Healing the Land through Holistic Management

While the old paradigm of sustainability was based on a principle of scarcity, and an action plan of “doing no further harm,” the acceleration of global environmental issues is calling for a “regenerative” approach, wherein we active restore our ecosystem.   This may seem a challenge beyond our powers as humans, but Allan Savory is one individual who has stepped up to the plate to work on a socially responsible solution to land degradation.

Savory Institute - Holistic Grazing
Management

Many conservation efforts in the past have consisted in restoring the land to a natural state by removing all trace of human food production – agriculture or animal husbandry.  But Savory studied grassland ecosystems, and their interdependence with hoofed grazing animals, and realized that this symbiosis could be mimicked with well-managed bunch herds.  The advantage is that these animals, cattle, sheep and goats, can be managed for food production. So the land is restored AND the process is economically viable.   Livestock is carefully managed to move through a rotation of fields, where their hooves stimulate and open hard capped soil, capturing moisture and supporting more plant life.  They also drop fertilizer.

Rotational pasture grazing for poultry

The problem with this cow poop is that it comes in large, concentrated doses.    Chickens can solve this problem.  Rotating chickens into the pasture right after the lifestock  “refines” this system even more.   Poultry like grubby bugs, and feast on the larvae that grow on the cow dung.   So they scratch apart the dung and redistribute it a bit, and leave their own daintier dung widely distributed.  A portable hen house makes the egg collection easier. A smaller scale system can be set up for rotation pasture grazing in an urban setting, rotating the chickens through sectioned off areas of a yard or garden.

This reminds me of one of those campfire songs -  there’s a… flea on the hair on the wart on the frog on the bump in the log at the bottom of the sea  (yes  - those are the lyrics).   What comes after poultry? Is there yet a smaller animal which could be introduced?  A nitrogen fixing crop? Worms?  I feel there is another verse here, but don’t know the lyrics.  Anyone?