How Animals Impact Regenerative Agriculture Efforts

I recently visited Will Harris’ farm White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. Harris is a pioneer of grass-fed products and what he calls “a kinder, gentler agriculture.”

His farm is a great demonstration of how you can convert conventionally farmed land to a healthy, thriving farm based on regenerative methods. Conventional chemical agriculture typically involves the growing of a single crop, such as corn — a strategy that decimates the soil.

Harris recently purchased the land I visited, where he’s in the process of implementing regenerative principles to rebuild the soil and make it productive again.

These 220 acres he recently purchased for his expansion are adjacent to his old farm, which has been in his family for 150 years. He expects to be able to bring the current organic matter in the soil from its current baseline of about 0.5 percent to about 5 percent over the next two decades.

“This land has been farmed in what I call the trifecta — cotton, corn and peanuts; cotton, corn and peanuts, over and over again. All three crops are really hard on land for different reasons,” he says.

“This soil is, in my mind, completely dead. The biological life just doesn’t exist here anymore, because of intense tillage and the tremendous amount of chemical fertilizers being used on it, as well as pesticides …

What we’ve done is fenced the property. We put about 1,000 cows on the land. There’s nothing for them to eat out here [right now] so we feed them hay and haylage during the period that we’re asking them to transition this land for us. They will be out here for about a month.”

Animals Are an Important Aspect of Regenerative Agriculture

Indeed, animals are an important aspect when it comes to achieving healthy soil in which to grow crops. By urinating and defecating on the land, the animals provide important nourishment for soil microbes.

Harris also spreads perennial grass seed on the bare land, which the cows will help trod into the ground. Besides adding manure, the hoof activity helps break down the hard cap on the land.

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