Management Schools

[PureCountry]

I was wondering if any of you folks have ever attended one of those 'Ranching for Profit' schools, or something like it. I've read about them and viewed their website, and their price is a little high for me($2500). There's also a quite famous guy named Dr. Dick Diven who is supposed to be the authority on Low-Cost Cow/Calf production. In fact, that's his website, www.lowcostcowcalf.com. He puts on schools all over North America, and he's supposed to be coming to Lacombe, AB in November this year.
Any advice or experiences with these or any other schools/seminars?

[grassfarmer]

I, like you, am interested in the "ranching for profit school" - I was advised it would be well worth my money attending. Unfortunately I am not able to attend the Calgary one which lasts 4(?) days and is in January every year. Great if you are one of two brothers on a family farm but not possible if you are a one man band.
I managed to attend the Western Beef Forage group course at Lacombe in 2001 and learnt quite a bit at it although it is limited a bit on "outside the box" content being so tied to Alberta Agriculture and conventional thinking.
Equally I would love to attend the Holistic Management school in New Mexico but these things seem unobtainable at the moment for me on work grounds - kind of frustrating.

[nerves]

We were looking into this as well 5 years ago just before the drought started but rounding up the cash was a problem. A magazine Published out of the states named The Grassfarmer Magazine is good investment if you can"t afford the management schools. They deal with alot of differnt theories and some are way out there, but it helps to get you thinking outside the box. Some of the people putting on the school have articles in the magazine, and it is a monthly publication. The Biggs out of Coronation very familiar with the hololistic method of ranching, as well as the Halladay"s out by Leslieville and it seems to me that the Halladay"s have published a book about hololistic management also. Maybe talking to these people will help you to decide if this is the step you want to take before you spend the money.

[cakadu]

Allan Savory is the author of the book that you are speaking about - Holistic Management - and the Halladay's are two of just a handful of certified Holistic instructors in Canada.

I believe Allan's website is: www.holisticmanagement.org

Interesting material to be sure.

[grassfarmer]

I am a subscriber to Stockman Grassfarmer and find it interesting although climaticaly many of their ideas don't translate well up here. Perhaps in the future western Canada could have a similar publication?
I am familiar with Savory's books/website and find them amazing although sometimes difficult to fully understand with my simple brain. I have heard of the Halladays at Leslieville and look forward to meeting them as they are farming very similar land to mine.

[ALICIA]

Don't you wonder why its more profitable to tell farmers how to farm rather that farm.

[nerves]

Grassfarmer that is what my simple brain came up with to. We tried alot of the theories to. For 4 years then drought hit us and it was a race to see who was going to get the stockpile of grass first the hoppers or the cows. The fields left to seed clover were hit hard by hoppers eating the seed not touching the plant itself. In the end we incororated some of the ideas learnt and made so new discoveries ourselfs, we are in heavy clay with lots of peat although I do believe in fertilizing I don"t care to use much nitrogen. I guess what ever works for is best.

[grassfarmer]

Nerves, I laughed when I read about your grasshoppers. Last August I had a couple of fields that we calved on and grazed hard through into June then left for carryover grazing - until the hoppers got hungry on the neighbours perm-graze pastures and moved in, it was discouraging to say the least! I have been planning my revenge this winter and will attack the hoppers with a mobile hen house on skids loaded with a bunch of old cull hens this summer. Wish me luck!

[cowman]

I do believe a person should be careful when attending these "management schools". The problem is, I believe, that they are preaching the "gospel" of "how to do it right"? The actual fact...and everybody should know this...is that there is no "right"way! Never has been, never will be!
There is a young farmer fairly close to me that trotted off to the "holistic" school. Well things started to change big time when he got back! Away went the grain land and the machinery. Away went all the big good doing cattle and in came the beefbooster scrubs!
Now he likes to give little speeches about how well things are...
Well I saw his 425 lb. runts sell last fall at the bottom of the market and his Dad tells me things are not very rosy on the financial front! I've also noticed the toadflax has pretty well taken over those "holistically" managed pastures and the county has been after him to clean it up!
Now I wonder, when the day comes when he goes belly up, if they will put that success story in the holistic literature?

[nerves]

Grassfarmer I will be watching for articals this fall in the canadian cattleman magazine about the man who made it big selling steaks and renting porta-achickens. Cowman I think you are absolutely correct, My dad always said the land has to produce in this area, if you want to make a living off of it. The best investment I ever made was a Kneverland plow.

[cowman]

nerves: What is a kneverland plow?

[nerves]

I need to spell check that"s Kverneland plow.

[grassfarmer]

Cowman, you are not being very fair to your young neighbour, as you say "The actual fact...and everybody should know this...is that there is no "right"way! Never has been, never will be!"
Getting rid of his grain farming machinery is sound enough - this machinery after all is only one management tool to be used in the capture of solar energy - why have lots of machinery when animals can do it for you and appreciate instead of depreciate?
Beefbooster cattle can hardly be called scrubs. Take a look at some of the Heinz 57 herds in Central Alberta - at least beefboosters are designed to be functional with profitability built in.
Be fair - how many cow calf operations are in a rosy position financially just now?
"I've also noticed the toadflax has pretty well taken over those
"holistically" managed pastures and the county has been after him to clean it up!" Even with holistic management there is no guarantee of short term sucess, I don't know how good an operator this guy is - it depends also on the condition of the land he started with - there is a transitional period just like with organic farming - one thing for sure the County guys with their chemical spray solution to weeds don't know the answer as this action merely makes it worse.
Good luck to the young guy - you always say we need them yet they get pounced on and judged for daring to have a go, try something different and think the glass is half full instead of saying it's half empty.

[nerves]

Grassfarmer I don"t think it is the cowmans neighbor that is at fault, in my opinion it is the way this holoistic thing is presented it sort of a one shoe fits all. That is why I have a hard time find creditabilty in what they are saying.Yes there is some great ideas rotational grazing, swath grazing, water systems etc. This is my thoughts on it and you can tell me I am crazy if you want this is why I enjoy these chat lines. In another thread you were telling cowman about the great grasslands of the praires and that is what they were and maybe should have been left as such. But here we are trying to grow grass on high output pastures that were never meant to sustain grass. The land I am talking about is heavy clays that used to be treed with poplar and spruce, this type of forest had deep roots that broke up the clay letting in any rain fall and giving excellnt subsoil moisture.It also gave a canopy that kept the ground cool with less water evaporation. In a sence a type of rain forest. Now along comes man with his dozer and clears the trees and grows grass. Grass with narrow leaves and lacking the ability to drive in roots many feet into the ground. So in time the ground gets hard and slowly loses the ability to absorbe the water even through rotational grazing, water does absorb better, but nothing like it did when it had a forest.Thease are high performance soil types that need big leafed plants and maybe a little fertilizer to drive a healthy set of roots into the ground the deeper the better, Much the same as the trees they are replacing. They also have a thick lush canopy to hold the moisture.These are legumes they produce well because they belong on this soil. Now with this holistic thing I hear them talk about legumes once in a while, the main push is to grow grass on all soils the one shoe fits all thing it is no wonder that some people fail this land was never meant to grow grass. Don"t get me wrong they have some great ideas I just don"t see them working everywhere for everybody for that reason. Our pastures are full of legumes and our crop land is swathgrazed instead of growing thin leafed grass plants, and a little is combined for seed or to finish off calves. I think we have found a balance somewere in between.This land has also become more drought tolerable.

[cakadu]

From what I understand about holistic management it is far more than just growing grass, it takes a look at the total picture in terms of what you are choosing to do with the land, your life etc. etc.

Any decision that we make has consequences, some good some bad and some unforseen -- what holistic management does is try to get you to look at the total picture when making decisions.

As has been stated, it is about letting the land do what it should be doing and not forcing it to do something that it shouldn't. Some lands can be utilized for high input grain production and other land should be left to be grass because that is what it can support the best. Some land should never have been taken out of grass production in the first place - it is only the years when grain prices are perceived to be higher that it is ploughed up and seeded to a crop.

Grassfarmer is correct when he says that all the spraying does is look at symptoms and not necessarily the problem. Weeds become a problem in grasslands when there is nothing to compete with them. Pastures are continuously grazed and over grazed, with no adequate rest periods and that is when the weeds take hold. Wild strawberry abounds, as does yarrow and the toadflax was not taken care of before it became a serious problem.

As women can attest to, there is no such thing as "one size fits all" pantyhose and there is no one formula that will work for every farm. You need to take what will work or you think will work and apply it to your farming operation.

Positive change can take a while to see in pastures, but when it does start to take place, it is amazing what the land will do!