Our Story
We started our journey reading about nutrition, health, and the connection between them. This led to starting our own pasture based grazing farm, which led to further research in soil life and how that affects up the food chain. Some key take-aways:
there is more life below the surface of the soil than above
the SoilFoodWeb (see http://soilfoodweb.com) requires life within the soil to nurture plant life, which ultimately feeds animal life
a healthy soil is full of soil life with symbiotic relationships with plants
plants experiencing a nutritional requirement can produce an "exudate" from their roots that feed a symbiotic bacteria that gives the specific requested nutrient
there is a unique exudate for each required nutrient
in healthy soil there is a symbiotic bacteria for each exudate
the time from deficiency, to secreting the exudate, to swap of exudate for requested nutrient, to that nutrient traveling up the plant to the deficient site has been measured at 3 seconds for 3 feet in a tomato plant. Round trip! -this only works this well in healthy soils
chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, tilling; all kill soil life and break this symbiotic relationship
this leads to plants with nutritional deficiencies
this leads to succeptability to disease, pest, drought and reduced yields
this requires more inputs and labor -yields per unit input are reduced, and nutrition of the plants is reduced
animals and humans which consume these plants do not get maximal nutrition
the meat produced on poor soil and diets is not as nutritious and does not taste as good
We cycle our animals over pasture similar to natural roving grazing herds. We control stocking density, time, and rest periods with Managed Intensive Grazing. We are introducing fruit and nut trees within our pastures to recreate the Oak Savannah native to this area.
We work to maximize soil life. Our soils after 50 years of corn/bean went from a heavy clay that would only grow weeds to a rich black loam that retains moisture and sustains a multi species pasture that our animals love - and wildlife! Deer, turkeys, birds, all come to eat!
Pasture forage plants typically grow slowly at first. Once they have a significant amount of solar collection (leaf) area, their growth rate increases. At the seed stage it slows. Our grazing practice involves utilizing large amounts of animals, small areas, short time periods,
The large amounts of animals means that they eat all plant species, not just the most delicious. The large amount of feet means that stems and undesirables are trampled into the dirt, along w dung and seeds. We manage time on pasture to ensure they don’t graze the plants below the rapid growth stage- we "take half, leave half". The trampled plant matter, along with the digested plant matter and bacteria produced in dung feed the soil life. This increase availability of nutrition for plants, leading to higher growth and more nutritious forage.
We move the animals several times a day, pasture size and time on pasture is determined by the condition of the plants. Rest period is required to allow the plants to recover, and to reach the high end of the growth stage. We typically do not regraze within 28 days to help manage paracites. Typical paracites that afflict grazing animals need to find a host before that or they die. We do not give dewormers to our animals, they also kill soil life. Besides pasture/hay, we offer free choice minerals as we build our regenerative, soil building future.
Pastured Beef, Pork and Lamb. Always on pasture/hay. We breed and raise them their whole life. No chemicals or hormones given. Healthy Soil → Happy, Healthy Animals → Good tasting nutritionally dense meat → Bon Appetite!
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT EATS EATS
You have by now heard the old adage "you are what you eat" hundreds, most likely thousands of times. Starting with early memories of "don't eat that pizza or you will turn into a pizza" to teenage/adult years when you perhaps heard "don't eat that fat, it is bad for you" or something similar. But nary a thought went into what made up what you eat. The conventional adage stopped at the outer layer, the skin of the onion. But as we also hear, beauty is often only skin deep, and it is what is inside that really matters.
So what exactly is inside that food that we eat that defines what we are? What determines what that food is? It is of course comprised of what it "eats", it cannot be anything else. It is a derivative of what was available to it when it was growing and how well it functioned at assimilating those nutrients during its life-cycle. When we eat food, we are not just eating a pretty wrapper, a nicely packaged item or a well marketed trendy selection, we are also eating the nutrition that food item collected during its entire life. That food item is basically a nutrient collector, a dense collection of not only nutrients, but highly available nutrients that we need to function- the old "you are what you eat thing"...
But what determines what that food uptakes? Can we just pour nutrients on the plant and the plant will "absorb" them and grow healthy? Let's look at plants. In a healthy soil plant roots essentially feed the soil micro-bacteria with high energy fuel (sugars) that stimulate the microbes to multiply. The microbes surround the plant roots to ensure they get the food they need also essentially hiding the plant roots from pathogens. The microbes break down items in the soil and make nutrition available for the plant to grow on. This symbiotic relationship is destroyed when chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used and the plant is more susceptible to heat, water, pest and nutritional stresses. A healthy soil means healthy plants - plants that are relatively resistant to disease and pests and that uptake ideal amounts of nutrition during the varying requirements of different growth stages.
Soil feeds the bacteria which feeds the plants which feeds the herbivores which then feeds us (or we skip one step in the food pyramid and eat the plants directly). You are what you eat eats eats (animal-plant/bacteria-soil). Without healthy soil it is difficult to have healthy plants and healthy animals. Then remedies such as vaccinations, medications, hormones to stimulate fertility, supplements to "make up" for soil deficiencies etc are needed. At The Pasture Farmer we strive to keep the soil healthy; no chemical sprays or fertilizers, no GMO crops. We keep our pastures in perennial cover with occasional over-seeding of a forage species introduced to add diversity to an area or perhaps use deep roots to break up plow-pans and bring up deep nutrition. We let the animals fertilize the soil and stimulate the soil bacteria to multiply, thus creating ideal conditions for healthy plants to grow. And next time around the animals eat the plants while still doing their work of fertilizing the soil. And then we get the healthy, nutrient dense meat with that deep flavor that slow grown on diverse perennial pastures can produce.
You are what you eat eats eats. Ever wonder what that pretty box food ate? Or what it ate ate?
Additional food for thought:
(Dr. Elaine Ingham, Soil Microbiologist explains how to garden or farm with nature, not against it, and to product ideal nutritionally dense food at the same time)