Articles, Economics, Why Silvopasture
I don’t know why it took me so long to put these pieces together, but I finally did the math on how much it would cost to feed pigs and poultry on tree crops, and it’s a game changer. Even that term undersells it. This is nothing short of...
Articles, Big Picture, Economics
At the current moment, almost all pigs in the United States live their entire lives without seeing the light of day. Over 98% of pigs are raised in industrial houses or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). I wish the remaining 2% were all raised on pasture...
Articles, Big Picture, Ecology Benefits
Over the last several decades we’ve seen a tremendous renaissance of grassfed beef and dairy production, as farmers and consumers both learned of the benefits to the land, the animals, and to our own health. The same cannot, unfortunately, be said about pigs and...
Articles, Big Picture, Economics
Picture a farm with ambitions to expand, to produce more food for more people, to make more money, and to employ more people in good, regenerative agricultural work. There are myriad ways of doing so, including stacking new enterprises on the farm like raising...
Advanced, Articles, Grazing
I had a great conversation recently with a longstanding silvopasture farmer which highlighted some of the management decisions that will need to be made with the systematic integration of trees into grazing systems. In short, as ecosystems become more complex so does...
Articles, Big Picture, Economics
I’ve been very encouraged lately to see more and more conservation groups gain interest in silvopasture (in this case, specifically planting trees into pastures) as a powerful conservation tool. These include groups concerned with climate change and carbon...
Advanced, Articles, Economics, Funding, Planning
For those who want to geek out on the numbers, we’ve been working on an Excel spreadsheet. The purpose of it is to reasonably and conservatively predict the value of silvopasture to a farm based on the value of shade and feed produced by the addition of trees to...
Advanced, Articles, Nursery, Species Selection
I wrote a year ago about where we were at with propagation of improved honey locust, which you can read about here. Now I want to catch folks up on where we are with the nursery in general after another year of trials and experimentation. Honey Locust Let’s start...
Articles, Economics, Establishing Trees, Nursery
Willows and poplars are some of my absolute favorite silvopasture trees. They are cheap, easy to work with, very forgiving, propagate super simply, and give shade faster than just about anything else. While they may not have the upside of a Millwood honey locust,...
Advanced, Articles, Economics, Species Selection
I never weighed any pigs at the beginning and close of the mulberry season, but think I can safely say that a pig weighing 100 pounds at the start would weigh 200 pounds at the close. … Three-fourths to the mulberries is safe calculation of the gain. I have had...
