HMI offered a suite of online courses in the first trimester of 2023. We started out with our Holistic Management® Foundation Course where participants learn how to make effective on-farm/ranch decisions through creating a draft holistic goal and management inventory to test decisions toward. This course was taught by HMI Professional Certified Educator Tony McQuail from Ontario, Canada. There were 26 participants in this course from 5 countries influencing 24,173 acres. Evaluations showed that 100% of the participants were satisfied with the quality of the course and would recommend the course to others.
HMI works hard to find scholarship support for those interested in taking these online courses who wouldn’t necessarily afford all the registration fee for these courses. Hear from one of our scholarship recipients about what this course meant to her.
Skye Priesz
Cambridge Township, Minnesota. USA
Course taken: Holistic Management® Foundation
"At 4:00am December 22nd, 2022, we woke up to the sheriff at our door telling us our barn was fully engulfed in flames, and while the rural fire department was on their way, the building was already a total loss. Stunned and absolutely helpless, we watched 20 years of equipment, tools, building and our son’s apartment, thankfully vacant for the weekend, all burn to the ground.
In my desire to find direction to focus toward as we faced not just the losses, but how and what we needed to rebuild or replace. I knew I needed to streamline the priorities and workload for the future. Sleepless nights of Google searches about sustainability, and land management that could be profitable, yet also in harmony with the environment, led me to HMI’s Holistic Management program. As I read through the available offerings, a spark ignited in my heart. I knew I had found a direction to take the recovery of the farm.
Taking the Holistic Management® Foundation class impacted my decision making and thought processes almost immediately from the first week. I found a lot of comfort learning there was a guided way to make choices that started to feel as if there was a big picture goal and not just a series of reactions based on immediate need and emotions. There were some pretty tough questions that needed honest answers. Participation in the weekly live group discussions ended up being extremely helpful to me in expanding my mind to different ideas about how problems, or opportunities, could be addressed. One of the most profound lessons my instructor, Tony, gave me, was that sometimes to do nothing could be the best plan of action. This was such a gift to me, when at the time, I was wasting a lot of energy feeling overwhelmed.
By the end of our class, I felt significantly more prepared to move our farm forward in a way that made sense for me, my family, the animals in my care, our land and our local community."
Thanks to the L&L Nippert Foundation for funding the Regenerative Agriculture Scholarship Fund that helps people like Skye, as well as our other funders who provide scholarship support!