Grass Farmer Knowledge By Joel Salatin

Here at The Stockman GrassFarmer, we promote a high information type of farming. This is not for the slacker or the guy who just wants to get by. We cater to the abnormal and the thinker. Allan Nation’s book Knowledge Rich Ranching addresses this intellect gap between the conventional stockman and the grass farmer.

These conventional fellows have no idea what “cow-days” or “animal units per acre” means, how to compute it, or how to plan with it. When drought comes, they feed hay. When winter comes, they feed hay. They spray weeds, mow everything at least once a year to control unpalatable vegetation, and complain about not making any money. Most work in town to support the farm hobby.

This is not intended in any way to denigrate the average farmer; it is meant to offer a peek into a different world. If you don’t know what you don’t know you probably don’t know you don’t know it. Most people, including farmers, do things not because we’ve thought them through but because it meets others’ expectations or it’s just what we’re used to. Allan Nation used to say that the litmus test for a good idea was the neighbors’ reaction. If they thought it was a good idea, it probably wasn’t. If they thought it was ridiculous, then it was probably a good idea.

In our area of Virginia, normal-think means you have black cows - big humongous black cows that weigh 1,500 pounds; you calve in February in order to have big calves to sell by fall; you have a full line of hay equipment even though you only have 25 cows; you store round bales outside and watch 50 percent of the hay rot; you spend half a day during calving season looking for calves to tag them, dip their umbilical in iodine, and give them a booster shot; you drive a $35,000 pickup to check said 25 cows.

Contrast that with the knowledge base needed to be a successful grassfarmer. Here is a list.

1. Grass monitoring. How fast is the grass growing? At its current rate of growth, when will it be ready to re-graze? We grass farmers routinely visit our fields, monitoring our forage inventory and trying to keep the rule of thirds in mind: a third recuperating, a third in the grazing pool, and a third ready to graze.
2. Seasonal contingencies. Red light, green light dates for liquidating or acquiring animals depending on drought or growth flush based on forage inventory is foundational for us grass farmers. We don’t just dance along our merry way and respond to weather conditions by claiming victimhood and complaining. We measure the inventory of standing forage just like normal farmers count bales of hay.
3. Gross margin analysis. In our SGF Business School Steve Kenyon and I present various scenarios and offer tools to help tease out margins, which are the foundation for making good decisions. We scrutinize everything. Should we do cow-calf, buy stockers, custom graze or not do cattle at all? Do we hire our baling, own the equipment and do custom baling for others, buy hay or adjust stocking rates and inventories to eliminate hay? Every business decision needs to be scrutinized through the prism of its current performance compared to whatever else you can imagine.
4. Genetics. Breeds, phenotypes, veterinary interventions and performance requirements all play a big part in grass adaptability and profitability. An animal that yields 60 percent on a 1,000 pound live weight versus 52 percent offers 80 more pounds of carcass. What is that yield efficiency worth? At $5 a pound, it’s worth another $400 per animal without adding a dime of production cost. We grass farmers don’t just assume that whatever is at the sale barn is the right phenotype.
5. Smaller animals. One consistent trajectory among grass farmers is smaller frame sizes. Breeder Kit Pharo has done as much work analyzing the advantages of smaller frame cattle than probably anybody in the business. Kudos to his hands-off approach, ruthless culling, and bringing a mindset of performance and profitability to the grass-finishing industry. Ditto to the South Poll breeders. The inconvenient truth is that the phenotype incentivized by the feedlot-fabrication industry is opposite what performs best on forages.
6. Forage diversity. Rather than pure stands of orchard grass or alfalfa, grass farmers study various forages and encourage more variety in our fields. We know the animals do better with more dietary choice. I can’t identify all the plants in my pastures, which is a good thing. Many plants normal farmers view as weeds I view as occupying a palatability window. As long as the cows like it, it’s not a weed.
7. Other animals. While SGF certainly caters to beef production, we constantly promote other enterprises. Many of us know that poultry is a gateway product if you want to try direct marketing. Pastured pork is coming on strong now as an adjunct to cattle. We grass farmers aren’t too proud to add other types of animals to our enterprises, knowing the symbiosis that can naturally occur. Of course, this complicates our farms. These other animals have different dietary, shelter, watering, and control needs; if you want simple,don’t add another type of critter. Greg Judy’s SGF Multi-species Grazing School drill down with hours of experience into these nuances.
8. Fertility. Tapping into the solar cycle and soil biology is far more complex than simply pulling a soil sample and applying what the local fertilizer dealer recommends. We grass farmers generally try to leverage ancient wisdom and patterns in soil development with modern infrastructure like electric fence and water pipe. Irrigation with K-line systems developed for pasture in New Zealand now brings economical options to grasslands.
9. Water systems. Moving the herd requires multiple water points. Storage, flow, tank capacity and a thousand other nuances face anyone who embarks on Management-intensive Grazing. Simplicity-by-default means letting the cattle walk to a creek, spring, or pond. But that is not the way to develop all the things I’ve already mentioned in this list. Mobile real time water drives pastured livestock systems and brings another whole world of hydraulics and plumbing into the farmer’s life. Is that thrilling or chilling?
10. Labor. Steve Kenyon in our SGF Business School does a wonderful job of analyzing the cost of driving to leased land. Who’s going to move the herd? That’s the big question we grassfarmers face that normal folks don’t. They have an annual wrangling, perhaps, but otherwise the herd is some- what on its own. I know many farmers who go more than a week without checking their cattle. And checking on them means driving through the fields in a pickup truck. Fortunately, those of us practicing the art and science of grass farming know that our labor is well compensated. But the truth is that if we’re going to get intimate with our land and our animals, we need to be there . . . a lot.
11. Fencing. Moving animals daily requires an extensive, efficient fencing set-up. This need not be expensive physical field fence, of course, except for boundaries. But in general, grassfarmers have many more miles of fence- most of it electric - than average continuous-graze cattle operations. Some have said that fencing is the best fertilizer a farmer can use. The more fields, the more paddocks, the more intensive the management can be. Fast, efficient fencing, both permanent and portable, are often enough to keep folks from joining our ranks. If you’ve never been exposed to cheap, efficient fencing setups, it seems overwhelmingly difficult and expensive; I get that. But efficient fencing knowledge and experience are always on the resume of successful grass farmers. It’s a highly nuanced winemaking process. Allan likened grass finishing beef or grass-only milk production to the art of winemaking. The longer I do this, the more convinced I am that he was right. Enough nuances exist around this deeply satisfying yet amazing grass farming effort to occupy many lifetimes. ■

Joel Salatin is a full-time grass farmer in Swoope, Virginia, whose family owns Polyface Farm. Author and conference speaker, he promotes food and farming systems that heal the land while developing profitable farms. To contact him, email polyfacefarms@gmail.com or call Polyface Farm at 540-885-3590.