In September and October, Sunfire Ranch near Carbondale, CO hosted a Holistic Management International Whole Farm/Ranch Land Management Course. Attendees included owners and managers from diversified farms and ranches located in the local area, the front range of Colorado, California, and Oklahoma. All shared a desire to improve their ability to be adaptive, manage resources wisely, and implement regenerative agricultural practices. The number of acres they manage totals 8,732. Topics covered in the course included Holistic Management® Decision Making, Grazing Planning, Early Warning Biological Monitoring and Land Planning. Cindy Dvergsten, an HMI Certified Educator was the instructor. Mike Rich, retired NRCS conservationist and long-time Holistic Management practitioner assisted. The course featured a guest presentation on sage grouse habitat management by Terri Schultz of The Nature Conservancy and Retta Bruegger from Colorado State University. Lunch and dinners were served by Seth O’donovan of the Guest House, a regenerative farm with a high-end lodge and restaurant that sources almost 100% of their food from Sunfire Ranch.
Jason and Alex Sewell, 6th Generation owners at Sunfire Ranch, are the remaining descendants of the Thompson family that settled in Crystal River valley. Jason was introduced to Holistic Management in 2015 when he attended a Whole Farm Business Course sponsored by HMI and taught by Cindy Dvergsten in Montrose, CO. Through implementing Holistic Management, Jason’s business model aims to show how young farmers and historic lands can be paired to create innovative resilient food systems for the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond.
The ranch hosts Wild Mountain Seeds managed by Casey Piscura whose passion is to develop vegetables that perform in the cold mountain valleys of Colorado. He also produces a wide range of vegetables that sell through the Basalt Farmers Market, and to local grocers and restaurants. Casey and his partner benefited from setting their holistic goal and then using it to guide decisions about prioritizing how they will grow their operation. Sunfire Ranch also raises water buffalo which are milked to produce cheese. Jason is working with Connor Coleman, a land management consultant, to create a conservation easement for the ranch and strategies to reclaim long rested and previously overgrazed uplands. As a result of this course, Jason and Connor plan to implement early warning monitoring, holistic grazing planning, and work on strategies to be inclusive of all players in decision making.
Father and son Lance and Brett Wheeler from Rafter W Ranch near Simla Colorado raise beef cattle, poultry, eggs, and lamb, and found that learning to test decisions towards a holistic goal helps them to stay objective. They developed their own testing check-list pocket card for use when out on the ranch. Brett realized that he needed more personal time away from the ranch and is exploring options to test towards his holistic goal. Lance was inspired to learn more and attended the Regenerate Conference in Albuquerque. They also forged a relationship with nearby Johnathan Tuller, manager at the Flying B Bar Ranch, who also attended the workshop. Johnathan had been introduced to Holistic Management when he worked on the Chico Basin Ranch in the early 2000s. Although he is very skilled in cattle management and grazing, he never fully understood how to use the Holistic Management® Grazing Planning Chart. Now he sees great value in how the chart organizes a large amount of data on one page and serves as a monitoring tool.
Not having any prior experience with managing rangeland or grazing, Lynn Rankin was impressed with the ease in which she created her first grazing plan for a ranch she has inherited. She has much to learn about her land and feels this course gave her the planning tools, resources, and decision-making aids she needs to be successful in creating a functional ranch and agritourism business.
Other attendees included Meadow Barn Ranch at Snowmass, the Mountain Primal Meat Company near Basalt, Erin Kiley from PastureMap, and The Farm Collaborative, a non-profit educational farm near Aspen. Each person took away a “gem” or two that will help them put Holistic Management in practice. They appreciated the resources provided as well as the opportunity to network and form relationships – all important ingredients to success.
Results:
Overall satisfaction of the event …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….100%
More confident in your ability to make complex decisions on your farm/ranch as a result of today’s class? …………………100%
Intend to complete or modify a written whole farm/ranch plan as a result of this course? ………………………………………….91%
Intend to conduct biological monitoring on your farm/ranch as a result of this course? ……………………………………………..91%
The most valuable things students learned:
- how to use the grazing chart & implement holistic planned grazing
- biological monitoring
- grazing management
- irrigation principles
- goal development
- how to properly use animals to help the land
- soil ecology
Thank you to the generous support of Martha Records and Rich Rainaldi in making this day possible.
Thanks also to the Grasslans Charitable Foundation for their support. Our collaborators who provide in-kind resources and outreach help include:
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.
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