shared grazing

Hello Professor Savory

I was wondering if you have attempted to get small land holders to cooperate as a collective to create a large land mass suitable for large herds? Could such a group be formed where the acreage added creates the percentage of the herd owned by that individual? The labour could be shared between ranchers as the herd enters their portion and then passed on when the herd moves off. Could this be added to public land, i.e. BLM land for the USA or an equivalent in another country? This would hasten the regeneration of these public lands and get many more voices added to your line of thinking.

Thank you for your time and expertise in answering our forums questions.

Jason

Jason I am not a professor (although I note some in Africa call me the barefoot professor – mostly behind my back!) But thanks.

Your line of reasoning is dead right. In another post I wrote of people collaborating much in the manner you suggest. Try and look for it where I talked of farms getting too large and ranches getting too small to be ecologically viable. And how that could be addressed as soon as people really do manage holistically and stop confusing ownership with management.

Long ago I coined the words “game ranching” in the 1950’s when I was still influenced by my university training and belief that livestock caused desertification through overgrazing. Later working with two American Fulbright Scholars (Ray Dasmann & Archie Mossman) we got that industry going. However it was one of my many mistakes as all game ranches I have visited I find are deteriorating as was our land at Dimbangombe under wildlife alone. However I did see ranchers in Zimbabwe begin on their own to collaborate – maintain ownership of their own ranches but pull up boundary fences and share the wildlife well. Unfortunately all that has collapsed now for political reasons, but if still going I am sure with what we now know we could have enabled those ranchers to succeed just as we are doing on our land.

Thank you very much for your thoughts and insight.

We had a lot of good talks going on about this topic, that is great.
We talked about land and animal management....

Have you investigated and written about human management?
Well I mean about getting people to work together.

Is it part of the tools that you propose?
I can imagine some problems to be solved...
Who brings how many hectares but also how many heads of cattle. Some will say that they do not deparasite their animals the same way etc.
Can you give us some hints about the points that have to be discussed?

And before this, how can people be convinced to give it a try and see the advantages...
Is it necessary that people first try the method on their own land?
is sharing only a second step?

Thanks for all your deep personal insight.

Xisca,
We do a great deal of work getting people to work together. We tried for years in Africa and can tell you a lot of things not to do. Finally we brought in more people and gained more insights from others. Over the past 3 years we have done an enormous amount of work and development of training materials around adult experiential learning and community mobilization. Now we are seeing encouraging results. My wife who has directed much of that program will be speaking about it at our upcoming conference in Boulder late June. Mobilizing any community where the collaboration of many is a prerequisite of meaningful reversal of land degradation is as we have learned not easy.

That is exactly the type of things I am interested in.
Though I will not myself get herds of any animal, I would love to help expand this idea.
I live in a place that is more adapted to animals than crops. But animals are wandering around or people cut branches and bring them to the animals (less time consuming than moving the animals when you do not have a lot!)

Foreigners like me are very often vegans or vegetarians (I am not myself!). So, though they believe in ecology, they will not help.
Veganism can be a personal solution, but absolutely not a global solution, IMO...

a lot of things not to do.

Can you tell more? Have you also written about this?

Xisca, perhaps you can persuade them with a quote from Sir Albert Howard in 1943.
He is recognized as one of the pioneers of organic gardening.

Mother Earth never attempts to farm without livestock; she always raises mixed crops...

Foreigners like me are very often vegans or vegetarians (I am not myself!). So, though they believe in ecology, they will not help.
Veganism can be a personal solution, but absolutely not a global solution, IMO...

Seriously guy? not a global solution... Grow potatoes and eat them, grow fruit and eat it, grow grain and vegetables and eat them. Problem solved, People fed. No need to give the animals so much grains and stuff that we could be eating. Don't grow so many animals. Let them be free like you are. Im always completely baffled by the Vegetarianism can never be a global solution argument. You gotta be really pessimistic and lacking in knowledge of Nutrition and calorie counting to believe something like that.

If you don't believe you wont try. why wont you believe. save the poor animals from a crappy death guys. GROW POTATOES

Respectfully

Darwin C

I cannot eat potatoes...

Darwin Cameron wrote:Grow potatoes and eat them, grow fruit and eat it, grow grain and vegetables and eat them. Problem solved, People fed. You gotta be really pessimistic and lacking in knowledge of Nutrition and calorie counting to believe something like that.

I did eat vegan and gluten-free with a balanced diet for 1 year. I have quite a lot of this "nutrition knowledge", and I get ill on the diet you propose. More and more people see that all type of sugar including starch lead to many health issues, according to the genetic of the person. In my case, it is leading me to diabetes.

No need to give the animals so much grains and stuff that we could be eating.

I TOTALLY AGREE.
Animals must be grass fed. Or whatever is their normal diet, including insects.
And I would not eat these "grains and stuff" either!

Don't grow so many animals.

Just read more in the greening desert forum, about the fact they the world need to grow MORE animals.

Let them be free like you are.

Right, and when we grow crops, we want to keep animals from eating them, so kill them or keep them away with fences etc.
Free animals in many places just get eaten by lions, wolves, tigers, leopards...
Free animals just eat each others.
And I do not think so much I am that free anyway...

Im always completely baffled by the Vegetarianism can never be a global solution argument.

I maintain that this is a personal solution IMO. Just also see
1) Geography: some places can feed animals (who feed men) and cannot produce grain or starchy crops. The reasons are desert, snow, mountains, rocky areas, poor tropical soils that must stay covered with trees...

2) Genetics and health issues: we are not equal.

I totally agree with Allan Savory about the necessity to rely more on animals. If some people just want to eat dairy and eggs, fine.