Heritage breed Red Devon cattle graze on fields managed by Codman Community Farms (pc: Pete Lowy)
We often talk about our rotational grazing practices at Codman Community Farms, and how they are an example of regenerative agriculture - sustainable practices which regenerate the degraded landscape. What exactly does that mean though? What is actually going on at the farm and in the fields - what needs to be regenerated and how are we doing it?
A Kubota tractor used to move mobile coops for laying hens across pastures as part of our rotational grazing plan
For years, Codman was primarily a hay farm. Every year, forage from our pastures was cut, baled and sold off as hay. Tractors hummed along, cutting and moving and removing, but rarely adding anything back into the fields. Imagine, all those nutrients in the soil being transformed into long, lush fields of green by the grasses’ hard work, only to be cut and whisked away each year for decades.
This kind of farming is at heart an extractive operation, much like mining. When we pull iron or coal out of the ground, it doesn’t grow back (at least on any meaningful human timeline), and neither do the soil nutrients that the grasses and clovers transform into leaves every year. Over time, this extraction of nutrients degrades the soil, and the health of the whole ecosystem declines.
As the years went on, and with fewer nutrients in the soil, the pastures Codman managed became less productive; less grass grew, and we were able to cut less hay. When our current farm manager, Pete Lowy, started in 2016, we had to buy in the majority of our hay to feed our hardy cattle through the winter because he quickly realized the soils needed to rest. Environmentally and financially, this was an unsustainable operation - it could only go on for so long, and depended on taking hay from someone else’s fields, in turn depleting nutrients and perpetuating this cycle.
Piglets enjoy fresh pasture as well at Codman Community Farms, and help to root up invasive species as well as fertilize fields (pc: Pete Lowy)
Pete brought to Codman extensive experience in sustainable animal management. He immediately began moving our chickens, cows, and pigs intensively across our fields, often moving them every day or two to fresh grass. This more closely mimics the grazing patterns of animals in natural ecosystems. As the animals move to fresh forage, their manures have time to break down and enter the soil where they are absorbed by the plants’ root systems. This vital rest and recuperation provides time for the plants to gather strength and drive their root systems ever deeper into the soil horizon, cycling fertility back into the soil. This is vital to the long term sustainability of these pastures. One of the key issues of sustainability in our human enterprise is that if we don’t put back what we take out of the earth, we must look farther and farther away for resources, and eventually will have nothing left to support ourselves. However, as seen at Codman, by adding back in the fertility we extract by grazing our animals intentionally, we can find a balance of giving and taking, which nourishes us and the environment.
Round-baling hay on pastures managed by Codman Community Farms (pc: Pete Lowy)
Rotational grazing at Codman Community Farms - the mobile chicken coops (bottom left) move daily, and the dark green squares (top left) are the grasses rebounding with the fresh fertility from the chicken manures. Cattle graze in a wagon-wheel pattern (right), to be followed by the chickens.
Today, grass grows with new vigor at Codman, as anyone who passed by our fields this spring and summer can attest to. Dense waves of green and gold hummed with crickets following the spring rains, and in 2019, we harvested all of our hay needs for our cattle through the winter - 300 round bales weighing hundreds of pounds each. This is directly due to Pete’s rotational grazing plan, and is a clear indicator of how this management style has revitalized the pastures with fresh fertility, and a cycle of growth that is closer to harmony with the natural ecosystem. Far from the standard, this is a practice which has ancient roots in some cultures, but has been largely ignored in U.S. agriculture. However, we cannot keep extracting resources the way we have been. Our farmland is a precious lifeline, the root of our vitality and our culture. Its health is our health - the two are not separate. Local farms like Codman remind us of that fact, as we can see up close the effects of our short sightedness, or of our wise choices in farming. We need to think of our farming not in human lifespans, but in environmental, or even geological time. Only then can we grasp what choices we must make to sustain ourselves.
Assistant Farm Manager Jared Martin stands next to freshly-baled hay from the fields we manage at Codman, Summer 2019 (pc: Pete Lowy)
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We don’t have it all figured out, but we are lucky to have Pete at the helm of farm operations at Codman. Pete didn’t grow up farming and learned all he knows from observation, reading, attending workshops, and watching how the animals interact with their environment. He will be sharing his expertise at a Tri-State Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) workshop in March, alongside professors from Yale and the University of Rhode Island. His leadership, along with our dedicated volunteers and our supportive community, help us to strive for the most responsible, sustainable practices on our farm. The quality of our pasture-raised proteins reflect our dedication to these practices, and you can support us by stopping by our Farm Store as your source for truly locally-raised meat and eggs. If you’re interested in donating to support our mission, you can do so online here. We’ve just announced our 2020 events calendar, so check it out on our website to see what will be going on at the farm this year, and as always, feel free to reach out to us at info@codmancommunityfarms.org.
~ Jon Mayer
Education, Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator