Critical choices for crop and livestock production systems that enhance productivity and build ecosystem resilience
This report provides an overview of systems of production that reduce negative agricultural impacts on the use of soil, water, and biological resources; many highlighted approaches (e.g. maximizing crop residue, enhancing nutrient and water cycles, etc.) regenerate ecosystem resilience and ecosystem services. Planned grazing strategies recognize that it is not livestock per se but the choice of grazing management system and its suitability for the landscape, that leads to positive or negative effects. Holistic Management (HM), which uses timed controlled grazing to replicate the behaviour and effects of wild herds of ungulates in original ecosystems, particularly in semi-arid areas, is the best known grassland management system that uses livestock as a tool to enhance productivity and ecosystem function. HM has been used effectively on different continents to restore grassland ecosystems in the absence of increased rainfall or irrigation.
From the Ground Up: Holistic Management and Grassroots Rural Adaptation to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy across Western Canada
This study examines the impacts of and adaptive responses of producers in western Canada to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which has adversely affected farmers and rural communities around the world. In particular, it explores how holistic management (HM), with its combined focus on environmental, social, and economic sustainability, might mitigate the effects of BSE.
The Investment Case for Ecological Farming
Fox Ranch – Colorado
The Colorado Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (the Conservancy) and the Savory Institute (SI) agreed in 2011 to work together to advance the joint strategic interest and desire to enable enhanced conservation, restore ecological functions, and safeguard biological diversity of the seasonally dry grasslands of the world through the use of Holistic Management.
Working in tandem with natural variability: New paradigms for livestock grazing in Australia
This submission to the Australian House of Representatives summarizes how grazing with Holistic Management (HM), a proactive, low-tech solution, (1) provides flexible management options in the face of climatic uncertainty, and (2) enhances the resilience of the natural environment, thus leaving it better prepared for climatic variability.
N.D. Rancher Builds Biological Capital
This 2009 article in Beef Producer magazine follows Gene Goven and his 1,500-acre ranch in South Dakota, USA. Researchers have documented that grasses penetrating only 3 to 5 inches,now send down roots four to 10 times as deep. From 1982 to 2001, water infiltration in his soils increased from 0.8 to 6.2 inches/hour. His grazing season also lengthened, increasing from 150 – 180 days of grazing a year to 230 – 270 days.
