Where do we go from here….

….that’s what a group of us who have been involved in the Holistic Management pilot project met to discuss last night.  To eliminate the suspense, we all quickly voted to continue.

The idea behind the project is to demonstrate that a farm can be management without all the usual inputs of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and even grain.  And without, hay, too, which is by far the biggest expense in raising cattle.  Two of our colleagues said they had made good progress in their grazing: both were still basically on grass and one said he’d cut his hay costs in half.  The remainder were all satisfied they had made a significant improvement in their pastures and vowed to catch up with the leaders this year.

Going forward with the “hands-on” help of Holistic Management International may be difficult, though.  HMI invested about $40,000 in this pilot project training us guinea pigs and our discussion centered on ways of cutting costs and finding additional funding.  Our little band will have no problem going ahead on our own but we all agreed we’d like to see a new class of inductees to help us spread the news of this natural and traditional and healthy way of farming.