Holistic Management Course in Arkaute (Basque Country)

Within the cycle of Regenerative Agriculture courses that are being made in Spain during 2012 we have this one: “Holistic Management applied to livestock farms.” Deals mainly with intensive rotational grazing. First I have to explain briefly what it is. There are two ideas that are presented:

On one side is a holistic management decision-making mode that facilitates strategic planning, either to mark the course of a family, a business or in this case, a farm. This could well be considered or labeled as a technique of bussiness Management.

Second one is the technique of rotational grazing itself. This technique is easy to understand on paper but that requires a great, great planning to work, hence that this technique is combined with Holistic Management. It tries to mimic the behavior of herds that exist in nature, the savannah, where the predator and prey coexist on a daily basis, and where both are in synergy with the meadows. In nature, cattle live very concentrated and is nomadic, to improve safety.

To achieve this we divide the farm in paddocks  in which the cattle graze highly concentrated. They remain confined by electric fence. They are rotated, and not only graze them, also they pay heavily the ground, crush, trample him, when they leave out the grass then regenerates, before they come other time.This technique allows to increase the number of cattle per area, in some cases there is duplication. And most important is inputs are drastically reduced so profitable, so much so that the application of this technique has brought poverty to many rancher in the world. I attach this video explaining the technique, takes about 3 minutes and is easy to understand:

The course was held at two different points: in the North was initially planned to celebrate in Noain (Navarra) but finally the site was changed to Neiker‘ facilities in Arkaute (Vitoria-Gasteiz). It was during the days 20-22 of April. Other one was held in Ronda (Malaga) in the Finca LaDonaira from 27 to 29 April. In both courses there was an attendance around 40 people, consisting mainly of ranchers, farmers, technicians … Neiker is a center of R & D, which not only have offered their facilities to do the course but also will research about  Regenerative Agriculture in general and Holistic Management particular.

Teachers who taught the course are Kirk & Tamara Gadzia, both have traveled the world raising awareness of this technique, originally developed by Alan Savory. Here we see Kirk taking a class at Meadows Neiker facility, he is left in the photo, beside him is Ana Digón that coordinates the actions of RegenAG and translates the courses as she is a professional translator.

Visiting Neiker's Meadows

Here we see a herd of sheep “latxa”  grazing in these areas. It is a breed native of the Basque Country and Navarra which produces a high quality milk used to make the famous cheese Idiazábal by example.

flock of sheep "latxa"

In this picture I am with Kirk & Tamara, we were in the same hostel in Vitoria and applied myself to take them from one side to another (hey, I was his driver  . While Kirk focused on Holistic management and rotational grazing, Tamara told us about the restoration of degraded land and the foundation to she belongs, Quivira Coalition.

With Kirk & Tamara Gadzia

Finally a group photo of all attendees:

Photo group

Kirk & Tamara are planning to come back next year to do consulting work and make some more progress, there will still be in contact. On the other hand, I will include later an article about Holistic management more in detail, including pictures of case studies.