Remove Ecology Remove Grain Remove Pasture
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The ranching industry’s toxic grass problem

Food Environment and Reporting Network

Over the next 20 years, much of the country’s southern landscape was transformed into a lush, evergreen pasture capable of supporting a robust cattle industry. When scientists engineered a version of fescue without the fungal endophyte, in 1982, its hardiness disappeared and ranchers saw it die out among their winter pastures.

Ranching 109
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The Farmers Leaning On Each Other’s Tools

Civil Eats

For three years, Nathanael Gonzales-Siemens drove up California’s coast for 14 hours every month for a routine task: milling his grain into flour. “I We’ve got 150 acres of grain.” He found this disconcerting, not only for himself but the future of small-scale grain farming in California, once known for its golden hills of grain.

Grain 120
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On the Ground with the Midwest Farmers Going All-In On Agroforestry

Modern Farmer

They ate grains that couldn’t be sold.” Photos courtesy of Wendy Johnson) The sheep were getting sick from eating too much grain, so Johnson worked to reestablish a natural savanna, a mixed woodland and grassland ecosystem that had once been prevalent on Iowa’s landscape but was destroyed by grazing and row crops. Johnson laughs.

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Agricultural Diversification: Practice and Policy

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

However, as with all social-ecological systems , change in any part of the system necessarily requires or causes change in other parts of the system. Who manages land determines which scientific perspectives, crop choices, traditions, and skills shape the landscape, with profound implications for its ecological sustainability.

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BARN SHEEP

The Lunatic Farmer

When the sheep go to pasture, someone is with them at all times—armed. As soon as the lambs can quit drinking milk replacer, they go on grain to grow as fast as possible. The ewes get hay and grain too to keep their body condition up and make them cycle fast for rebreeding. As a result, all farms have 24 hour security.

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MY GURUS

The Lunatic Farmer

As a renowned environmentalist, his cattle farm coupled with ornithology give him unique authenticity in the ecology-farming debate. An avid lover of grassland wild birds, over the years he has developed credible protocols for grazing, mowing hay, or clipping pastures in a way that preserves grassland birds.

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Building Resilience Through the Conservation Stewardship Program

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

CSP pays producers to improve, maintain, and actively manage conservation activities already in place at the time of application and to adopt new conservation activities during the life of the five-year contract.