
Learn ranch and farm infrastructure planning principles and practices to move your vision of your property into reality. Come away with a plan that suits your lifestyle and accommodates changes and challenges.
This comprehensive approach will help you explore key infrastructure options, the timing, and sequence of your infrastructure build-out, and result in a step-by-step plan to achieve your property vision.
Participants will evaluate management and infrastructure considerations and alternatives with the guidance and support of HMI Professional Certified Educator Larry Dyer.
A core element of land planning involves working backwards from your land vision to identify the path there from what you have now. How you travel that journey will depend on your unique situation of current infrastructure, future management, time and capital resources, anticipated livestock choices, water requirements, and the un-expected (risk). Using your personal preferences and considerations, you will be guided through infrastructure design options and explore how the long-term vision can be built out systematically from “return on investment” and end goal considerations.
Whether you own 10 acres or 10,000 acres this class will provide helpful tools and techniques for land planning and infrastructure development.
With Special Guest Speaker Q&A Sessions on Water, Fencing, Permaculture, and Urban Ag Land Planning!
TOPICS | OUTCOMES |
►Map the landscape vision for your property ►Consider how you will holistically address key natural resource issues, production considerations, animal handling and wildlife, and labor and neighbor issues. ►Design for resilience and flexibility ►Increase creativity in the design process ►Consider cost and risk ►Integrate permaculture design principles ►Land plan implementation sequence ►Plan monitoring to ensure that the desired results are being achieved ► Evaluate options to finance your land plan ►Integrating farm/ranch vision and land plan with other farm investment plans ►Prepare maps and overlays | ►Develop a future landscape description based on your whole farm/ranch goal ►Apply key holistic design principles ►Develop a land planning map that integrates current and future planned needs and how to navigate from the current layout to the\desired future layout. ►Project manage your land plan ►Decide which investment will return you the most in terms of your most limited resource at that time – money, labor or production. |
Dates: Tuesdays, September 8 – September 29, 2020
Time: Live at 5:30-7:00PM MDT (also recorded for later viewing)
Scholarship Deadline: September 3, 2020
Registration Deadline: September 7, 2020
Instructor: Holistic Management Certified Educator, Larry Dyer
Fee and Scholarships
- $75 per person
- Scholarships available!
Money Back Guarantee
HMI stands behind our training programs. If you participate fully in this training program by attending all sessions and completing all assignments satisfactorily, and if you are not completely satisfied within 10 days of program completion, we will refund your registration fees.
Speakers:

Larry Dyer, Holistic Management Professional Certified Educator
Larry has worked in the realm of sustainable and organic agriculture, agricultural ecology and community-based food systems for over 30 years. He has a doctorate in Entomology from Michigan State University and he is a Holistic Management® Certified Educator. His experience includes work with Native American communities in Northern Michigan to develop sovereign tribal food systems, growing in a hoop house at Bay Mills Community College, growing vegetables at Olney Friends School and Growing in Place Community Farm, and farming with horses and oxen at Tillers International. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay he worked on
agroforestry with a cooperative of small farmers. Since 2011 Dyer has offered several dozen classes at North Central Michigan College, and he has played a leadership role in the Local Food Alliance of Northern Michigan since its inception.

Casey Holland, Urban Farmer/Food Advocate, Chispas Farm
Born in Albuquerque and raised in the small town of Deming New Mexico, Casey had no idea she’d ever be a farmer. The semester before graduating from UNM she found a passion for growing food when she met the amazing food justice organizers with SWOP’s Project Feed the Hood and discovered that the path to healing our communities and ecosystems begins when we put our own hands in the soil. Currently she operates Chispas Farm in the south valley on four certified organic acres growing over 120 varieties of fruits and vegetables, also producing eggs and milk. This season will be her 9th and she is extremely grateful to all of her mentors and growing community for helping her get this far.

Kirk Gadzia, Resource Management Services, LLC, Holistic Management Professional Certified Educator
Kirk has over 25 years of experience teaching the concepts of natural resource management worldwide. As founder and owner of Resource Management Services, his extensive international consulting work uniquely qualifies him to help you achieve your organizational and individual objectives. Kirk holds a B.S. degree in Wildlife Biology and an M.S. in Range Science. He is a co-author of several important books on Rangeland Management. His years of assisting people on the land and working in a wide variety of cultural and family situations worldwide help Kirk approach his consulting and training in an interactive, hands-on style. His training sessions are known for their relaxed atmosphere, open dialogue, and practical real-life examples.

Roland Kroos, Crossroads Ranch Consulting, Inc., Holistic Management Professional Certified Educator
Roland operates a ranch management consulting business, Crossroads Ranch Consulting,Inc. helping ranchers successfully improve the management of their land, livestock, people, and money. They do this by providing educational seminars in Holistic Management, follow-up, and on-site assistance to people on the land. Their services include on-site consulting, identifying the Weakest Link, grazing planning, financial planning, custom bookkeeping, evaluating and monitoring land health, drought planning, team building, building consensus and facilitating the development of the Holistic Goal.

Louis Wertz, Communications Director, Western Landowners Association, Board of Directors, Denver Permaculture Guild
Louis Wertz leads communications for the Western Landowners Alliance. He grew up taking long road trips across the American West in the family minivan. Since, he has been obsessed with listening to and telling the stories of the land stewards who protect and regenerate the amazing places he fell in love with. Louis was previously communications director with the international rural development think tank EcoAgriculture Partners, where his stories focused on land stewards in East Africa, Central America, and Southeast Asia.
Louis holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from Northwestern University and a Master’s of Science in World Heritage Studies from the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus, Germany, where he focused on holistic approaches for managing heritage sites. He completed his master’s thesis in Yosemite National Park in 2008. In 2010 he spent a year working on an organic vegetable farm and apple orchard in majestic Mendocino County, California. He received his Permaculture Design Certificate in 2018 from the Denver Permaculture Guild and an Advanced Permaculture Landscape Design certification in 2019. He lives with his wife and their daughter near Denver, Colorado.
Follow him on Twitter @louwertz
Logistics
This course is four weeks long and you should plan on about 3 hours each week to participate in the webinars and complete the assignments. While the webinars are scheduled at a particular time, you will be able to complete the assignments at any time during the week. Don’t worry if you miss a webinar, we’ll be recording them and you can view it before the next scheduled webinar. Assignments may include watching videos, reading and written exercises.
With real-time audio, video and whiteboard capabilities our learning environment allows you to stay connected for a more engaging learning experience. You are encouraged to contribute to class discussions (either on the webinar or online forum). You can build relationships with other practitioners from across the country and maybe even the world.
You’ll also receive a FREE one-year introductory electronic subscription to IN PRACTICE and a certificate upon completion of the course.
Technology /Language Requirements
- Computer (PC or Mac are fine)
- Reliable high-speed internet access
- Internet browser (Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, or Safari)
- Microsoft Word and Excel or Google Sheets/Docs
- Telephone (cell or land line) OR Microphone
- E-mail address
- All classes are taught in English (unless otherwise specified)
Special Thank You to Our Sponsor:
Special Thank You to Our Funder for Making This Training Possible: