Lu Kbraun wrote:This is really interesting. I've read a lot on mob grazing, but Travis' arguments seem very convincing. I wonder if anyone has further thoughts on this? Thanks and best wishes
I'd say Travis is right, but that doesn't mean that what you're reading about mob grazing can't be valid at the same time.
If you've read any of Gabe Brown's work, you may have heard of his principles of soil health. The 5 principles are: 1. minimize disturbance 2. armor on the soil surface 3. living roots in the soil 4. diversity of species 5. animal integration
However recently he has turned that into 6 principles. Now the #1 principle he always tells people is:
know your context.
This is perhaps the most important principle of all. The problem with the study linked in the OP, and so many other scientific studies, is that they don't take into account context. Often it is impossible to. Which is why when many studies try to replicate the efforts of people such as Gabe Brown or Masanobu Fukuoka, two farmers who have come to essentially the same conclusions despite radically different circumstances, they end up with contradicting results. Going off of these studies, holding them in higher regard than people's experience since science is supposed to be objective, it's easy to dismiss them as quacks. But there are certain things that simply cannot be deduced via the scientific method. They can only be deduced by personal observation.
Another reason these studies often fail to reinforce the experiences of individuals is they don't really understand what the individuals were doing, and so they improperly try to apply the exact methods that they used in an inappropriate context. With Fukuoka, after first reading his book I remember reading about studies that attempted to replicate his findings, all of which failed to and concluded that what he was doing just doesn't work. As such, I wondered if what he preached was really legitimate, even though it made so much sense. Since then, there have been countless studies that back up what he was telling people since the 70s, as well as countless individuals who independently discovered the same principles as he did even in much different contexts. The important thing is not the exact method, it is the principles we follow and how they apply to our context.
Mob grazing is not just about having a high stocking density. It is about maximizing impact
when it's most needed and still following the other principles of holistic management, such as taking and leaving the right amount of forage and allowing the right amount of rest. Gabe Brown, and his partner Allen Williams, although they may talk about mob grazing, have never said to do mob grazing all of the time. They push what is called Adaptive Grazing. This is about using the right kind of management decisions according to your context and what you observe, while following the soil health principles.
The people you typically see using mob grazing to great effect are large-scale ranchers who are running hundreds of heads of grazing animals across hundreds to thousands of acres. The great thing about rotational grazing is that it scales up so magnificently. I have personally observed, from working on different farms, the contrast between moving 5 cows, 20 cows and 100 cows. In many ways, it's actually easier to move the larger groups. And setting up paddocks for them hardly takes longer than the smaller groups. For the larger groups, mob grazing can very much make sense. For just 5 cows, the experience will be similar to Travis's. It just isn't worth the effort.
Point being, if you only have a small group of animals or even just one cow, you should still rotate them through your pastures. But it's pretty pointless to replicate one-to-one the guys who are moving 100 head twice a day at high stocking density. That doesn't mean you still can't learn from them. I do believe that a larger herd is more efficient in just about every way for building soil. Still, I have seen the amazing effect that even a basic rotation of a single cow can have on soil fertility in just a few years. And it's a great way to learn when you are merely keeping a cow while working a full-time job. Maybe some day you can use the experience to do it at a much greater scale.
