ATTRA - Voices from the Field

Many regenerative ranchers use mob grazing – dense herds of livestock grazing a place for a very brief time before moving on – as a way to increase grass production and improve soil health. Graziers from across the globe have had success with this approach, but, hey, what about the wild things? Is it always true that what's good for the herd is good for the bird?  

 This episode of Voices from the Field is the first part of a conversation between Dr. Sam Fuhlendorf of Oklahoma State University and NCAT Grazing Specialist Linda Poole about using grazing to bolster, rather than unintentionally harm, desirable wildlife on farms and ranches.  

 In the next episode, Sam and Linda will talk about applying their strategies to smaller operations. 

ATTRA Resources:  

• For the Love of the Wild. Livestock Pastures as Wildlife Habitat 

Other Resources:  

• The Prairie Project 
• Samuel D. Fuhlendorf Publications 
• Conservation of Pattern and Process: Developing an Alternative Paradigm of Rangeland Management 
• Animals, Fences and Fires: Heterogeneity and Grassland Management  

Contact Linda Poole at [email protected] 

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You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other innovative sustainable agriculture programs. 

In this episode of Voices from the Field, we get acquainted with Dr. Tina Cone, a retired veterinarian in Berryville, Arkansas. In a conversation with NCAT Livestock Specialist Linda Coffey, Tina talks about the life she now leads during her second career -- raising beef cattle and practicing regenerative grazing.   

Tina loves what she does and describes the family business and the joys and challenges of running a large cattle operation in the rugged terrain of the Ozarks. She talks about the satisfaction of seeing soil and pastures and cattle improve, and of children coming home to live and work in the business. Stewardship, legacy, and quality of life are themes that run throughout the conversation.   

Contact Linda Coffey at [email protected]  

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other innovative sustainable agriculture programs. 

Related NCAT Resources: 

• Soil for Water 

 
Related ATTRA Resources: 

• Livestock and Pasture 
• Soils and Compost 
• How to Assess Soil Using a Shovel and a Knife  
• Regenerative Grazing: An Introduction 
• Fencing and Water Systems 
• Paddock Design, Fencing, Water Systems, and Livestock Movement Structures for Multi-Paddock Grazing 
• Managed Grazing 
• List of Internships 

Other Resources: 

• National Grazing Land Coalition 
• Natural Resources Conservation District 

Farmers markets are a key ingredient for connecting communities with locally grown foods, hand-made products, and value-added goods. According to the Farmers Market Coalition, markets stimulate local economies, increase access to healthy food, support communities, promote sustainability, and preserve farmland. Based on recent USDA Census data, farmers markets generated $2.4 billion in sales for America’s farmers.  

The National Center for Appropriate Technology has released a new study detailing the economic impact of farmers markets in Montana, and it has launched a new website to connect markets, farmers, and communities. In this episode of Voices from the Field, NCAT Communications Director Emilie Ritter Saunders speaks with Maura Henn, NCAT’s Community Food Systems Specialist, about these new resources and unexpected ways farmers markets make a big impact.  

Related NCAT Resources: 

• Montana Farmers Market Network 

Related ATTRA Resources: 

• Farmers Markets 

Contact Emilie Ritter Saunders and Maura Henn via email at [email protected] and [email protected] 

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other innovative sustainable agriculture programs. 

In this episode of Voices from the Field, northern Montana organic farmer Doug Crabtree and NCAT Agriculture and Natural Resource Economist Jeff Schahczenski talk about one of their favorite topics -- crop insurance.  

They discuss the hope for a reform of Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) and about the particular challenges of crop insurance for a large, highly diverse sustainable production system like Doug’s operation, Vilicus Farms. 

Doug has used WFRP for years, and WFRP had the potential to provide protection for the 20-plus field crops he grows on almost 12,000 acres. But his policy was declined by his crop insurance company because he didn’t provide what he says is an “onerous” amount of documentation.  

Related ATTRA Resources: 

• Crop Insurance and Risk Management 
• Crop Insurance Options for Specialty, Diversified, and Organic Farmers 
• Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program and Whole-Farm Revenue Protection: Understanding the Differences 

Other Resources: 

• Vilicus Farms 

 
Contact Jeff Schahczenski via email at [email protected] 

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other innovative sustainable agriculture programs. 

 In this episode of Voices from the Field, we get to know a new member of NCAT’s staff, Local Food Specialist Molly Kirkham. Molly tells her NCAT colleague, Community Foods System Specialist Maura Henn, about the chance encounter with a community garden that began her interest in local foods. She talks about her time with AmeriCorps at a food bank in Montana, her time farming, and how she came to work at NCAT.  

Among other responsibilities at NCAT, Molly spearheads the Harvest of the Month program, and she emphasizes the importance of exposing young children to healthy local foods and how they are produced. In one touching case, she says, attendance at a school increased after the COVID-19 pandemic when the school began raising chickens. 

Related ATTRA Resources: 

• Farm to Healthcare 
• Sustainable Hospital Food Service: Farm to Healthcare Conference 
• Food Hubs and School Sales 
• State Partnerships for School Markets 

Other Resources: 

• Montana Harvest of the Month 
• Montana Farm to School 
• Abundant Montana 

Contact Molly Kirkham and Maura Henn via email at [email protected] and [email protected].  

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other innovative sustainable agriculture programs. 

In this episode of Voices from the Field, Arkansas veterinarian Dr. Ann Wells talks with NCAT Livestock Specialist Linda Coffey about her experience raising healthy animals and helping other farmers do the same. She shares her journey from conventional veterinary practices to her philosophy of holistic animal health as well as practical strategies for keeping livestock healthy. 

Related ATTRA Resources: 

• Regenerative Grazing 
• The ABC(DE) of Animal Health  
• Healthy Animals, Happy Farm: Strategies for Sheep and Goat Care 
• Fred Provenza has a Recipe for Plant, Animal, and Human Health 

Related NCAT Resources: 

• Soil for Water 

 
Other Resources: 

• Small-Scale Livestock Farming 
• American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control 
• The American Holistic Veterinary Medicine Association 
• The American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners 
• Ozark Pasture Beef 

 
Contact Linda Coffey via email at [email protected]. 

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other cutting-edge sustainable agriculture programs. 

The widespread narrative on why we’re experiencing a food crisis is that it is because of high fuel and fertilizer prices, the disruption in market chains caused by the war in Ukraine, and lingering COVID impacts. But that’s not the whole story. When there is a food crisis, the common narrative is that increasing productivity is the answer and that global agribusinesses and global markets can meet these needs.  

This “feed the world” narrative has been adopted by the media, businesses, and even American farmers who take pride in the idea that they are solving a world food crisis. But what we are seeing is not a food-shortage crisis. Rather, it is a structural problem of our food system that has resulted in high food prices. 

In this episode of Voices from the Field, NCAT Agriculture Specialists Nina Prater and Lee Rinehart compare the “feed the world” narrative to another narrative centered around “food sovereignty” and discuss what farmers, organizations, and governments can do to enable communities to achieve that sovereignty.  

Related ATTRA Resources: 

• Rising Fertilizer Costs. Look to History for Answers  
• How to Reduce Synthetic Fertilizer Use 

Other Resources:  

• Are We Really Facing Food Shortages?  
• The Hunger Profiteers  
• Special Report. Food Price Crisis 
• La Via Campesina 
• What Will Be the Most Effective Way of Overcoming the “Hurricane of Hunger?” 
• Ecology and Society: Diversified Farming Systems: An Agroecological, Systems-based Alternative to Modern Industrial Agriculture  

Contact Nina Prater and Lee Rinehart via email at [email protected]  and [email protected]. 

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other cutting-edge sustainable agriculture programs. 

Janet McNally is a seasoned shepherd from Hinckley, Minnesota, and a master of regenerative grazing in a landscape beset with challenges for livestock. She pasture-raises sheep and cattle amidst huge packs of wolves, hidden legions of deadly internal parasites, rank swards of grass, and deep-snow winters. It’s common knowledge that “grass-based livestock production won’t work here” but in this episode of Voices from the Field -- part of ATTRA's "She's Raising Sheep" series -- Janet tells NCAT’s Linda Poole how she’s turned adversity into a rip-roaring success for her land, livestock, and life.

ATTRA Resources:  

• Livestock and Pasture 
• She’s Raising Sheep. Janet McNally of Minnesota. Part 1
• She’s Raising Sheep: Indiana’s Denice Rackley 
• She’s Raising Sheep: New Zealand Shepherd Bev Towbridge 
• She’s Raising Sheep: Montana Shepherd Becky Weed 
• She’s Raising Sheep: California Shepherd Lani Estill 

Outside Resources:  

• Tamarack Lamb and Wool 
• Graze 
• Grassfed Exchange 2014 – Janet McNally  

Contact Linda Poole via email at [email protected]. 

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other cutting-edge sustainable agriculture programs. 

Winter feeding is one of the biggest expenses for most livestock operations. In this episode of Voices from the Field, NCAT Agriculture Specialist Lee Rinehart and NCAT Regenerative Grazing Specialist Justin Morris discuss strategies graziers can use to plan for winter stockpile during the summer grazing season. 

 Stockpiling is the practice of allowing forage to accumulate during a portion of the growing season so it can be grazed during the dormant period when forage isn’t growing.  

In particular, Lee and Justin focus on stockpiling a portion of summer pastures to reduce the cost of feeding hay.  

Related ATTRA Resources: 

• Regenerative Grazing: Learning From Nature. Part 1. Stockpiling Grass.  
• Advanced Grazing Webinar. Session 3. Animals 
• Feeding Ruminants in the Winter 

Other Resources: 

• Strip-Grazing Stockpile Over the Winter: Easier, Quicker, and Cheaper! 
• Great Basin Wildrye 

Contact Lee Rinehart and Justin Morris via email at  [email protected] and [email protected]. 

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG. 

Learn about NCAT’s other cutting-edge sustainable agriculture programs. 

In this episode of Voices from the Field, NCAT Specialists Nina Prater, Guy Ames, and Lee Rinehart explore the history of fertilizer use to understand how we got to an agricultural system that relies so heavily on synthetic rather than biological fertilizers. They discuss alternatives to this system and ways farmers can build soil health in order to require less synthetic fertilizer to maintain productivity.  

Related ATTRA Resources: 

• ATTRA Fertilizer Reduction Toolkit  
• Soils & Compost  
• Soils and Sites for Organic Orchards and Vineyards 
• Growing Healthy Soil on a Large Scale with Rick Clark 

Other Resources: 

• The First Green Revolution: Debt Peonage and the Making of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Trade 
• The Hidden Costs of Land Degradation in US Maize Agriculture 
• Farmers of Forty Centuries. Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan 
• From Soil to Sustainability 

Contact Nina Prater, Lee Rinehart, and Guy Ames via email at [email protected], lee@ncat.org, and [email protected].

Please complete a brief survey to let us know your thoughts about the content of this podcast. 
 
You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find access our trusted, practical sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at ATTRA.NCAT.ORG.  

Learn about NCAT’s other cutting-edge sustainable agriculture programs.