Well done,, this is a must watch for not only those in Agriculture who can make a difference by improving their management but by all of society who think that Agriculture producers are like pheasants and unimportant compared to their new latest/greatest smartphone..
Unfortunately Allan's work has since been called into question for many reasons, concluding it would not scale, or work long term. The best methods are actually to re-wild the land and return it to natural habitat and species. Humans can't help but try and control nature, but in the end we need to let go and return some of this land to the native species. For more info, check the video "OSAz-A7S8ow" for a full explanation of where he went wrong.
So what is the criteria that tells us when it's time to move cattle? And what would be the extremes in herd size for a given size pasture (longer period of grazing vs a day and they 're moved farther?
I think it would be a matter of looking at the grass and seeing when it's time to move the cattle. Lots of farmers do this every day and give the grass plenty of time in between to grow back.
Well, all this is resolved by going through planning process. For example, movement - this will be different based on location, season, weather, state of paddock, state of animals, financial goals, etc.... So, in order to get details, I think the best way is to study the book, or be trained at approved savory hub.
The essense is the cattle is moved when the area is grazed, and they don't return until the grass has regenerated. In the dry season they eat dry grass - ie hollostic management is that you manage area, amimals and impact time and amount!
It is useful to remember that food scarcity and the desire for additional land to feed the people through industrial agriculture (albeit an earlier phase) was a *major* force behind WWII.
In case this comment was not clear, concerns about existing and future food shortages was a significant factor behind the invasions of WWII- the taking the land of other nations by force.
The major force was financial. The punishing measures of the Treaty of Versailles, and the unresolved territorial issues of Eastern Europe (which continued to be at war when the major western conflict was over) made a second world war inevitable.
i don’t understand. can someone explain to me how you integrate culture, economy and animals in a holistic system at a tangible example? savory is way to meta/ abstract in his talk for me! he didnt explained how the holistic system actualy function in its connected parts, as more he described how this system interacts with larger global systems. pls correct me if you have more insight and help me out!
Simple explanation. Technical specification presentations are boring and lose people in minutes. You get this broad overview to get you intrigued. If you want to get to the nuts and bolts, you read his book, check out his paper, and or maybe sign up for the classes he offers. Although he's not the only one to practice holistic management so chose one of them that will teach the specifications.
Holistic management is basically a management and filtering process. The filters help you find out what you want which helps you crystallise your plan and then proceed with it. If you want to learn how to do holistic management there are courses on it.
I have seen an estimate that the Great Plains of the USA were grazed by about 60 million bison. Woulden't replicating this on tracts of land help restore sections of these lands?
Thanks for the information. I'm in Northern Mexico and the goats have stripped large areas of countryside here. I'm just a geologist helping people to find water here. I wish that I knew something about range management.
Red Baron Farm Agreed! I have his book Allan Savory, Holistic Resource Management (Covelo, California: Island Press, 1988, 564pp.) I suspect it would be a bit much for most of the "deniers" commenting on this video. LOL
Most people are consumers. When you realize we should all be part of producers, growing food by yourself is the first step, naturally. When you start growing food yourself, your mental and spiritual horizons broadens and enhances. Do it.
@@wisepersonsay3142 Not everyone can do that. If you live in an apartment on the 57th floor of a building with only a small balcony off your living room, there's no way you can grow the half-a-ton of food each person in your household will need every year. The point of this holistic system is that it solves all kinds of problems, from poor food nutrition to global warming. Your backyard tomato plants help a little, but they certainly won't be the whole answer.
Yes, we know that - the system doesn't work any longer. We, everyone of us, have to renew and transform our mindset. Democracy, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, all sorts of ideologies are dysfunctional, so long as everyone of us is awaken with conscience and awareness we hold the key for improvement and betterment. Self determination is totally lacking from all aspects of the modern time. I refuse to be average and belong to the mass. I do my own things to make even a tiniest change.
Most no-till farming in the USA is done with chemicals. - Fields are sprayed with toxic synthetic chemicals to kill the 'weeds' . -Chemical fertilizers are used to help the crop grow because, typically, the soil is already dead or nearly so- (which means that most of the nutrients naturally present in the soil are unavailable to the plants, as the soil food web is necessary to make those nutrients available to plant roots), - Conventional no-till is still a monoculture, often in huge fields, sometimes horizon to horizon. This leaves crops vulnerable to insect pests and diseases- so these no-till crops are sprayed with toxic pesticides and fungicides. - Many commodity crops in the USA are sprayed with toxic chemical herbicides when they ripen as 'harvest aids'. The idea is that a few days of 'drydown' time could be saved. But there is little or no chance for those chemicals to wash off in the rain, or otherwise break down. Sure, grains have hulls and soybeans grow inside pods, but those thin coverings are NOT impereable to the chemicals, and our commodity crops are increasingly contaminated- GMO or not. (These chemicals are not allowed in organic agriculture.)
You do ask a great question! In Austalia, a guy grazes his diverse pastures closely with sheep, then no-tills wheat into the close-cropped pasture. He uses, as I recall, no fertilizers except what the sheep provided, and no chemicals. His crops don't get the very top yeild, but get GOOD yeilds- without expensive chemicals AND without the damage those chemicals do. If I remember correctly, he can do this every 3 years on his pastures, using managed grazing of his sheep whenever a grain crop is not growing there. When his wheat is harvested, the pasture plants are already there, covering the soil and protecting it from wind erosion, rain runoff, and protecting the all-important soil food web from excess solar radiation. In the US, there are a few brilliant farmers using cover crops and soil life to protect and nourish and build their soil between cash crops. Somer are using managed grazing of livestock. The others find herds of deer and other wildlife taking part in the cycle. These methods are very different from the conventional no-till methods which are the stadard approach. Those soils are so dead that the crop residue often does not biodegrade, but sits there and oxidizes as Savory describes the grasses doing in Africa and other low-rainfall aka 'brittle' environments. Even though these no-till croplands are either in high rainfall areas, and/or are irrigated. The reason soil litter is so important is that it is needed to protect and feed the soil food web- the microbes and macrobes that all terrestrial life on Earth depends upon.
Now, after 10 month i wrote that comment, I have a totally different view on it, and yeah, I know Colin Seis now, and in US, Gabe Brown, Dave Brandt, Gail Fuller and quit a lot more great people. It is about the life as Ray Archuleta. says it. We have to move to regenerative agriculture or it will be the end of our days. Thanks for replying
@@Jefferdaughter Yield here is the wrong word. The farmer gets more profit per acre due to reduced man-made chemical inputs (no money spent), the nutritional value of the crop increases, and the farmer is not totally dependent on one annual crop. The farmer with a drought resistant soil spends less on irrigation, and increases the farming season. In times of excess rain, the farmer doesn't spend diesel that powers the pumps to drain water saturated fields. The farmer won't have to dig out a tractor that gets half buried in saturated fields. The farmer that only pasture feeds the cattle doesn't buy grain so he gets more profit per animal. The animals are also healthier so the vet bills are lower.
@@Gustav4 I'm just watching Savory's lecture now. But I've heard of Gabe Brown and love what he's doing. What else have you learned in the 6 years since this comment?
Savory's solution for global warming is too simple, scientists haven't learned studied for 10 years to come up with a report that says "put a herd of cows in it". Noo the solution of this 80 year old Zimbabwean is way too simple, it has to be innovative, modern, very complicated solution, and above all it has to cost billions and billions, so that also many people/corporations will earn money on it. This Savory guy isn't gonna bring Monsanto, Cargill, Unilever, Kelloggs and all these companies higher revenues, so away with him, pay hundreds of scientists to proove he is wrong, and the normal people will listen to these new scientific researches, like wow it's so complicated and the guy has so many titles, he must be right.
Your ideas are brilliant and apparantly they work well too. The only thing I have never seen or heard you elaborate on is the actual schedule for grazing. Is this grazing schedule expained in your book ?
I think I heard him say once that it depends on Context. The schedule for grazing depends on your location, your breeds, your weather, etc. You make decisions based on your situation and what you want to achieve.
@@marlan5470 ok but there should be a formula in which you put your circumstances like weather,soil fertility,animals,etc....if he wants to write a plan for my land how does he take these factors into acvount?
@@alij9167 You write the plan. Read Savory's literature and other authors like him. It's not very expensive, and you will find it's a good investment. Another reference you will no doubt find helpful is Greg Judy, who is a prolific YT blogger. He's sharing knowledge you won't find on Ag School, and I think that's more what you are thinking about. Savory bases his management method on military management methods where circumstances change constantly and relies on direct observation.
@@marlan5470 thank you Mar Lan for the information. Unfortunately I dont have access to his books and it's not about the price. But I will read the blog you mentioned....but its strange that there are no examples in Savory's talks. If its observation based he probably should say something like if the sheep has been in this area grazing for a week and there is this much grass left on the ground (approximately)then move them to another area or square.
@@alij9167 It's not even that simple. Please watch not just Savory, but also Joel Salatin, Geoff Lawton, Elaine Ingham, Greg Judy, Doug Brown, etc. They explain the carbon cycle and the interdependency of species in more detail, since yes, Savory is doing a presentation. I'm waiting for my land management book in the mail, and I've been watching many sources on YT and beyond. You want more specific information, please watch Menoken Farm presentations. Even the details of equipment like large scale seeders (seed planters) is discussed. And you listen to them talk for HOURS on grazing, livestock and the other boring management bits of the business.
everyone with land should have a broadfork, and till their yards so when it does rain it soaks into the soil. Make your soil to catch water so that it does not run off until it is wet 12 inches down. Everyone should be able to grow something with the run off water from a house, that just keeps going into another little garden as the first one gets full. Compost, build soil, gather leaves. Eat something fresh from your garden, make a cold frame and grow kale in the winter. reuse your grey water to water plants in the summer. Make a compost toilet and let it compost for a year, use the extra water for your plants, no more flushing, unless you are taking prescriptions, flush away and let it go to the sewage plant and eventually down the creek, sorry for all those downstream. If no prescriptions and you are eating organic, you don't want to flush the best stuff away, when you can compost it and grow wonderful plants.
Mostly good advice except for the tilling part. Tilling wrecks the soil and is the main reason farmers have to use chemical fertilizers to compensate for the nutrients lost through tillage. There's a whole world of fungus and bacteria in the soil that feeds the plants and which are fed by the plants. Tilling interferes with that process. Poke holes in the soil to plant your seeds, but there's no need to till, and the rain should soak in quite well eventually.
The three Ms, mobbing, mowing, and moving. There are lots of other videos that get into the details of how this is done, but basically it's taking a mob of cattle, letting them munch and mow down the grass in a paddock, then moving them the next day to a new paddock where the grass has grown lush because of having been fertilized by the cattle months before. Cows don't have predators anymore, so instead of moving to escape them, people have to move them, but they get used to it and it's pretty easy, involving electric fencing and make water available to them. Every farm is different, so it depends on how the land is how you divide a farm into paddocks, but the principle is the same. And they keep track of their movements using charts so it's very orderly.
Alan Savory. I know what you are talking about , I have read you and listenned to you untill i could really understand what you were saying by knitting different lectures together but in just one talk of yours, such as this one, I dont, because you leave out important bits of your own infformation in the talk. One of the pints in which you lose me in this lecture because you miss out a whole lot of information, is in what you say on the oxidisation of material and how that oxigenation would stop new growth because as the vegetation decompoosed very slowly with oxigenisation the vegetation would stop new growth because it would stop the sun getting through to the the growth buds. You showed a tiny tuft of grass being oxigentatred. How can a person realise that that would stop new growth as i suppose oxygenation does if you have masses of greass oxygiinated, One small tuft isnot enough to stop light getting through and if it is it need explaining. MY observation is that you often make little sense unless people are willing to really try and listen to other lectures and peice what you say from various lectures together . I do hope I am making sense myself now. You need to spend an awfull lot of time writing to get used to how to write to make sure every thing ccomes out comprehensible and you have other activities so that is not an option, so I thtink you should get a writer to work with you on lectures. Your subject is really important and so you cant afford to make mistakes. Yours, hoping to be forgiven for rudely finding your writing less brilliant than your research and brilliant ideas Cant say writing has not given me a million problems myself and if i have surmounted any of htem it has been because writing has, for a long time, been all I do. rose macaskie.
+Rose Macaskie - I believe the word you are interpreting as 'oxygenation' is actually 'oxidation'. In other words, the nutrients in the ungrazed and untrampled grasses are being lost through reduction and release into the atmosphere. (Iron and steel are broken down into uselessness by an oxidation process we know as 'rusting'.) The crowns of bunch type grasses can easily block the light and prevent the efficient regrowth of those plants that need sunlight. Unlike other grasses, these plants grow from the crowns, and from seed. Savory is a rare scientist that has both academic training and over half a century of direct experience in the field, observing the results of many different approaches to land management over the long term. The world is fortunate to have him, and that he has the courage to speak about things that can be easily demonstrated to anyone willing to consider long term consequences - but which go against 'knowledge' too long unquestioned.
Let's make it quite simple. A farmer is someone who lives, obsesses perhaps, about the quality of his soil. That is the only thing he needs to study, test, understand as deeply as possible. All else is predicated on what that soil can do. The corollary is that if he doesn't then he isn't entitled to call himself a farmer. Hard to see Agribusiness in that frame of mind. Somebody has to care.
Keeping the focus this narrow though may lead one to add the missing chemicals after a soil test, but longterm this is destructive to soil life and the environment and one needs to be aware of this. The soil will never be fully understood because it is alive and science is better at understating dead things than alive things. The brilliance of holistic management is it forces the layperson or farmer or whomever to run their ideas through a filtering process which can help give better outcomes across the board. And it helps the farmer see why he's doing all of this.
@@savedfaves the word filter is rarely used -- the placenta is a filter , the breast is a filter , the brain is a filter -- and this back and forth system is something that nobody really wants to bow down to , "Cow Tow " is a phrase that USED to mean obey , or comprehend and follow . This guy is so genius . Not only his thinking about land and rumen bearing creatures , but , the way people think .
Do in Rome as Romans do. Farm in Africa as the indigenous Africans practised for many years before the Westerners invaded there. Having three meals daily is the western notion. Africans eat whenever they could find food source. There was no rigid practice of having to have three meals. Bringing in foreign methods and theories must be carefully reviewed and researched. Haven't the Western Power done enough damage to Africa? When would they compensate wholly for it???
Actually, human beings in general have been destroying their own civilizations for thousands of years, ever since they started agriculture, mainly because we didn't realize the damage we were doing to the thing that feeds everything on this planet: the SOIL. It's really only been in the last 100 years that going along with nature when growing our food was even considered and then the last 60 years when methods were worked out so we could.
I lived in arid African fields. Desertification occurs because the locals cannot afford to buy gas cylinder for cooking meals. They go to field and cut down trees to make firewood. They never replant trees. The tourism brings numerous European tourists to just watch wild animals that are declining in number due to the money orientated tourism. Eco-tourism is a fallacy. Building accommodation and facilities wreck the nature dramatically in the name of profit. Only if the alternative source of cooking, gas cylinder and solar cooking device are readily available at affordable prices, desertification can be prevented to a greater degree. Introducing grazing with cows may not be ideal. Sheep, goats, and chicken are more suitable and economical to the most of African nations. They don't have to eat beef, when there are protein found in vegetables and fruits. The African traditional diet contains too high in carbohydrate and little in minerals. Btw, wheat was introduced to Africa from South America by the Portuguese colonialists. It's not indigenous to Africa, yet it has become the main staple diet there. As result, there are many diabetic and obese Africans. They are burden to the medical treatment which lacks largely in any third-world nations. Vicious cycle. In this sense, too, we need Holistic Approach for everything. We need African farmers to tell their stories.
I suppose burning wood for cooking could contribute to desertification, but not nearly as much as taking the ruminants out of the land and letting it lie idle with nothing to stimulate grasses, no natural fertilizer coming out of animals' backends, no hoofs making little indentations to capture rain and let it soak into the soil, and no plants providing cover for the soil so it doesn't get too hot.
Outstanding lecture. Savory understands and explains the solutions nature has provided for thousands of years.
"We're all in this boat together..." -Allan Savory 👏👏👏
Well done,, this is a must watch for not only those in Agriculture who can make a difference by improving their management but by all of society who think that Agriculture producers are like pheasants and unimportant compared to their new latest/greatest smartphone..
Cash Man, I wonder how they will go eating their Cell phone? or maybe they will have a instant food app
Unfortunately Allan's work has since been called into question for many reasons, concluding it would not scale, or work long term. The best methods are actually to re-wild the land and return it to natural habitat and species. Humans can't help but try and control nature, but in the end we need to let go and return some of this land to the native species. For more info, check the video "OSAz-A7S8ow" for a full explanation of where he went wrong.
Way to go Allan, spread the word around. You have found something that will make the world a little better for our kids.Kudos!!! :-)
Good stuff. Working with Vets on finding options for wicked problems at Central Oregon Veterans Ranch.
Keep the Pace!
+Wali G Will be raising Navajo Churros soon.
So what is the criteria that tells us when it's time to move cattle? And what would be the extremes in herd size for a given size pasture (longer period of grazing vs a day and they 're moved farther?
I think it would be a matter of looking at the grass and seeing when it's time to move the cattle. Lots of farmers do this every day and give the grass plenty of time in between to grow back.
Great talk, but it would be nice to have some details. How often should the cattle be moved? What do they eat in the dry season? etc.
Well, all this is resolved by going through planning process.
For example, movement - this will be different based on location, season, weather, state of paddock, state of animals, financial goals, etc....
So, in order to get details, I think the best way is to study the book, or be trained at approved savory hub.
The essense is the cattle is moved when the area is grazed, and they don't return until the grass has regenerated. In the dry season they eat dry grass - ie hollostic management is that you manage area, amimals and impact time and amount!
Gabe Brown has some quantitative studies addressing these questions.
It is useful to remember that food scarcity and the desire for additional land to feed the people through industrial agriculture (albeit an earlier phase) was a *major* force behind WWII.
In case this comment was not clear, concerns about existing and future food shortages was a significant factor behind the invasions of WWII- the taking the land of other nations by force.
The major force was financial. The punishing measures of the Treaty of Versailles, and the unresolved territorial issues of Eastern Europe (which continued to be at war when the major western conflict was over) made a second world war inevitable.
i don’t understand. can someone explain to me how you integrate culture, economy and animals in a holistic system at a tangible example? savory is way to meta/ abstract in his talk for me! he didnt explained how the holistic system actualy function in its connected parts, as more he described how this system interacts with larger global systems. pls correct me if you have more insight and help me out!
Yeah a long hour spent waiting for him to release the important stuff!! lol
Simple explanation. Technical specification presentations are boring and lose people in minutes. You get this broad overview to get you intrigued. If you want to get to the nuts and bolts, you read his book, check out his paper, and or maybe sign up for the classes he offers. Although he's not the only one to practice holistic management so chose one of them that will teach the specifications.
Holistic management is basically a management and filtering process. The filters help you find out what you want which helps you crystallise your plan and then proceed with it. If you want to learn how to do holistic management there are courses on it.
I have seen an estimate that the Great Plains of the USA were grazed by about 60 million bison. Woulden't replicating this on tracts of land help restore sections of these lands?
+Brooks Anderson Yes
Thanks for the information. I'm in Northern Mexico and the goats have stripped large areas of countryside here. I'm just a geologist helping people to find water here. I wish that I knew something about range management.
Brooks Anderson This guy wrote a book on it. It works
Red Baron Farm Agreed! I have his book Allan Savory, Holistic Resource Management (Covelo, California: Island Press, 1988, 564pp.) I suspect it would be a bit much for most of the "deniers" commenting on this video. LOL
Ive heard it should be only half that ´number
Most people are unaware.
+Vincent Iengo ....Have You "Shared" this video , on Facebook, etc.?!!!....
Most people are consumers. When you realize we should all be part of producers, growing food by yourself is the first step, naturally. When you start growing food yourself, your mental and spiritual horizons broadens and enhances. Do it.
@@wisepersonsay3142 Not everyone can do that. If you live in an apartment on the 57th floor of a building with only a small balcony off your living room, there's no way you can grow the half-a-ton of food each person in your household will need every year. The point of this holistic system is that it solves all kinds of problems, from poor food nutrition to global warming. Your backyard tomato plants help a little, but they certainly won't be the whole answer.
Yes, we know that - the system doesn't work any longer. We, everyone of us, have to renew and transform our mindset. Democracy, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, all sorts of ideologies are dysfunctional, so long as everyone of us is awaken with conscience and awareness we hold the key for improvement and betterment. Self determination is totally lacking from all aspects of the modern time. I refuse to be average and belong to the mass. I do my own things to make even a tiniest change.
What about no-till farming, where you dont work in the ground, that stores carbon too in the soil but that shouldnt be possible without manure?
Most no-till farming in the USA is done with chemicals.
- Fields are sprayed with toxic synthetic chemicals to kill the 'weeds' . -Chemical fertilizers are used to help the crop grow because, typically, the soil is already dead or nearly so- (which means that most of the nutrients naturally present in the soil are unavailable to the plants, as the soil food web is necessary to make those nutrients available to plant roots),
- Conventional no-till is still a monoculture, often in huge fields, sometimes horizon to horizon. This leaves crops vulnerable to insect pests and diseases- so these no-till crops are sprayed with toxic pesticides and fungicides.
- Many commodity crops in the USA are sprayed with toxic chemical herbicides when they ripen as 'harvest aids'. The idea is that a few days of 'drydown' time could be saved. But there is little or no chance for those chemicals to wash off in the rain, or otherwise break down. Sure, grains have hulls and soybeans grow inside pods, but those thin coverings are NOT impereable to the chemicals, and our commodity crops are increasingly contaminated- GMO or not. (These chemicals are not allowed in organic agriculture.)
You do ask a great question! In Austalia, a guy grazes his diverse pastures closely with sheep, then no-tills wheat into the close-cropped pasture. He uses, as I recall, no fertilizers except what the sheep provided, and no chemicals. His crops don't get the very top yeild, but get GOOD yeilds- without expensive chemicals AND without the damage those chemicals do. If I remember correctly, he can do this every 3 years on his pastures, using managed grazing of his sheep whenever a grain crop is not growing there.
When his wheat is harvested, the pasture plants are already there, covering the soil and protecting it from wind erosion, rain runoff, and protecting the all-important soil food web from excess solar radiation.
In the US, there are a few brilliant farmers using cover crops and soil life to protect and nourish and build their soil between cash crops. Somer are using managed grazing of livestock. The others find herds of deer and other wildlife taking part in the cycle.
These methods are very different from the conventional no-till methods which are the stadard approach. Those soils are so dead that the crop residue often does not biodegrade, but sits there and oxidizes as Savory describes the grasses doing in Africa and other low-rainfall aka 'brittle' environments. Even though these no-till croplands are either in high rainfall areas, and/or are irrigated.
The reason soil litter is so important is that it is needed to protect and feed the soil food web- the microbes and macrobes that all terrestrial life on Earth depends upon.
Now, after 10 month i wrote that comment, I have a totally different view on it, and yeah, I know Colin Seis now, and in US, Gabe Brown, Dave Brandt, Gail Fuller and quit a lot more great people. It is about the life as Ray Archuleta. says it. We have to move to regenerative agriculture or it will be the end of our days.
Thanks for replying
@@Jefferdaughter Yield here is the wrong word. The farmer gets more profit per acre due to reduced man-made chemical inputs (no money spent), the nutritional value of the crop increases, and the farmer is not totally dependent on one annual crop. The farmer with a drought resistant soil spends less on irrigation, and increases the farming season. In times of excess rain, the farmer doesn't spend diesel that powers the pumps to drain water saturated fields. The farmer won't have to dig out a tractor that gets half buried in saturated fields.
The farmer that only pasture feeds the cattle doesn't buy grain so he gets more profit per animal. The animals are also healthier so the vet bills are lower.
@@Gustav4 I'm just watching Savory's lecture now. But I've heard of Gabe Brown and love what he's doing. What else have you learned in the 6 years since this comment?
Savory's solution for global warming is too simple, scientists haven't learned studied for 10 years to come up with a report that says "put a herd of cows in it". Noo the solution of this 80 year old Zimbabwean is way too simple, it has to be innovative, modern, very complicated solution, and above all it has to cost billions and billions, so that also many people/corporations will earn money on it. This Savory guy isn't gonna bring Monsanto, Cargill, Unilever, Kelloggs and all these companies higher revenues, so away with him, pay hundreds of scientists to proove he is wrong, and the normal people will listen to these new scientific researches, like wow it's so complicated and the guy has so many titles, he must be right.
Oh hush. We don't need the scientific and corporate elite. Ever hear of a top down revolution?
@@swamp-yankee I think he was joking. :)
Your ideas are brilliant and apparantly they work well too. The only thing I have never seen or heard you elaborate on is the actual schedule for grazing. Is this grazing schedule expained in your book ?
I think I heard him say once that it depends on Context. The schedule for grazing depends on your location, your breeds, your weather, etc. You make decisions based on your situation and what you want to achieve.
@@marlan5470 ok but there should be a formula in which you put your circumstances like weather,soil fertility,animals,etc....if he wants to write a plan for my land how does he take these factors into acvount?
@@alij9167 You write the plan. Read Savory's literature and other authors like him. It's not very expensive, and you will find it's a good investment.
Another reference you will no doubt find helpful is Greg Judy, who is a prolific YT blogger. He's sharing knowledge you won't find on Ag School, and I think that's more what you are thinking about.
Savory bases his management method on military management methods where circumstances change constantly and relies on direct observation.
@@marlan5470 thank you Mar Lan for the information. Unfortunately I dont have access to his books and it's not about the price. But I will read the blog you mentioned....but its strange that there are no examples in Savory's talks. If its observation based he probably should say something like if the sheep has been in this area grazing for a week and there is this much grass left on the ground (approximately)then move them to another area or square.
@@alij9167 It's not even that simple. Please watch not just Savory, but also Joel Salatin, Geoff Lawton, Elaine Ingham, Greg Judy, Doug Brown, etc. They explain the carbon cycle and the interdependency of species in more detail, since yes, Savory is doing a presentation. I'm waiting for my land management book in the mail, and I've been watching many sources on YT and beyond. You want more specific information, please watch Menoken Farm presentations. Even the details of equipment like large scale seeders (seed planters) is discussed. And you listen to them talk for HOURS on grazing, livestock and the other boring management bits of the business.
everyone with land should have a broadfork, and till their yards so when it does rain it soaks into the soil. Make your soil to catch water so that it does not run off until it is wet 12 inches down. Everyone should be able to grow something with the run off water from a house, that just keeps going into another little garden as the first one gets full. Compost, build soil, gather leaves. Eat something fresh from your garden, make a cold frame and grow kale in the winter. reuse your grey water to water plants in the summer. Make a compost toilet and let it compost for a year, use the extra water for your plants, no more flushing, unless you are taking prescriptions, flush away and let it go to the sewage plant and eventually down the creek, sorry for all those downstream. If no prescriptions and you are eating organic, you don't want to flush the best stuff away, when you can compost it and grow wonderful plants.
Mostly good advice except for the tilling part. Tilling wrecks the soil and is the main reason farmers have to use chemical fertilizers to compensate for the nutrients lost through tillage. There's a whole world of fungus and bacteria in the soil that feeds the plants and which are fed by the plants. Tilling interferes with that process. Poke holes in the soil to plant your seeds, but there's no need to till, and the rain should soak in quite well eventually.
I don't understand how he try to graze the land, though.
The three Ms, mobbing, mowing, and moving. There are lots of other videos that get into the details of how this is done, but basically it's taking a mob of cattle, letting them munch and mow down the grass in a paddock, then moving them the next day to a new paddock where the grass has grown lush because of having been fertilized by the cattle months before. Cows don't have predators anymore, so instead of moving to escape them, people have to move them, but they get used to it and it's pretty easy, involving electric fencing and make water available to them. Every farm is different, so it depends on how the land is how you divide a farm into paddocks, but the principle is the same. And they keep track of their movements using charts so it's very orderly.
You do not cut down rain forest to grow cows to accomplish your goals to combat desertification.
no one is suggesting that
Most people are not doing their best and are not "good." I guess pulling your head out of your butt would help you to see clearly.
Alan Savory. I know what you are talking about , I have read you and listenned to you untill i could really understand what you were saying by knitting different lectures together but in just one talk of yours, such as this one, I dont, because you leave out important bits of your own infformation in the talk.
One of the pints in which you lose me in this lecture because you miss out a whole lot of information, is in what you say on the oxidisation of material and how that oxigenation would stop new growth because as the vegetation decompoosed very slowly with oxigenisation the vegetation would stop new growth because it would stop the sun getting through to the the growth buds.
You showed a tiny tuft of grass being oxigentatred. How can a person realise that that would stop new growth as i suppose oxygenation does if you have masses of greass oxygiinated, One small tuft isnot enough to stop light getting through and if it is it need explaining. MY observation is that you often make little sense unless people are willing to really try and listen to other lectures and peice what you say from various lectures together . I do hope I am making sense myself now.
You need to spend an awfull lot of time writing to get used to how to write to make sure every thing ccomes out comprehensible and you have other activities so that is not an option, so I thtink you should get a writer to work with you on lectures. Your subject is really important and so you cant afford to make mistakes. Yours, hoping to be forgiven for rudely finding your writing less brilliant than your research and brilliant ideas
Cant say writing has not given me a million problems myself and if i have surmounted any of htem it has been because writing has, for a long time, been all I do. rose macaskie.
+Rose Macaskie - I believe the word you are interpreting as 'oxygenation' is actually 'oxidation'. In other words, the nutrients in the ungrazed and untrampled grasses are being lost through reduction and release into the atmosphere. (Iron and steel are broken down into uselessness by an oxidation process we know as 'rusting'.) The crowns of bunch type grasses can easily block the light and prevent the efficient regrowth of those plants that need sunlight. Unlike other grasses, these plants grow from the crowns, and from seed. Savory is a rare scientist that has both academic training and over half a century of direct experience in the field, observing the results of many different approaches to land management over the long term. The world is fortunate to have him, and that he has the courage to speak about things that can be easily demonstrated to anyone willing to consider long term consequences - but which go against 'knowledge' too long unquestioned.
Rose Macaskie
Trees drop leafs them self and arent addicted to cattles like grasses are. Grasses cant drop their leafs(shots) them self.
Let's make it quite simple.
A farmer is someone who lives, obsesses perhaps, about the quality of his soil. That is the only thing he needs to study, test, understand as deeply as possible.
All else is predicated on what that soil can do.
The corollary is that if he doesn't then he isn't entitled to call himself a farmer.
Hard to see Agribusiness in that frame of mind. Somebody has to care.
Keeping the focus this narrow though may lead one to add the missing chemicals after a soil test, but longterm this is destructive to soil life and the environment and one needs to be aware of this. The soil will never be fully understood because it is alive and science is better at understating dead things than alive things. The brilliance of holistic management is it forces the layperson or farmer or whomever to run their ideas through a filtering process which can help give better outcomes across the board. And it helps the farmer see why he's doing all of this.
@@savedfaves the word filter is rarely used -- the placenta is a filter , the breast is a filter , the brain is a filter -- and this back and forth system is something that nobody really wants to bow down to , "Cow Tow " is a phrase that USED to mean obey , or comprehend and follow . This guy is so genius . Not only his thinking about land and rumen bearing creatures , but , the way people think .
Do in Rome as Romans do. Farm in Africa as the indigenous Africans practised for many years before the Westerners invaded there. Having three meals daily is the western notion. Africans eat whenever they could find food source. There was no rigid practice of having to have three meals. Bringing in foreign methods and theories must be carefully reviewed and researched. Haven't the Western Power done enough damage to Africa? When would they compensate wholly for it???
Actually, human beings in general have been destroying their own civilizations for thousands of years, ever since they started agriculture, mainly because we didn't realize the damage we were doing to the thing that feeds everything on this planet: the SOIL. It's really only been in the last 100 years that going along with nature when growing our food was even considered and then the last 60 years when methods were worked out so we could.
I lived in arid African fields. Desertification occurs because the locals cannot afford to buy gas cylinder for cooking meals. They go to field and cut down trees to make firewood. They never replant trees. The tourism brings numerous European tourists to just watch wild animals that are declining in number due to the money orientated tourism. Eco-tourism is a fallacy. Building accommodation and facilities wreck the nature dramatically in the name of profit. Only if the alternative source of cooking, gas cylinder and solar cooking device are readily available at affordable prices, desertification can be prevented to a greater degree. Introducing grazing with cows may not be ideal. Sheep, goats, and chicken are more suitable and economical to the most of African nations. They don't have to eat beef, when there are protein found in vegetables and fruits. The African traditional diet contains too high in carbohydrate and little in minerals. Btw, wheat was introduced to Africa from South America by the Portuguese colonialists. It's not indigenous to Africa, yet it has become the main staple diet there. As result, there are many diabetic and obese Africans. They are burden to the medical treatment which lacks largely in any third-world nations. Vicious cycle. In this sense, too, we need Holistic Approach for everything. We need African farmers to tell their stories.
I suppose burning wood for cooking could contribute to desertification, but not nearly as much as taking the ruminants out of the land and letting it lie idle with nothing to stimulate grasses, no natural fertilizer coming out of animals' backends, no hoofs making little indentations to capture rain and let it soak into the soil, and no plants providing cover for the soil so it doesn't get too hot.
Gee, and all those ancient Egyptians who grew wheat for bread and beer...Honestly, go back to school.
If is simple the educated crow gets brain farts.