Equipping Wisconsin’s Grazing Professionals with New Tool

The latest news from the Grassland 2.0 team on grassland-based agriculture and sustainable agriculture.

Tag: Grazing

Equipping Wisconsin’s Grazing Professionals with New Tool

On a blustery morning in January, grazing professionals from across the state gathered at the Blue Heron Brewpub in Marshfield. They congregated at the small-town pub for the Winter G-Team Meeting, a training on the Heifer Grazing Compass.

“The Heifer Grazing Compass is a very in-depth tool that can really boil a grazing system down to the nuts and bolts financially,” says Jacob Brey, farmer at Brey Cycle Farm. “After going through the compass exercise, I was really impressed by its attention to detail; it doesn’t leave any room for doubt if filled out correctly.”

When it comes to dairy, France and Wisconsin share common histories and aspirations

The Wisconsin grazing community has had a bond with France since the first dairy grazier cracked open the book, Grass Productivity by Andre Voisin. Translated into English in the late 1980s, this foundational 1956 work on managed grazing reached us just as the Wisconsin grazing movement was beginning to take off.

Grazing Network Thriving in Northwest Wisconsin

When Paul Daigle, an organizer in Grassland 2.0’s Cloverbelt Learning Hub and longtime grazing consultant, pulled into the parking lot at Shell Lake Community Center, it was overflowing. And he was 20 minutes early. Daigle drove to the northwest reaches of the state to attend the annual Fall Grazing Conference put on by Northwest Wisconsin […]

Pastures as Potential Pollinator Habitat

Story by Skye Bruce When you think of pastures, what do you see in your mind’s eye? Perhaps a field of grasses, speckled with cows, and maybe some clover? As a graduate student in Entomology at UW-Madison, I’m interested in whether these grazed landscapes contain habitat for beneficial insects, and how grazing management methods affect […]

Heifer Raising Road Show Kicks-Off in the Cloverbelt Learning Hub

On the evening of September 8th, a handful of dairy farmers and extension professionals met in a barn near Stratford, Wisconsin for dinner and drinks. These particular farmers were interested in the potential that dairy heifer grazing could have for their operations. Jason Cavadini, the state grazing specialist, hosted the dinner at Cavern Point Farm, which he calls the pilot event of the “Heifer Raising Road Show.”

Join the Grassland 2.0 Digital Dialogue for Conversations on Place-Making

As we head into fall, Grassland 2.0 once again is hosting our free Digital Dialogue series. In 2021, we kicked off the series with the question: What are healthy agroecosystems? In spring 2022, we asked: What are the levers of agroecological change? This fall we focus on a new question that is near and dear to our Grassland 2.0 work: How does place-making impede or facilitate socio-ecological change?

Re-Defining our Places Through Learning Hubs

If improving biodiversity, water quality, and soil health are goals shared by so many, and we know about potential solutions, why aren’t these solutions being more aggressively pursued? Reshaping agriculture in ways that provide a spectrum of ecosystem services can feel daunting. The socially defined context in which farming decisions are made impedes transitions to more regenerative forms of agriculture (Stuart & Houser, 2018). For meaningful changes to occur in our agricultural systems, we need to reshape the way we have socially, politically, economically, and biophysically constructed the places where we grow and consume food (Vogeler, 2019).

Thinking as a Community

Ashley Becker and Mia Keady demonstrate soil sampling (G. Landis)

Grassland 2.0’s Summer Meeting Recap By Greta Landis “Until we build visions and models for the future, we won’t know where we are going, or how to chart our course to get there,” said Randy Jackson, one of the principal investigators of Grassland 2.0. A barn full of 50 farmers, researchers, and conservation and policy […]

Dairy Needs Real Innovation

William D. Hoard’s enlightened understanding of the importance of livestock to soil health, coupled with his courageous advocacy work, helped pull Wisconsin agriculture from the depths of despairing wheat production in the late 19th century. When year after year of wheat production led to devastating disease pressure, he opened a door to unimagined prosperity. Hoard ignited the concept of America’s Dairyland by understanding the importance of diversified cropping to break disease cycles, the role of livestock in recycling nutrients, and the importance of peer-to-peer education to making change.
Hoard’s lore, captured in the booklet “Hilltop Decision,” speaks of how Governor Hoard saw “good farmers” exiting the industry all around him, and he realized the importance of education and technical support to maintain families on the land. We might call his work agricultural innovation because he transformed the industry. That is, Wisconsin agriculture was never the same, and that was a good thing . . . “back in the day.”

Back to his grassroots: Jacob Marty returns to family land with new vision for agriculture

As a dairy farm kid from southwest Wisconsin, Jacob Marty had no desire to return to his family’s farm. He was set on attending UW-Stevens Point and pursuing a career in conservation. Studying wildlife ecology pointed him in an unexpected direction, however: back to the farm.

“I got interested in how we can harmonize food production while also providing habitat for wildlife,” says Jacob. “That led me down this road.”

Watch Jacob Marty share why he had a change of heart, all while fending off an overzealous ram!