In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 6
NUMBER 167
W W W. H O L I S T I C M A N A G E M E N T. O R G
Cultivating Community: Land. Food. Health. BY ANN ADAMS
s we've been working on HMI's 2016 Gathering and developing our new website, we've been pondering a lot about the word cultivate and how it relates to HMI. In fact, we decided to name HMI's 2016 Gathering “Cultivating Community: Land. Food. Health.” One of the key outcomes we want from any of our events and programs is that anyone who attends feels welcomed and included in a growing Joe Morris will be speaking community of people who at the Gathering. care about the land, and that they see regenerative agriculture as a critical tool for cultivating healthy land and thriving communities. At HMI, we believe that Holistic Management is a tool that helps people do that, as people are better able to discern the values they hold and develop the behaviors and systems to help them create the life they want. And, we are working hard to create a conference
A
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
that will attract a diverse audience that will come to learn together and share their perspectives. If you look at the definition of cultivate, you find: 1. prepare and use (land) for crops or gardening. 2. raise or grow (plants), synonyms are grow, raise, rear, plant, sow 3. grow or maintain (living cells or tissue) in culture. 4. try to acquire or develop (a quality, sentiment, or skill). 5. try to win the friendship or favor of (someone). 6. apply oneself to improving or developing (one's mind or manners) with synonyms of educate, train, develop, and enrich From my perspective, as an organization, HMI is cultivating a community of land stewards who believe that we can create healthy food for a growing world. That community cultivates the land, not in the narrow sense of tilling, but in the broader sense of growing, preparing the land, as well as cultivating our relationship with the land, as collaborators. Likewise, we are cultivating ourselves, developing our abilities as global citizens. It is through that commitment to
To heal the land we need to cultivate a community of land stewards. Whether using grazing groups/ management clubs (see page 2) to share knowledge or building good teams on your farms or ranch as demonstrated at the Winecup-Gamble Ranch on page 9, investing in improved management skills is a gift that keeps on giving.
increasing our self-awareness so that we can more effectively tackle the task of what we need to learn next to help us and our community move forward. There are so many regenerative practices out there to help improve land health, but also to help people communicate better, function better as teams, develop business systems to improve profitability. You'll learn about a lot of these practices at the conference. There is always something to learn, and the more we share in that knowledge, the deeper our understanding and practice. I've worked with a lot of different practitioners and educators over the years, and consistently I have heard that they believe that the act of teaching or articulating what they have learned from their years of practice helps them improve their understanding and practice. This is the concept of reciprocal altruism that is an essential component of cultivating community. Our brains are hardwired for social relationships, and as a species we have evolved by learning that providing help to someone in our “tribe” will result in the eventual benefit outweighing the immediate cost. In other words, if we share information with others about what we have learned, not only does it often help us learn something more, that person will then be able to function at a higher level for the good of the community.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
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Building People Skills
Grazing Groups – Investment & Return BY DENISE AND BEN BARTLETT
In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International
HMI educates people in regenerative agriculture for healthy land and thriving communities. 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 . . . . . . . . Accounting 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
FEATURE STORIES Grazing Groups— Investment & Return
DENISE AND BEN BARTLETT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
AMY KREMEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
A Soil Profile— Blain Hjertaas
How to Apply Holistic Livestock Management to Life Goals— Abiding by Shared Values Helps Our Quality of Life
LAURA JEAN SCHNEIDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2 IN PRACTICE
Authors’ Note: Denise and I wrote the following story to share the valuable and very enjoyable time we spent with our 4 year old “grazing group” (I know we are a “baby group compared to some of the management clubs in Canada but you’ve got to start somewhere). The story talks about the great returns from being part of the group, but it’s important to also know about some of the investment needed to make it work. Our group started out with 10 or 11 people/farms and a fee based learning program about grazing and how to key in on our “weak links.” I think the investment in dollars up front was critical to getting people who were serious about making a change. It was also realistic to lose a few people. In addition, the willingness to “pay up” to get started, a person/operation has to be willing to “hang in there” and be a good team member. Sometimes you get great advice and support and sometimes your job is to provide it; the only road to trust is to earn it. Do you have to have a grazing group or management club to be successful in your work toward your Holistic Goal – of course not? However, if “experience” is the best teacher, why not tap into your peer’s experiences to help make your decisions even better. As our article also shares – in our weak link and monitoring group, having to “report” is a great motivator to getting our homework done. Please drop us an email or call, we would be happy to share our experiences that may help you start your own learning group. e were not excited about going, as it would be Ben’s fourth 10-hour road trip in the previous 11 days. But we had been part of this grazing group for four years, and it was our annual meeting of faces and minds. Let's back up a bit. We are part of a small, 7 farm group of graziers who are very committed to grazing as a key component of our farming operations. We have one face-to-face meeting each latefall, usually meet up at a summer farm tour, and often share a table at a winter conference. The main idea is that once a year we meet and report on what part of our plans got accomplished, and what we plan to focus on in the coming year. Why do we choose to keep up our affiliation with this grazing group, even though it’s a long drive? One reason is the value we see in the discipline this group brings to its members. Each of us completes a onepage sheet in December that records immediate goals for the coming year.
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Markegard Family Ranch— Growing and Selling Grassfed Meat Successfully
HEATHER SMITH THOMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Goals & Weak Links
The first part of the December meeting is a review of last year’s goals, what we did or did not accomplish over the past year, how our goals changed, and why. We then identify what we think are the weak link(s) — the things holding our operation back — and what we plan for the coming grazing season. Quite frankly, the anticipation of meeting with the group and having to share our review and goals forces us to complete the review. We often finish it in the car on the way to the meeting, but not without a thoughtful review of the records for the year. The goals are meant to be specific. We date our one-page sheet, and everyone shares their goals with the group. An example of a goal from one of our first sessions was to increase the weaning weights of our lambs. We were disappointed in our performance here despite focusing on good grazing practices. If our grazing program was good, gaining additional pounds before we sold them would be a challenge. After recording the goal, we describe the
NEWS & NETWORK
Grapevine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
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Certified Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
LAND & LIVESTOCK
6
May / June 2016
The Key to Successful Planned Grazing in Non-Brittle Environments
MARK BADER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
HEATHER SMITH THOMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
Managing the Winecup-Gamble Ranch Holistically
Development Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
From the Board Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Book Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
strategies we will use to reach those goals, and the tactics for accomplishing the strategies. There were lots of ways to increase weaning weights, and we tried to consider as many options as possible. Assuming that lack of feed energy was the major factor, we could creep feed, wean early and barn feed, or just provide better-quality pasture. We decided that improving pasture quality and quantity was the strategy to pursue. Now for the tactics. The objective of using the worksheet is to make it as easy as possible for us to achieve our goal as we get into the busy summer season and start concentrating on dayto-day issues. The tactics section spells out what we actually need to do to carry out our strategy. In this example, we decided to leave more residual or move the sheep sooner so that, on average, they would have more and betterquality pasture available. If we were talking about a fall annual pasture strategy, our tactics would be to plant an annual crop by a certain date. With this kind of winter planning we can make sure we have the money, time and information to make our “goal” a real plan — not just a wish. A second reason for participating with this group is that we enjoy the interaction. We’ve become pretty comfortable and we trust each other to ask pointed questions. That kind of trust is developed over time. In addition, having many minds listen to our plans often provides great suggestions from others' experiences and (different) perspectives. Our group includes a mix of livestock operations. Most people have beef, with both large and small herds represented. Also participating are sheep operations and a producer with beef, sheep, goats and pigs. We have a small-scale sheep and goat producer whose long-term goal is to start an artisan cheese business. While most people are parttime producers, everyone feels the livestock operation is an important part of their lives. A third reason for participation is as a sheep and stocker cattle operation in the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan, we are isolated from other graziers. While we have great neighbors, our emphasis on grazing is unique and we don’t have like-minded people close at hand for sharing ideas and challenges. Participating in the pasture walks, farm visits and the annual meeting has allowed us to gain the stimulation provided by a group of trusted peers.
Trust & Accountability
What are the keys to making our grazing group work? It has a core of trusted people with similar goals for achieving successful grazing operations. The fact that the daylong meeting requires the participants put their plans on paper, both to share and reference over time, provides impetus to the effort. The accountability to fellow graziers is an important part of this group. For ourselves, having both members of the "management team" present at the meeting is a valuable part of this process. This allows both of us to both hear the comments of the group, experience the interaction and share a perspective that would otherwise have been filtered by one person. While we do take a full day for this meeting, there is not enough time to share both grazing plans and financial budgets. However, money is part of the conversation. For instance, this year one member of the group did not meet his goal of completing a fencing project, with a lack of funds as the excuse. While the group was sensitive to a young producer with a growing family, we suggested he spend available funds to get the project started. Waiting until all the money is available was costing his operation grazing output and, in
reality, money. The general consensus was, “Get on with it.” Ten more hours on the road is no fun even with this winter's lower gas prices and snow-free roads, but the investment in this year's meeting was a good one. We talked about what did and did not work last year. We talked about our weak links for the coming year, and what we could do about them. We decided where and how much we were willing to invest in time and money. And then we put that to paper. We shared our plan with trusted friends who were more than willing to question our plans. We also shared a laugh or two. Coming out of the latest meeting, one of our goals for the coming year is to increase the productivity of our owned land by increasing acreage in annual crops. The good news is we have the land to do this. The bad news is that the property is rough, previously forested ground that needs lots of work to shape it into a field that can be planted, even for grazing. That work needs to be done in the early spring when we are busy lambing. The dilemma was how to devise a tactic that would help us accomplish this goal. One of the answers we arrived at as we traveled to this meeting was the possibility of employing a friend who has worked for us in the past. He could use the additional income, and we could supply the tractor and pay for our friend's time. Will this tactic work? We’ll test it and find out, but at least now we have a plan. Highly respected agricultural advisors talk about working ON the business rather than just working IN the business. Our grazing group meeting is a great way to work ON the business. Do you have a grazing group? No? Sorry to hear that. What are you going to do about it? If you have questions about starting a grazing group, please feel free to contact us.
A version of this article first was printed in GRAZE. To learn more about this publication go to: www.grazeonline.com. Ben and Denise Bartlett can be reached at: bartle18@msu.edu.
Cultivating Community: Land. Food. Health. As Holistic Management practitioners, we know the importance of improving our ability to manage all our resources more effectively to build symbiotic and synergistic relationships. As our community has grown and matured, we see more and more people interested in Holistic Management and wanting to learn about it and how to support those practicing it. We hope you can take the
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time to share your story with them. If you have a video or article about you out there on the internet, please be sure to email us the link to it so we can add you to our community directory and share the link with our community. And, we hope you will come to the 2016 Gathering to learn more about this Holistic Management community and welcome others into it.
Number 167
IN PRACTICE 3
A Soil Profile—
Blain Hjertaas BY AMY KREMEN
lain Hjertaas, now semi-retired, and his son Martin farm 1,000 acres of grass pasture in south-eastern Saskatchewan 40 kilometers west of the Manitoba border. They raise 300 sheep, 40 cows, 100 custom grazing pairs, and poultry: 100 chickens, 11 turkeys and 20 laying hens. After completing ag school, Blain became a hi-tech, conventional grain farmer. “You couldn’t get me enough technology,” he says. After roughly 25 years, however, his perspective shifted. Besides the ongoing, labor-intensive challenge of planting and harvesting all those acres, “I started noticing things on the farm. Some of my observations were probably very subjective,” he says. “But weeds were becoming more resistant, leading to the vicious treadmill of spending more money each year paying for more herbicides.” Blain’s “Aha!” moment was subtle: “I was looking at the soil in a slough on my land, and it looked good”—better than the soil in his crop fields. He started reading about Holistic Management. “I had nothing to lose; I thought, ‘Why not try out seeding grass?’” He has never looked back. “It was quite a steep learning curve. I should have failed, because I didn’t know what I was doing.” Seeding all his land to grass was a gradual process. “It was at least four to five years, a quarter section at time— I didn’t want to go in whole hog.” Blain had never owned a cow. He says that, as he began learning how to manage pasture and graze livestock, “I was on the right track, but didn’t have enough knowledge.” A 6-day Holistic Management workshop led by Don Campbell, a Holistic Management Certified Educator from Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, focused Blain’s efforts on Holistic Management’s four cornerstones: financial planning, healthy grazing rotations, land planning and biological monitoring to assess land health and productivity. “Gradually we got the fencing infrastructure in and started to get a lot of cows,” he says. “Then we got hit with BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more commonly known as ‘mad cow disease’]. It was quite scary, financially. Financial planning assistance from Holistic Management saved us; we got through it.” Early in the farm’s transition out of grain production, Blain noted, changes in the land and the soil became apparent. “For a keen observer, some changes could be noticed even in the first year—for sure in year two. You start
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4 IN PRACTICE
May / June 2016
to see changes in how the land looks, and the impact of increased organic matter from animal manure and biomass on water infiltration,” he says. Planned grazing also led to the re-emergence of “old species of grasses, native forbs and legumes,” he says. “The species diversity coming up in the pastures is astounding to see.” Fascinated by his farmland’s transformation, Blain wanted to know whether his observations could be backed by data. With the help of Peter Donovan from Even with snow on the ground, stockpiled forage allows the Soil Carbon Coalition, he for good grazing. uses Google LandSat composite images to identify how well his participate in a long-term, multi-farm study land is capturing solar energy. Looking down managed by the Soil Carbon Coalition. Results from above on the farm’s 640-acre main thus far indicate “we are sinking an average of section—6 miles square around—Blain says 22.9 tons of CO2 per hectare per year on our there is an obvious difference throughout the year in photosynthetic activity on his farm relative land. The average individual’s carbon footprint is 18.9 tons/year; this means that every hectare to his neighbors (see NDVI Landsat image). we farm more than offsets one Canadian’s emissions for a year,” he says. “What we are experiencing debunks a myth “Soil health and that livestock are horrible CO2– and methane— human health are producing monsters,” Blain says. “Animals can be a tremendous tool for transforming carbon directly related.” into organic matter.” “For thousands of years, huge herds of bison roamed these lands—they grazed here Blain says the farm’s livestock are totally and there, staying tightly together as a group for dependent on how successfully he collects sun protection from predators— maybe passing energy. “But there’s more to it than that,” he through areas once a year. The odor of the adds. “Photosynthesis sends a lot of sugar dung and urine kept the animals from returning down into the soil to the rhizosphere [the area too early, providing ample time for plants to around plant roots], where it used by fungi and bacteria. That activity results in mineral transfer recover from the grazing event. Thirteen between the soil and plants—manganese, zinc, thousand years of this activity resulted in the creation of high organic matter levels. In 1880, etc. When we eat those plants, that nutrition is when settlement started here, soil organic transferred to our bodies. If that path is broken—if you pour on fertilizer—then the plant matter (SOM) was at 12%. After 130 years of bad farming, SOM dropped down to 2-4%. We doesn’t need to put out sugars, so there’s no squandered that huge asset.” mineral transfer,” he says, citing reports from The Center for Disease Control about the relationship between a decline of the nutrition in our food and the greater prevalence of chronic diseases in society today. Hoping to better understand the The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is an index of plant carbon dynamics on “greenness” or photosynthetic activity. NDVI data can be used to assess his farm, Blain carbon sequestration. Hjertaas’ farm is outlined in blue. decided to
Using the data from the NDVI picture, amount of vegetation grown compared to township data can then be determined. In 2010, Blain grew approximately 40% higher than that of the township average. “One of the wonderful things about carbon is that when you sequester it, you make water work for you,” Blain says. 12% organic matter can hold about 1.5 L of water per cubic foot of soil—that is, 18 L of water/foot3 of soil. “Compare that to soil with only 2% organic matter- that soil can retain only 3 L of water per cubic foot of soil—a big difference. Whether it’s a flood or drought, the more water we can hold onto, the better off society will be.” The Redvers area did not experience a drought during the 2015 growing season— “it’s been very dry, though. Here it is August, and we have more grass on our farm than we can use,” Blain says. “Based on what I know about farming around here, people here will probably start feeding hay [to their cattle] soon. The price of hay is 10 cents/lb; you feed a cow 42 pounds of hay each day, so that’s $4.20 per cow, per day. It’s a lot cheaper to grow grass, I figure.” Blain admits it can be frustrating to know that more farmers could benefit from adopting Holistic Management practices and planned grazing, but are reluctant to invest in systems other than the ones they’re already using. “Sometimes there’s a tipping point, often it’s a crisis in someone’s life—an imminent divorce, or two farmers not getting along, a financial thing—those issues are often what force people to change,” he says. In the meantime, he says, “I sense that there’s an awful lot of young, urban people who are really welleducated on the need to have sustainable and
“Intercropping, annual grazing systems to build fertility and poly cropping are all in their infancy. The potential is unlimited. As we change our thinking to producing healthy soil and healthy food, the innovativeness of the farmers of western Canada will be astounding. We need to keep open minds and not reject any tool that is available to us, but they all need to be examined in the context of: Does this build soil and make the food I am producing better for my body? The future is bright.”
healthy biological systems in agriculture. They would love to get into farming, but the capital investment is very high—how do we transition them in?” Whatever one’s background, Blain suggests the incentives for using Holistic Management and planned grazing should be compelling. “Sometimes people have the wrong impression of grazing; they don’t think you make money at it,” he says. “But they don’t realize that, even when your income takes a hit during the transition from grain farming, your expenses also basically drop to
almost zero.” Starting out, he notes, it can take a few years for income flow to improve. “But around the fourth or fifth year, once you get some decent grass production going, then it goes quickly—you can put more animals out there and start to be profitable again. Then, you’re every bit as well off [as before], but with less risk.”
This article first appeared in The Canadian Organic Grower magazine. To learn more about this publication go to: http://magazine.cog.ca/. Blain can be reached at: bhjer@sasktel.net.
Blain uses planned grazing to keep cattle bunched for good animal impact, which also allows him to provide his plants with good recovery to help in the carbon sequestering process. Number 167
IN PRACTICE 5
How to Apply Holistic Livestock Management to Life Goals—
Abiding By Shared Values Helps Our Quality of Life BY LAURA JEAN SCHNEIDER
hen many people hear about time but Sam and I finally created a Holistic Management, they goal that reflected what we wanted to envision pastures with electric do together in the world. fences radiating out like spokes of a wheel and paddocks packed so full of cows Quality of Life that their tails hang over the fences. But that’s • Our work is the life we love. just one misguided application of a broader • We live and work on rangelands, philosophy. I was first introduced to the term close to mountains, keeping Holistic Management on the Lazy E-L Ranch, in horseback daily among good dogs, Roscoe, Montana, when I was 18. Someone friends and family. handed me a huge book with a green cover and advised that I read it. I tried, I really did. Then I Laura Jean and Sam floundered in the details, and gave up. Forms of Production/ It wasn’t until I graduated college at the age Behaviors & Systems of 27 that a summer on the San Juan Ranch • We support an inclusive community of • We exercise prudent financial planning. with George Whitten and Julie Sullivan near neighbors near and far, offering good help • We manage livestock to restore healthy Saguache, Colorado helped de-mystify the and seeking new challenges. ecosystem processes on wild lands. term. George was an early implementer of • We take time to travel and explore our • We profit from livestock and complementary holistic planned grazing and had experience surroundings. enterprises. explaining the fundamentals of Allan Savory’s • We restore rangeland to a healthy, functional • We maintain self-sufficient living practices to philosophy. It was about managing the parts state, maintaining its productivity for profit meet our needs for food and energy. with regard to the whole, and in keeping with and natural beauty. • We profit from art and writing. our own individual Holistic Goal (also called In 2013, we chose to leave Sam’s secure • We raise and train good horses as willing, holistic context). That made sense, but it was management position because it didn’t allow us capable and trustworthy partners. big picture thinking — not my strong suit. to achieve our goal of profiting from our own • We are a resilient, supportive family, happy The big book by Savory describes a holistic livestock. We joined Triangle P a year later after on the ranch and in the world. philosophy and a decision-making framework, looking at our goal again and asking, did such a • We create the challenges and opportunities and their specific application to rangeland venture fit our needs? We decided it did. Before that keep us alive, exploring and learning. grazing practices and ranch-based financial joining Triangle P, we tested other opportunities planning. The better I understood it, the more I against our goal, leading us to decline ranch realized the same decision-making process Future Resource Base/Vision management jobs in Hawaii, Montana, and New could be applied to my personal life. I had little • We keep and nurture cultural traditions. Mexico, among other places. direction after finishing college, and although I’d • We maintain places in our operation for I wish such a template had been around spent years on my own, that time had been friends and family, each involved as much as when I was struggling to find order in my own fraught with experiences I wasn’t anxious to anyone wants. life. It’s my hope that sharing this personal repeat: living on someone’s couch for two • We cultivate and maintain friendships. glimpse into our joint decision making months, digging into the process will encourage seats of my car for change to other young people to take buy ramen, medical debt, the risk to think and dream and poor financial big, and make goals of management. their own. So I made my Holistic Goal. I listed the quality of life I wanted, my available This article first appeared resources to produce that in Ranch Diaries, an hcn.org life, and the resources I series highlighting the would need to rely on in the experiences of Laura Jean future. This seemed good. It Schneider, who gives us a seemed doable and easy. peek into daily life during the Then I got married. Suddenly first year of Triangle P Cattle it was not just my Holistic Company, a new LLC in Goal anymore. There were a southcentral New Mexico. spouse’s goals to combine Installments are every with mine. It took us some other Tuesday. The landscape of the Triangle P in southeastern, New Mexico.
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6 IN PRACTICE
May / June 2016
Markegard Family Ranch—
Growing and Selling Grassfed Meat Successfully BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
rik and Doniga Markegard pasture livestock in San Mateo and Sonoma Counties, in California. Their home place is located on the coast, about 45 minutes south of San Francisco. Erik is a 6th generation cattle rancher, raised on a 2,000-acre ranch in San Mateo County. As young man, he managed several ranches, and started his own cow-calf business (Flying M Cattle Company) in 1985. After he and Doniga met and married they decided to transition from a cow-calf operation to a grassfed direct market operation. “We moved off the ranch Erik grew up on and now lease all our grazing land from land trusts, regional parks, and private land owners,” says Doniga. “My husband grew up with ranching, but when I met him he was primarily managing other people’s herds and had just a herd of his own on a leased ranch.” Growing up in a rural agriculture community, working on organic Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms and being involved in the local food movement, Doniga had done the research on local food production. “After Erik and I were married, we made the shift to supply our local community with grass-fed beef, regenerating local rangelands with grazing,” she says.
What I’d been studying was a combination of permaculture, Holistic Management, and wildlife tracking,” she says. In her youth she was mentored by wildlife trackers, naturalists and Native American spiritual elders. She spent several years in wilderness areas in Washington, living alone and with a small group of youth—immersing themselves in nature, learning the ways of the ancestors, learning bird language and survival strategies. Then her interests took her to California to conduct wildlife tracking research projects. “I was at a field station on a neighboring property, next to the ranch Erik was managing at that time. He caught one of my friends trespassing! She was following the tracks of an animal and inadvertently went onto his place. She talked to Erik and told him that her friend Doniga had photos of the mountain lions in the area. From then on, Erik was calling and showing up for breakfast nearly every morning because of his affinity toward these majestic cats,” Doniga says. “Now we raise and market grassfed beef, lamb, pasture-raised poultry and pigs, and a small amount of raw milk. We are also starting a Growing a Business goat herd,” says Doniga. In their location, close Doniga was studying Holistic Management to San Francisco, they have a ready market before she met Erik. “I studied this process at close to home. Prescott College in a self-guided, distance “We are able to ranch in close proximity to degree program when I moved to California (to the metropolis, and also have some ranch land do wildlife research) from Washington State. north of the Bay area, in Sonoma County. We now lease roughly 8,000 acres of rangeland in the Bay area on 5 ranches,” she says. She is passionate about using cattle grazing to restore the health of Western rangelands. For that reason she and Erik have formed partnerships with land trust groups, private land owners and regional open space parks, to pasture cattle on those lands. Doniga and Eric have a grazing plan for all their leased properties to “We started out just improve land health as well as provide good animal performance.
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Doniga and Erik Markegard
doing grassfed beef. At that time I still had an off-ranch job. We sold shares of our steers and were figuring out our breeding program and genetics, our ranch land and infrastructure, and our relationships with the land owners. Every year we immersed ourselves into this more and more, so now I am full-time on the ranch. Erik has always been full-time on the ranch; he stopped doing ranch management for other people after we got started with our family business,” she explains. “When the kids came along, we started to diversify more, mainly so the kids could be involved. It’s much easier for small children to help take care of chickens than moving big herds of cattle! We raised some pullets and sold them as backyard laying hens, ran an egg business for a number of years, and also raised lambs and hair sheep. I also made a commitment that I would raise my children directly from breast milk to raw milk from our own cows. That’s when we got the Jersey milk cows and started the herd share program. We now supply 30 to 50 families with milk, depending on the cows’ lactation cycles,” says Doniga. Doniga and Erik have four children. Lea, the oldest, is 13, Larry is 8 years old, Quill is 7 and Quince is 5. They are very interested and involved with the animals. “The two oldest each have their own animals that they take care of, and a certain part of the business is their responsibility,” says Doniga. “Thus, they also learn the finance part of it. They might work a certain number of months to earn a heifer in their name. After the heifer calves, they know that’s their calf. If we sell that calf, they can use that money to reinvest in their own herd. We make sure they understand all aspects of raising the animals.” The beef cattle are Belted Galloway—a breed that is very efficient and does well for grass finishing. “We started out with Angus, but when we transitioned to grassfed direct-market CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
Number 167
IN PRACTICE 7
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The Key to Successful Planned Grazing in Non-brittle Environments BY MARK BADER
have found that people struggle with implementing planned grazing in non-brittle environments largely because they forget to monitor and then replan. The reasons people forget to do this include: 1. The environment is more forgiving and the weather more predictable (i.e., more rain). 2. The top-soil (organic matter) is deeper, which means there is more carbon present to retain moisture. 3. Plant spacing is much closer. 4. A greater variety of plants species is present or you have planted a “super grass” monoculture (only one species) that will solve all of your problems. 5. A certain number of animals must be maintained to produce enough money to make the mortgage payments and/or other expenses.
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Monitoring Focus
If you are thinking about implementing planned grazing, you should consider these key monitoring questions on a monthly, if not daily, basis. Monitoring is an ongoing activity, not just a once-a-year event.
Early spring – Was there enough rain or snow in the winter months to sustain the growth of cool season plants until the spring rains? What happens if winter decides to stick around an additional 30 days or more? All of these early spring weather changes need to be monitored.
Summer – In the summer months, additional changes take place. In particular, a major switch from cool season to warm season plant growth
occurs. At temperatures of 80º F warmer, cool season plants stop photosynthesizing, which means they stop producing sugars, and the energy of the plant drops. In the case of fescue, this allows fungal growth. If half of the plants in your paddock are cool season and half are warm season, have you planned for periods of reduced plant growth due to temperature fluctuations? Some people plow down the cool season plants and plant warm season plants, then reseed cool season plants for the fall and winter, but not everyone has this kind of time and money. Animals – Another item to monitor is the increase in the number and size of animals. In particular, is there enough grass for the calves? As a calf grows, it consumes up to 40-50% of what the cow eats.
Adapting and Replanning
In these non-brittle areas, there is rarely a problem with too much plant/grass growth or too few animals, with the exception of mature plants whose energy, protein, and mineral content drop drastically and result in poor livestock performance. In such cases, some people will just make hay. However, there are many reasons not to make hay, such as: • The cost • Slow plant recovery • It opens the soil to the sun and dries it out • It reduces organic matter • It eliminates food sources for soil microbes • It limits root growth The problem with not enough plants or too many animals seems obvious, but many people must maintain their numbers, like dairymen, or someone in the family gave the animals names – “If it has a name, it’s a pet; if it doesn’t, its food” (Phil Roberston, TV’s Duck Dynasty). In these cases, here are a few suggestions: 1. Always have a few animals you can sell. For example, cull cows, steers, open heifers, horses, or sheep and goats. You can always buy back when/if conditions improve. 2. Buy more land. 3. As you properly plan, monitor, and replan, you will increase plant production, reduce plant spacing (i.e., more plants per square foot), increase the amount of food available to soil microbes which help feed the plants, and plants will grow deeper roots.
Soil Cover and Overgrazing
An example of good residual after grazing on the Brown Ranch.
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Overgrazing is a problem of time and not animal numbers. However, most people do not realize that overgrazing not only refers to the time it takes for the plant to recover, but also the amount of plant residue left to cover the ground after grazing. If an animal grazes a plant continually, the roots recede. On the other hand, if the animal grazes the plant short (but CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
Managing the Winecup-Gamble Ranch Holistically BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
he Winecup-Gamble ranch in northeastern Nevada (just south of the Idaho border and adjacent to the Utah border) is one of the largest ranches in the West. The California Trail and Emigrant Trail crossed over this landscape as thousands of settlers traveled west, and remnants of those trails are still visible. The Winecup has an interesting history. It was first owned by John Sparks who started filing on homesteads there in 1868. It was later owned by the Utah Construction Land and Cattle Company with their UC brand. In 1910 it was close to 3 million acres, and took 239 people to operate the ranch, and remained that size until the 1940s. In its early days it included a large sheep operation. Jimmy Stewart, the movie star, owned it for a while. Today it is the 6th largest contiguous private land holding in the U.S., with cattle running on a million acres. The ranch is 58 miles from its eastern boundary to the western boundary, and 36 miles from the south end to the north end. A family corporation bought it in recent years as a land investment, but for a time it went downhill, with erratic management. Now it has been turned into something that the owners are very proud of.
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Rehabilitating the Ranch
Raising grassfed beef on irrigated land, the Winecup-Gamble Ranch can make 3 times the amount of money that they would make haying that land.
The ranch today is managed by James Rogers, who has his own place near Twin Falls, Idaho. He commutes to the ranch in Nevada. He had managed other ranches, and happened into this job because he knew the financial advisor to the owner. “The accountant and I knew each other from an elk hunting trip, and stayed in touch. I was doing ranch consulting in Wyoming, helping wealthy land owners rebuild their ranches, gain more accountability for their managers, and create budgets and business plans rather than just spending money,” says Rogers. “Many wealthy landowners become disenchanted with their ranches being a money pit. This is unnecessary, especially with the cattle market today. Some of these ranches are treated as a manager’s playground as well as the landowner’s playground, and there isn’t much responsibility or accountability on the manager’s part,” he says. “I saw an opportunity to help educate managers and help landowners be become more proud of their ranches. Most of these owners are from other backgrounds and businesses, and they want to become more proud of the business side of their ranches, and be able to see some ecological benefit rather than just recreational. They enjoy being a part of the bigger story of ecological regeneration and creating herds of cattle that are environmentally adaptable without all the inputs. It makes sense to these guys because it is good business,” says Rogers. “I wanted to bring a more holistic approach, and started doing this for several wealthy large landowners in Sublette County, Wyoming. I was doing pretty well with that, and then this opportunity came along. The owner was thinking about selling the ranch; he’d become disenchanted with it. The ranch had been leased out and the manager was financially irresponsible and had a bad reputation with the government agencies; a lot of the range is Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. The owner had decided to fix it up and get rid of it. I agreed to help him do that,” says Rogers. The Dykes Everett Company from Florida came and did an amazing
transformation, especially rebuilding infrastructure. “We all sat down as a team and analyzed what this ranch needed. This started with the housing. You can’t attract good help, especially the kind of people you want, who will bring their families, if they have to live in a single-wide rat-infested trailer house,” he says. “We put new roofs on some buildings and brought in a couple of new modular homes. One man (Keith Holcomb) who worked for Dykes was a construction manager in Florida and knew how to clean things up and make it look right. He never tore down anything that had some structural value; he put new tin on barns and took the old concrete building that had been the old shop and made it into a nice horse barn,” Rogers says. “They brought me in just to handle the cattle side of things because they needed to get rid of some cattle and didn’t really know what they were doing. They weren’t sure if the cowboys on the ranch were any good or if they could get it done. So I was here in an advisory role during the first 1 ½ years, to help them buy some cattle and rebuild the cow herd. Then as things went along, the owner realized things were looking great. There were some good people working there and enough cattle to maybe make a little money. The owner decided to give this a shot and hang onto it. I was still commuting back and forth a couple or three days a week from Wyoming, so the owner asked if I would be interested in taking over. I decided to consider it,” says Rogers. “My wife and I talked about it, and prayed about it. We had just adopted 2 kids from Ethiopia the year before, and had our own needs such as school for the kids, etc. We have our own resources, so I told the owner that I’d like to live somewhere other than the ranch, and just approach the ranch as truly a business rather than a lifestyle for me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the lifestyle—because I do. I grew up ranching and I own my own cows, but I don’t want to be right here. A person can become too involved with the lifestyle, not paying enough attention to the business,” he says. “The owner liked that idea and asked where we’d like to be. We looked around and thought Twin Falls would be a good place to do a lot of our vendor relationships. Idaho is an ag-friendly state (not driven by gold CONTINUED ON PAGE 10
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some different techniques. We are still learning how to incorporate all of this, and it’s also a challenge to our ability to manage this much land mass,” he says. “It would be one thing to do this on 1,000 acres, but more difficult to do mining, like Nevada), and Twin Falls is an ag-friendly town, with all the on a million acres, and to do it with the BLM. This is checkerboard farms and dairies. So we settled here,” says Rogers. ownership, with 750,000 acres of BLM land and 257,000 acres of private “Instead of competing against the gold mines for labor, we opened up deeded ground. On much of that checkerboard pattern, we control a lot of a whole new opportunity for our labor force. I now have many employees from southern Idaho. I commute 2 or 3 days a week, depending on what’s the water. When John Sparks came into this area in 1868, when all the homesteading was going on, he and his family and employees filed on going on at the ranch. I’ve hired some amazing people and we are on a the water sources, springs and seeps or wet meadows, to tie that up as great journey together, doing amazing things. I get lots of positive private property through the Homestead Act. All the other property around feedback and comments. We are restoring the reputation of a legacy it, without water, they didn’t worry about. ranch that had a big black eye for many years--leased out to people who “They soon controlled a huge amount of acreage, like many ranches took advantage of it,” says Rogers. “I am glad to be a part of it now, and did at that time. Then when the railroad came through, it was granted 20 pleased to see such good employees here, with great families.” miles on either side. So there was all that private Making the Most land as well. Some of those of Grazing plots went to other people and not just the ranch; there The ranch has now are other owners out there diversified their enterprises in the middle of this ranch. and have some grass-fed beef Some of them we graze that they grow and finish, without a written agreement marketing them with their and some we do have story behind them. “We sell written agreements with. them to a meat company; we But it’s all about the water,” don’t own them all the way to he says. the retailer or consumer, but “We don’t have any we provide our story. These rivers, or even any big are cattle born and raised on creeks. Most of our water is the ranch, until they are just small seeps and springs finished on our pivot irrigation that we’ve developed for pastures with high stock stock water. We also have density grazing,” Rogers says. 72 water wells on the ranch, “It’s pretty neat to see this, 58 of which are actually right in the middle of the The Winecup-Gamble uses cover crops in their irrigated pastures to improve soil fertility. functioning, and some that Nevada desert, and it’s a very have either dried up or are different mindset regarding in disrepair, but we use how we utilize our irrigated wells in addition to all the seeps and springs,” he says. ground. Most of the ranchers here with irrigation grow a lot of alfalfa hay The irrigated ground has varied water sources. “On the Winecup side and ship it to California or Idaho for the dairies. We figure we can make about 3 times as much money off that same ground if we put it into grass- of the ranch there is actually a very high water table. It grows some surprisingly good grass, just from all the sub-irrigated ground. There are fed beef rather than hay,” he says. several springs in that area, with water close to the surface. The Gamble “We also focus on wildlife and wildlife habitat. The sage grouse are ranch is irrigated by well water. We have a farm there of about 2,800 definitely on our radar and part of our regenerative goals. The landscape acres but we are putting part of it back into perennial grass and do some in many areas had been denuded of vegetation from years of poor cocktail cover cropping and some alfalfa hay,” he says. management. We are taking a different approach. We are not trying to Rogers explains that the land where the farm is located was at one preserve anything; we are trying to restore everything. We are trying to do point 180 feet under the surface of prehistoric Lake Bonneville. The only things that will actually enhance what we have. This is in contrast to what water remaining today from that huge lake is the Great Salt Lake. “The soil so many people are trying to do, to simply preserve what they have,” here is very high in salts, so we are making changes regarding how we he explains. build new topsoil that is rich in microbial populations. We believe we can “Most of the cattle management in the Great Basin is very traditional. change the soil profile with the right management on the surface. This Ranchers just turn their cows out and let them roll through the pastures, includes cocktail cover crops, grazed properly with livestock,” he explains. and use the same pattern year after year. Cows and cowboys have “We do use pivots, wheel lines and flood irrigation on that side of the created habits; everything is always done the same. We tend to disrupt all ranch but we are now doing more grazing and less hay. We still put up of that. We use a pasture at different times of year and with different use—sometime high impact, sometimes low impact, sometimes complete some hay, but mainly just for weaned calves. Our focus is to try to get the cows to harvest as much as they can themselves,” he says. rest. We mix it up a lot with our philosophy of creating a resilient “Assuming we don’t get a big snow in winter, we keep our cattle out landscape,” Rogers says. “It seems like we are doing the right thing because we are seeing a lot nearly all times of the year. We have areas that historically were called of progress. Sometimes it’s still difficult, because it takes a lot of work and winter ground, but we’re using it different times of year. It all depends on
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the weather patterns and how we want to change things. We try to use in winter what had traditionally been used in the spring, and what they used in winter we try to use in the fall or spring. We want to create a more erratic pattern so we are not using the same pasture the same time every year,” he says. This gives the plants more rest and a chance for more plant diversity coming back. “We are in a permit renewal process right now with the BLM and changing our season of use in most of our pastures. The fancy word for this is adaptive management. If we get a high rainfall year or a low snow year in the winter, we want to be able to have flexibility. This may be the perfect time to use country during the dormant season that historically has been used during the growing season,” says Rogers.
Good People Make the Difference
The ranch has many employees, with their own areas of expertise. “We have a cow boss and a farm manager (managing the irrigated ground) and a manager for infrastructure (housing, vehicles, etc.), a manager for the grass fed division, and a water person who is in charge of all the wells and making sure they are working and pumps are pumping, and water tanks are in good repair,” says Rogers. “We have lots of support staff underneath all these people. I have a surveillance guy who helps me monitor our borders and watch for cattle theft. We work on good neighbor relations, as well,” he says. “I handle some of the issues we face and things like marketing livestock, cattle procurement, permit renewals, range monitoring, and agency relationships. We are heavily involved in sage grouse issues as well. We are active in SANE (Stewardship Alliance of Northeast Elko), which is a group of 8 neighboring ranches that proactively approach management and landscape-scale projects that will not only protect sage grouse habitat but other species as well. We have the philosophy that if we can manage the habitat on this broad scale we can make a difference. With all 8 ranches we encompass about 2 million acres. We try to
James Rogers beside a beaver restoration project on the ranch. collaborate on projects since sage grouse don’t know fencelines or boundaries. So we work together to try to produce some synergies and not have a fragmented landscape. We also created a fire department through that organization, trying to get more training and more equipment so we can be the first responders on wildland fires.” “We have other support people, including a financial guy who helps us deal with other resource things like gold mine exploration that’s going on at the ranch. The Ruby pipeline goes through the property, and he helps with the legal side of things as well as help build budgets. He and I work hand-in-hand on our projections for the ranch’s financial future—looking at places where we should be investing or not investing, and prioritizing. It’s good for me to have some outside council to bounce ideas off, and he’s a really sharp guy,” says Rogers. It helps to have a good team. “One of our philosophies is that we are in the business to grow people. We can grow cows and beef, but if we’re not growing our people and making them better, we aren’t doing our job. The guys under me are the ones I try to help so they can learn and grow, and maybe someday they can do my job. That’s the goal, to grow up people,” he says. Then you know you’ve been successful.
The Right Cattle for the Ranch
As grazing management and infrastructure has improved, the ability to allow for higher animal impact in some areas and longer recovery on pastures has also increased, which has also produced more forage productivity.
Environmental adaptability in the ranch’s herd has been a key focus for Rogers. “Every ranch is different,” he says. “Seedstock producers can’t replicate what people do with commercial cattle. Purebred breeders are notorious for maximizing production with too many inputs on their outfits, and we are needing optimum production with minimum inputs. Our environment is unique, and not very comparable to most of the seedstock operators.” “We’ve found some seedstock producers who have some genetics that we think will work in our environment that we are still testing. Most of these tend to be a little more moderate framed, higher capacity, highly efficient types. We feel there is also value in some nontraditional crossbreeding. We’ve played around with Beefmaster cattle, and are looking at using some Tule cattle to interject some different types of blood into the herd, primarily for disease and heat tolerance,” he says. CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
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one will go well into her teens. We think there is some real value in that group of cows. Right now we are breeding them to some straight black or straight red bulls and contemplating creating some composite bulls out of those cows, using a Tule bull or some Beefmaster bulls, or even some “Predominately we have English breeding. We have a lot of Angus Senopol bulls,” he says. and Red Angus cows and for awhile we were crossbreeding them and “We’ve been using some Beefmaster bulls from Lasater and doing terminal crossing with Charolais. But we had an aging cow herd. We fairly well with those. We don’t like a lot of ear influence but we see value discovered that we had some really good old cows on this ranch that in the hardiness of those cows in this droughty environment. If there was were getting bred to Charolais bulls with a terminal cross. So we weren’t any complaint it would be that they tend to milk too much and be a little keeping any of their daughters. We realized we needed to keep heifers so less fertile than our English-bred cattle. Our Red Angus and Angus are we got rid of the Charolais because even though those calves were extremely fertile so it is hard for any cows to compete with them regarding awesome, we needed to keep more replacements.” fertility, but there is value in some Brahma influence,” he explains. “We’d cut our cow “We are trying to get numbers through the completely away from drought, like so many having to treat cattle for people did, and now we parasites. Last year we are trying to build back. only poured half the cows We have chosen to not do for lice/worms and at this that with Charolais. Most point we don’t see much of them are just too big for difference between those our environment, even two groups. We want though we liked selling cattle that are fairly those big smoky-colored resistant to most parasites calves. Now we’ve also and disease. I think the created our own little English cattle are at a seedstock group of cows. disadvantage with this, so The cows here are why fight it so much, branded with the year of when there are already birth. Two years ago we cattle that can handle found a bunch of good these things. We are cows that were 11 years trying to become more in old or older that were still sync with nature.” A on the ranch and that person can continue to meant they had all had keep selecting and finecalves every year. They tuning genetics to create At 1 million acres, the Winecup-Gamble is a lot of land to manage with over 50 operating are preg-checked every a more hardy cattle herd wells. While water is a limiting factor, much has been done to improve the land, the year and anything that fits what you want. cattle, and the business with Holistic Management. open was sold,” “Now I feel like we Rogers explains. have a vision and a “After those cows had been out all winter long with very little purpose—and a defined direction. I really believe that the cattle that fit supplement—maybe some protein blocks--we brought them in and the our environment are not necessarily the smallest-framed little pudgy cow boss and I went through them and selected solid-colored cows, cows. There is a major disconnect between the livestock business and either all red or all black, with good udders. We knew they were all at the beef business. If all you have are really small cows, they might be least 11 years old, and had the best fleshing ability of all the cows on the very efficient, but we still sell pounds of meat. I’ve used some smallranch,” he says. framed bulls on our ranch and they work very well in our program but I “It was interesting, looking at all those cows--having them all together- think you can go too far in that direction. Even in our grassfed program, if -because they had some very distinct and unique conformation. We we end up selling a finished heifer that only weighs 900 pounds and her selected 200 head out of the 2,800 head from one side of the ranch. We steer mate only weighs 1000 pounds, you end up with only a 500-pound re-eartagged those 200 cows and put them in a separate herd that next carcass and it may not make money,” he says. Ultimately, there is a year, with some bulls we thought were the kind that were working for us, happy medium and each ranch has to figure out what works best. bulls that had held up in our environment for at least 3 years and had “I believe that a smaller, more efficient animal will work in our good feet. These bulls showed masculine traits and crested neck along environment better than a large animal, but to take her to the next level, with depth of body and capacity and still some muscling and dimension to to actually produce beef, I think you may need to breed her to a terminal their hindquarters, etc. They weren’t necessarily the very best bulls; we cross sire that works for that.” This is the simplest way to do it. were just looking for good cattle that work in our environment. So we bred “Why work so hard to try to be the best at everything (because you all those cows to those bulls and this year they calved for the first time can’t) and just create a phenomenal cow and then cross her with a with what we are keeping as bull calves,” says Rogers. phenomenal carcass sire. That’s the easiest route, as long as you can “We envision that program progressing. Those cows are now 13 years perpetuate the cow herd by not breeding them all to the terminal cross old or older. Most people would say that on a Nevada ranch you should bull,” he explains. be mouthing those cows and getting rid of them by that age. But a good “There is a lot of opportunity to perpetuate a good cow herd,
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especially on a ranch this size. We run 3 herds of cows across this landscape. We have 2,000 in one big mob, 1,900 in another big mob, and then we run all our first calf heifers in another group. We run all of the heifers out in big pastures,” he says. “They start calving the 15th of April, and whatever heifer comes into the branding pen later with a calf on her, she goes across the road to the next pasture with a branded calf and she gets an A-plus for doing her job. The ones that come in dry get sent to the grass fed division and end up as beef. There are no excuses. We probably have close to a 10% fallout; the heifers have a 42-day breeding season and if they don’t have a calf, or don’t bring one to the branding pen in late June or July, they are done.” This is a good way to select for the ones that will be good cows for the rest of their lives.
Managing Holistically
“Holistic Management is our philosophy and I think more people are headed in this direction, realizing that maybe they haven’t incorporated all the things that make a ranch successful—from the economical to the sociological to the ecological. We try to look at all of those things together. Every one of those components is valuable and maybe equally valuable,” says Rogers. “If you can’t support your family or your community or you are working so hard to try to make a buck that you miss your wife’s birthday, that doesn’t work. If your schools are in disrepair because the community as a whole isn’t making money and there is no support, the kids don’t get an education—and that doesn’t work, sociologically. So we look at it from the aspect of the ranch, preserving the culture, making sure our families are taken care of, etc. including insurance so we can support them during a catastrophe. We’ve focused on the social aspect and that leads to looking at what the kids are doing in their schools. We need to keep as much money here in our local communities as we can,” he says. “We support our local FFA chapter, some local rodeos, and for the last 4 years we have been involved in the Wounded Warrior program for our veterans—by providing an annual hunting trip in co-operation with the Nevada Outfitters and Guides Association.” “We also look at the ecological side of things and what we are doing for soil health and wildlife. Everything bounces back as a whole. It all has to work financially. Holistic Management courses and curriculum and instruction all come down to how you make decisions on your ranch and how you run those decisions through every one of those scenarios. It is a decision-making process,” he says. “Joshua Dukart came to the ranch, and he is a phenomenal communicator. I’d heard him speak a couple times and I enjoy his presentations. He has a lot of humility; he’s really young and hasn’t been everywhere but he really grasps these concepts and has a way to articulate and engage a crowd into thinking outside the box. I was excited to bring him to our ranch for a workshop last summer and help us solidify some of the things we believe and further our education. I have a lot of team members on my team here who had never been through any Holistic Management training. It’s hard to be a prophet in our own town sometimes, and it’s good to bring somebody from out of town to present things. Then the subjects I talk about will make more sense to my team,” says Rogers. “When I am begging people not to kill beaver, and trying to figure out a way to preserve all the work that the beaver are doing, it’s a challenge. If my cowboys are trying to kill every coyote, or I have one who wants to trap all the beaver, and I tell them they can’t do that and I’m trying to tell them why, they listen more if they hear it from somebody else besides me,” he says.
“The Stewardship Alliance of Northeast Elko has a large overarching goal and the Holistic Management philosophy is ingrained in that group. We are not all 100% practitioners, and when I talk about HRM (Holistic Resource Management, now Holistic Management) I do not necessarily mean that everything has to be exactly the way Allan Savory did it. There is some negative baggage there and we are not endorsing Allan Savory, but we are endorsing the concept—and appreciate all the hard work that Allan did in promoting a new framework of decision-making.” A person can take the concept and make it work in their own situation. “As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘As to the methods, there are a million and then some, but as to principles there are few. A man who can grasp the principles will develop his own methods.’ I think that’s what we are trying to teach in the Holistic Management classes—some of these overarching principles that empower people to go out and create their own methods. My methods may be a bit different than my neighbor’s methods but they should complement each other, because they follow the same principles,” he says. “One of the most important books I’ve read is For the Love of the Land by Jim Howell. This book was the catalyst for my journey in Holistic Management. Arlen Gentert, my farm manager, mentioned that you will never see things differently until you start thinking differently. That’s my challenge to my team; we really have to think differently.” “I see so many things on the ranch that a lot of people don’t see, just because I am trying to think differently about it. I’m looking for changes, anticipating some of those things because of some of the management we’ve implemented,” he says. “I have a pasture along the highway where we put our 200 head of old seedstock cows. It was ultra-high stock density for about 2 weeks. We put the bulls in with them and had all those cows in there, and then my cow boss got busy and couldn’t make the move when he needed to, and they ended up staying there a couple extra days. They had some serious impact on this small pasture. It was amazing. Now I drive by there and after we had the rain that we needed, I see all the grass on this side of the fence. On the other side, where there wasn’t any grazing at all last year, with very low impact, there’s not much grass. So you readily see the fenceline distinguishing that high-impact piece and to me it tells the whole story,” he says. “I’m always looking to see what change might have happened on a piece where the cowboys held a group of cattle to sort off some cattle. I look back the next year to see what impact it had. We branded in one of our irrigated meadows last year and it looked bad after the guys got done branding about 500 heifers; it looked like a corral. This year the grass is so tall it is almost laying over in that corner.” “There is no doubt this concept is not perfect and it’s hard for me to see how we can enhance the magnitude of this landscape that we are in charge of, at that kind of level, to get that kind of impact. We are just looking at every possibility; there are no bad ideas, just ideas that we have yet to try. We are looking at herding techniques, temporary electric fence in certain spots, and looking at combining our herd and getting more water resources available. Our limiting factor for heavy impact is water availability. When you have to give 2,000 cows a drink in a small area, that’s a lot of water—and we don’t always have that resource available. So we are focusing on trying to improve water capacity and cleanliness of some of these springs where facilities are worn out and spring-boxes are broken or tanks in disrepair. We are spending a lot of time getting these things fixed up and it’s making a difference.” Whether working on improving infrastructure, livestock genetics, or human capacity, the Winecup-Gamble Ranch, with James Rogers at the helm, are improving land health, wildlife habitat, and rural communities one decision at a time—holistically. Number 167
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Management practices, and enabled us to check in and see where we’re at—as a family and as a business. We redid our holistic context (goal). This is something that always helps. Even if Holistic Management cattle we brought in some Belted Galloway bulls to use on our Angus practitioners have read the books and done the courses, it’s always cows. Then we slowly built up our Belted Galloway bloodlines, buying out helpful to revisit these,” says Doniga. several small herds here and there. Now our cattle are predominantly “I am a big fan of HMI courses; they have really helped us and our Belted Galloway,” she says. business. We like to go through and relearn/review everything, in order to The cattle are spread out over the 5 main ranches leased by the really, truly be living the life we want to live, according to our values. I Markegards. Each ranch has its own resident herd. “Each ranch has a recommend this to any farmer/rancher. Even if they learned Holistic grazing plan and we’ve worked diligently on fencing and water Management 30 years ago, it’s helpful to every once in a while do a developments, catchment ponds, etc. so that we can implement our holistic review. We are always changing, and there is always more to learn,” she grazing plan for each place and deal with the complexity of management. says. It’s always a work in progress, with more to accomplish. Some of our ranches are a long drive from home, so we make sure the She and Erik are passionate about helping educate people about cattle moves are working nicely for both our lifestyle and the health of the sustainable farming and ranching. They bring school groups to the ranch land,” she explains. so the kids can learn that their All of the leases have an food comes from farms rather emphasis on conservation. “We than the grocery stores, and they work with the landowner to develop host ranch tours for the public. a plan that will enhance the Their CSA members get handsresources of the rangeland, yet at on experience with animals, the same time benefit the health of such as helping feed pigs, and our animals and the realities of what watching the cattle moves. we are doing,” says Doniga. The The Markegard Family Ranch grazing land is all range; there is no has hosted seminars and irrigated pasture. The grazing workshops, with rangeland management must match the terrain managers and educators like and natural environment. Properly Brock Dolman, Darren Doherty timed grazing help stimulate grass and Joel Salatin. Some of the growth and rangeland health, similar workshops included a two-week to how the native herds of elk and The Markegards have shifted their herd to Belted Galloway as they have found permaculture design course, antelope evolved on the same land cheese-making 101, and them to be efficient and well-suited to their grassfed beef program. for centuries. principles of raw milk production. The Markegard family prides itself Doniga has also been involved in with providing locally born, raised and processed grassfed beef and lamb, a working group for small dairy herds in California, and she spearheaded along with pasture-raised pork and dairy, for customers who want the legislation that would have enabled family farms to be more sustainable freshest and healthiest products. The meat produced is sold through and to utilize pasture in more productive and economical ways. farmers markets, and also can be ordered online. “We deliver to some Whether working on the farm, with customers, educating, or with the central pickup locations, and also deliver orders of $100 or more to legislature, the Markegards are focused on creating healthy food and people’s doors, in the Bay area,” says Doniga. customers as well as healthy land in Central California. Their products are not only the meat and dairy they raise, but also the conservation they provide for these public and private lands. With this business model they Teaching Others don’t have to own land to make a living and make a difference. For the past year Doniga has been enrolled in HMI’s Comprehensive More information about the Markegard grassfed business can be Distance Learning program in preparation for becoming a Certified found on their website: www.markegardfamily.com Educator. “This training has helped to reinvigorate our Holistic
Growing and Selling Grassfed Meat Successfully
continued from page seven
The Key to Successful Planned Grazing in Non-brittle Environments continued from page eight
not too short) and it is allowed time to recover, the plant not only has time to regrow, but also deepen its roots. Although the concept is simple, one thing is often overlooked: if the animal is allowed to eat the plant short, there may not be any plant residue left to cover the ground. Plant residue on the ground traps moisture and feeds the microorganisms that live in the soil. Therefore, 14
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if your paddock is newly seeded and the plants are growing fairly well and spaced several inches apart, do not graze it short without trampling a fair amount of plant matter down to cover the soil. As I talk to graziers around the world, I have found that if you focus on monitoring and observing what you have and what you need, you can successfully use planned grazing in any climate. Mark Bader is the President of Free Choice Enterprises. Free Choice Enterprises does ration balancing and manufactures free choice mineral supplements, taking a holistic approach to animal nutrition. He can be reached at: fce_bader@hotmail.com.
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
Audubon Award Winner
We are so pleased to announce that Holistic Management practitioner and Certified Educator trainee Deborah Clark, from Birdwell and Clark Ranch in Henrietta, Texas, is one of four recipients of the 2016 Terry Hershey Award, part of Audubon’s Texas Women in Conservation Program, which actively supports the role of women in the conservation movement, while also working to support girls and young women in the environmental sciences. In 2014, Deborah and her husband Emry Birdwell, were the inaugural winners of the University of North Texas Quail Keystone Ranch Award, due to an astonishing 452% increase in bobwhite quail populations on their ranch. Deborah is also a director for the Texas Wildlife Association Deborah Clark and the Cattle Raisers Association, and is currently enrolled in Holistic Management International’s Certified Educator program. Congratulations to Deborah. We’re so happy that you’re a part of our Holistic Management community!
Thanks to the Manitoba Grass Fed Beef Association for their donation of beef for the banquet. Thanks also to everyone who donated or bid during the auction which raised over $5000. Lastly, thanks to all those who helped with the Kid’s Program as there were 46 children registered.
Forty-six children participated in the children’s programming provided at the conference.
Canada Conference
Approximately 175 people attended the Western Canadian Holistic Management Conference in Russell, Manitoba on February 14-16th. The conference began with a brainstorming session of how Holistic Management Canada could expand. This session was then followed by a evening wine and cheese networking reception. The next morning the first speaker was Kier Barker who was born with spina bifida. His parents were told he would die before he could leave the hospital. He is now a well-known motivational speaker and shared his inspirational talk with the audience. The next presenter was a panel presentation which included Kaylynn Spain, founder of Small Farms Manitoba. Holistic Management practitioners Greg Wood & Lisa Clouston and Dan and Fran DeRuyck spoke about their experience with Holistic Management and working with Small Farms Manitoba. Gabe Brown spoke next about his experience with cover crops, cocktail crops, and planned grazing. Gabe has seen tremendous improvement in his land that has led to increased production, lower costs, and increased profit. There was also a panel on inter-generational transfer in which Gene, Cynthia, and Arron Nerbas shared their story as well as Wayne, Colleen, and Dana Gardiner sharing how they have addressed these issues. The following day Dr. Arden Anderson spoke about the direct link between soil health, animal health, and human health.
A wine and cheese reception was a great start to the Western Canadian Holistic Management Conference attended by 175 people.
NM Organic Conference
HMI participated in the New Mexico Organic Farming Conference held on February 19-20, 2016 in Albuquerque. There were roughly 850 participants from around the Southwest in attendance and this year it was held in conjunction with the Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance conference. There were a number of Holistic Management practitioners presenting at the event including folks from the Ranney Ranch and the San Juan Ranch. HMI’s Executive Director, Dr. Ann Adams, presented on how to do an Enterprise Analysis, and we also had a booth at the tradeshow there to provide outreach on our programs. The workshop had at least 50 attendees and participants enjoyed an opportunity to work on the worksheets as well as hear the presentation and learn from each other. Thanks to the great conference organizers at the NM Organics Conference and to all of the folks who stopped by our booth to visit. Number 167
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DEVELOPMENT CORNER Dry Creek Livestock Open Gate
HMI collaborated with our good friends, TOFGA (Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association), to kick off their 2016 organics conference with an Open Gate on February 11th at Dry Creek Livestock near Terrell, Texas. We met in the Rockwall Equine Center for the morning session. Lauri and Dr. David Celella, DVM started the equine veterinary practice in 1982 and have recently added a small animal division. Representatives from HMI and TOFGA spoke briefly to the 45 attendees about their respective organizations, then Holistic Management Certified Educator-in-training Lauri Celella’s briefly explained the Holistic Management principles and practices before drilling down on the decision-testing tool. Using actual decisions from her sheep business, Laurie demonstrated how she put each decision through the testing matrix to evaluate the social, financial and Dry Creek Open Gate environmental concerns as each affected the participants had the family’s holistic goal. opportunity to handle sheep Dr. Kraig Stemme, veterinarian, breeder of as well as learn about Kiko goats and student of Holistic techniques to discern health Management, presented management of the animals. solutions specific to dealing with the dreaded barber pole worm. He showed slides about the life cycle of the worm and explained management practices that take advantage of the weakest point in the life cycle of the organism to minimize infestation. He presented a technique for infestation assessment called FAMCHA. The Open Gate participants then had the opportunity to get hands on experience matching Dorper sheep eyelid color to the FAMCHA chart with the assistance of Drs. Stemme and Celella. After lunch, Lauri taught a segment on the Dorper breed and how to select the best individuals. NRCS District Conservationist, Monica Purviance, Outcomes
Understands how to better determine and monitor herd health Feels more confident in their ability to determine the biological weak link
Intends to test decisions for your operation as a result of this event
Intends to biologically monitor your herd/flock as a result of this event
87
80 96 92
Intends to change management practices/apply ideas learned in this event
100
Understands how HM includes ecological, economic and social aspects
77
Would recommend this event to others
Expanded network by meeting new people or learning about resources available to them
16
Percent of Respondents
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May / June 2016
100
100
explained the different assistance programs and answered many questions on each. Lauri explained some of her management techniques. We carpooled to the pastures down the road and split into two groups to further explore decision testing and to choose between David Celella’s talk on selecting Devon cattle for grassfed beef or a hayride through the pastures to look at fencing, water innovation and land health. The 30 participants who filled out our evaluation of the day represented 5,865 acres in 19 counties in Texas. Thanks to our funders and sponsor for support of this event.
Participants analyzing land health at Dry Creek Livestock.
Organic Award at HMI Namibian Open Gate
Four-hundred participants attended HMI’s first Namibian Open Gate held at Springbokvley Farm which coincided with owner Judith Isele receiving The Young Farmer award from the National Farmers Union (NAU) in Namibia. Namibian Holistic Management Certified Educator Wiebke Volkmann facilitated the Open Gate along with presentations by Wayne Knight, South African Holistic Management Certified Educator. The great diversity of people coming to this Open Day generated not only a sense of astonishment, but also celebration. The pioneers of Holistic Management in Namibia and elder leaders of organized agriculture, well-known politicians and community Wiebke Volkmann leaders, field facilitators and farmers from Namibia’s many and diverse communal lands and ethnic origins, staff of support organizations, NGO’s and agribusinesses, freelance consultants, educators and farmers came. After Judith Isele welcomed all guests and thanked all helpers, the president of the NAU, Mr. Ryno van der Merwe, spoke about the value of precision farming to deal with the many challenges that agriculturists face. Then Wiebke Volkmann spoke for both the Namibia Centre for Holistic Management and HMI explaining to the audience how the Namibia Centre evolved and some of the key players in that evolution and the willingness for the southern Africa Holistic Management community of educators and practitioners to help those interested in learning more about Holistic Management. Next, Wayne Knight, as an HMI Director, presented HMI’s award of Outstanding Demonstration Site of Holistic Management to Judith for her excellent work at documenting and sharing her Holistic
Management practice. The next presentation was a presentation by Mr Sakkie Coetzee, the CEO of the NAU and the coordinator of the Young Farmer of the Year selection committee. He shared information about the NAU’s current project (funded by the EU) to roll out awareness about the National Rangeland Management Policy and Judith Isele and Wayne Knight Strategy (NRMPS). This policy was co-drafted by Holistic Management educators Colin Nott and Wiebke Volkmann. Through their interaction with scientists, practical ranchers, government technocrats and rangeland consultants, the principles of Holistic Planned Grazing and key ecological insights of Holistic Management are included in the NRMPS. When Judith Isele spoke, her explanations clearly showed how the various principles and processes of Holistic Management helped her achieve the outstanding results which she could verify through thoroughly processed data and visual appraisal of her livestock and land base. Judith did not hold back with her challenges, either – mainly growing more grass than her livestock can cycle back into the ground through dunging, urinating and trampling. It is in this context that she described her experiments and scientific research where she compares two treatments to her “normal” holistic planned grazing as control: 4 replications in different areas of the farm received the equivalent of a double stocking rate. For this the three herds of animals moving through all of the 60 camps (paddocks) and stay twice as long as they would if they followed the “normal” planned grazing period. The other experimental treatment observes the effects of increased stock density from subdividing the paddock with temporary electric fencing with one day graze periods only. The stock density is not fixed – depending on the herd composition and the size of the camp. Forage composition, biomass production and plant vigor of all species on the fixed transects are measured twice a year and compared to the baseline taken in 2014. Judith’s provisional data makes clear that when measuring biomass production not only in terms of samples cut and weighed, but also in terms of what livestock have harvested and converted, the camps with double the stocking rate yielded more than the increased density and control samples. Many conventional farmers found it difficult to accept the statement: “I work with what I have here on Springbokvley: one species of perennial and one species of annual grass.” Rather than focusing on the species but on the vegetative state of these grasses, Judith aims to further increase digestabilty and nutritional value. With regards to production management Judith mentioned that she is led by the vision to farm sustainably and efficiently with animals that she likes. The indigenous Nguni cattle and Damara sheep breeds are adapted and require little external inputs. During her second presentation on how she puts principles into practice, she explained that initially the cattle and sheep ran in three herds, each in their own cell of camps to obtain maximum benefit from multi-species grazing. However, cattle and sheep tended to move in separate groups, and in 2013 Judith wanted to see
what behavior changes and impact it would make if all the sheep would move in one larger herd and cattle would be split in two groups – each as big as the water supply allows. Judith observed some loss in condition in mainly the sheep and now has started to mix the two species again to have greater flexibility in grazing planning and to make better use of especially sheep forage in all the camps during the early growing season. With regards to financial management Judith aims to “live now and provide for the future”. This she intends to do by doubling the profit per hectare in the near future. Control of daily expenses, good record keeping and planning are standard for her and spending a bit more to ease daily work load is the special challenge she set herself. After Judith’s presentation, Quinton Barnes, who manages a 15,000 hectare (37,500 acre) cattle operation near Ghanzi, Botswana, gave an overview of “What Is Holistic Management.” He sketched out the decision making framework he and his two brothers and their parents use for strategic planning and for day to day management on land in South Africa and Botswana. He also highlighted the holistic financial planning with the marginal reaction/comparing options test when comparing and selecting enterprises. He demonstrated how their decision to sell “long weaners” and to keep any animal until after the growing season and only sell it then, has profited them hugely, even with desperately low meat prices and late payments by the abbatoir. The field trip to view the farm took place in the afternoon. Roughly 300 people climbed onto cattle trucks and pick-ups with trailers. At two stops Wayne Knight facilitated question and answer sessions: One near cattle where the 400 participants from diverse backgrounds long-term effects of participated in the event. “normal” planned grazing could be observed – farmers were amazed at the amount of grazing that grew from such little rain – approximately 90 mm (less than 4 inches) this rainy season in comparison to the 182 mm (7.25 inches) long-term average for the same timespan/portion of the rainy season. After returning to the homestead, many participants stayed for a delicious organic Nguni steak barbeque and dance – an appropriate end to a day of celebrating what the parent generation of the young farmers had envisaged: An approach to livestock farming that addresses the root cause of land degradation and re-generates the potential of the land to satisfy social and financial needs as well as delivering ecological services that go way beyond the farm gate. Thanks to Judith Isele and her team of organizers as well as the Namibia Centre for Holistic Management for all their efforts to make this event a success. Thanks also to the Namibia Organic Association, the National Farmers Union, and the Leonardville Farmers’ Association for their support of this event. Because this event was an opportunity for the southern Africa Holistic Management community to come together, five Certified Educators, three CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
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Development Corner continued from page seventeen
Community Facilitators, and seven practitioners met the day after the Open Gate and shared current projects they are working on, as well as key experiences and insights regarding “content” and facilitation/ learning methodology and general dissemination of Holistic Management awareness. Also coinciding with this event was Wayne Knight’s presentation, “Experiences with Treating the Root Causes of Brush Encroachment,” at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) for 85 people. Wayne was asked by the Botanical Society to speak about this topic that dominates rangeland debates in Namibia. The audience was a combination of students, farmers, NGO and research station employees, consultants, scientists and members of the Botanical Institute and the Botanical Society of Namibia. HMI is excited to be collaborating with our southern African educators and practitioners to bring more Holistic Management programming to Namibia.
California Whole Farm/Ranch Results
An extremely well-attended Whole Farm/Ranch Business Planning series resulted in new connections and a strong start for many as they plan for a successful year. 38 participants represented a wide range of enterprises, from nursery owners to nature preserve employees, from ranchers to grain growers, and all found valuable connections with each other. The Ridgewood Ranch and Grange Farm School, under the leadership of Ruthie King, created a comfortable space for people to learn and connect so farmers and ranchers can look forward to many more workshops there. Instructed by Holistic Management® Certified Educator Richard King, the group enjoyed learning the essential aspects of Holistic Management, Holistic Financial Planning and Holistic Marketing and Business Planning in a series of three two-day workshops in January and February 2016. These three workshops are designed to train producers in the business aspects of managing an agricultural operation. In order to manage their operations successfully, participants learned how to describe the whole they manage in their farm/ranch, and then how to plan and achieve their financial needs within the context of their holistic goal. The step-by-step annual financial planning was presented so that everyone could comfortably develop their financial plan for the coming year, whether the plan was to be used for just their household, or their farm/ranch business, or a new agricultural business they wanted to create, or all three. When the class worked on exercises together in groups, they realized how much they learned from the experience and creativity of others in the group. At the last class gathering, everyone decided to have occasional follow-up meetings. They chose a leader from the class to make sure the follow-up meeting happens. They want to continue learning, ask questions, and expand their creativity in financial and business planning—holistically!!! Thanks to our funders The Christiano Family Fund and the 11th Hour Project and our collaborators, the Grange Farm School, the Farmer’s Guild, and the Mendocino Resource Conservation District. 18
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The 38 students in the class represented around 13,000 acres in a variety of enterprises. Here’s some of the key outcomes from the program. Outcomes
Improved ability to write a Holistic Goal
Improved knowledge of how to inventory farm/ranch resources
Percent of Respondents 96
93
Improved ability to integrate social, economic and environmental factors into decisions
89%
Improved processes to assess how time is spent on the farm
100
Intends to use Decision Testing on the farm
Improved ability to determine farm’s rough net worth
Improved ability to determine viable profitable enterprises for the farm Improved ability to identify logjams and adverse factors on the farm
Gained understanding in how to get the profit needed from the farm/ranch Intends to change management as a result of this course
Gained understanding in how a whole farm goal and financial plan helps develop a marketing plan that fits the farm/ranch Learned how to develop a marketing plan
Increased ability to implement systems and projects to move toward your whole farm/ranch goal Gained confidence in determining risk and how to mitigate it
Satisfied with the course, the pacing and the instructor’s effectiveness
100
100 84
90
95
100 100
100 94
94
88
Environmental Services of Well-Managed Rangelands Program in Mexico
In January, 65 ranchers from around Chihuahua State, Mexico, attended the “Environmental Services of Well-Managed Rangelands in the Chihuahuan Desert” workshop held at the Ascension County Cattlemen Association Headquarters. This event was part of the program Borders 2020 and was cosponsored by HMI because all the cooperating ranchers involved with this program are integrating holistic planned grazing in their management. We were excited to have such a great turnout at this event, with attendees influencing 88,125 acres in this desert grassland ecosystem. On the first day, Gerardo Bezanilla, who coordinates the project and is on the HMI Board of Directors, explained to the attendees how this project is pushing the 9 cooperating ranchers (8 in Mexico and 1 in USA) to expand their vision beyond producing more forage and profit to contribute to an overall healthier environment. He also explained how their management can positively or negatively affect other people far away from their ranches. The second presenter was Mr. Peter Donovan answering questions about carbon soil.
Peter Donovan, founder of the Carbon Coalition and of the Carbon water level fluctuations in water wells. Challenge, who explained how carbon work in soils and how increasing its Here’s some of the key outcomes from this event: content in soil can contribute to solve some of the complex environmental problems we are facing. Outcomes The next presenter was Dr. David DuBois, a New Mexico Meteorologist and Professor at New Mexico State University. He talked about the issues The effect of bare soil on air quality and human health connected between wind soil erosion, dust air pollution, and health problems How to evaluate the health of the land in urban areas such El Paso Texas, Las Cruces New Mexico, and Juarez, Chihuahua. The negative impact of wind erosion makes an even more Improved ability to determine water infiltration powerful case for the need for good grazing management to keep soil Improved ability to determine soil health covered with vegetation to reduce the consequences of soil erosion. Improved understanding of the value of planned grazing The fourth presenter was Dr. Carlos Ochoa, Professor from Oregon State Improved ability to understand health of land University. He explained how watersheds can be healed using planned grazing and how we can harvest more water for livestock, wildlife and to Intend to complete monitoring on own land as a result of event produce forage, as well as store more water underground at the same time. Would recommend the event The second day took place at Las Lilas Ranch where the attendees Overall satisfaction of the even learned how to measure carbon in soil, soil wind erosion and underground
From the Board Chair BY DANIEL NUCKOLS, PHD
he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a daunting mission statement. Their stated purpose is to ensure that all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment, while offering a Federal front to reduce environmental risk based on the best available scientific information. Their mission statement goes on to say that environmental protection is an integral consideration in U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy. Moreover, the EPA claims that environmental protection contributes to making our communities and ecosystems diverse, sustainable and economically productive. The mission statement concludes by arguing that its policies are meant to ensure that all parts of society—communities, individuals, businesses, and state, local and tribal governments—have access to accurate information (emphasis added) sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks. I, among others, were on the receiving end of this access to accurate information first-hand, while recently attending the EPA’s public meeting in Dallas entitled, “Modernizing the Regulatory System for Biotechnology Products.” Through the use of tables that outlined the “oversight of biotechnology products and relevant coordination across the EPA, FDA, and USDA”--all still under review and hence will not be covered in this piece—the meeting’s purpose was “to illustrate current Federal roles and responsibilities regarding biotechnology products.” This was addressed by reviewing case studies of hypothetical products” (emphasis added). The hypothetical case studies included: genetically engineered (GE) corn with pesticidal properties; GE plum with pesticidal properties; GE herbicidetolerant canola; GE rose; GE algae for biofuels and; GE rabbit. As made clear to us, these hypothetical cases were for “discussion purposes only,” so I am not at liberty to divulge their contents. Needless to say, however, I and other audience members wondered why we were being treated to “hypothetical cases,” when the EPA has many years of data on actual cases. We were also concerned over why we were not treated to
T
Percent of Participants 80%
75% 80%
75%
93%
98%
92%
100% 98%
longitudinal data that covered all the stages of the policy cycle, so that we may ascertain the actual effectiveness of their policies, especially at it relates to evaluation and post-commercial assessment. In a nutshell, where was the access to accurate information? Equaling troubling was the strong evidence of binary thinking. Namely, the program’s notion that there are seemingly only two needed models when addressing environmental health in general, and agriculture in particular. The claim is that the first model, consisting of the traditional/industrial agriculture complex, can be rescued by a more vibrant second model. This second model is composed of the contention that we need to GE our way out of a failed agricultural system, and instead promote policies that incorporate biotechnology products. Needless to say, audience members from private sector companies that develop and promote GE processes and products were most happy; but at the same time they encouraged the EPA to lessen its regulations; asking the EPA to “get out of our way,” so that the biotechnology entrepreneurial spirit could flourish. Those that practice Holistic Management know the failings of binary thinking, and put forth a third way. We are concerned over the idea that we can successfully genetically engineer our way to a healthy agricultural system. Instead, Holistic Management strategies and programs are about dealing with ambiguity and complexity, with an appreciation for heterogeneity over homogeneity, diversity over mono-crops. Holistic Management advocates know they are dealing with land systems that they are not going to “control”—rather exploring how to partner with nature so that all may thrive. Our operations improve the health of the land, animals, and that of the public. They show that not only is it possible but financially viable to produce healthy meat and produce, without the always necessary need to look towards GE for solutions, especially when the problems were created by traditional/industrial farming practices. What gives me hope, against the great odds represented by corporations who hope to profit from ill-constructed solutions to the complex problems we face, is the Holistic Management community of producers and consumers who know there is a better way, and who make a difference in the world through how they grow food and how they support those healing the land. Please continue to spread the word about regenerative agriculture and Holistic Management. Together we can feed the world with family- and earth-friendly agricultural practices.
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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)
Kelly Mulville
P.O. Box 23, Paicines, CA 95043 707/431-8060 • kmulville@gmail.com
*
D. Nelson *11728Donald 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)
1105 S. Tracy, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/599-7755 (c) • montagne@montana.edu
20 IN PRACTICE
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
CANADA
Box 817 Meadow Lake, SK S0X 1Y6 306/236-6088 • 320/240-7660 (c) doncampbell@sasktel.net
4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 • 406/581-3038 (c) kroosing@msn.com
*Montana State University
150 Caroona Lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h), 61-4-1853-2130 (c) graeme.hand@bigpond.com
Don Campbell
MONTANA
Cliff Montagne
“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
Ralph Corcoran
Box 36, Langbank, SK S0G 2X0 306/532-4778 rlcorcoran@sasktel.net
May / June 2016
NEW YORK
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
6143 SR 9, Chestertown, NY 12817 518/494-2324 (h) • 970/946-1771 (c) craigrleggett@gmail.com
1277 S CR 305, Orange Grove, TX 78372 361/537-3417 (c) • tjlitle@hotmail.com
200 Creamery Rd., Brooktondale, NY 14817 607/539-6512 (h) • 607/342-3771 (c) info@shelterbeltfarm.com
Peggy Sechrist
Erica Frenay *Shelterbelt Farm
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
Lisa Bellows
TEXAS
*North Central Texas College
1525 W. California St., Gainesville, TX 76240-4636 940/736-3996 (c) • 940/668-7731 ext. 4346 (o) lbellows@nctc.edu
Guy Glosson
Peggy Maddox
9460 East FM 1606, Hermleigh, TX 79526 325/226-3042 (c) • westgift@hughes.net
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
Matheson *228Sandra E. Smith Rd., Bellingham, WA 98226 WASHINGTON
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 • 608/957-2935 (c) 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)
UNITED KINGDOM Philip Bubb
*32 Dart Close, St. Ives, Cambridge, PE27 3JB 44-1480-496-2925 (h) • +44 7837 405483 (w) pjbubb99@gmail.com
• Book Review
by ANN ADAMS
Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain
BY STEVEN LEVITT AND STEPHEN DUBNER; William Morrow, 2014
recently had the opportunity to read Think Like a Freak, written by the authors of Freakonomics. In this book they posit that thinking like a freak means thinking differently than the way we have been taught or how most people think. It made me think about how sometimes thinking holistically can make you seem a little crazy to your neighbors. Lots of holistic managers have told me, “The neighbors think I’m crazy.” But, I’ve also heard that over time those neighbors begin to ask some questions as it becomes clear that the results on the other side of the fence is more than a year of good luck or more rain falling next door. Here’s what Levitt and Dubner say are the key ways to retrain your brain. You’ll see that some of them sound familiar. 1) Put away your moral compass—In other words, don’t assume you know what is “right.” Look at the picture fully and gather all the information to make an effective decision. 2) Learn to say “I don’t know”—because it frees you to up to ask questions and find out more to give an informed opinion or make a decision. 3) Think like a child—because curiosity is such a critical skill to ask questions that are outside the box. 4) Find the root cause of the problem—since we know fixing the symptoms is only a short term fix.
I
5) Learn about incentives—the right ones can really help improve the situation, but the wrong ones can make the situation worse as well as wasting valuable resources. 6) Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—by being honest about the challenges as well as the benefits to any given idea. 7) Learn to quit—be willing to explore other options so you don’t get stuck thinking you have to continue with something just because you have sunk so much time or money into a project. One would think these “practices” are all common sense. But, most people say that about Holistic Management. Levitt, as an economist, and Dubner, as a journalist, have spent a lot of time collecting data and trying to show how by approaching problems with these strategies helps people solve complex problems that other people have not been able to address. In particular, one point they brought up that seemed particularly appropriate was “to think small.” They noted that many people feel like we can just think up a big solution to a big problem. Rather, the way big problems get fixed is by one person solving a piece of the big problem which then allows others to build off of that solution. The need for trial and error will always be there and it is a matter of increasing our skill in asking the right questions. If you are feeling a little like a “freak” or you want to deepen your understanding of how to ask the right questions to get you started on solving some of the problems you face, Think Like a Freak gives some good pointers and a lot of great stories of how people applied these concepts to address the problems they faced.
THE MARKETPLACE l Services, Inc. KINSEY Agricultura
? E R U T S A P E S N E D NUTRIENT-
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.
Soil test as soon as conditions permit to add lime or other needed nutrients for pasture and hay crops.
10% off all soil analyses 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
Use “IP16” code when completing soil form Good until July 15, 2016
Number 167
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
May / June 2016
“Bud Williams� 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 SURÀWDEOH DQG how livestock marketing based on today’s price (no crystal ball) can help you realize \RXU SURÀW JRDOV May 25-26 — 2 Day Stockmanship only, Dickinson, ND May 30-June 1 — 3 Day Marketing/ Stockmanship, Wawota, SK Coming also to Alberta, Wyoming, and Iowa!
www.handnhandlivestocksolutions.com info@handnhandlivestocksolutions.com 417-327-6500
THE MARKETPLACE
HMI 2016 GATHERING PAICINES, CALIFORNIA OCTOBER 14-16, 2016
On the ground learning with a community of inspired, passionate land stewards. Registration opens in April!
SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE: • Greg Judy • Brock Dolman • Owen Hablutzel • Richard Wiswall • Paul Kaiser • Jessica Prentice • Charlotte Smith • Dr. Thomas Cowan
IAN MITCHELL-INNES US Schedule 2016 April 17-23 • Piney River Ranch, TN Leemccormick@gmail.com; 615-330-0309 May 5-7 • Green Pastures, MO gtjudy4099@gmail.com; 660-998-4052 May 11-13 • Addison Ranch, OK addisonranch.blogspot.com May 20-21 • Desert Grasslands Alliance Chihuahua, Mexico info@pasticultoresdeldesierto.com June 10-11 • Brian Maloney Quebec, Canada b.maloney@sympatico.ca; 819-985-3882
June 26- July 2 • Elam Stoltzfus Lancaster, PA kenpac22@gmail.com; cell 610-858-2249
June 15 • Stone Barns, NY craigh@stonebarnscenter.org 914-366-6200 x116
July 6-8 • Sweet Grass Dairy, Coleman, OH www.sweetgrassdairyofohio.com
June 24-25 • Roman Stolzfus Lancaster, PA
July 10-16 • Michael Thiele Manitoba, Canada. mthiele@mymts.net; 204-365-6334
• Rebecca Burgess • Kelly Mulville • Joe and Julie Morris • Tina Williams • Allen Williams • Leslie Dorrance • Judi Earl
Kansas Ranch Manager Wanted 4L Grazing, LLC is the operating arm of the Ferrell Ranch in the beautiful Flint Hills south of Beaumont, Kansas. The company is seeking an individual to fill the position of ranch manager. We are issuing a Request for Management Proposal as a process for determining the best manager for our purposes. Interested persons may email Pete Ferrell at gpferrelliii@sktc.net for more information: use “RFMP” in the subject line of your email.
Ranch Manager Wanted! Need a farm or ranch manager? Your advertisement here gets you in front of the Holistic Management network. For ad rates contact Ann Adams anna@holisticmanagement.org or 505/842-5252 x105 Number 167
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
We need a saddle! Or a tablet, fishing pole, gift certificate or other great item for our
Silent Auction
Held at HMI’s 2016 Gathering, Cultivating Community: Land, Food and Community, October 14-16, 2016. Proceeds from your donated goods will help teach more people from all over the world to grow healthy land, healthy food and thriving communities! The following are types of items that can make our silent auction a success! Will you help with:
• Travel: Farm and ranch stays, hunts, travel • • • • •
vouchers and tickets for exciting experiences. Outdoor gear, equipment and collectibles Vouchers for grass fed or free range foods and other artisanal products* Gift baskets Gift cards/certificates Jewelry, art and other works of craftsmanship
Gifts of a certain value may also include your business listing in our conference program. Let us tell our community how your business supports the important work of healing land and creating thriving communities! We also have incredible conference sponsorship opportunities available. Contact Kelly at 505-842-5252 ext. 107 or at kellyc@holisticmanagement.org.
We hope to see you in October! *Items that can be purchased with vouchers need to be able to be shipped.
Printed On Recycled Paper