At Ashfount, we believe that learning to manage holistically is the best way for people in farming and food to benefit the land, the environment and their business. Why does it matter so much, how is it different from "conventional" farming, and why are more farmers making the switch?
One of the core pillars of regenerative farming is relearning how to see and run a business as a whole. Holistic management is a framework for decisions that are socially, economically and environmentally sound. It asks farmers, ranchers and everyone in a food business to rethink how they view their resources and to act as a steward of the land, working with natural cycles instead of against them.
We see every contribution as part of a larger ecosystem, from the microbes in the soil to the way we run our own work. It shapes how we advise the farms and food businesses we work with and the stories we choose to tell.
Why specialized farming stopped working
Since the industrial revolution, farming around the world, and especially in the U.S., has become highly individualized and specialized. In an article in The Conversation, Stephanie Anderson describes how farmers fundamentally changed the way they work. Globalized food markets and new technology pushed them to specialize in a few commodity crops.
Specialization raised profits at first, but it left farms exposed when a crop failed. Farmers leaned harder on agribusiness retailers, and many smaller farms were absorbed into larger ventures when they went bankrupt or could not keep pace.
With each generation came new machinery and new agrochemicals, and farming moved further from holistic practice. Many U.S. farmers today are locked into narrow, large-scale operations with ever-growing loans and debts and a dependence on outside technology and support.
The damage is not only economic. Large monocultures erode farmers' knowledge and skills, degrade the soil and contribute to climate change and the desertification of land. Land farmed this intensively becomes less fertile year after year, which hurts yields, crop quality and livestock.
That is why many farmers are looking for a better option, and we believe it is regenerative agriculture. Because it mimics nature by working with the natural processes of plants and animals, anyone who wants to practice it has to learn to think and manage holistically.
What is holistic management?
"One key to understanding holistic decision making is remembering the first insight: the world functions in wholes. Each of us is responsible for managing a whole, beginning with ourselves as individuals. And beyond that first whole, there is a larger whole, a farm, a family or a business." (Holistic Management International)
Holistic management is the cornerstone of regenerative agriculture. You cannot restore land or heal the soil without respecting natural cycles, and that takes holistic thinking.
In essence, it means looking at how each part of a business relates to every other part, and making choices that keep the whole healthy. That covers soil, livestock and crops, but also the health of owners, workers and the local community.
It also means becoming part of the natural cycle instead of fighting the land and forcing it to yield with ever more unnatural methods. Charles Massy put the realization this way:
"I completely overlooked the most important of all factors, the keystone of the whole operation: that our farm was a complex and dynamic series of ecological systems, and that our landscape actually functioned in specific but sensitive ways."
How holistic management works
Holistic management was developed and championed above all by Allan Savory of the Savory Institute. Savory spent many years studying desertification, soil erosion and the effects modern farming was having on the land he farmed in Zimbabwe. He concluded that a holistic approach that includes planned grazing could reverse many of those effects.
His system rests on four key insights:
- Only the whole is reality. A holistic perspective is essential in management; decisions made from any narrower view tend to produce results other than those intended.
- Environments sit on a continuum from nonbrittle to very brittle, depending on how evenly humidity is spread through the year and how quickly dead vegetation breaks down. Rest restores land in nonbrittle environments but can damage it in very brittle ones.
- In brittle environments, relatively high numbers of large herding animals, concentrated and moving as they would in the presence of pack-hunting predators, are vital to the health of the land.
- Overgrazing and trampling damage have little to do with the number of animals and much to do with how long plants and soil are exposed to them.
Why planned grazing matters
Savory argues that planned grazing is essential for land health because it mimics the way herds once moved across the land. Grazing animals evolved alongside pack-hunting predators that are largely gone from farming landscapes today. They protected themselves by bunching, dunging and urinating as they went and then moving on, which fed the soil and kept any one patch from being overgrazed.
This is why Savory holds that removing livestock is not the answer to poor soil health. Farmers should instead carefully plan grazing so that animals cycle grass and other plant matter without exhausting the land. Planned grazing is a cornerstone of holistic management, but it is still only one part of the whole.
Holistic management frameworks
Because managing holistically means balancing so many factors, regenerative farming advocates have built frameworks farmers can use. Most start by asking the farmer to plan for a holistic goal and to get to know the land: soil cover, moisture, fertility, and which natural resources are being built up or used up.
For anyone used to monoculture, this is a new way of seeing land, livestock and resources. With a plan and goals that are regularly tested, a farm can keep adjusting toward its holistic goal. There is no single method, but a good framework covers the core areas of land management.
Holistic Management International (HMI), for example, identifies 8 principles and practices for managing resources within a holistic framework:
- Nature functions in wholes
- Understand the environment you manage
- Define what you are managing
- State what you want
- Aim for healthy soil
- Consider all tools
- Test your decisions
- Monitor your results
These frameworks change how farmers think about their resources. When HMI says "consider all tools", it means more than machinery: it includes human creativity and the animals and other living things on the land. On one fruit farm in Cornwall, England, chickens were brought in to keep the grass down and eat the sawflies that feed on the farm's gooseberries.
The benefits of holistic management
Some farmers worry that doing less to the land, with fewer agrochemicals and less industrial input, will hurt them financially. For many, the opposite turns out to be true. By working with nature, they build the healthy ecosystems that support better yields and better produce.
Less heavy machinery and fewer pesticides also mean less money spent on equipment, maintenance, chemicals and the labor to apply them. Animals take over jobs that would otherwise need chemical or mechanical input, which saves time and builds diversity on the land.
Other benefits can include:
- Animals that graze naturally and live away from confined spaces are less stressed and tend to have fewer health problems.
- Land management that can not only slow climate change and soil degradation but in many cases reverse them.
- Less worry about debt and about the health effects of agrochemicals, and a closer connection to land and livestock.
- Closer ties with the local community for farmers who sell directly instead of through large companies that dictate how produce is grown.
Can holistic management compete with industrial farming?
Accepted wisdom says that only large, heavily industrialized monoculture farms can feed a growing world population. Some research points the other way. Writing in the New York Times in 2013, Mark Bittman argued:
"The world has long produced enough calories, around 2,700 per day per human, more than enough to meet the United Nations projection of a population of nine billion in 2050... there are hungry people not because food is lacking, but because not all calories go to feed humans (a third go to feed animals, nearly 5 percent are used to produce biofuels, and as much as a third is wasted, all along the food chain)."
Quantity is also not the same as nourishment. Many people eat poorly because their food is low in nutrients, and that has long-term consequences for health.
A large monoculture does yield more of one crop per acre than what the ETC Group calls the "peasant food web" of small-scale farmers, livestock keepers and urban producers. But smaller producers diversify plants and animals and build soil fertility, so they can often produce more food overall with fewer resources and less transport. A 2021 study by FAO economists estimates that farms of less than 2 hectares make up 84% of the world's farms and operate only around 12% of all agricultural land, yet produce roughly 35% of the world's food.
Because regenerative farming is often local and smaller in scale, it tackles food waste, transport and infrastructure problems and high-yield but low-nutrient food at the same time. Better food supports better health and a closer connection to the land.
Holistic management and a sustainable future
Producing food in harmony with the natural cycles of the land will matter more and more as this century goes on. If we keep farming the industrial way, the damage to our soil and our health will keep growing, unless we change both how we produce food and the thinking behind it.
That is why we encourage the farms, ranches and food businesses we advise to think holistically and move toward regenerative practice, so they can share in its social, ecological and financial benefits. Many of the farms and ranches in our directory already work this way. Changing how we think about producing food can improve our health and our livelihoods, and build a more sustainable future for local and global communities.