Porch View Farm in Woodbine, Maryland is surrounded by farmland — primarily perfectly manicured fields of commodity corn and soy but also an occasional orchard or vegetable patch. But driving through the gate feels like passing through a portal into a vibrant, alternative agricultural universe.
Farmer Keith Ohlinger checks the height of various grasses in a pasture bright with purple chicory flowers and red clover as blue, yellow and orange butterflies fly from plant to plant. It’s mid-morning and the temperature is already climbing towards 100 degrees, so the cattle and sheep cluster in the shade of two of the 15,000 trees Ohlinger has planted on the property since 2013. Many of those trees snake across the property in curvy lines, forming living fences that divide pastures and welcome at least 37 species of birds — eastern bluebirds, grasshopper sparrows and red-bellied woodpeckers among them.
“I wanted to create a little Garden of Eden,” he says. “All of this is meant to survive thousands of years.” But Ohlinger is no deity, and building a farm that will function as a biodiverse ecosystem for the foreseeable future has involved backbreaking labor and nearly impossible financial calculations. So while one might imagine him to be a proselytizer for sustainable agriculture, he is instead acutely attentive to practicalities. The neighboring farmers that are “beating the hell out of the land” with chemical fertilizers and pesticides? He gets it. They’re surviving.
Ohlinger’s system of incorporating trees into livestock grazing systems is called silvopasture. And it’s one of many practices that fit under the umbrella of regenerative agriculture, an approach to farming that works with nature to restore soil fertility, build healthy ecosystems and sequester carbon. Because of its potential to help mitigate climate change, regenerative agriculture has been getting increased attention in policy and research circles. But farmers like Ohlinger say that more needs to be done to address the technical and financial barriers they face. Otherwise, farms like his will represent fairytale — not realistic — scenarios.
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