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Over 50 students from across the country and the world gathered at a farm in Hope to learn about adaptive grazing – a data-driven method that builds more biodiverse soil and plants, produces healthier animals and creates more profitable products, such as meat or milk.
Soil Health Academy brought its adaptive grazing class to JNelson Farms at 4240 N. Stark Road from Tuesday through Thursday. Students came from eight states, including Michigan, as well as Canada, the United Kingdom and Armenia.
Soil Health Academy is a nonprofit organization that helps farmers understand and successfully apply regenerative farming principles to grow healthier soil, food, farms and communities. It was created simultaneously in 2016 with Understanding Ag, a regenerative consulting company.
Dr. Allen Williams, an educator at Soil Health Academy, explained that adaptive grazing is one practice of regenerative farming that mimics grazing patterns in nature. It uses biological and ecological mimicry and domestic ruminants (livestock such as cattle and sheep) to recreate the impact that wild ruminants once had on nature.
“Adaptive grazing is fully flexible and adaptable to the ever changing conditions that we experience,” Williams said. “When you’re dealing with nature and biology, there’s no such thing as stasis. Everything is constantly changing. The problem with most methods of grazing is that they’re prescriptive or formulaic. You’re not adapting to the conditions you’re experiencing…you’re not paying attention to what’s happening and adjusting accordingly.”
Adaptive grazing does not follow a formula, but rather requires the farmers to observe the soil, plants and livestock to adjust the pasture on a daily basis. Even pasture size will change each day, causing many adaptive grazing farms to use temporary fencing that can easily be moved and changed each day.
Each day of the class, students would spend time in a classroom at Northwood University learning the basic principles of adaptive grazing and reviewing case studies and research. A majority of the day, however, would be spent in the pastures at JNelson Farms learning how to observe and calculate the needs of the cattle and an appropriately sized pasture.
Students would dig in the soil and be able to compare and contrast between soil from an adaptive grazing farm and soil from a conventional grazing farm. They also ran a number of tests on water absorbency and temperature.
“It’s very hands-on,” Williams said. “You can not adequately teach this in the classroom only. You have to actually do it to fully understand it.”
After moving the cattle into the pasture the class established, the students return the following day to observe the pasture that was grazed the day before and discover if their decisions made the desired impact or not.
The class consisted of farmers, researchers and educators. Michelle Sweeten, a beef farmer from Dafter, Michigan, took the class to learn another regenerative farming method and be able to teach it as an MSU Extension educator in the Upper Peninsula.
The most interesting thing Sweeten learned on the first day of the class was that regenerative farming like adaptive grazing can work everywhere, with small changes depending on environment or climate.
“It’s not that it won’t work for everyone, but you have to fit it into your context,” she said.
Jon and Tammy Nelson, co-owners of JNeslon Farms, have utilized adaptive grazing principles on their farm for several years after receiving training and information from MSU Extension.
“We believe that holistic management of our land is better for the environment, for the livestock we raise and ultimately in the quality of food we offer our customers,” Tammy Nelson said. “We see evidence on our farm that Adaptive Grazing and regenerative farming has many benefits such as improved soil biology, better water retention, less erosion from runoff/dry blowing soil, cooler soil temperatures and nutrient-dense forage for our livestock to name a few.”
Adaptive grazing has a number of benefits from the ground up. Based on scientific research, adaptive grazing creates more organic matter and carbon in the soil, facilitates more water retention and creates more plant species diversity.
Animals on adaptive grazing farms are healthier and receive a more phytonutrient diet – containing a large variety of plants. The animals also gain more weight and produce more dairy components when using adaptive grazing, making their products more profitable.
In addition, the meat and milk from these livestock has a better fatty acid and phytonutrient content, making the final product healthier and better than from animals grazed conventionally.
Student Morgan Mathinson, a research assistant at Michigan State University, found the method intriguing and was excited to take what she learned back to her co-workers as they continue to research ecological health in grazing places. She also enjoyed the teaching style of the instructors who took over 50 students into a field, but ensured everyone had something to do.
“Taking the students out into the field, having them test multiple different places to see the differences,” she said. “They made every student stay engaged.”
The class was taught by Dr. Allen Williams, Jeremy Sweeten and Luke Jones – all farmers with experience in adaptive grazing on their own farms.
JNelson Farms welcomes 50 students to adaptive grazing class
