How to Balance Animal Performance, Mitigate Drought Risk, and Grow More Grass
October 7-8, 2021, 8:30am - 5:00pm Dinner option October 7, 6:00pm 5190 County Road 398, Decatur, TX 76234 Click here for directions.
This two-day event is a hands-on workshop where you will participate in the implementation and monitoring of a safe-to-fail grazing trial at the Leo Ranch in Texas led by HMI Interim Executive Director and HMI Professional Certified Educator, Wayne Knight. Topics include:
- Establishing the priorities – a case for low-cost, low-risk ranching
- The importance of ecosystem health and key monitoring to ensure results
- Identifying risks and how to manage, monitor, and correct deviations from the plan
- Steps to accelerate your learning with certainty and confidence
- Determining optimal plant recovery times for your land
- Identifying, managing, and monitoring key indicators – animal production, ecosystem function, and quality of life
- Financial considerations and decisions for healthy profits
- Considering risk, stress, and quality of life in production decisions
- Takeaway actions for you to implement on your ranch
The workshop content integrates 3 essential areas of grazing management, together with the essential “How To” steps of the process.
Learn to read what your animals can tell you about their interaction with the land so you can plan and manage to reduce your risk and stress and make a profit.
Agenda:
| Day 1: 10/7/2021 |
| 8:30 Registration |
| 9:00 Session 1 – Animal Performance |
| 10:30 Break |
| 10:45 Session 2 – Effective Management of Ecosystem Processes |
| 11:30 Practical – Ecosystem Process Evaluation |
| 12:30 Lunch |
| 1:15 Session 3 – Risk – Grazing Strategy |
| 2:30 Practical – Grazing Evaluation |
| 3:30 Using Grazing Evaluations |
| 5:00 Day 1 program ends. |
| 6:00 Optional Dinner |
| Day 2: 10/8/2021 |
| 9:00 Session 4 – Safe-to-Fail Trials |
| 10:00 Outdoor Practical |
| 12:00 Lunch |
| 1:00 Tying it all together – Risk, Performance, and Ecosystem Health |
| 3:30 Break |
| 4:15 Q&A |
| 5:00 Workshop ends |
Optional Dinner
Do you have a passion for your land and want to find a way to ensure that its integrity and its natural condition are preserved forever? If yes, have dinner with us at the Dixon Ranch on October 7th at 6 p.m. to learn more about your options. Amber Arseneaux, North Texas Program Director for the Texas Land Conservancy, will speak about protecting land for future generations and the use of tools such as conservation easements. Amber holds a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Leadership and Development and a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management, both from Texas A&M University. She is a proud native Texan and is passionate about our state’s open space, diverse culture, and agricultural heritage. Outside the office, your best bet is finding her outside and anywhere live music is playing. She enjoys hiking, volunteering as a Texas Master Naturalist, and exploring Texas’s natural wonders. As TLC’s North Texas Program Director, Amber is working with volunteers, building community around TLC-protected properties, and spending time connecting with landowners who want to protect their land. Only $25, purchased separately.
Registration
Registration: $350 (includes lunch both days)
Optional Dinner: $25
Last day to register is October 5th.
Partial scholarships are available. APPLY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP HERE
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.
COVID-19 Policy:
Of note, the format and/or requirements for event attendance may change in light of shifting CDC and state public health guidelines. HMI will make every effort to communicate these changes in a timely fashion.
Speaker
Wayne Knight – Interim Executive Director and Certified Educator, HMI
With 27 years of ranching experience using Holistic Management, Wayne has had an identity crisis. When he joined the 11,000-acre family ranching business he called himself a cattle rancher. He changed to calling himself a grass farmer. Later still, he called himself a soil-microbe farmer, though he has always marketed beef. Privileged to work with his father, Tom Knight, who was an early adopter of Holistic Management under Allan Savory – Stan Parsons consulting, Wayne enthusiastically increased and intensified the practices HMI teaches. He became a Certified Educator in 2006 and was actively involved with the Southern African Certified Educator community organization, Community Dynamics. He has spoken at numerous conferences in Southern Africa, trained and mentored farmers, hosted open days on his property, and has written about his positive results using Holistic Management. Before joining the team at HMI Wayne served as a board member of the organization for 8 years. Through his enthusiasm for Holistic Management, Wayne has traveled widely visiting farmers who practice high-density, long recovery grazing practices in Southern Africa, Australia, and the US. As a young graduate with a Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Natal, South Africa, he traveled across the US west working on ranches in Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, California, and New Mexico. When not involved in Holistic Management you will find him fishing, birding, hiking, or exploring wild spaces and places with his family. An enthusiastic traveler, hunter, and photographer, he loves discovering new places and making new friends.
From our Advanced Grazing Workshop in Colorado, August 2021
“This is monitoring I can use.”
“Finally, something I can take home and use!”
– workshop participants
Special thanks to our Funder for making this event possible.
Sponsors
Do you have a product that benefits farmers and ranchers? For only a small sponsorship, you can come to this workshop and connect with people who are ready to change the face of agriculture.
| Friend - $100 | Supporter - $250 | Sustainer - $500 |
|---|---|---|
| Handout Materials | Handout Materials | Handout Materials |
| Logo & Link on HMI Event Landing Webpage | Logo & Link on HMI Event Landing Webpage | Logo & Link on HMI Event Landing Webpage |
| Logo & Web Link on Post-Event Attendee Email or Followup Blog | Logo & Web Link on Post-Event Attendee Email or Followup Blog | Logo & Web Link on Post-Event Attendee Email or Followup Blog |
| Speaking Time During Event | Speaking Time During Event | |
| 1/6 Page Ad in IN PRACTICE Journal | 1/4 Page Ad in IN PRACTICE Journal |
Email [email protected] for more details on event sponsorships.
Adelene is a resident of Arkansas and loves exploring the state’s natural trails. Her passion for education and technology led her to earn a master’s in learning systems technology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. With her professional experience managing student/client databases and instructional design, Adelene will bring skill and understanding to her role as Office Manager & Instructional Designer at HMI. Her focus on making education more accessible to diverse communities is evident through her volunteer work as an board member for a scholarship program. Adelene is devoted to creating educational opportunities that align with HMI’s mission to promote healthy, resilient lands and thriving communities.
Seth Wilner has been a Holistic Management International Certified Educator since 2005. For 22 years he has worked as an agent educator with University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension where he specializes in farm business management with an emphasis on whole farm planning.
Dana was first introduced to Holistic Management in the 1990s while working in the Texas Hill Country. She strongly believes that Holistic Management can positively impact families that are on the land, the communities they are a part of, and larger landscape resource regeneration efforts.
Sarah Robertson grew up in Taos, New Mexico and has always been passionate about land stewardship, growing things, and nurturing others. After completing a BA in Communication from the University of New Mexico and working with local non-profits, she started her journey as a first-generation farmer. Since 2015, she has been learning and growing alongside her husband on various leased properties in Albuquerque, NM and running a small market farm with goats, chickens, and a CSA. In her role as Programs Assistant at HMI, Sarah brings her enthusiasm for regenerative agriculture, devotion to supporting others, and drive for lifelong learning and growing.
Jozua Lambrecht is from South Africa and divides his time between their home in Somerset West and their family farm in Sutherland, one of the coldest places in South Africa, where they farm with sheep. He is married to his wife Therese and they have two daughters.
Alejandro Carrillo is a fourth-generation rancher, and he is quite familiar with the challenges of running a profitable cattle ranch in the Chihuahuan desert. Because annual precipitation seldom exceeds nine inches, every drop counts when it comes to growing more grasses. Grazing year-round with only sea salt as an input, he is not willing to waste any water in such a brittle environment.
Jared L Talley was born and raised in Southwestern Idaho and now seeks to help rural communities adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. He is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Service at Boise State University, earning his PhD in Philosophy from Michigan State University and his MPA in Environmental Policy and Natural Resource Management from Boise State University. An environmental philosopher by training and an interdisciplinary scholar in practice, he seeks to better understand how communities relate to the land and how this relationship poses obstacles and opportunities for collaboration and governance. In doing so, he studies the role of science in collaborative policy, the role of place in environmental identity, and the role of the imagination in mediating both. Specifically, he studies grazing management and public land permitting, community-led conservation programs, rural education and entrepreneurship, place-based environmental governance, and the imaginative experience of our natural and built environments — all in the contexts of the intermountain American West.
