Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 226: The Truth About Regenerative Grazing: What Works and What Doesn’t with Emma Coffman

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226: The Truth About Regenerative Grazing: What Works and What Doesn’t with Emma Coffman · CattleUSA Daily

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  In today's episode with Emma Kaufman, we are talking grazing
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  management protocol and what that means for you and your
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  operation, especially as we go into these winter months and
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  what we should be doing to truly be managing our grazing
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  operations. Before we hop into today's
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  episode, if you are watching on YouTube, take a second to
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  subscribe to our channel and like this episode.
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  If you're listening on any of our podcast platforms, make sure
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  you take a second to follow the show and also go right and
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  review it as well. And without further ado, let's
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  go ahead and hear from Emma. Welcome to.
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  The Cattle USA Daily Podcast. Your go to source.
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  For the latest livestock markets, industry insights and
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  the updates shaping agriculture today, I'm your host Lauren
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  Moylan, a passionate advocate for agriculture.
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  Here to keep you informed. And connected.
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  Now let's dive into today's episode.
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  Emma, welcome back to another podcast episode.
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  I am so excited for today's episode because I feel like it
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  is so relevant to winter forage as we plan out for spring, just
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  grazing management in general. So would you like to introduce
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  today's podcast episode for everyone listening?
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  Yeah, Lauren, thanks for having me on.
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  I'm really excited about this because this is an area that
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  I've been learning a lot of this past year.
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  I've been traveling all over the United States and
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  internationally talking about this topic.
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  So and it's grazing management practices.
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  And to preface, I am in no way shape an expert on this subject,
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  but we will give a lot of different resources that I'm
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  sure Lauren will put into the show notes because there is a
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  lot of research coming out and seeing these practices being put
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  in place. No filter, no nothing.
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  I'm on the ranch. I see it all, I see the cattle.
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  I think it's really important, especially when we're going into
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  the winter months, making sure that we are setting ourselves up
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  for a great 2026. Yes, absolutely.
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  I think that you just hit the nail on the head there of
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  setting ourselves up to have the best possible year and it starts
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  with our grazing protocols. It starts with what we are
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  putting into our cattle in the 1st place.
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  So what have you been learning over the past year, Emma?
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  Kind of just break all of that down for us as far as what
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  rotational grazing is. It doesn't work for every
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  operation. Kind of touching on that too, of
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  just all of those aspects and kind of the importance of it and
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  importance of just overall just having a good grazing management
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  protocol that works for you and your operation.
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  Sure, Yeah, absolutely. So the Texas A&M Center for
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  Grazing Lands and Ranch Management is a really great
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  resource. Doctor Jeff Goodwin is a
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  fantastic person to get in touch with.
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  And so in terms of what works for your environment, please
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  reach out to them on the NRCS office.
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  Also a great resource, reach out to them because they do have all
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  the data that would help advise you on what practice to in place
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  and also what your first step is.
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  Because I think a lot of times in social media, we see the
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  rewards of years and years and years and years worth of work of
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  people's different operations, whether that's in livestock
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  industry or not in the livestock industry.
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  And I think that people make maybe too much of A change
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  upfront. It needs to start small.
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  That is the biggest piece of advice that I've talked to
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  ranchers all over the US Start small, make small decisions that
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  financially you can afford to make.
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  If you have been used to feeding your cattle and you want to quit
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  feeding cattle, your pastures are probably not set up for
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  that. Your cattle are not set up for
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  that. So what can you do?
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  OK, well, instead of maybe letting them graze down all the
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  way down to the ground, we leave at least two to three inches of
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  stubble heights. So that way, when it does have
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  that time of rest, the sun can actually get in and there's
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  something think like a solar panel, right?
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  You have to have that solar panel in order to generate
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  energy. Same thing with plants.
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  They need those leaves in order to generate new growth so that
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  making sure there's enough water if you're in a drought.
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  All right, So what do you do? OK, well we need to maybe
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  shorten our feeding times or our rotation times and move the
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  cattle up more frequently and try to give it more rest.
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  Well, how do you do that if you already have a fixed set of
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  acres? OK, well let's just put up some
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  Poly wire or some fencing. Or if you're in a really rough
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  part of the country, maybe you're interested in getting
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  some virtual fencing. There's lots of different
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  options out there. Set those boundaries smaller and
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  then move them more frequently. That way you can give these
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  sections more time to rest. And like I said, I am not an
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  expert in it, but it is really important.
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  You can definitely tell the neighbour's place when you're
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  when I'm visiting ranches, the neighbour's place that just lets
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  their cattle graze wherever they want all year long versus the
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  people actually manage their properties and manage the
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  grasses. It is second, I mean you,
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  there's no comparison. And when we're in a drought and
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  there's people who have been managing their, their pastures.
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  And now some of these people I've been talking to a more like
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  a regenerative space and the cattle are eating what people
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  would think are weeds and would be spraying for and the cattle
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  are eating it. And instead of selling cattle
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  during droughts, they're actually buying cattle because
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  they need more cattle to help knock down these weeds.
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  And the cows look good. That was the wild thing as I
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  haven't seen some of these places.
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  I'm like that. That would get a lot of chemical
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  from what my historical context of the knowledge I had.
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  And when I walk on these places and I see what I think are just
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  an absolute neglected piece of property and they cow stick
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  their head up and I see the calves on their side and they
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  tell me they've never, they haven't dewormed in probably
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  three years, three to four years.
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  And they don't supplement anything and they put a little
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  bit of mineral and that's it. It makes you start asking
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  questions, right? And I'm not saying that that is
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  the method of what you need to implement in your operation, but
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  it's the fact of the matter is when we talk about the
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  commonality behind management practices is not overgrazing.
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  You need that hoof traffic to help with the soil, but you also
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  need to make sure you're leaving enough that you can actually
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  have something to have. Look, I'm a guy on the sourdough
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  starter kick. It's the same concept.
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  You need some of the starter in order to grow and it double S
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  right in a baking term. So for those Cowboys that maybe
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  don't have sourdough or don't understand anything, you have to
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  have a cow in order to have a calf.
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  Same concept with grass. You need something to start with
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  in order to grow. So when we're going to the
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  winter months, just check those pastures more frequently than
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  you normally would, and if it looks bare, move them.
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  It's better to move them too early than to move them too
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  late. Absolutely.
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  Well, I think it goes back to the fact of like if we make poor
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  grazing decisions now and we push it too much now, it takes
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  three times as long for that grass to come back and for us to
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  get that soil health back. I mean, we're dealing with it
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  here in the state of Kansas right now of we've been dealing
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  with droughts for years and years and years across the
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  entire state and just across the region in general.
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  I think people that have dealt with droughts can understand
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  this, that we are now paying the concept of those drought years
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  still 10152030405060 years later because of the management
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  practices that were done in generations prior.
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  We are trying to now revitalize native grasses and really just
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  put back into our native lands what works in our certain
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  regions and in our areas. And when you over graze, when we
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  do too much, when we push it too far, it's not just that one year
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  that we're going to be paying for it.
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  It is years and years and years down the road.
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  And if it's bad enough, it's going to be generations down the
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  road that are going to be continuing to pay for it through
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  different supplementation or just different things that
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  they're going to have to do to reintroduce that native grass
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  back. No, you, you hit that right on
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  the head. And you know, some of these
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  places I go to, I ask about, OK, well, tell me about this
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  pasture. And it's like, well, this used
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  to be a cotton field and that was back in the 80s.
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  And then it got turned into a pasture probably around 2005.
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  And anyway, we've been working on it since 2006 to get it to
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  where it's at today. So that re emphasizes, I think
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  one of the first points I made was talking about taking bite
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  sized chunks. You can't just check everything
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  and expect it all to work out. A lot of these people you see on
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  panelists and speaking gigs and even on social media that are on
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  YouTube videos, they've been doing it for a while.
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  So it's to help start the conversation and maybe asking
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  different kinds of questions. It's not an advisory to go
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  change everything that day because if you do that, you will
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  fail and you will go out of business.
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  And I don't think anyone would recommend that at all.
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  In fact, a lot of the producers I asked like, hey, like if
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  someone were to want to try this, what would be the first
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  step? And it's like A, to start, B,
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  start small, start with start with a pasture, start with a
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  section off your herd and start with a herd.
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  Just be smart. And that's again, where a lot of
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  those resources, I think in our last episode we talked about
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  forge testing. There's a reason that the USDA
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  wants that data and the an extension wants that data is
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  because it can help other producers as well as yourself.
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  So again, there's a lot of resources out there.
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  I work really closely with the Center for Grazing Lands and
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  Ranch Management. Like I said, Doctor Goodwin is a
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  fantastic resource and he's he's very blunt.
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  He's like that. I wouldn't do that.
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  I wouldn't do that. And even the Noble Foundation
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  also, it does a lot of work on the Noble research.
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  They do a lot of work to try to help figure out what could be
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  best for you and your operation. Just don't listen to the social
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  media fads, Whatever's trending on the Internet, if you're
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  interested in doing something or changing something, ask
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  questions. You know, it's better to get a
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  overwhelmingly large amount of advice versus you try to figure
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  it out and you get your nose busted because you just weren't
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  asking people and you're trying to tough, tough your way through
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  it. But yeah, we're we're going into
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  the winter months again, like we've been talking about.
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  And this is a really good time to start, if you haven't started
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  already. This is a really good time to
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  just get another set of eyes on that grass.
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  Make sure that you are leaving enough for next year.
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  And honestly, like you're during times of drought, there's AI
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  think we're all feeling the hurt of a shortage of water.
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  I know we are in Texas, but what used to be a weird dry year is
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  now turning into a weird dry five years, weird dry 10 years.
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  And I think a lot of places are changing what they're doing
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  versus back with whatever they used to do because the
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  environment is also changing. So when talking about management
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  practices in general, it should not be a hard and fast rule.
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  It should change year to year. It should change every couple
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  years. It should change crop to crop
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  because things change. Cattle change, your environment
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  changes, markets change. Don't be too stubborn where
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  you're not willing to be flexible and and maybe try
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  something different, but just there's a lot of resources out
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  there, you don't have to tough it through by yourself.
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  Absolutely. And I think the biggest pushback
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  that I hear about changing grazing practices or looking
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  into regenerative grazing, and I think regenerative grazing,
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  little side tangent gets a bad rap in and of itself.
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  Because regenerative grazing really just means looking at our
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  grazing profiles and continuing to look at science and seeing
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  how that science fits into our grazing profiles and our grazing
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  management practices and trying to regenerate, bring back the
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  most amount of grass that we can and the most amount of native
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  grass that we can and truly just make the best of those pastures.
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  So I think when we think about it that way, it's a little bit
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  easier of a pill to swallow because I think sometimes the
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  word regenerative grazing can get a little bit of a bad rap
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  because of some past media attention with it.
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  But some of the biggest pushback that I have heard from producers
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  is on the finances side, that this doesn't work for my
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  operation because of the expense of it.
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  And I think that you made such a great point, Emma, about start
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  small and you really hounded on finances in the beginning too.
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  Because it is important to realize that like we can't go to
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  these seminars and listen to these speakers and listen to all
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  of these YouTube videos and then go home and say, OK, here's my
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  20 step plan on what we're going to do.
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  And I'm going to implement all of this stuff.
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  And I'm gung ho and I'm awesome. And that's, that's great.
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  I'm glad you're excited, but that's not sustainable.
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  That is not going to last. That is going to cost you a crap
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  ton of money. And that is not something that
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  you can actually validate during the markets that we have right
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  now. You can't go pour $60,000 into
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  the now, maybe you have an extra 5 that you can go pour into a
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  posture. Start there like that is the
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  definition of starting small is figuring out those little bite
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  sized chunks that you can start biting off now that are going to
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  give you that long term ROI on what this is going to look like.
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  So really figuring out the things for you and your
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  operation that are going to make a long term impact and how you
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  can divide that into bite sized chunks to make it financially
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  feasible for your operation. Yeah, absolutely.
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  And I think that the trending words, it used to be
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  sustainable, now it's regenerative.
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  You know, I think the best way to look at it is low cost input,
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  low input, low input operation. That's probably like the term
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  that I get the most. I'm from producers and I like
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  that because it's you're putting less chemical on the ground,
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  you're putting less money into the operation just by the way,
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  you're, you're using cattle to do the work for you.
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  And so, and I'm not saying that it fits every single operation.
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  I get that, but it is really interesting.
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  I've been I've been going to East Texas, North Texas, Central
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  Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana, West TX Panhandle.
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  Everyone does something different, but they have a
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  common theme that it is the environment first because if you
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  don't take care of the land that you're on, she will not take
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  care of you. So it's a, it's a two way St.
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  it's a relationship. It's a marriage saying as an
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  unmarried woman, but it is a marriage that it needs to be a
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  joint effort you put in and you work with each other to make a
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  successful long haul. Yes, absolutely, Emma, I could
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  not agree more. Thank you so much for coming on
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  and but just sharing your thoughts today and kind of
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  helping us reshape our mindset a little bit on what regenerative
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  grazing actually means, what it can mean for our operations.
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  And specifically as we're going into these winter months, how
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  that can continue to impact our operations down the road and
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  what we should be doing now. I really appreciate your time
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  today. To all of our listeners, make
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  sure you check out the show notes down below For more
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  information on anything Emma and I talked about today.
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  And we will see you all next time on another episode of the
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  Cattle USA Daily Podcast. Have a good one y'all.