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Grazing Workshop Showcases Local Food, Farmers


by Laurie Cerny

Published: Friday, September 27, 2024

A Farm to Table lunch highlighted the Van Buren Conservation District's Grazing Day Workshop held last Thursday at the Farm Research Cooperative in Bloomingdale, Mich.

Some 80 attendees were treated to a gourmet lunch made with locally produced meat and vegetables prepared onsite by Chef Ashland Tann.

The lunch included lamb, chicken, roasted peach and arugula salad, rosemary potatoes and Hibiscus tea.

"What better to say we're committed to the farmers," said Jacob Diljak, VBCD outreach coordinator. "We're really proud to be doing local food."

Chef Tann, who is from Maryland, recently participated in the 26th James Beard Foundation Chef Bootcamp. His background includes sustainable agriculture, and his culinary focus is bridging farmers in rural communities with inner city residents.

The use of real plates and silverware, instead of paper or plastic, was also on purpose.

"We try to be very mindful of our waste with these events," Diljak said.

Prior to the lunch, three presentations were made on improving pastures and grazing opportunities for livestock. The overall takeaway was that healthy pastures produce healthier livestock both in maintaining ideal weight, and in minimizing disease and parasite issues.

"Farming is a dance," said Gabriel Francisco, VBCD conservation technician, who specializes in pasture and hay land concerns. The key, he said is to "learn to dance with the land you have."

His workshop presentation on "Building A Farm System That Works" centered on developing a plan embracing both the land and the livestock foraging it.

Francisco explained that when he's called to a farm to evaluate a pasture he looks for signs that a farm system is working. These include: does the grazing system fit the livestock, does the livestock fit the grazing system, does the grazing system feed the livestock, and does the grazing system work for the farm.

"We need to adapt our pastures for the animals we have and then [maybe] add animals [other livestock species] to it," Francisco said.

An example he offered is with Angus cattle. Often farmers want to raise them because of the high market value of their meat. However, Francisco warned that while true, "Angus have a lot of nutritional requirements" that most pastures won't fulfill. Choosing a breed like Dexter cattle to pasture may, instead, end up being more profitable.

"They are lighter on the ground, and they are great pasture cows," he said.

Also beneficial is picking the right grazing system for a farm. Francisco talked about several including "mixed grazing," "chain grazing," "mob grazing (rapid rotation), "sacrifice area versus bale grazing" and "silvopasture."

Of all of the systems, chain grazing utilizes everything in a pasture from the most desirable grasses to weeds. In this system, "grazers" are first pastured. These are usually horses. Next would be "browsers" (sheep, cattle, goats) and then pigs (rooters). Chickens would be the last to be pastured. Their benefit to the grazing system is their ability to eat bugs and parasites left by the animals that previously grazed the pasture.

Another workshop presenter, Caleb Fiechter, owner of The River Farm in Bluffton, Ind., talked about the benefits of using pigs to improve pastures. Ideally, he said they "belong in the woods" as they like to forage on nuts and vines, etc.

For this reason, with his farm he looked to the wooded edges of his land to pasture his pigs.

He also told workshop attendees that pigs can help rejuvenate old pastures. "I think they make great pasture restoration tools," Fiechter said. "I'll let them root around and wait for a rain, and then reseed and leave them out there to hoof it in," Fiechter said.

Richard Ehrhardt senior Extension specialist in small ruminants, with Michigan State University, echoed Francisco's advice about maintaining healthy pastures in order to keep parasite load low.

Focusing on pasture parasite management in sheep and goats Ehrhardt said, "Well-managed pastures will lower production costs."

Additionally, effective grazing practices improve the entire farm utilization, meet the nutritional need of the herd and improves the animals' health, he said.

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