Cerebral Ranching: Sunshine - Rainfall - Management

by Walt Davis

Cerebral Ranching is a collection of bite sized bits of management philosophy, along with corresponding practices, that work together to improve the ecological, the financial, and the human aspects of ranching. It is not a “how to” book but rather an attempt to help managers use logic to replace the multitude of inputs – all expensive, most toxic – deemed necessary by the proponents of modern agricultural technology. It recommends a holistic (all inclusive) type of management, with examples of individual practices that support holistic management. The purpose of the book is not to advocate some utopian Polly Anna dream world, but rather to show how ranching can be (and is in some cases) a powerful factor for regenerating natural resources, while producing economic profit, and being a good way to live and raise a family. Many of the ideas put forth are in direct conflict with the tenets of industrial agriculture, which today is widely accepted as the modern standard. There are many differences between what is considered conventional ranching and what I term cerebral. Most of these arise from differences in the underlying philosophies of the two approaches. Industrial agriculture operates on the false, and short-sighted, belief that for humans to succeed, nature must be dominated – kill weeds, kill insects, kill microbes, destroy anything that interferes with the production scheme. It operates on the theory that the natural world is controlled by competition and that human success depends on reducing this competition by limiting the number of species present; in producing the monocultures we call “clean crops and weed free pastures”. In truth, the natural world operates on mutually beneficial relationships and, without human interference, this web of relation-ships creates a stable and productive soil-plant-animal complex where the needs of all organism’s present are met. Much more productive than fighting to maintain the unstable monocultures, is judiciously inserting two more factors into the complex – wealth and humans. When management is designed and implemented to benefit all parts of the soil-plant-animal-wealth-human complex, many “problems” disappear. This is neither as difficult nor as complicated as it sounds. It does require that managers understand that all parts of the complex are related and anything that affects (good or bad) one part, affects all parts. We have gone wrong by trying to correct individual “problems”. It is not possible to treat “fly problems, or nutrition problems, or disease problems as if they were unrelated. So long as “problems” are addressed in isolation, they will never be cured in a manner that brings long-term benefit to the whole complex. There are no, “silver bullets”, chemical or mechanical, that will quickly cure problems without creating more problems. The question as to whether to use a practice should not be, “What will it hurt?” but “Will it help all parts of the complex?” Many of the ills of industrial agriculture come about from unanticipated side effects of the treatments applied to remedy “problems.” There are many such side effects but most trace back to a loss of biodiversity – simplification creates unstable conditions while complexity promotes stability. As the famous philosopher, Pogo, said, “We have met the enemy and he is us”. Agriculture, including ranching, badly needs to change from the current culture of “kill the pests” to one that promotes life by strengthening all parts of the soil-plant-animal-wealth-human complex. There are many producers all over the world striving and succeeding in making this change. Their success – financial, ecologic, and human – is why regenerative (life promoting) agriculture is the fastest growing type of agriculture.

232 pages, Paperback

Published July 10, 2019