Tree Talk, Vol. 1
I think it is time for tree talk.
As we dive into this subject, there is something to keep in mind.
I am biased.
I have to be up front that I have loved forests since I was little. I loved trees and animals and the woods long before I had any "reasons".
The woods are my happy place.
When I was little, my dream was to go trekking in the Amazon. I wanted to go there and experience the wildness of it all. I wanted to see all the colors, hear all the sounds, and find some monkeys to play with.
The Amazon was my favorite thing to learn about. When I got into video games, my favorite game was a computer game that my Aunt Debi had that involved a journey down the Amazon river in a boat.
When I learned that people were cutting down the Amazon at an alarming rate, I was mortified. Of all the places in the world, I thought that surely the Amazon would be treated as a sacred place.
That early experience with reality and bad models and how humans can sacrifice important things for short-term profits was an eye opener for me.
I'm not positive, but I think as a young kid I approached my mother about joining a pyramid scheme in order to funnel money to saving the Amazon.
In my defense, it was the late 90's, and there were some good ones going.
As far as I can tell, this was the spark the set off a chain of events that led to us being here, on this farm, trying to build something that leads to putting trees back in the ground.
There were a lot of twists and turns along the way, and I didn't always realize where I was headed.
In fact, when we moved to the farm, I would have been one of the many who had never even heard the word silvopasture.
We didn't know what practices we would implement. We knew that we had a lot of "drinking from firehoses" to do before we could understand what it is we wanted to do.
We had puzzle pieces to put together though.
We knew that we want to practice "better" farming methods. By better, we knew that we wanted to be less destructive to the environment and not rely on all the "-cides" that had become common practice.
We wanted to raise happy kids in an outdoor environment with plenty of nutritious, delicious food.
We wanted farms that support the farmer and the community.
Basically, we knew where we wanted to aim. We just didn't know the path to go from point A to point B yet.
We knew very little about agroforestry. All we knew came from permaculture and food forests. That was about to change.
When we signed the lease with the Conservancy, I realized that I had some work to do. I wanted to gain as much intellectual and experiential capital as I could. I invested all the time I could into learning about different farming models people were having success with.
One of the things I read is a book called Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard.
This was a big a-ha moment for me. He was the first person I encountered that was saying "let's apply permaculture principles to farms".
Permaculture was something I had been interested in for a long time, but I never made the connection to farming. To me, it was something that could unlock self sufficiency on your property, not something applied to large scale land use.
After reading Restoration Agriculture, I began taking a serious look at how trees could be used on farms. Things snowballed from there.
I was so excited to plant some trees. I figured it would be fun to build a couple rows like Mark has on his farm. My thinking was that we could have the dual benefit of berry production (I love black raspberries) and extra shelter for animals.
As I looked into the research being done on trees on farms, I got even more excited. It turns out that the theory that trees are beneficial for both ecology and economy is backed with observable reality.
The farms that I found that were best for the ecology of the land were also the farms that were best for the economy of the farmer. I found exactly 0 small scale farmers making a living on monocultures. All of the farmers I found who were making a living were doing so on the back of polycultures.
There are certainly exceptions. Obviously not all polyculture models were successful in this way. But the pattern was enough for me to take notice. Something was going on here that was important.
Why weren't trees being more heavily utilized?
Here is one part of the answer.
When I explained my interest in trees to the NRCS, they told me that I wasn't permitted to plant any in pasture. They said that if I went above a very small threshold of canopy cover, I would be in violation of my contract and owe a penalty payment.
Even if I planted the trees on my own dime.
The government organization that is supposed to be directing us towards conservation was telling me I would be fined if I planted trees.
Here's a fun twist. There was no penalty if I decided to stop grazing and returned to a conventional corn and soy rotation.
We're not talking a small fine either. The total fine would have been over $100,000 if I had followed their entire plan and then planted the trees.
Think about this again.
The incentive structure does not penalize taking $100,000 for turning a field into pasture and then instead growing corn and spraying glyphosate. But if you turn it into a pasture and plant trees, you lose all the funding you recieved and an additional 10%+ penalty is applied.
Talk about a disincentive.
I talked to other people who were excited about silvopasture. They said it was an unfortunate reality in our state.
Back in high school, teachers used to joke that the most effective way for them to get me to do something was by telling me I wasn't allowed.
They weren't wrong.
Everyone seemed to think that I would eventually forget the trees and do the common sense thing of accepting all the funding they were offering to develop our pastures.
That money would have gone towards renovating our pastures with brand new seed, putting up high quality fence around the whole thing, and developing a water system.
It would have saved a lot of frustration over the past year as I've dealt with hauling water and loose animals.
This is the starting point every other new farmer gets if they accept the terms of the contract.
I thought for sure I could reason my way out of the no-tree clause.
We went back and forth so many times that I felt like Elaine on the episode of Seinfeld where she gets labeled a "difficult patient".
I would have been happy to forego working with the NRCS, but one of the lease stipulations was that we would get a Conservation Plan through the NRCS. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (our landlords) does not have a farming background, and they viewed this as a good way to make sure we were doing good things with their land.
I raised my frustrations with them, and they asked that I keep working on a solution. This eventually led to a joint meeting of a bunch of people from the NRCS and the Conservancy.
There was no budging from the stance that the NRCS would not support silvopasture in PA. Part of the logic given was that trees are too important to PA landscapes, so we can't risk damaging them with livestock.
I agree that trees are important here, but the idea that we can't plant trees into pastures is flawed.
We need perennial design. We need trees on farms. We need to find ways to make trees and animals work together to develop models based on nature.
This is a critical point. I can't gloss over this.
The fact that trees are important to our land is exactly why we need to find a way to add trees back to our farms. Our farming models should be at least partially based on observations of what would be without human involvement. This is the route to low inputs. This is the route to regeneration.
Instead of fighting nature tooth and nail, work with it.
If humans stepped away from a corn field at any point in the life cycle of the corn, nature would put something else in it's place. The corn field would cease being a corn field without inputs.
Weeds would start growing in the absence of herbicides. The corn would fail to grow to sufficient size without fertilizer. The next year, some corn plants would grow due to seed falling from the unharvested corn. A huge range of other plants would also grow. The majority of the new corn would be smothered.
The corn field has no resiliency.
I want to be clear that I support all farmers, including those that grow corn and soy. I think there is room for all farms, regardless of where they are starting, to engage in the process of continuous improvement.
I think one of the ways to do this is perennial design, and I think that at the very least there should not be an economic disincentive for practicing things like silvopasture.
If we are going to put our thumb on the scale, it shouldn't be in the direction of the status quo.
I told the Conservancy that I would not sacrifice our ability to pursue better farming models because of a funding contract.
I requested the opportunity to find different programs to work with. I requested the opportunity to turn the farm into a model of regenerative agriculture in general, and silvopasture in particular.
They agreed to give me a leash to find a different path forward. I am not exaggerating when I say that they have surpassed my wildest imagination as far as what working with them would be like. I appreciate every day that I am their tenant. I am grateful for every day they grant me with their trust.
I decided to spend the past year gaining as much knowledge and experience in silvopasture and agroforestry as possible.
I led with experiential capital. If you haven't read the post where we discuss the 8 forms of capital and how we're increasingly deficient on experience, that's a good one to check out.
I knew that I needed to do something and not just read about it, but there was no one to help.
I did the only reasonable thing.
Over the past year, I invested all of our money into silvopasture design and implementation.
I studied as many different existing silvopastures as possible, then designed and planted 6 rows of trees. Each row is approximately 400' long and of varying widths. There are between 30' and 40' of pasture between the edges of the tree rows.
Within those rows, we tested several different planting patterns.
The trees we planted were thornless honey locust, persimmon, and mulberry.
Our tree selection was based primarily on what would be good for reducing hay needs over winter. We were in the middle of our first winter feeding animals, and hay costs were top of mind (as they are right now as well.)
After reading Tree Crops by J. Russell Smith and a bunch of content that Austin Unruh had made available, these seemed to be the three trees to start with.
We went through a lot to get those trees in the ground. We were late. We picked up our trees at a bad time - right as we were hit with a onslaught of rain that led to our designated planting field being a soggy nightmare.
One night, Mike and I stayed out in the field in the pitch black in freezing rain planting trees because I couldn't bear the thought of failing by not even getting them in the ground.
Mike stuck beside me through that, at a time where I was wondering if the whole idea was crazy. He has been steadfast in his support of the vision, and this is yet another thing that is on my perpetual list of things I am grateful for.
Others also helped us get across that finish line, one who jumps to mind is my Aunt Donna. Planting those trees was a group effort. Thank you to everyone who helped make sure we got to where we are today by seeing that project through.
We made it through, and by some miracle almost all the trees took. The only trees that we lost since planting were on the couple occassions when we accidentally ran some machine or other into them. The sheep got to one when they got out.
The vast majority are out there growing.
As predicted, the experience helped increase our accumulation of intellectual capital relating to silvopasture, agroforestry, and perennial design. We have jumped at every opportunity to expand the amount of projects we have open in these areas.
This includes participating in permaculture design courses.
This includes getting involved with the Savory Insitute hub for Western PA that Eli Mac is building from Mac Farms in Indiana County. I'm looking forward to the Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) program.
This includes expanding the designs we will be testing on our own farm, to include designs meant to provide feed for pigs and chickens to decrease our dependency on the annual corn and soy models.
Someone needs to build a sign for this area of the farm that says "Welcome to Hog Heaven".
This includes securing a Catalyzing Agroforestry grant through Dr John Munsell at Virginia Tech University to help us build out our designs.
This includes working with PASA on a silvopasture design project in southwestern PA which has connected us with a bunch of like-minded local farmers. If you ever read this, thanks for setting all this up Tracey. This program has been an amazing opportunity to develop social and intellectual capital already, and it's just getting started.
We're especially interested in combining ecological design with financial design. We want to design systems that are good for the ecology, good for the farmer's economy, and good for the community.
One of the experiments that we are running involves designing continuous nectar and pollen availability into the system to reduce or eliminate effects on bee hives that are related to "the dearth". This has large financial and ecological impacts. These designs will be good for both native pollinators and honey bees, and in turn the farm and farmer as well.
In the process of designing these experiments, we have pushed the limits of existing documentation regarding good design and good implementation.
We have developed strong connections with people who are out on the front of silvopasture design and research. We have developed strong connections with farmers in our community.
We plan to help other farmers come up with good designs for how they can move towards a perennial system. We want to help them come up with designs that address the needs of their land while providing a better life and living from the energy they are investing.
We've seen enough to know this is possible.
The goal is to plant lots of trees, regenerate across all 8 forms of capital, and build a fun community.
Here's to planting lots of trees together.
Here's to helping build a better future with better farms and better food.
Here's to a future we can all feel good about.
Here's to one day trekking the Amazon and helping some like-minded group plant trees. That would be a dream come true.
With you help, one day we will make this all happen.
Tomorrow I will share more details.
Thanks for reading!
Life is good.
P.S. Here are some links related to the reading. I didn't want to disrupt you.