Carbon Farming Coming to the Hudson Valley

Gaia University Northeast has agreed to host the next Carbon Farming Course in January 2012!

We’ll update you as things move forward – Trainers, Dates, and Venues will all be announced in the coming months.

Which Regenerative Agriculture & Carbon Farming modules would you like to see here in the northeast? Let us know in the comments.

Carbon Farming: Concepts, Tools & Markets

Ethan Roland of Carbon Farming Tennessee and Gaia Northeast presented this talk at the 2010 Northeast Organic Farming Association’s  Winter Conference. Read more and download a resource sheet at www.regenerativedesigns.wordpress.com.

Carbon Farming Course 2009

Welcome to the Carbon Farming Blog!
Stay tuned for in-depth articles and information direct from our array of world-class trainers

Carbon Farming Tennessee – August 25 – September 16, 2009

Click here for more info.

Holistic Management Grazing Planning

Howdy, Larry here again – today we got into some of the real meat of Holistic Management – the details of grazing planning! My notes and some video from the day are below.

Animal Units, Animal Days – An animal unit is a cow of 1000 pounds, given a cattle ranching operation. A bull is two, and a calf is 0.5 unless weaned, then 0.75.
These ratios are adjusted based on species, breed, etc. but is simply a standard unit.
An Animal Day is how much a standard animal unit eats in a day. Land is budgeted based on Animal Days per Acre.

Kirk took us out into the nearest meadow and we paced out the area he estimated would support a cow and calf for a day given them eating 50% of the volume of leaf material. His analysis of the forage grasses, demonstration of the depth to which a cow would eat, explanation of how to determine level of stock density a piece of land can support were some of the best parts of the course so far. He also described a process for estimating forage quantity in a pasture, described in the video below:

The afternoon began another group project case study on developing a grazing plan for a hypothetical ranch with a number of interesting factors affecting the plan that may not have been intuitively obvious. Here we nailed down plans taking into account minimum and maximum plant recovery times and coordination of all of the paddock grazing times to ensure we meet the minimum recovery times based on time spent in the other paddocks. We then did a closed plan, based on forage built up during the growing season, to feed the stock during the plant dormant season. The plans produced ensured that overgrazing would not occur and provide a guideline – but as Ike said, Plans are meaningless but planning is essential. Reality always intrudes and forces changes to the plans. The tools Kirk provided will become a regular part of each of our toolkits.

Lastly, we heard from some of the class members who are now doing rotational grazing and the types of equipment and solutions they use in order to minimize their costs. It was helpful to hear from real users about what works and does not work for them.

Planning for Nonprofitability

I’m Larry, and I’m in the Holistic Management course as part of the Carbon Farming course because my wife (an artist) and I (a former electrical engineer) moved to a pecan farm in rural Georgia a couple of weeks ago from a village in upstate New York and I’m hoping to get a broad education in sustainable farming techniques with a relatively short investment in time. We need the help of animals to help maintain the land (the Holistic Management module), and will need to make use of innovative water management techniques (the Keyline design module), collect and distribute greywater harvested rainwater and build a forest garden (Regenerative Earthworks and Forest Gardens module) and build the soil and for inspiration meet Joel Salatin, several of whose books we have read.(Soil Food Web and Pathways to Relocalization module).

Day 04 – Holistic Mangement, Financial Planning

Holistic Management Financial Planning acknowledges that most of us in the US are inculcated with consumerist values and that these carry over into our own financial management. Many of us spend up to our potential, and as our means increase our spending increases proportionately. Unless savings are planned, they are often forgotten. Translated into business management these characteristics or behaviors lead to targeting for breakeven operation rather than profitability. Holistic Management Financial Planning takes these cultural traits into account by targeting for profitability by SLASHING projected revenue and at the same time budgeting for overhead and expenses at a level well below that for the adjusted revenues.

Expenses are categorized into 4 buckets:

1. Expenses that generate new wealth,
2. Inescapable expenses,
3. Maintenance expenses, and
4. “wrong’ expenses.

Expenses are budgeted in this priority.

Opportunities for action are addressed using the Holistic Management decision criteria,

• Cause and effect – are we addressing a symptom or a cause?
• Weak Link – are we addressing:

– something holding up progress
– the weakest part of a lifecycle issue in a biological process?
– the weakest link in a chain for solar energy to money (conversion, production, marketing)?

• Marginal reaction – which of the possible actions provides greatest return per unit investment?
• Energy/money uses and sources: internally or externally-sourced money and energy? Is pattern cyclical, consumptive, building capital, etc?
• Gross Margin analysis: what does each potential oppurtunity contribute to covering of overheads?
• Society and Culture: Does this align with our values?
• Justification: Did we rationalize in order to make our pet idea look good?

Day 04 – Financial Planning Exercise

The afternoon session was spent with a complex case study exercise making use of data which would do a business school proud. We had to wade through a lot of information, critiquing the presented spreadsheet analyses for potential opportunities, while at the same time doing a snapshot of their projected profitability based on a set of budgets and projected expenses. What could we suggest as groups to make the business (a ranch) more profitable, consistent with the owner family values and their vision for what they wanted the property to become.

The case study groups then presented their results, a taste of one of which is shown in the video below:

Stay tuned for more Holistic Management and Carbon Farming!

Welcome To Holistic Managment

Hello my name is Ben Murray, I am going to be one of your blog correspondents for the very exciting Carbon Farming Course Series, that has just started on The Farm in Summertown Tennessee. I was lured here by a series of serendipities and a deep passionate commitment to realize a harmonious integration of the Human family back into harmony with our natural environment. I am a Permaculture designer and carpenter. I am currently based between Nevada City in Ca for half the year and then the other half in Ecuador working with the Red De Guardians De Semillas (seed guardian network).

Holistic Management Course – Day 1:

After a round of introductions, we dove into an overview of Holistic Management, including the 4 Key Insights and the 6 Steps of the Holistic Management Process. As we moved into an understanding of the first Key Insight “Nature Functions in Wholes”, we worked with our own projects to Define exactly what “whole” we are managing. To do this, Kirk introduced us to Stephen Covey[link]’s ‘Circle of Concern’ (all the issues you care about in the world) and ‘Circle of Influence’ (all the areas we can currently influence directly) — this allows us to see what we can and cannot do, and focus our personal energies strategically so to achieve our goals. AND, if we are effective within our circle of influence, this circle can expand outward into our circle of concern.

Kirk also shared some incredible series of slides showing landscape regeneration as the consequence of adopting Holistic Management practices. In these slides you see the impresive impact on the water cycling that ultimately has allowed (in a relatively short amount of time!) to bring this erosion gully into a perennial stream – now full of trout!

Holisitic Management first defines a “whole” to be managed (people, resources and money), and creates what is known as an holistic goal that mirrors these three aspect of the whole. Before implementing projects, any effects on these three aspects must be considered, and the project must simultaneously meet economic standards concerning the viability of the operations.

At present, agriculture and many other businesses are struggling to maintain viability. Decreased income often leads to a focus on increased production and harder work. But, if the fundamental decision making process that led to the present situation is not changed, no real progress is likely to be made. Presently, many people involved in agriculture do not realize they are working against “nature’s rules” and that their efforts are likely to be drastically less successful until they learn to work with this process. In the end, nature always wins and our production systems inevitably must change to be sustainable.

Too often, conventional agriculture focuses almost solely on achieving production goals and solving specific problems, which can create unforeseen and unintended consequences that eventually detract from land health, personal and family time and, ultimately, profitability.

Holistic management is effective because the resource base ultimately supports the financial goals and those of the people involved who depend on the business for their livelihood.

The course is teaching us to define their unique whole, define our unique holistic goal, and to make decisions that are economically, environmentally and socially sound towards our goals. It is a process that works and has a proven track record of more than 20 years.

This course is walk us through the principles that help bring the abundance and diversity of natural systems to large-scale permaculture systems. Managing land holistically integrates land planning, financial planning, grazing planning and biological monitoring to find ways of being efficient and creative with your resources to achieve the environmental and financial results that make for a sustainable, long-term business.

Holistic Management Course – Day 2:
We very simply looked at the utter important of having one’s goals clearly defined to obtain the desired objectives. We explored some of key questions to help unfold and articulate the most important aspects that we want to manifest.

Specifically, we learned that the Holistic Goal includes

Quality of Life (Values – Why?)
Forms of Production (What?)
Future Resource Base (How?)

In the afternoon, we headed out to a local site to do some practical site analysis & assessment. We went out and did some practical exercises using the Kirk Gadzia’s excellent publication “Bulls eye! Targeting Your Range land Health Objectives.” This document gave us simple, clear, measurable benchmarks for monitoring the health and potential regeneration of a piece of grazing land.

Kirk told us a little story about the creation of the tool – he asked,Have you ever shot a gun or a bow at a target? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to hit when you shoot at a target
most people have an understanding and a relationship to the target. IT’s a deeply archetypal form in our head.

Hit the bulls eye, of course. So Kirk & Todd Graham designed this tool to help us quickly evaluate the health of a grazing landscape. We looked at Plant Species Diversity, Amount of Erosion, Plant Pedastaling, Diversity of Living Organisms, and 10 other criteria. The publication also gives some guidelines for articulating your goals and directions to go for grazing land management tools and actions. You can download the whole publication for free at Kirk’s website here.

Carbon Farming Course 2009

Welcome to the Carbon Farming Blog!
Stay tuned for in-depth articles and information direct from our array of world-class trainers: Joel Salatin, Elaine Ingham, Darren Doherty, Brad Lancaster, Eric Toensmeier, and more! Course registration links below.

Carbon Farming Tennessee – August 25 – September 16, 2009

Click here for more info.