Regenerative Farm

More information about future regenerative farm plans coming soon in 2024.

We’ve been learning much about regenerative principles from the likes of Carl Thompson, Richard Perkins, Joel Salatin, and Ray Archelata. I really appreciate Gabe Brown’s easy-to-remember principles outlined below:

Gabe Brown's approach to regenerative farming is centered on a few key principles that focus on soil health and sustainability:

  1. Cover the Soil: Maintaining soil cover is crucial for building soil organic matter and preventing erosion. Plant diversity helps minimize bare ground and protects the soil from extreme temperatures, which can harm microbial life​​.

  2. Minimize Soil Disturbance: Limiting mechanical disturbances like tillage is essential since it alters soil structure and can reduce biological activity. Brown advocates for minimizing not only tillage but also other disturbances like excessive grazing or the use of fertilizers and pesticides​​.

  3. Increase Diversity: A diverse array of plants leads to a diverse underground microbial community, which is beneficial for soil health. This principle also extends to increasing diversity in grazing animals and wildlife​​.

  4. Maintain Continuous Living Plants/Roots: Keeping living plant roots in the soil throughout the year is encouraged to maintain soil biological processes. This helps feed beneficial microbes and fosters healthy relationships between these microbes and plants​​.

  5. Integrate Livestock: Properly managed livestock grazing is seen as essential for healthy soils and ecosystems. Livestock recycling nutrients, reducing plant selectivity, and increasing plant diversity are key aspects of this integration​​.

  6. Attention to Soil Health Indicators: Indicators such as soil cover, color, biological activity, soil structure, rooting resistance, smell, and erosion are used to assess soil health. For example, healthy soil should have a fresh, earthy smell and exhibit a structure that resembles cottage cheese or chocolate cake​​.

Brown's Ranch, operated by Gabe Brown, is an exemplary model of these principles in action. The ranch integrates grazing and no-till cropping systems, including a wide variety of cash crops and multi-species cover crops, along with livestock like grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured poultry, and swine. This diversity and integration have regenerated the ranch's natural resources without relying on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or fungicides​​.

Furthermore, Brown's polyculture plots have shown increased yields and dramatic improvements in soil health indicators such as water filtration rates and soil organic carbon content. He has significantly reduced the use of synthetic fertilizers and practices rotational grazing, which contributes to increased soil health and yield​​.

For a detailed case study of Brown’s Ranch and its practices, you can refer to the ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture website, which offers insights into how Brown has improved soil health and the bottom line through his regenerative farming practices​​.