Just get started!

In the regenerative farming world there are a lot of voices preaching about what you need to be doing. Be it scientists, government agencies, consultants or fellow farmers everyone has an opinion on how you should be doing it and how to do it best. I think that too often we get caught up in a race to improve our land, increase our carrying capacity and so on. My great-grandfather always said “use what you’ve got.” I try to remember this simple phrase when my mind is thinking about improving our ranch business. Too often I see folks preaching that you must have at least 14 pastures, double your stock density for greater impact, etc. The reality is most ranchers are not equipped or have the time for a more intensive grazing management system. Grazing is simply one of the many tools in our toolbox. If you have four pastures then that’s okay. Rotate your livestock to the best of your ability. As you have time and the cash on hand make improvements as you see fit for your context. Don’t get caught up in the rat race of what everyone else is doing. Most of us in the regenerative agriculture realm have big dreams of what our land will be like someday. We imagine a soil organic matter of 5%, 20 or even 30 paddocks to rotate our livestock throughout, multi-species grazing in our paddocks and so on. The reality is that it took us ten years to get all of this and we still have a long ways to go. These things don’t happen over night. As one of my consulting clients says “it’s a marathon, not a sprint to get there.”

My early mentor, Gerry Shudde, is probably the best example of “using what you’ve got” that I can think of. Gerry sort of took it to the extreme when it came to being frugal, but needless to say had a great cattle operation. Our ongoing joke has always been that I’m going to give him gate chains and latches for Christmas because all of his gates on the ranch are fastened with bailing wire (even in the cattle pens). He still uses the same John Deere 2020 that his father owned, drives a 20 year old Chevrolet truck, the cattle trailer is probably 30 plus years old (I recently rebuilt the floor and it’s like a new trailer), and so on. I know some of you might be thinking what a pain in the rear dealing with old, worn out equipment. Old machines are easy to fix when they do break. Beats the heck out of buying new 100HP tractor with a price tag of $100K and worrying about how you are going to make the payments for the next seven years. Gerry isn’t the best grazer I’ve seen, but he made significant infrastructure improvements over the years including new pastures and a top-notch watering system. He set the stage for the next generation to take the reins and dramatically improve their grazing system for the benefit of livestock and wildlife. Folks like Gerry kept the ranch alive and thriving because they “used what you’ve got.”

Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Learn from them, learn from your own successes and failures, do what’s best within your context and most importantly just get started!