Ag exemption through this farmer. This year we will qualify for the exemption based on our own production. Other than the little bit that the farmer has done, and spreading his own manure occasionally in the past, most of these fields had nothing done with them except taking crops off, with nothing put back in. The soil pH is very good, between 5 and 6, but because it had only been hayed once per year (no grazing) some invasive species moved in, including spotted and brown knapweed,” she says.

“The two original ewes we had, in our pasture next to the house, grazed the knapweed back dramatically. We accomplished this just by rotationally grazing those ewes and their lambs—a total of 5 sheep, before we culled them. Then it sat for a full year, until the Herdwick flock came in 2012. We have been moving them in a similar, but more focused manner.”

This was prior to her taking a course in Holistic Management. “I took the course in winter 2013, but already had an instinctive feel for handling the grazing. When the grass got down to a certain height, I moved the sheep.

This year we will hopefully have at least 20 sheep to graze after the lambs are all born.

They will also be able to stay a little longer on the pasture because the grass is so much better. Previously, I knew nothing of stocking rates or calculating dry matter. We have now expanded pasturing and use the sheep in more fields. Last year I claimed part of the horse pasture and put the sheep in it, to control the knapweed. Horses won’t eat it, even when it’s young, so it gets ahead of them. They chew the grass right down to the dirt and let the knapweed grow,” she says.

She forced the sheep to eat the knapweed last year by placing them on various parts of the pasture using electro-netting. “We had not yet been able to regain enough capital to have permanent fences installed to work with, so it takes a lot of manual labor to pasture our sheep and chickens and to keep them moving around.” She uses the electro-netting in curving shapes as necessary to follow the

colonies of knapweed. They first strip off all the buds, and then the leaves, and after a couple days all that is left is the bare stem.

“We hope to hit it again really hard this year with the sheep and lambs. We found that it is very nutritious because we had very poor hay last year and the sheep did really well. Our hope is to eventually have more animals here, to chew and poop, and improve the fields,” she says.

“We had looked into possibly doing custom grazing, but we’d have to sign a 10-year contract if we were to have a farmer install fence and bring in stock.

We were not comfortable about being responsible for someone else’s animals for so long. We do need to do something, however, to improve the soil. Troy Bishopp, a.k.a the “Grass Whisperer”, did a pasture workshop here 2 years ago and complimented us on our improved pasture soils. We’re on the right track, so now we just need to improve the rest of the farm!”

The hay off some of those fields is mainly knapweed. Dependent upon one of very few local farmers with haying equipment to get to their property, the Erin’s daughters are now involved in 4-H and enjoy fields do not get hayed until August or the farming life as well.

September, encouraging the knapweed, which chokes out the native grasses.

“The sheep do well on it however; most of them were actually a little overweight coming all winter, except that her husband Ray created into lambing, after eating that hay,” she says. an innovative solution. “He put a heated water The downfall to this hay is that the dried buds trough under the downspout of the gutters on and seed-heads become embedded in the our Morton barn. Even when it was only 22 fleeces, wasting otherwise valuable fiber. degrees this past winter, if the sun was shining the night’s frost melted and ran down to the gutters capturing that water for our animals. If Innovative Infrastructure we had a couple inches of snow, the trough “If I had taken Holistic Management would be full and running over,” she says. beforehand, I don’t think we would have The only permanent fence on the farm was purchased this property because we had to put around a couple paddocks that Ray built when up a new barn and a new house. The old they first brought their horses to the property. farmhouse had no running water, no heat “We use electric netting to pasture the sheep source and needed a thorough gutting, new and chickens, the pigs we added last season, roof, plumbing, heating system and electric and electric tape for the horses. But we have wiring,” Erin says. now added some perimeter fence on former “We spent too much on acquiring the crop fields and some divisional fences with property itself (101.15 acres). Looking back, NRCS Environmental Quality Improvement now that I’ve taken Holistic Management Program (EQIP) funding we were awarded last courses, it probably would not have passed our year. We hope to put in a water system this financial testing questions. It would have been summer to water those pastures as part of that better for us to purchase a farm that already EQIP funding. The fencing is completed per the had useable infrastructure. Then we could have contract, and we will be adding to it. Next is the put more funds into proper fencing, gates, water project,” she says. water, livestock, equipment, etc.,” she says.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Right now they would still be carrying water Number 166

IN PRACTICE 5

Developing a Multi-Species, Value-Added Farm continued from page five

Value of Adding Species

Erin has found that having multiple species has been very helpful for both product diversity and the different affects/impacts the species have on the land. In the areas they graze, the sheep leave their manure, and then the laying hens follow the sheep. “They spread the manure, reduce the parasites and leave their own manure,” she says. “This year we added more broilers to go behind the sheep, and we added a family dairy cow in June. An Irish Dexter, she fits our sustainability and management requirements as well as dual

efforts to bring in genetics and continue raising them, improve our facilities and unique products. There will be several thousand dollars involved in locating rams in England, having the genetics collected, shipped over here, stored and finally used. We are hoping it might happen this year. It’s been more than 5 years since the last importation. Many other rare breeds in the U.S. are suffering, as well, needing new genetics,” she says.

Erin took the jump and quit her part-time state job in July 2014. “We purchased this property with the intention of farming. If we both

Herdwick lambs in electronet fencing purposes of meat and milk. We hope to be able to move them all out farther into some of the other fields, to at least graze them once during the year,” she says. The plan is to graze the cow, and let the pasture recover 21 days before the sheep graze, followed by the poultry and a longer recovery.

“We now have 138 laying hens; some of the older hens will be culled to keep us close to 100,” Erin says. “Every time we add more, to meet our egg customers’ demands, more customers show up!” She wants no more than 100 hens, however, because she feels that will keep a balance of labor and production that is within their means.

“We added more broilers, and also work with a restaurant near the city (New York), to purchase all of our Herdwick lamb this year,” she says. “With such a rare breed, we only had 4 lambs available in 2014. The Chef and patrons love our unique lamb. We receive an excellent price, which will help support our 6 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2016

have to work off the property, there is no point in paying taxes on a farm that we can’t work as a farm and do what we want with. It has been a challenge to get the income at the same time the bills come in, but last year was a good year.

The same chef who purchased our lamb is joining us in an experiment to try various heritage breeds of pork.” says Erin.

“We did Tamworth hogs in 2014 and pastured them. In 2015 we went from 4 pigs up to 8 or 10, including 2 mule-foot hogs. We acquired 4 Hereford hogs and will get several more,” she says. The hogs are used in cultivating land overgrown by brush, or needing a good turning. The mule-foot hogs are being silvo-pastured for the summer.

“The chef has also asked if we would be willing to try raising Guinea fowl,” says Erin. He uses 12 to 15 birds per week on the menu. At the time, he could only get them through a factory farm in California. We’ve always had a few to keep the tick population down, but we

have added quite a few more – about 130 in the last 2 batches.” she says.

The guinea fowl are incorporated in the multi-species grazing along with the chickens.

“After hopes of free-ranging them, we had to pasture them in a coop and move them several times per day. I am designing a better coop with wheels to enable one person to move them.”

Working With Wool

2015 was Erin’s 4th year at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, following in the footsteps of a woman she used to work for.

“Through The Wrens Nest I sell her product, which are frame looms of different sizes. But now I am the only person in the world who has a 3-ply rug yarn that is from Herdwick bred sheep. I am working on getting some of it dyed, with more colors to offer. I market it for punch-needle rug-making or rug-hooking, knitting, crochet, weaving or braiding. I want to try to weave some placemats myself to show people how it weaves up, and am looking for a knitter to knit some vests, socks and other outer wear.” she says.

“What is interesting in using the natural color is that the wool is dark the first year, from the young sheep, and then it starts to fade as the sheep get older. The first year, I had 3 different colors—almost complete black, a middle gray, and a very pale gray that was not quite white. I brought in fleeces from the original flock, the first two years, so I would have enough volume to get a lower price on the processing. It’s about $1000 to have it made into yarn. Last year, I had enough fleeces that I could have a batch done that was entirely our own, with a separate label that it’s from our farm. I also came up with a name for the wool from any other people who have Herdwick who want to contribute their fleeces, with a mix of farms throughout the U.S. This label is Amerwick™ (American Herdwick) yarn, with a blend from other flocks. It contains some of mine and some from Oregon, from the fleeces I got last year,” she explains. Shepherds will receive finished yarn in return for their fiber contribution.

“What’s interesting is that because of the gray color, when you over-dye it, the yarn comes out with an antique heathered look. You can do needle-punch rugs with this and they look like an antique wool rug made from cut wool, without the expense of the cut wool. It gives it a softer look, without a harsh color,” she says.

“I have designed a rug, and coasters for patterns and kits to sell, but I still need to get the yarn dyed and finances are tight. I obtained an electric burner to be able to do multiple skeins at a time of each color so that if someone wants to buy some for weaving, knitting or crocheting I would have enough for them of each color.” she says.

Herdwick Sheep

Erin and Ray also hope to begin a new line of Herdwick sheep, using registered purebred ewes. “We have located a breed that are historically the closest to Herdwick sheep.

There was some genetic testing done 2 years ago comparing Herdwick with Dalesbred and Rough Fell sheep. The study results are on our Farm’s website. It was found that the Herdwick are different from those, and actually from any other breed of sheep in the world. Herdwick are quite primitive, and have a 4-layered coat. They have wool, guard hair, kemp and another fiber that is called heterotypic fiber, which changes the insulating value of the fleece, depending on their environment—and I am still trying to figure out which part of the fleece is this one! But I’ve noticed that the lambs born in the spring have a long white fiber that blows right out of the fleece when it starts to get hot in July,” she says.

These sheep are very resistant to disease and parasites. “One ewe that has the most Herdwick characteristics was completely parasite-resistant when I did have a problem their first year here,” she says. Her lambs (she only has singles, which is a Herdwick trait) are also resistant. It’s been exciting to learn more about these sheep. When given a choice between bushes and grass, they eat the leaves and branches rather than grass. These sheep also have excellent conversion of poor forage into wonderful meat.

The entire population of this breed is located in one small area of England. “When foot and mouth disease hit over there, out of about 100,000 Herdwick they lost at least 25,000.

That’s when they realized they might face possible extinction should a similar disease outbreak occur. Thus there has been more effort to diversify them geographically,” she says.

“We feel that in comparison to commercial American breeds (that have been bred to be bigger and supposedly better), our Herdwick grow the same amount of meat to bone. As more of the good pastureland is taken for development, at a rate of over an acre per minute according to American Farmland Trust, we need efficient animals that can graze the hills and rougher areas. I am so impressed with my sheep in comparison with my sister’s

Sheep eating knapweed

Montadales that are a lot bigger. This was part of our decision; I wanted sheep of a size I could handle, and not taller than my center of gravity!

Mine are still a bit large, for Herdwick, but we are getting there, each generation getting closer to the true characteristics.

In September of 2014, their flock became the first Herdwick-bred sheep to be registered in the United States, with the Natural Colored Wool Growers Association. It is taking some detailed correspondence to make sure the pedigrees accurately reflect the varied breeding up to this point. It is Erin’s intention to create an American Herdwick breeders’ association by 2016.

Learning About Holistic Management

A friend forwarded an announcement to Erin in 2012 about HMI. “I had never heard of it before. One of my frustrations, just prior to taking the class, was wracking our brains trying to figure out how to get the land to make money, get funds for infrastructure in order to help this land, to afford to stay on our property.

As soon as we built our small ranch house, our taxes skyrocketed. This was very stressful because we had no funds for fencing and without fences we couldn’t get more animals.

Without animals we not only can’t improve the land as quickly as we’d like, but, we also can’t raise meats in the amount we need to be financially sustainable.” she says.

“Then I got the e-mail about the class for beginning women farmers. I sent in the application and was accepted. It was funded through a USDA grant. I went to the first class with a negative, defeated, and frustrated attitude. The woman who contacted me to let me know I had been accepted told me this class would be perfect for me. So I went, and I was

really blown away! It was truly a life-changing experience. Now I am very passionate about it,” Erin says.

“One of the biggest things it did was to give us permission to think of ourselves not just as farmers trying to make money—trying to work our butts off figuring out how to make the land make money, to survive. A lot of our original logjams were mental. We needed the HMI perspective to clear them. This gave us a huge breath of fresh air. We realized that our happiness, our family, our lives are just as important as trying to get a farm to work. It gave us a sense of control we hadn’t had. It was a way to make decisions quickly, comfortably for the most part, without a sense of worry if they were right. If a proposal didn’t meet our holistic goal, passing the testing questions and gut check, it was done. The decision-making process was simplified, more black and white.

This took a ton of stress off my shoulders,” she says.

“Our daughter is now 7 years old. Things were quite stressful for her because I was very stressed, leading up to this. I am so thankful for that class, and I encourage any farmer, not just women farmers, to take it,” she says. “I was sitting in that class, involved in the discussions and learning the methods, and then coming home and trying to tell my husband about it.

The partner needs to be involved, too, with access to the same information.”

“He’s getting it, and I am very impressed with what he has been able to bite off and chew and absorb, especially with all the stress leading up to it,” she says. “We’ve both opened up a lot more and I know how to relate ideas and thoughts to him now. I am better able to relate these to him, and he is better able (after seeing the grazing for a couple seasons, for instance) CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

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want to monitor the pastures and count what’s in there, let it get grazed over, and keep monitoring it, and see how it changes,” she explains.

The class she took also got her thinking to understand it. This is all coming together.” and preferably two. For instance, our two about teamwork. “You don’t always think about “On the other hand, being in a room full of Akbash livestock-guarding dogs serve the all the people who support you, and who you women facing the same struggles—which purpose of guarding the sheep and the other work with who become a part of what the results unfortunately women have to face here, in the animals. We have an Australian shepherd that are on your farm. These include the employees U.S. and eastern New York State—is helpful never barks. Now with the LGDs we always at Tractor Supply, Agway, our veterinarian, because it is still a battle for equality, in many know when somebody pulls into the driveway, Albany County Soil & Water and Natural ways. We are entering a hugely male-dominated so they’re our alarm system in multiple ways,” Resource Conservation Service, the farmers up field, so it was wonderful to have that group to Erin says. the road, our neighbors, some of my friends and come to, with each class,” Erin explains.

“We see an improvement each year in the former co-workers at the state, our continually “I’ve been to another class since growing customer base, etc. They then. One thing I missed in the second have all been encouraging and class that we did in our first one: every supportive, including customers who day that we got together we were given have sought us out. It’s an eye-opener the opportunity to talk about whatever every week that helps us know that we had changed. We assessed where we are doing the right thing,” she says were, since the last class. Some “Nearly all of my HMI classmates people had actually found some farm are farming, and it would be nice to land and were in the process of have some follow-up workshops when purchasing property. That was huge, we all get together and can talk about for them, and for those of us rooting for where we are, how we got to where them. These little steps were helpful for we are, what we are doing, and what us. There were some emotional times, has changed, get feedback from each as well. At one point I was really other. A small group of us did have a frustrated, but we built strength with the get-together to go over some testing support from each other, encouraging questions in February. The energy in one another,” she says. that room was like a vitamin! It was “One woman was doing flowers. inspiring, and gave me the boost I One young woman had purchased a needed to get through a difficult farm with her boyfriend and now they winter.” Erin says. are engaged, and they use draft “This has all been very educational Erin and Ray at the New York State Sheep and Wool fest 2015 animals rather than tractors. It is and I very much enjoy meeting people amazing to see young people rolling up through my research, learning new their sleeves and diving into things like this. I pastures and in the animals. We are hoping to things. It’s a struggle right now, but I feel that it think it’s really cool having a team of oxen to pull do a follow-up to the pasture workshop that we is going to work out. I can’t imagine doing everything! If it fits and they serve the land well, did a couple years ago, and have it be a little anything different,” says Erin. why not? The oxen can contribute grazing and more hands-on, and talk more about the actual manure, as well as power,” says Erin. monitoring. I know I haven’t taken as much time More information about Erin’s farm and “I feel that anything that comes onto our to do that as I wanted to. Now that I’m not sheep can be found on their website: property needs to serve at least one purpose working part-time for the state, I can do more. I www.helderherdwyckfarm.com

Developing a Multi-Species, Value-Added Farm

PHOTO CREDIT: JAMES MORGAN

continued from page seven

Covering Ground: A Holistic Approach continued from page one

will share their monitoring protocols and what the research is indicating about the connection between bird numbers and rangeland function.

Then on October 15th and 16th we will have 2 full days of presentations and breakout sessions. Join the sharing and learning in this gathering of farmers, ranchers, conservationists, 8 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2016

permaculturalists, nutritionists, food advocates, researchers, and the Holistic Management community. Learn about the vast array of practices and principles that help us heal the earth, grow nutrient-dense food, improve wildlife habitat, improve profitability and quality of life, and cultivate more effective human relationships and desired outcomes.

On October 17th and 18th, there will be a

Holistic Grazing Planning workshop for those who are interested in deepening their learning and practice of this valuable tool.

This class is limited to 35 participants.

This Holistic Management Gathering promises to be a great learning event as well as an opportunity to connect and meet with Holistic Management and regenerative land practitioners from around the world.

Registration will open on April 15th so look for our email so you can register for the conference, post-conference course, and lodging.

LIVESTOCK

&

Hawkes Bay Farm—

How Drought Changed Farm Logic and Observation

BY JOHN KING

s these photos testify, rainfall has little bearing on a farm’s ability to produce grass. Over four years Malcolm and Twix White have studied pasture responses to grazing management and now challenge industry best practice from their experience.

As a couple they invested in on-farm tools to become observant, adventurous, and progress with logic to remedy problems. Holistic Management opened their eyes to land degradation failing around them.

Changing their perspective allowed them to view efforts from agroecology movement as beneficial. It saved their farm.

Hawkes Bay is prone to dry summers and the Whites are more confident in their ability to deal with drought. Originally from Kenya, trained in the United Kingdom, and worked on properties in Scotland, they bought their 600-acre (240-ha) property Bairnsdale deep in the Puketiriri Valley, 24 years ago, some 40 miles (65 km) northwest of Napier, Hawkes Bay. They pushed productivity running up to 2,700 stock units on hill country only for it to crash. They now overwinter 2,000 NZ stock units (120 cow/calf pairs, 95 rising, 2-year old cattle, 150 mixed aged ewes, and 100 hoggets) and constantly look for lower cost options to lengthen growing seasons.

A

Observing Soils and Pasture

Drought of 2010 left them frustrated. Endless days of feeding out was an exercise in futility, solutions were always off-farm, expensive and risky to livestock, land, and mental health. They attended a brief seminar at

Hawkes Bay Regional Council on how livestock improve rainfall absorption rates. From there they did a Holistic Management course with two neighbours and simply began applying principles and practices that eliminate overgrazing, build soil cover, and deepen pasture roots.

This year they knew within two paddocks of their winter rotation their planned grazing was off track. Litter residual was only 706-794 lbDM/acre (800-900kgDM/ha) not their targeted 1,146 lbsDM/acre (1,300kgDM/ha), therefore they destocked further leading to the best winter they can remember. “Twix has been challenging me to do this for years,” says Malcolm, “I finally listened and we are seeing a lot of benefits,” especially body condition of Angus cross cattle and Wiltshire cross sheep.

They’ve found land responds quickly to changing grazing regimes.

Within a year soils have better crumb, developed peds, higher rainfall absorption, and greater resilience from more carbon. Changing their grazing eliminated hydroscopic soils as fungi became more dominant.

Only fungi create proper ped structure, looks like frozen peas, especially in summer when worms are gone. Shorter rotations, 20 days or so, do not allow fungal communities to develop.

As Malcolm observes “We can survive a downturn if our landscape function is improving, if not we get problems.” When cyclone Pam blew through earlier in 2015 2 inches (50mm) of moisture penetrated right through fungal layers, no erosion, no sediment with runoff. In September CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

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A New Adventure in Grassfed Beef continued from page nine

Malcolm estimates about half of a further 9 inches (240 mm) of rain was absorbed but there was no sediment loss. Annual rainfall is 40 inches/yr (1,000mm/yr) and they watch amounts carefully because it has biggest influence on pasture growth. However, these days they practice patience regarding changing recovery times.

As Malcolm says “It’s easy to shorten pasture recovery times when rain falls but we notice if we miss an opportunity to slow down, it never reappears.” Longer pasture recovery works when soil biology is fed resulting in less seed head production over growing season, as long as 8 months on their coastal finishing block at Baysview. Stressed pastures produce seed heads.

They’ve become more observant noticing poorer pasture species must first produce more bulk before succession to better fertility grasses.

Pasture regresses when higher fertility grasses become thin and wiry before giving way to poorer species. Both can be happening in the same paddock. Shiny grass leaves indicate higher oils and fats which livestock benefit from.

Malcolm and Twix White

landscape function, therefore they need to earn the right to go faster.

This season (2015/16) they intended having 150 days of feed in front of them by December 31st and sold rising two year cattle to make this possible as a very cool spring reduced pasture growth rates. El Nino usually produces dry summers in Hawkes Bay. Earning the Right to Graze Faster Bairnsdale is classed as North Island hill country running from 492Due to its variability spring is their most difficult season. One problem 820 yards (450-750 meters), flat tops and steep sides. As Malcolm notes, is overgrazing. Spring draws out over 80 days meaning they can they run two separate properties, flat and hill. Flat country responds overgraze the whole farm if on a 60-day recovery. Grazing must be in sync quickly to changes, hill country needs more litter especially northern with growth. They plan their winter to last 120-150 days from start of May. slopes. Covered hillsides do not suffer erosion and they target bare When operating a 90-day winter recovery, they often lose 15 days with ground in spring when growth is best. This backed up by researchers wet weather, break outs, water problems. Therefore second time round studying Hawkes Bay hill country production stating at least 1,411 paddocks experience declining recovery periods because winter lbsDM/acre (1,600 kgDM/ha) residuals on northern slopes prior to temperatures slow growth. Growth rates after grazing varies. Many summer months is essential to maintain productivity. assume it’s always constant leading to over-confidence when budgeting They learned the hard way buying feed doesn’t pay, whether drought feed, an issue seldom talked about. or other times of a shortfall. Selling off capital stock isn’t desirable but it Paradise would be 30% graze to build a spiral of feed on 30-day banks money and reduces borrowing by lowering feeding costs placing recovery but yet to strike a summer where humidity and growth allow less stress on people and paddocks alike. The argument it costs too them to graze faster. Therefore, they’re always conserving and thinking much restocking after drought doesn’t wash; “I can always graze ahead, always setting farm up for January to March. Shortening recovery someone else’s.” As Malcolm observes, “Easiest way to rid someone of and speeding up rotation never addresses resource issues and their assets is to get them in debt beyond their ability to ever realistically be able to repay.”

The quickest way to build a feed bank is put all livestock in one mob.

They tried this straight out of their Holistic Management course for 6-8 weeks prior to the winter of 2011 and found it produced more grass than any other technique to date. Keeping red deer with sheep and cattle was problematic at times so the following season they sold them all. While the gross profit analysis showed they were no more profitable than sheep or cattle, they created more problems when executing holistic planned grazing.

If starting again they’d fix stock water first, then destock. The problem of doing long rotations cold turkey is pasture goes to seed which reinforces the common perception tall pasture Hawkes Bay Farm runs 2,000 NZ stock units while keeping their expenses down 66% reduces livestock productivity and of the neighboring farms. farmers go broke. The mob self-selects 10

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overtime but till then there is a tail of 10-15% which generate problems. To handle these changes in feed requires a different gut biology. Before making changes, grasses were always vegetative with low species diversity and the Whites believe gut biology was also fairly uniform. As pasture diversity grows, livestock adapt to new diet with a more diverse gut biology.

Holistic Financial Planning

So how have finances changed over the same period? Income has remained relatively steady despite dropping stock numbers (especially sheep and deer), and cattle prices have remained high. The couple aim for a modest profit of 35% of income and over five years worked steadily at reducing farm expenses to move closer to this goal. Even when income drops to 70% of expected, they are still profitable whereas before they would run at a loss. They aim for their maintaining working expenses to be around NZ$50,000-60,000.

Holistic Financial Planning helped focus on lowering maintaining expenses, particularly fertilizer. They now complete their own tax returns and shearing and buy in very few supplements, but have lifted livestock mineral purchases. As a result their production cost profile per hectare is 66% compared to their Beef and Lamb New Zealand class of farm.

Expense Logjam

2015

2015 $/ ha

15,000

62.50

2,102.00

17.51

3,955.00

4,338.00

18.08

19.10

23,871.00

4,016.00

16.73

107.32

300.00

2,400.00

5,864.00

2.548.00

7.08

10.61

21.86

2601.00

0.00

10.84

45.43

*43.54

50.02

36.08

2010

Adverse Factor Stock water

Wealth Generating Trees,

training/education Inescapable Rates

Maintaining Expenses Fertiliser

Animal Health

Mineral

2,102.00

8629.00

Feed/Grazing

5,635.00

Shearing

7,842.00

Stock freight

Other farm working expenses

Repairs & Maintenance Vehicles including fuel

Administration/Accountant/ Consultancy

Insurance

Total Maintaining Expenses

Total expenses

The ram pump the Whites use lifts 5285 gallons/day (20,000l/day) of water a height of 136 yards (124m).

7939.00

7,410.00

11,969.00 15333.00

2,621.00

97,447.00

101,402.00

2,477.00 1,700.00 0.00

20.32

B&L NI Class 4#

43.88 9.49

5,,901.00

24.58

6907.00

28.78

22.17

43,118.00

179.66

397.06

12,004.00 2,564.00

66,658.00

10.68

277.74

52.87

12.42

416.16

#Beef and Lamb New Zealand Farm classification North Island Hill Country http://beeflambnz.com/information/on-farm-data-and-industry-production/sheep-beef-farm-survey/eni/ *Includes weed and pest, lime, seed, electricity, sowing and cultivation (pasture renewal/fodder crops)

Good stock water is essential and assists in creating even grazing across pastures reducing seed head. Malcolm and Twix observe if livestock are unsettled, it’s usually a water issue which leads to under used pastures. Stock water quickly became a priority as addressing it improved all livestock enterprises at once. They use a water ram to fill tanks on high points and gravity feed troughs across half the property. The ram pump lifts 5285 gallons/day (20,000l/day) of water a height of 136 yards (124m). The rest of farm uses a diesel pump 529 gallons/hr (2,000l/hr) to lift a further 109 yards (100m) which is only required when a spring dries up, on average 3 months/year. As a result of siting troughs up hill, cattle graze pastures more evenly.

Their current weak link is product conversion in terms of low liveweight gain and low calving rates. Liveweight gain could be a consequence of poor mineral cycle, therefore all ecosystem processes are not optimal. They feed minerals to lift livestock health and to spread nutrients across pastures.

Currently cattle parasites (worms) also impact weaner growth rates forcing them to use drench (rescue remedy), but still undecided as to cause. Low iodine and cobalt (or something not yet known) could be compromising cattle immune systems. Weaning too late might have left young stock at a disadvantage to breeders when feed was less available at end of winter/early spring. They’re considering leader/follower grazing for that feed pinch.

Redefining What is Fertility

Holistic Financial Planning changed their thinking about where to spend money. Tried rebalancing cations using an alternative fertiliser system but believe it suits heavier clay and silt country, not pumice soils. After spending over $320/acre ($800/ha) and expecting to get a result they only saw an improvement when grazing changed. Therefore, CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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soils (raw volcanic ash). Exposed bank (photo) is about a metre high and continued from page eleven dark lines are roots penetrating deeper and depositing carbon through exudates into the C horizon. Over four years lines disappear and B horizon deepens.

As Malcolm observes conventional “fertilizer” is narrowly focused on NPKS primarily and Ca, Mg occasionally, whereas they believe fertility is more closely related to active carbon. Conventional fertilizer nutrients do not address their adverse factor or weak link. They do annual soil and foliage tests to keep track of nutrients, and if they believe a nutrient to be a weak link, they start trialling a paddock before doing whole farm.

Currently New Zealand farmers are dealing with At one point, the Whites were running sheep, cattle, and deer together. They have since gotten rid of the red deer. tighter regulations about non-point contamination due to excessive soluble fertilizers polluting waterways from rapidly expanding productivity and resilience is not about fertilizer as New Zealand soils are pasture dairy production. The tool of choice by regulators to calculate relatively fertile with exception of a few elements like cobalt which they soluble nutrient loss is a computer program called Overseer, developed in provide ad lib via a mineral trough. the 1980s to sell superphosphate. “Overseer” (which is plagued with Malcolm and Twix talk about adverse factors and weak link as expenses to target. They believe lack of active carbon/mineral cycle to be inaccuracies and technical issues) shows the Whites export 3.3 lb.

(1.5kg) of P/yr in product. Most of their recommendation, 15-17 lb/acre their main adverse factor. So while spending less on fertilizer, they are (13-15 kg/ha) covers lock up losses and erosion (about 50% each). Lock focusing more on fertility. Although the water cycle looks good with high up does not happen if fertilizer is not applied and the focus of Holistic infiltration rates, more storage in humus would greatly increase business Management grazing/animal impact tools is minimizing erosion. Overseer and property resilience. has no value for mineralization or wildlife phosphate credits. Testing costs Building litter, especially a layer of decomposing litter year round are categorized as fertilizer costs. Last soil test showed total P of 1,469 proves to be a very challenging goal. They now have three grazing lb/acre (1300 kg/ha). intensities which they measure: litter or residual left after grazing; <1,146 Malcolm and Twix are currently trialling biological soil conditioners like lbDM/acre (<1,300kgDM/ha) for winter/early spring (heavy graze), 1,146fish, humate, and seawater across their flat country. If results are 1,929 lbDM/acre (1,300-1,700kgDM/ha) (medium graze), and >1,929 significant, they will fly on steep country with helicopter at rates of 1 lbDM/acre (>1,700kgDM/ha) (light graze). Longer recoveries made an gallon/acre (10 litres/ha) fish, 113 lb/acre (100kg/ha) compost, 3 immediate impact on root depth which is graphically illustrated in pumice gallons/acre (30 litres/ha) seawater (at 10% dilution or 270l of water), with 1 gallon/acre (10 litres/ha) molasses. What they’ve observed is unlike mineral fertilizers, biological soil conditioners do not create a sudden deep green with growing plants. Instead pasture plants do not change color but become leafier and usually that is evident by longer grazing times trial paddocks produce.

But a longer term more effective strategy to fix ecosystem processes is savannah style spacing of trees on hills. Trees can benefit feed supply through panage (e.g. acorns for ducks and pigs). Transpirational pull also holds water up steep slopes.

What makes Malcolm and Twix White different is they have a very clear view of their desired farm and a passion to keep reviewing grazing and animal impact to fix problems. On a property that has many challenges regarding topography, distance, and climate, Holistic Management decision testing is foremost in developing logical choices to reduce labor and increase financial security and landscape resilience.

A New Adventure in Grassfed Beef

Increased recovery periods have resulted in more soil carbon forming in the soil as you can see from the dark soil on top of this cut. Dark lines extending down are roots.

12

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John King is a Holistic Management Certified Educator who lives in Christchurch, New Zealad and can be reached at: john@succession.co.nz

Fouch Farms—

Making a Farm Cash Flow

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

esse Fouch’s family has been in the same place for 7 generations. “My family settled here in 1848 and has been farming and ranching since then (near Mariposa, right next to Yosemite National Park). My mother’s generation got out of ranching; they were logging. When I was growing up, my parents just had a few cattle for our own consumption; they leased out the family ranch.

When I was young I didn’t plan to raise cattle. I wanted to log, like my parents. When I graduated from college, however, I moved back to the family ranch and I loved it,” he says.

“My wife Hannah and I just wanted to eat healthy so we got a small herd of cattle and were raising our own animals, and gardening. For a while I had a dream that maybe I would inherit the family ranch, so I got a few more cattle. Then I realized that there was another generation between me and my grandmother (the majority owner of the ranch). She has 4 children and I am one of about 20 grandchildren! I started feeling the friction, when other family members were seeing me working on the place, so I decided the only way I could actually be a rancher and have a ranch would be to buy my own,” Jesse says.

In California the price of land is high; a young person wanting to ranch is faced with tremendous challenges. “I decided to try to earn money toward buying a ranch (rather than go into debt), and got a job that paid well. I became a State Trooper, and my wife Hannah is a registered nurse. We kept growing our farm/ranch as we could afford it, so it’s been a slow process—but we don’t have much risk in it. That’s been very beneficial,” he says.

They started ranching on some leased property in 2003, and bought their first place in 2008. “In 2010 we sold that first farm and bought another farm, and in 2013 bought a larger ranch, and that’s where we live now in the foothills between Fresno and Merced, in the San Joaquin Valley, along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our land is on rolling foothills, mostly oak trees and grasslands. We also lease a mountain pasture that is timberland and meadows,” says Jesse.

J

Growing the Business

Selling the first ranch made enough money to almost pay off the other two. “We only have about $150,000 left to pay on this place, and that’s the only debt we have,” he explains. “We own all our cattle and equipment.

Our goal is to have this place paid off by next winter so we can get rid of our off-farm jobs and just spend all our time and energy farming.”

They have been growing their operation slowly, working part-time on the farm, and now the farm brings in about $70,000 annually. “By transitioning to full-time farming we hope to bump up the farm income.

We want to expand it enough that we can just live off the farm and have a family farm that includes our children,” Jesse says.

“We saw the problems with successive generations on the same piece of land, so what we are trying to do is eventually have 4 separate ranches so that each of our children can inherit their own place. They will be able to work on their own land, from a young age. That was one of the things that was so frustrating for us, not being able to work on a place of our own. When I was in my 20’s I was ready to work. I wanted to really get after it, but I didn’t have any place to do it, except on leased ground,” he explains.

His experiences with leasing were not the best. “We got burned big time on a lease and I don’t want my kids to have to go through that. I do

Jesse and Hannah Fouch with Gus, Jensen, Poppy, and Henry not like leasing, but I do still have some leases. We are very careful about what we select to lease, however. It has to work for us,” he says.

No Water Hauling During Drought

Luckily, Jesse learned about Holistic Management, which helped him manage his grazing better during challenging times. “I read Allan Savory’s book years ago, and I continue to read about Holistic Management in The Stockman Grass Farmer, ACRES, and other magazines,” says Jesse. “I had a pretty good idea about it early on, and enjoyed reading about it. I was doing some of the things already, but wanted to learn more. Hannah and I went to our first Holistic Management class in 2011 at the Paicines Ranch, and Ian Mitchell Innes taught that class. It was an awesome class and we loved it.”

“We’d already been doing Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) rotational grazing, but we hadn’t yet tried high density grazing before that class. We also didn’t plan, like we were taught in Holistic Management. I think that was the biggest gain from taking the class—sitting down and mapping out our whole year for a grazing plan, along with having our goals figured out. That way, whenever you do something, you first look at it in terms of what your goals are, and see if this actually fits into your big picture.” It’s important to see whether each decision moves you forward or not, or works with your goals or hinders them.

“This was probably the most beneficial thing, just sitting down and planning and really thinking about how the year will go, and thinking about what we are going to do if such-and-such happens, etc. Fortunately we’d started looking hard at our goals and planning, because 2011 was our last good rain year, Jesse says.

“The following 4 years were the worst drought in the history of California. Luckily we started planning before we got into that, and we were able to make it through fairly unscathed. Our livestock numbers are down, but we’ve been able to keep going.”

Holistic Management has helped immensely. “Through doing our CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

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Making a Farm Cash Flow continued from page thirteen

grazing plan and rotations, we’ve been able to leave a lot of litter on the ground. Last year and this year (the third and fourth year of drought), all of the ranches around us had no water. All of our neighbors’ springs have gone dry, and they’ve been hauling water. I haven’t had to haul water, and I really think it is because we are leaving all this litter,” he says.

Even a little bit of rain soaks in. When the rain hits the ground it doesn’t run off. “Our springs have continued to be productive, all through the drought. Not having to haul water every day is a real blessing. Our place is remote, and most of the ranches around here don’t have well water; we are all depending on springs and ponds.”

Working with Dexter Crosses

(November through January) that were dry instead of having our usual rain, so we didn’t have any grass. We really took a hard look at the cows, and sold the ones that looked bad. Over the last couple years of doing that, we got rid of the poor genetics and now we have a good group of cows,” he explains.

The farm also has 3 dairy cows. “We’ve been milking a cow for ourselves for a long time. Then we had some friends who wanted to try some milk, and then they were wanting some every day. We got into the milk share thing, but the regulations bothered us and we didn’t want the risk. So we decided to just sell milk cows to people who want fresh milk,” says Jesse.

“We started crossing our Jerseys with our Dexters and selling their offspring as mini-milkers—small dairy cows for a family cow. We only have a couple heifer calves each year but we break them to a halter and get them very user-friendly. They are small and easy to handle but produce enough milk for a family. We can sell these for a very good price, so this has worked out very well for us,” he says.

When he and Hannah first started ranching, Jesse bought some Brangus from a friend. “I couldn’t handle them. They were jumping fences Species Diversity = Enterprise Diversity left and right and I was having a big problem with them. A bunch of them got out one day and were out on the road. Someone came along and put Jesse and Hannah also have sheep, goats and pigs. “We have them back in a field, but it was actually my neighbor’s field so they were in mouflon sheep, from Corsica. These unique sheep are just right for our with his cattle. The neighbor asked me what I wanted to do with them, so I purposes. Many of the Texas game ranches use them because they grow asked him if he was going to a sale soon. He was taking something to the big horns. We fell into these breed by sheer luck. A lady inherited some sale the next week so I told him just to take mine, too, and sell them for from a wealthy relative who brought them over from Corsica. I had some me, and take whatever he Jacob sheep already and was needed out of the proceeds, looking for a ram when I saw to cover his expenses,” this ad and thought these Jesse says. sheep looked really neat— “After that, I was looking and decided to try one of around for some other cattle and those rams. I did some my mother-in-law told me about research and found that they a guy who had a small herd of call the cross (Jacobs and the Dexter cattle. I didn’t even know mouflon) painted desert what Dexters were, so I went to sheep. This cross is basically look at them. I thought they were bred to sell to game ranches. neat cattle. The guy had a bull, 2 But when I got my new flock I bred cows about ready to calve, really liked them because I and 2 heifer calves. He said I want simple and efficient could have them all for $1000, animals that need very little so I got them. Later, those management. That’s the goal.” pregnant cows both had heifer These sheep are hardy and calves, so that’s how we got able to fend for themselves.

The Fouchs raise a 7/8 boer and 1/8 fainting goat combination that results in a started. From that original group “If I were to turn these good parasite-resistant meat goat. we’ve kept all the heifers, to loose they could probably live grow the herd. We now have a off the land without me. That’s little bit of Angus in the mix, and 2 years ago we got a British White bull to what we look for (maintenance-free animals), and these mouflon are just cross with the cows,” he says. great. We never had to worm them or do anything with them except keep The herd today is a mix that includes a little bit of Angus, a little bit of them on good pasture and rotate them. I actually got rid of the Jacobs; the Hereford, a little bit of British White but the majority is Dexter. “The only lady who was raising mouflon decided to sell me the rest of her herd,” reason I brought in the other breeds is because my Dexters were starting says Jesse. to look like a milk line and fine-boned, and were not as beefy as we “So we now have a group of mouflon sheep and some Boer goats. We wanted. After adding the other breeds to the mix they are better, and there started with fainters and I really liked them because they were just as are a couple that I consider my perfect cows; they are short and fat and hardy as the mouflon sheep; I never had to worm them, and they were barrel-chested and beefy, and they stay fat all year long,” Jesse says. also very easy on fences because of their stiff legs. We didn’t need “The Dexters are great because we don’t have to deworm them. We elaborate goat fencing to keep them in,” he explains. just keep rotating the cattle through the pastures. The only thing I give “As we started selling goat meat, however, we found that everyone them is kelp and salt, and they always look good. The drought has been a wanted Boer meat, and it also sells for quite a bit more. So we started blessing in disguise because we had to downsize and cull about 15 cows.” getting Boer goats but had problems with them. They are more He was able to get rid of the ones that were not as efficient or hardy. susceptible to parasites, for instance, and we were losing some of them. It “Last winter it didn’t rain until the end of January. We had 3 months took about 6 years of crossing the Boers with our fainters to get a mix that 14

Land & Livestock

March / April 2016

is actually parasite-resistant and will thrive in our environment. Now we have a herd of goats that are about 7/8 Boer and 1/8 fainter, selecting for the ones that will work in our environment without a lot of help. They look like Boers but they are hardier and we don’t have to do anything special with them,” he says.

Jesse and Hannah also have a few pigs. They like to use a heritage breed, and Jesse’s favorites are Old Spot and Mule Foot pigs. “They do well in our environment and are good foragers. The pigs are always kept here at home but the goats are rotated out on a separate place during the summer on a brushing contract with NRCS. I leave the goats out there all summer and bring them back home for the winter,” he says.

He does something unique to keep track of the goats because fencing is difficult. “The mountain ranch where I have the brush contract is 320 acres, but the perimeter is only 4-strand barbed wire. So I have the goats trained to come to a bell. I train them by putting them in a pen, ringing the bell every time I go out to feed them. They associate the bell with food.

So with this bell I can take them anywhere and they will follow me. When we move them to the mountain ranch we build a night pen, fencing a pond with a couple acres around it. We put them in there as soon as we arrive, and feed them in that pen with this night bell,” he explains.

There are two guard dogs with the goats. “The dogs are a mix of Akbash, Anatolian and Great Pyrenees. They live with the goats full time.

We lock them in the night pen for about 2 weeks and ring the bell each time we feed them in there. After that we let them out. The goats will graze a 160-acre perimeter around that night pen and come back each night. We feed the guard dogs in there. About once a week we feed the goats a little hay in there, just to keep them coming in when we ring the bell,” says Jesse.

“It’s fun to watch them because they naturally want to graze two periods during the day, and make big loops. I walk with them as they make the loops, and they hit different species of plants all the way through. I’d been doing that, and then when we bought our new place 2 years ago, the fences were even worse for keeping the goats home. On the place where we pasture the goats, the neighbors don’t care if my goats get on their place because they don’t mind if they eat the brush and weeds. But here at my new place one of the neighbors doesn’t want the goats coming onto his place. So I’ve had to move away from letting them do their own thing, and actually have to shepherd them when they are out grazing,” Jesse says.

“I read the book, The Art and Science of Shepherding when it came out 2 years ago, and this put it all together. The author does the same thing, making 2 circuits with the animals daily, grazing different spots. A person can manage the grazing much better this way because when you want the animals to concentrate on certain areas you can take them where you need them. I’ve been doing that, with my bell and my border collie.”

He takes the goats to areas that are brushy and need more grazing/browsing and just sits there and waits so they can hit that area really hard. “Then we just keep moving around the circuit, stopping in the areas that need the most grazing. That’s where we take a break.

Otherwise I just keep walking with them. Between the guard dog and the border collie, the goats stay with me.” This works very well for selective pasture management, weed control and brush control.

“It also helps with kidding. Before, they were making it hard on the guard dogs. The does would stay with their kids for about the first two days, and then leave the kids and go out on their circuit with the herd. One of the guard dogs was staying with the babies and the other one was going with the herd. We had a couple predator issues when that was happening, but now we don’t have those problems. When the does kid, I just leave them in the pen until the young ones are ready to travel with the group.”

This works very well, except for the time it takes to go out and do it.

“But 30 to 40 minutes is not a big deal, and it gives me a chance to really

look at the ranch and see what’s going on,” he says.

“We also have a few chickens for our own use. We used to do meat birds to sell but I don’t really like doing that and have shied away from it the last couple years. We only do a batch of 20 now, for ourselves. We also have layers, for our own consumption. The meat birds were good in that everybody wants them and all our customers loved them, and they made a profit, but you had to work a lot more for that profit than with the other livestock. Per bird, it was pretty good, but when you can sell a beef and make $1000 and it takes 200 chickens to make that, it wasn’t worth it.

I was doing all the slaughtering myself and that’s a lot of work to slaughter that many birds,” says Jesse.

“Maybe later one of the kids will choose to do chickens, but for now we’re not raising any to sell. On our place it’s an open enterprise and if someone wants to raise chickens someday, they can do it,” he explains.

The Fouch Farm heifers are a combination of Dexter, Angus, Hereford, and British White. The Dexter helps keep the heifers parasite resistant.

Direct Marketing Learning

Most of the Fouch Farm sales are direct market. “We started out very slowly and cautiously, like how we grew the farm,” says Jesse. “I can’t even remember how we got our first customers. I think one of our neighbors asked if we had some extra beef. It took off from there. We built a website, and also put an ad on the Eat Wild website. When Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma came out and a lot of housewives with book clubs heard about it, all of a sudden everyone was looking for naturally raised products. We started getting customers, and from there it’s just been word of mouth, people passing information along to friends.”

“What we do is like a CSA. We send out a newsletter the first of every year and we have an e-mail list. If someone during the year says they are interested in our products we just add them to our e-mail list and tell them that the newsletter will come out in January and they can order what they want at that time. Then they get their products throughout the year as they become available,” he explains.

After they get the newsletter, customers pre-order whatever they select, and pay a deposit. “When those animals are ready, later in the year, the customers pick up their product at the butcher shop. It works out very well for us because we don’t have to try to market different cuts. We only sell quarters, halves and wholes. This is a lot easier.”

“We used to do deliveries and that was a logistics nightmare. We no longer do that, and we sell out of everything every year. People really want our products so when we told them they had to start picking them up at the butcher shop instead of having it delivered, they were willing to do that.

We are time-limited because we both have our other jobs, at this point, CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

Number 166

Land & Livestock

15

Making a Farm Cash Flow continued from page fifteen

and are trying to take care of the ranch and the animals. We also homeschool our kids, so everything has be very efficient and work well.”

The Fouch Farm products are Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) and the beef cattle are Certified Grass Fed through AWA. “We stumbled upon AWA at one of Jim Gerrish’s grazing conferences in 2008 and have been certified with them since 2009. They are very helpful and this certification helps our products stand out,” says Jesse.

Making Hay

Jesse also grows hay. “That was one of our weak links, in the Holistic Management plan—having to buy high-priced hay, and being stuck at the mercy of the hay market. Some years, in California, we could buy good hay for $90 per ton and other years it might be more than $200 a ton, and hard to find. I did all the math, and even though everyone says we should get out of the hay business, and that a person doesn’t need to grow hay or buy hay, it works out best for us to make hay,” says Jesse.

“There are 2 pieces of property that border one of my ranches and I’ve been trying to lease them. These are really good bottom ground. The owner doesn’t want any cattle on his property, so I asked if I could hay it.

He thought that would be fine, so I bought some haying equipment, starting out with the cheapest equipment I could find. My first hay year was frustrating because the old baler broke down every lap around the field. But I put up a lot of hay, and figured that if I was having to spend $16,000 to $20,000 on hay each year, I could buy a decent baler and mower for that, and make back my money the first year,” he says.

“That’s what I started doing. It has turned out great. I can usually make the hay for about $1.25 per bale. So we’ve been putting up all our own hay for the past 4 years. Last year we didn’t buy any hay, and we were in the middle of the worst drought ever.” Having their own hay really helped.

“We don’t use any chemicals so I start off with cereal rye when I plant the hay—because it will crowd out the weeds. We have medusa head here, and it’s a very bad invasive weed. There was a lot of medusa head on that ranch because it was never grazed, so I had to get rid of that first.

The cereal rye grows quickly and gets so thick and tall that it shades and crowds out everything else. The roots also give out a chemical that has an allelopathic effect--a negative effect on other plants—so other plants

The Fouchs raise both Old Spot and Mule Foot hogs that are sold directly from the butcher shop to their customers. don’t want to grow in that soil. I’ve been able to get rid of the medusa head by growing cereal rye in those fields for 2 years,” Jesse explains.

“A few annuals still come up in the hay because I don’t spray any of it.

We also get several types of clover that come up nicely in the rye. I cut it early because the cereal rye matures earlier in the year than the medusa head. If I cut the hay in May and disk in the stubble, none of the medusa has made seeds yet, and I don’t get any of it the next year. After 2 years of the rye I utilize a green manure, which consists of crops like beans and vetch. Then I put in a crop of wheat after that one. I keep that rotation going—the rye, then the manure crop, then wheat. I always seed a legume into each of the hay crops, to add more protein to the hay.”

Typically the rains start in October, and there will be grass for the cattle by November. That lush fall grass that the cattle are grazing from November through January is very washy, however, so Jesse likes to supplement that with some of the coarser rye grass hay. “I really like the farming; I like to grow things. It doesn’t take me that long. It takes about a week to plant the hay crop in late fall (to grow during the winter and spring), and it only takes about 2 or 3 weeks to harvest it all,” says Jesse.

“If we hadn’t been in a drought I would have had extra hay to sell, but the last 3 years I have kept all my hay. This year I had a little bit of extra so I am selling some to my brother. The goal is to sell some, but just not having to buy hay is financially beneficial for us,” he says.

Growing a Family Farm

The Fouchs have created a practically maintenance-free sheep by crossing mouflon sheep to the Jacob which is known as a painted desert sheep.

16

Land & Livestock

March / April 2016

Jesse and Hannah have 4 children. Jensen is nearly 8 years old, Gus is 5, Poppy is 3 and Henry is 6 months old. “They enjoy the animals and the older children did a goat project this year. They bought 20 bottle babies from a goat dairy and raised the kids themselves. We gave them cows’ milk from our dairy cows, and our kids would go out and bottle feed their babies. With their profits they bought some lambs, so now they have a share in our lambs as well,” says Jesse.

“This year we also started giving them each their own heifer every year. Thus they have a stake in the ranch and enjoy going out to help and do chores. They have an interest in taking care of the animals.”

Jesse and Hannah feel fortunate to be able to farm and raise their family on the farm. Despite high land prices and drought, this family has been able to make their farm cash flow and will be paying off all debt by the end of the year. In a time when many farmers and ranchers are struggling to stay afloat, Fouch Farm is a great example of what effective management, clarity of goals, passion, and persistence can accomplish.

people programs projects N E W S F R O M H O L I S T I C M A N AG E M E N T I N T E R N AT I O N A L

HMI Panel at GLCI

HMI’s all-star panel of Gabe Brown, Walt Davis, Deborah Clark and Dr. Richard Teague presented the grand finale of the 6th National Conference on Grazinglands in Grapevine, Texas in December. The standing-room crowd was testament to the valuable information they shared.

After Peggy Cole, HMI Program Manager, introduced the panel, challenging the audience to do their part in regenerating our soils, each panelist illustrated beautifully how they do that with Holistic Management. Entertaining, informing and inspiring the audience, each panelist shared valuable information on how Holistic Management improves quality of life and financial stability while regenerating the health of the land. Each of these practitioners represented Holistic Management in a way that earns the respect of skeptics, newcomers and long-time Holistic Managers alike. The discussion session at the end was informative and clearly left many in the audience truly excited about the progress we are making and the potential for the future.

HMI’s panel presentation was one of more than 40 sessions with over 150 speakers over the 3 day conference. The presentations covered a wide variety of topics relating to grazing. While some sessions focused primarily on technology solutions, several celebrated soil health in honor of the international year of the soils, and overall, Holistic Management (or at least rotational grazing with good recovery periods) was often mentioned in sessions as the winning strategy. HMI Certified Educator Josh Dukart, with help from Gabe Brown, shared information on the tool of grazing in improving the health of the entire soil-plant-animal-human complex. Other long time Holistic Management practitioners, including Gary and Sue Price, George Work, and many others, shared experiences and creative ideas for better land management. NRCS Deputy Chief for Science and Technology Wayne Honeycutt outlined best practices for mitigating climate change and healing the soil, listing a pretty good rendition of the land management practices of Holistic Management.

• Book Review

by CHRIS GILL

The Plug and Spread Treatment: Achieving Erosion Control, Soil Health and Biological Diversity

by BILL ZEEDYK

abitat managers, who are struggling to control the gullies responsible for draining and drying rangelands throughout the desert southwest, have a useful new book written by Bill Zeedyk of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bill retired after 35-years as a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist. For 25-years, he has focused on stream restoration, water

H

Thanks to all our long-time friends and to new students of Holistic Management who stopped by HMI’s booth to say hello. It was great to re-connect with you and meet new friends as well.

HMI at California Ecofarm Conference

HMI was also at the Ecofarm Conference in Monterey, California in late January. Executive Director Ann Adams presented a workshop on Enterprise Analysis and we also had a booth at the tradeshow there to provide outreach on our programs, including the California Whole Farm/Ranch Land Management course coming up in the spring at Willits and our Holistic Management Gathering at Paicines in the fall.

The workshop was filled to capacity and participants enjoyed an opportunity to work on the worksheets as well as hear the presentation. The workshop was translated to Spanish simultaneously for Spanish speaking participants from as far away as Cuba.

HMI Joins 4 per 1000 Initiative: Soil for Food Security and Climate

A new 4 per 1000 initiative has been started by the French Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood, and Forestry as the Lima-Paris climate change talks began. This initiative is focused on getting all the countries involved in the talks to commit to increasing the organic matter on their agricultural lands by .04% to halt climate change. This is the first time there has been an international call and awareness of the importance of soils to sequester carbon.

HMI has joined this initiative formally and will continue our work to help more land stewards improve their soil health through using Holistic Management in managing their lands, finances, and families, and communities. We are proud of our network who is on the front line of this work. To learn about the initiative, go to: bit.ly/1K9nc3P

harvesting and erosion control, completing more than 280 projects some of which are quite extensive. We started working with him at the Circle Ranch about 14 years ago and can attest that his treatments work.

Uncontrolled gullies are unfortunate features of every ranch I have seen in farWest Texas and New Mexico. Most were started by roads, which the old timers, CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

Number 166

IN PRACTICE 17

We surveyed all the agricultural educators in our program in early 2015. Here are the results:

DEVELOPMENT CORNER WSARE 2015 Grant Report

HMI has continued work on our Distance Learning for Agricultural Educators Program that is being funded by Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (WSARE). In 2015, HMI focused on mentoring and supporting the agricultural educators in our program to help them work with agricultural producers. We have 34 active participants in the program.

Our goal was to have 34 agricultural educators training 2-3 agricultural producers each on a course or module for a total of 70 agricultural producers reached. Of that 34 we have 11 agricultural educators currently having trained/co-trained152 agricultural producers in various aspects of Whole Farm/Ranch Planning.

The breakdown of courses and/or modules the agricultural educators taught/assisted/coached is as follows:

Overall response to surveys shows that there was high satisfaction rate among agricultural producers for these courses and modules ranging from 90-100% satisfaction. Actual behavior change in terms of created plans/drafts varied depending on subject.

Course/Module

Whole Farm/Ranch Business Planning Series

Land Planning

Grazing Planning

State

California Montana Oregon

Educators 12 4 2

Washington

2

New Mexico

2

Hawaii

2

Colorado Idaho

Wyoming Arizona Total

18

7

1

1

1

34

Land & Livestock

10 5

Financial Planning

Introduction to Holistic Management Total

Our agricultural educators are from several different states, see the table below:

104 8

Biological Monitoring

Increased knowledge or confidence in developing plans remained high throughout the year as noted here:

Number of Agricultural Producers

Course/Module

Whole Farm/Ranch Business Planning Series

7

18

152 Satisfaction Rating by Participants 98%

Land Planning

100%

Biological Monitoring

100%

Grazing Planning

Financial Planning

Introduction to Whole Farm/ Ranch Planning

100% 98%

98%

Our agricultural educators are associated with many different State Educators agencies NRCD 5 which can NGO 9 be seen in Cooperative the table Extension 11 here: NRCS

5

Ag Consultant

3

University Total

March / April 2016

1

34

Outcome

Completed, partially completed, or modified a whole farm/ranch goal (holistic goal) as a result of this program?

As a result of this program, do you think you have improved your ability to help a producer develop a whole farm/ranch goal (holistic goal)?

Percent of Agricultural Educators 90% 90%

Clearer sense of what your farm/ranch is managing towards

89%

Improved decision-making

100%

Better ability to determine resources available to you

Completed, partially completed, or modified a financial plan as a result of this program?

As a result of this program, do you think you have improved your ability to help a producer develop a financial plan?

Have you completed, partially completed, or modified a land plan as a result of this program?

As a result of this program, do you think you have improved your ability to help a producer develop a land plan?

Improved ability to incorporate social, environmental, and financial considers in the plan

Have you completed, partially completed, or modified a grazing plan as a result of this program?

As a result of this program, do you think you have improved your ability to help a producer develop a grazing plan?

89% 70%

80% 90% 100% 88% 70% 90%

As a result of this program, do you think you have improved your ability to help a producer assess land health with biological monitoring?

80%

As a result of this training have you forged any relationships that have positively impacted you or your farm/ranch or job as an agricultural professional?

80%

Improved understanding of your farm/ranch’s ecosystem

As a result of this program are you better able to serve the producers you work with?

As a result of this program have you increased your network of professionals assisting producers in sustainable agriculture?

89%

90% 70%

Here’s what the agricultural educators had to say about the program: “The program has me seeing all applications of agriculture, and in some cases life in general in a different way. I am constantly analyzing pastures as I drive by for their brittleness, how much rest have they seen, what would I do as a treatment for a problem, etc. The financial aspect of what do you really need, and being able to apply the testing questions and be comfortable with the result is great. Biological monitoring far surpasses any other monitoring that can be done over time on a given landscape in my opinion. As far as land planning I hope to bring that more into play on my own as I transition into the family ranch and have the opportunity to help neighbors with [their] future land goals as well.”

“I understand the holistic process more fully now. It has opened

doors to tools and strategies I didn't have before” “It has made me look at farm management in a whole new way.

Really looking at entire farm and all the components the make it work.

Extremely powerful and helpful.”

“I enjoyed the different teaching methods used (videos, fact sheets, conversations, webinar) and I have used many of the resources with farmers and ranchers.”

“The information covered in the program is so useful to use personally as well as to me as an agriculture and natural resource educator and consultant. I believe this information will be very valuable to share with other producers to help them reach their goals and be more profitable while better managing the resources they have.”

“I find I am observing, thinking, and communicating differently-. this course has changed the way I listen to my producers and I find I was liberated somehow and ask more questions. I feel more confident in planning.”

“I see HMI as a resource that can help put me in touch with professionals that can help me as well as producers that could demonstrate the concepts to producers with whom I am working. I also met many professionals through the course and will continue to get to know them better while we complete our farm plans.”

“I have a whole list of natural resource professionals I didn't know before AND I learned more about those people that I did know but not as well.”

In 2016, we will survey the participants to see how they have progressed over the last year, and see what opportunities we can provide. Our agricultural educators will continue working with agricultural producers to complete plans. Thanks to WSARE for their support of this training.

Educator in Petaluma, California was the primary instructor and has raised beef cattle since 1991 using the Holistic Decision-Making and Planning Framework.

The class included 30 people that manage land from the smallest operation to over 30,000 acres. Everyone learned a great deal from each other's questions and experiences and several guest speakers were also utilized. Christine Su introduced her PastureMap webbased application designed to help land managers more easily use a GPS referenced maps, monitoring information, and notes. Noah Small also shared information about the Yeoman's Plow. Finally, Doniga Markegard invited participants to visit one of her nearby ranches and learn how Markegard Family Ranch is learning and practicing Holistic Management.

Thanks to TomKat Ranch for hosting the event and to the Christiano Fund, TomKat Ranch Education Foundation, and the 11th Hour Project for their support of this program. Thanks also to our sponsors Pacific Organics and San Mateo County Resource Conversation District.

Drought Mitigation Training in California

Here’s what some of the participants had to say: “An excellent resource for beginning or even established ranches/farmers and a tool for starting new business as well.”

“This got us talking and looking at things in a different way and provided a framework to put it together.”

“Having the spreadsheet is really helpful, thinking about weak links, and logjams, and planning for profit”

HMI successfully completed the Whole Farm/Ranch Land Management Series focused on Mitigating Drought in California at the

TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, California during September and October 2015. These workshops focused on the land management aspects of Holistic Management, including holistic decision-making, biological monitoring, grazing planning, and land planning, with special emphasis on how to prepare for and manage resources through drought. Richard King, a Holistic Management Certified

Online Holistic Financial Training Results

HMI’s Online Holistic Financial Planning course began in October of 2015 with 15 participants from all around the world and wrapped up in December. This course focused on key financial principles that helped participants learn how to work on their business, not just in their business. Participants were able to develop a financial plan and identify ways to implement and monitor that plan. The participants were very excited to learn the key economic analysis tools for improved financial decisions for both annual budgets and for longterm investment.

Featured Participant: “Our family has been managing a grassfed beef farm and horse boarding operation for 8 years. The Holistic Financial Planning Course helped us clarify our goals and get an understanding of how to move towards our goals using our finances. We can now better analyze our financial data and prioritize effective reinvestments in Bruce Johnson our business. We are continuing to do the work that we learned about in the class and will continue to improve our financial plan as we grow.”

Number 166

IN PRACTICE 19

Certified

Jeff Goebel

Educators

The following Certified Educators listed have been trained to teach and coach individuals in Holistic Management. On a yearly basis, Certified Educators renew their agreement to be affiliated with HMI. This agreement requires their commitment to practice Holistic Management in their own lives and to seek out opportunities for staying current with the latest developments in Holistic Management.

Lee Altier

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

Owen Hablutzel

4235 W. 63rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90043 310/567-6862 • go2owen@gmail.com

Richard King

1675 Adobe Rd., Petaluma, CA 94954 rking1675@gmail.com • 707/217-2308 (c) 707/769-1490 (h)

Mulville *P.O.Kelly Box 23, Paicines, CA 95043

707/431-8060 • kmulville@gmail.com

Donald D. Nelson

11728 Shafer Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080-8994 208/301-5066 • nelson-don1@hotmail.com

*

Rob Rutherford

4757 Bridgecreek Rd., San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 805/544-5781 (h) • 805/550-4858 (c) robtrutherford@gmail.com

Joel Benson

NEBRASKA Paul Swanson

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

Ralph Tate

1109 Timber Dr., Papillion, NE 68046 402/932-3405 • 402/250-8981 (c) Tater2d2@cox.net

NEW HAMPSHIRE Kate Kerman

350 Troy Road, Marlborough, NH 03455 603-876-4562 • 603/209-0946 (c) kkerman@phoenixfarm.org

*

Seth Wilner

24 Main Street, Newport, NH 03773 603/863-4497 (h) • 603/863-9200 (w) 603/543-7169 (c) • seth.wilner@unh.edu

Ann Adams

NEW MEXICO

Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 • 505/842-5252 anna@holisticmanagement.org

COLORADO

P.O. Box 4924 Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/221-1547 • joel@holisticeffect.com

Kelly Boney

Cindy Dvergsten

17702 County Rd. 23, Dolores, CO 81323 970/882-4222 • 970/739-2445 (c) wnc@gobrainstorm.net

IOWA Torray & Erin Wilson

4865 Quay Rd. L, San Jon, NM 88434 575/268-1162 • Kellyboney_79@yahoo.com

Kirk Gadzia

P.O. Box 1100, Bernalillo, NM 87004 505/263-8677 (c) • kirk@rmsgadzia.com

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

*4375 Pierce Ave., Paullina, IA 51046-7401

712/260-6398 (Torray) • 563/419-3142 (Erin) torray@gmail.com • wilsonee3@gmail.com

Bill Casey

KANSAS

13835 Udall Rd., Erie, KS 66733 620/423-2842 • bill.caseyag@gmail.com

*239 E Buckfield Rd., Buckfield, ME 04220-4209 207/336-2484 • vholmes@maine.edu

Larry Dyer

MICHIGAN

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

*610 Ed Sullivan Lane NE, Meadville, MS 39653 prestons@telepak.net 601/384-5310 (h) • 601/835-6124 (c)

Cliff Montagne

Montana State University 1105 S. Tracy, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/599-7755 (c) • montagne@montana.edu

*

20 IN PRACTICE

150 Caroona Lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h), 61-4-1853-2130 (c) graeme.hand@bigpond.com

Dick Richardson

“Spring Valley,” 165 Ironbark Lane Frogmore, Boorowa NSW 2586 61-0-429069001 (w) • 61-0-263856224 (h) dick@dickrichardson.com.au

P.O. Box 75 Cooran QLD 4569 61-0-754851997 • jason@spiderweb.com.au

Brian Wehlburg

Pine Scrub Creek, Kindee, NSW 2446 61-2-6587-4353 (h) • 61 04087 404 431 (c) brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au

Don Campbell

MONTANA

4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 • 406/581-3038 (c) kroosing@msn.com

“Glen Orton” 3843 Warialda Rd. Coolatai, NSW 2402 +61 409 151 969 (c) • judi_earl@bigpond.com

Jason Virtue

MISSISSIPPI Preston Sullivan

Roland Kroos

Judi Earl

AUSTRALIA

Graeme Hand

MAINE Vivianne Holmes

Kathy Harris

Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 505/842-5252 • kathyh@holisticmanagement.org

Craig Leggett

U N I T E D S TAT E S CALIFORNIA

1033 N. Gabaldon Rd., Belen, NM 87002 541/610-7084 • goebel@aboutlistening.com

CANADA

Box 817 Meadow Lake, SK S0X 1Y6 306/236-6088 • 320/240-7660 (c) doncampbell@sasktel.net

Ralph Corcoran

Box 36, Langbank, SK S0G 2X0 306/532-4778 rlcorcoran@sasktel.net

March / April 2016

NEW YORK

6143 SR 9, Chestertown, NY 12817 518/494-2324 (h) • 970/946-1771 (c) craigrleggett@gmail.com

Erica Frenay *Shelterbelt Farm

200 Creamery Rd., Brooktondale, NY 14817 607/539-6512 (h) • 607/342-3771 (c) info@shelterbeltfarm.com

Elizabeth Marks

1024 State Rt. 66, Ghent, NY 12075 518/828-4385 x107 (w) • 518/567-9476 (c) Elizabeth.marks@ny.usda.gov

Phillip Metzger

120 Thompson Creek Rd., Norwich, NY 13815 607/334-2407 (h) • pmetzger17@gmail.com

NORTH DAKOTA Joshua Dukart

2539 Clover Place, Bismarck, ND 58503 701/870-1184 • Joshua_dukart@yahoo.com

SOUTH DAKOTA Randal Holmquist

*4870 Cliff Drive, Rapid City, SD 57702 605/730-0550 • randy@zhvalley.com

Bellows *NorthLisaCentral Texas College TEXAS

1525 W. California St., Gainesville, TX 76240-4636 940/736-3996 (c) • 940/668-7731 ext. 4346 (o) lbellows@nctc.edu

Guy Glosson

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

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

Tracy Litle

1277 S CR 305, Orange Grove, TX 78372 361/537-3417 (c) • tjlitle@hotmail.com

Peggy Maddox

9460 East FM 1606 Hermleigh, TX 79526 325/226-3042 (c) • westgift@hughes.net

Peggy Sechrist

106 Thunderbird Ranch Road Fredericksburg, TX 78624 830/456-5587 (c) • peggysechrist@gmail.com

VERMONT Calley Hastings

787 Kibbee Rd., Brookfield, VT 05036 802/279-3893 • Calley.hastings@gmail.com

WASHINGTON Sandra Matheson

*228 E. Smith Rd., Bellingham, WA 98226 360/220-5103 • 360/398-7866 (h) info@mathesonfarms.com

WISCONSIN Heather Flashinski

16294 250th Street, Cadott, WI 54727 715/289-4896 (w) 8 715/379-3742 (c) grassheather@hotmail.com

*

Larry Johnson

W886 State Rd. 92, Brooklyn, WI 53521-9102 608/455-1685 • larrystillpointfarm@gmail.com

Paine *N893Laura Kranz Rd., Columbus, WI 53925

6717 Hwy. 380, Snyder, TX 79549 806/237-2554 • glosson@caprock-spur.com

920/623-4407 (h) • 608/338-9039 (c) lkpaine@gmail.com

Guichon *BoxAllison 10, Quilchena, BC V0E 2R0

NAMIBIA Wiebke Volkmann

Box 760, Redvers, Saskatchewan SOC 2HO 306/452-3882 • bhjer@sasktel.net

Usiel Seuakouje Kandjii

250/378-9734 • allisonguichon@gmail.com

Blain Hjertaas Brian Luce

RR #4, Ponoka, AB T4J 1R4 403/783-6518 • lucends@cciwireless.ca

Noel McNaughton *5704-144 St NW, Edmonton, AB T6H 4H4 780/432-5492; noel@mcnaughton.ca

P.O. Box 9285, Windhoek 264-61-225183 or 264-81-127-0081 wiebke@afol.com.na

P.O. Box 23319, Windhoek 9000 264-812840426 (c) • 264-61-244028 (h) kandjiiu@gmail.com

NEW ZEALAND John King

Tony McQuail

*P.O. Box 12011, Beckenha, Christchurch 8242

Pigott *BoxLen 222, Dysart, SK, SOH 1HO

SOUTH AFRICA Wayne Knight

86016 Creek Line, RR#1, Lucknow, ON N0G 2H0 519/528-2493 • mcqufarm@hurontel.on.ca 306/432-4583 • JLPigott@sasktel.net

Kelly Sidoryk

Box 72, Blackroot, AB TOB OLO 780/872-9761 (h) • 780/875-4418 (w) 780/872-2585 (c) • sidorykk@yahoo.ca

Christine C. Jost

KENYA

ICRAF, Box 30677, Nairobi 00100 254-736-715-417 (c) • c.jost@cgiar.org

Iván Aurelio Aguirre Ibarra MEXICO

Pitiquito, Sonora 662-3210951 (c), 622-1231168 (h) rancholainmaculada@gmail.com

64-276-737-885 • john@succession.co.nz

Solar Addicts, P.O. Box 537, Mokopane, 0600 South Africa 27-0-15-491-5286 +27 87 5500 255 (h) • +27 82 805 3274 (c) wayne@theknights.za.net

Sheldon Barnes

P.O. Box 300, Kimberley 8300 +27 82 948 2585 (c) • barnesfarm@mweb.co.za

Ian Mitchell-Innes

P.O. Box 52, Elandslaagte, KZN 2900 blanerne@mweb.co.za • 001-83-262-9030 (c)

Philip Bubb *32 Dart Close, St. Ives, Cambridge, PE27 3JB UNITED KINGDOM

44-1480-496-2925 (h) • +44 7837 405483 (w) pjbubb99@gmail.com

•

Book Review CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

lacking bulldozers, had to place in the bottoms of valleys. When wagon wheels nicked turf, small ruts formed. Over decades, many gullies down-cut and worked their way up hills and valleys. Today these can be miles long, yards deep—and some devour entire valleys.

Bill's new book describes techniques that get water out of these gullies and divert it back onto valley meadows and hillsides where it can grow plants, which, in turn, protect and stabilize the soil. His methods are low-tech, inexpensive, holistic common sense. Most require only a small bulldozer like a D-4 and a few hours of work.

Bill calls his method, the Plug and Spread, because he shows how to build the plug using material from a shallow basin adjacent to the gully. Plugging the gully gathers, slows (spreads) and pours water over a large area, back onto the normal drainage.

Some gullies can be drained on both sides; some only on one side; and some valleys have multiple gullies because they are home to several abandoned roadbeds. Bill provides example solutions for these situations and several others.

While it is vital to get the water to back up and spill out, it is equally important to prevent the development of new head cuts initiated by water back flowing into the gully. More than a dozen different structures designed to accomplish this are pictured.

The book includes excellent advice on integrating these structures over long distances. The design and placement of these structures is

part of a planning process that according to Bill should precede the actual work.

In general, the “Plug and Spread” method works best: • Where land adjacent to the gully is the same elevation or lower than the original land surface of the gully.

• Where streams that flow after heavy rains are now crossed by a gully, which redirects water flow.

• On old roadbeds, cattle and wild animal trails and abandoned drainage ditches.

This book is only 31 pages long but is chock full of step-by-step instructions, equipment lists, diagrams and photographs of actual projects. Again, these methods are low-tech, inexpensive, holistic common sense. And, from first-hand experience, I know they work. I highly recommend the book as a source of “outside the box” inspiration. Bill explores how to make the most of the restoring power of water instead of treating water as a liability to be disposed of as quickly as possible.

I read extensively and have been unable to find another person, agency or university that incorporates his methods in their practices or recommendations Call this Holistic Management, permaculture, Keyline—or all three—no desert range manager’s toolbox is complete without these common sense approaches.

This practical guide is one in a book series that Bill has written.

All of his books are available through: http://quiviracoalition.org/Publications/Publications_for_Purchase/

THE MARKETPLACE l Services, Inc. KINSEY Agricultura

?

E R U T S A P E S N NUTRIENT-DE

How many animals truly receive feed that has been grown with correct nutrients added to the soil?

95+% of all pasture and hay soils we test do not have the fertility required to provide the animals that eat it with even close to good nutrition. What about yours?

You can only manage what you correctly measure. Soil test as soon as conditions permit to add lime or other needed nutrients for pasture and hay crops.

For consulting or educational services contact:

Kinsey Agricultural Services, Inc. 297 County Highway 357 Charleston, Missouri 63834

Ph: 573/683-3880, Fax: 573/683-6227 www.kinseyag.com • info@kinseyag.com

Soil test as soon as conditions permit to add lime or other needed nutrients for pasture and hay crops.

Number 166

IN PRACTICE 21

THE MARKETPLACE

Resource Management Services, LLC

CORRAL DESIGNS

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

with Richard McConnell & Tina Williams

How can RMS, LLC help you?

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

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

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

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

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

22 IN PRACTICE

March / April 2016

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bud Williamsâ&#x20AC;?

Livestock Marketing & Proper Stockmanship

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

Learn how good stockmanship can make your livestock handling experiences HQMR\DEOH HDVLHU DQG PRUH SURĂ&#x20AC;WDEOH DQG how livestock marketing based on todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s price (no crystal ball) can help you realize \RXU SURĂ&#x20AC;W JRDOV â&#x20AC;&#x153;Richard and Tina were great. Stress is one of the biggest factors in animal health and weight gain. . . . The class covered many important issues we face every day when working with livestock.

The manner in which the material was presented promoted a great deal of discussion, and we look forward to having Richard and Tina back as we continue to educate our employees on the proper way to handle livestock.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Richard www.handnhandlivestocksolutions.com info@handnhandlivestocksolutions.com 417-327-6500

THE MARKETPLACE

HMI 2016 GATHERING

Owen Hablutzel CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

310-567-6862 • go2owen@gmail.com

Whole Systems Design, Consultation and Education

• Integrated whole farm/ranch planning • Keyline Design/Permaculture Design • Resilience Assessments • Tailored Workshops and Speaking • International Experience

PAICINES, CALIFORNIA OCTOBER 14-16, 2016

Group Facilitation

• Individuals / Groups / Organizations • Co-creative Participatory Group Processes • Opportunity Mapping / Strategic Planning • Vision Workshops

SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE: • • • • •

Let’s discover solutions together!

Greg Judy Brock Dolman Owen Hablutzel Richard Wiswall Paul Kaiser

• • • • •

Jessica Prentice Charlotte Smith Dr. Thomas Cowan Rebecca Burgess Kelly Mulville

• • • • •

Joe and Julie Morris Tina Williams Allen Williams Leslie Dorrance Judi Earl

On the ground learning with a community of inspired, passionate land stewards.

Registration opens in April!

HMI GRAZING PLANNING SOFTWARE

• User-friendly Excel-based interface • Let the computer do the math while you plan • Easy SAU and ADA calculations • Account for multiple herds • Grazing Manual hyperlinks • Livestock and Land Performance Worksheet • And many more features

en us a “This tool has already giv our ond bey rn many fold retu have initial investment and we just begun to use it.”

— Arnold Mattson,

Branch, Agri-Environment Services Canada Agriculture and Agri-Food

$

100

$30 TO UPGRADE

TO LEARN MORE or TO ORDER: Call 505/842-5252 or visit us at www.holisticmanagement.org/store/

HMI’s Getting Started Online Learning Series

Learn from anywhere on the planet No matter where you live, you can start learning Holistic Management without having to fly or drive to a workshop. We offer two learning series you can access directly from your home operation.

$199/class

• Holistic Land Planning Course

Starting March 10 • Holistic Management Introduction to Whole Farm/Ranch Planning Course Starting March 9 • Holistic Grazing Planning Course Starting March 14 To learn more and register go to: holisticmanagement.org/trainingprograms/getting-started/ Number 166

IN PRACTICE 23

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID ALBUQUERQUE, NM PERMIT NO 880

a publication of Holistic Management International 5941 Jefferson St. NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109 USA return service requested

please send address corrections before moving so that we do not incur unnecessary postal fees

1800 farms and ranches will go out of business this week! armers and ranchers are leaving the land because of a multitude of pressures, resulting in more farms and ranches turned into housing developments or corporate farms. People who desire to manage land responsibly and sustainably are giving up simply because they lack the knowledge, and this land is being lost forever.

HMI provides low cost, effective training to these farmers and ranchers, helping them learn to rebuild healthy soil, produce safer products without chemicals and acquire practical business management principles that work.

We can help keep them on the land – naturally.

F

Will you help right now by sending a gift of $50 to help other farmers and ranchers achieve healthy, thriving land like Lisa and Greg Clouston? We have more people requesting scholarships for training than we have in our scholarship fund. If every person reading this article sent just a $50 donation, we will have the funds to reach our goal of training 1,700 farmers and ranchers in 2016!

Will you: • Give a $50 donation to support healthy land, healthy food and a healthy environment in 2016?

• Can you do more? A gift of $100, $250, $500 or $1000 will provide even more life changing, land changing training.

• Give a recurring monthly gift?

• Give a non-cash gift of stock, bonds or other investments, land, vehicle or other asset?

• Include HMI in your estate planning?

Your Gift Makes a Difference!

Please visit our website at http://holisticmanagement.org/store/ donatetoday/ Or, checks can be mailed to: 5941 Jefferson St NE, Suite B Albuquerque, NM 87109

You can also contact Kelly Curtis at kellyc@holisticmanagement.org or at 505-842-5252 ext 107 to inquire about donating and supporting HMI with a non-cash gift.

Printed On Recycled Paper

“We would have gone out of business without the training we received.”

Lisa Clouston & Greg Wood Spring Creek Farm

The Clouston’s farm stands in stark comparison to much of the surrounding farmland that hasn’t been managed holistically. “The houses stand empty because the family farmers have left and the land is being managed by large agricultural operations. You can see the soil blowing by because the land is undernourished and over grazed. There simply isn’t enough grass, roots and compost to hold it in place,” says Lisa.

After implementing the training received at Holistic Management classes, Lisa and Greg experienced dramatic changes in their land.

“Some of our neighbors only have one inch of grass and we have literally three feet. Once we had so much grass we had to stand on the hood of my truck to see the cows that were 10 feet away!” says Lisa.