Four times a day, give or take, Paul Slomp — owner of Grazing Days Farm in St.-André-Avellin in Quebec, near Montebello — walks into one of his 40 fields and opens a gate. The response of his 210-strong herd of Angus cows is immediate. They begin moving from the field they’ve been in, pass through the gate, and are soon grazing contently on grass in the fresh field they’ve entered.
“I just open the fence and call them,” Slomp says. “As soon as they see me, they move —two, three minutes would be all it takes. And then I close the gate.”
The cows seem all too happy to co-operate. After all, this constant movement means they are always eating only the freshest and sweetest of grass.
This process of regular movement is something called mob grazing, a technique that mimics the grazing patterns of herbivores in the wild, which, free to move, will take a bite or two of a grass plant and then move on. Often, herds in the wild will be spooked by predators and move as a group to fresh ground. The point is that they are never in one place long, and never over-graze a patch of grass to the point that the plants require significant time for regrowth.
“It’s quite simple,” Slomp says. “You move the herd as soon as all the plants have had one bite removed. The plant doesn’t have to go dormant but continues its photosynthesis — and over time, a very thick grass mat develops.”
When a large herd of cattle moves, it creates what Slomp calls a “mini-earthquake,” which shakes up the microbes in the soil, effectively waking them up. Some of the grass is trampled into the earth, where it decomposes and adds fertility to the soil.
The thick mat of grass that develops insulates the soil, the microbes and the plant roots from the elements. This evens out the soil temperature and the grass can continue growing even when the ambient temperature is above or below the optimum level for good plant growth.
In 2016, a summer of drought in Central Canada, many farmers in Ontario and Quebec found their grazing fields brown and inhospitable to their herds — but Slomp and his wife Josée Cyr- Charlebois grew more grass than they ever had before. What’s more, with the insulation of a thick mat of grass, their fall growing season has been extended by three weeks, from Nov. 15 to Dec. 9 last year, for example.
Slomp says the weight gains his cattle make are in the same range of what feedlot owners achieve, roughly two pounds a day per animal. Even better, the increase in soil fertility is such that far more animals can be pastured on a given piece of land. Slomp expects to be able to double his herd to more than 400 within the next five years. His farm will produce more meat and his revenues will correspondingly rise. He also raises smaller numbers of pigs and chickens, the meat from which is for sale, by subscription, in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
Because his cattle eat such fresh and nutritious grass, they have become highly robust. Slomp says not a single animal has needed antibiotics this year.
He takes comfort in the fact that the flourishing grasses and other vegetation on his farm are absorbing unusual amounts of carbon dioxide, the most significant greenhouse gas.
“So many people believe that you have to become vegetarian if you want to help the environment — but the more nuanced view is that, with good animal husbandry, livestock can actually help the environment.
“What we are doing, I firmly believe, is as good for the planet as it is for our animals.”
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Regeneration Canada
https://regenerationcanada.org/en/
Regeneration Canada is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting soil regeneration in order to mitigate climate change, restore biodiversity, improve water cycles, and support a healthy food system.We strive towards this goal by creating spaces for farmers, landowners, scientists, agronomists, businesses, community organizations, governments, and citizens to learn, connect and take action to regenerate soils.
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Régénération Canada
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Canada
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