|
|
Local 'residents' find water where they can during these dry times - photo Mark Biaggi.
|
|
New Curriculum
by Wendy Millet and Kevin Alexander Watt
|
|
|
 
We are often asked by visitors to the ranch where they can learn more about regenerative agriculture. Excitingly, we live in a time when there are many resources available to people interested in regenerative agriculture. However, the sheer quantity of these resources can sometimes be overwhelming—for newcomers and experts alike.
To help address this, our recent intern, Celia Hoffman, compiled and organized the resources that she and others have found to be most helpful for their journey into regenerative agriculture. As this list has grown, we began calling it Regen Ag 101, and the idea to share it beyond our team was proposed.
This month, we are excited to launch www.WelcomeToRegenAg.org, which will house this amazing self-guided curriculum. It is our hope that this site can be a fruitful place for those interested in regenerative agriculture to start digging into the complex world of regenerating ecosystems and communities by improving our food system.
We fully recognize that this website is by no means comprehensive. We are regularly delighted to discover high-quality and inspiring resources that we have never encountered, some that have been around for years. To that end, we ask that you please send your favorite content for this site to regen.course@tomkatranch.org so this website can continue to grow and serve as a resource for aspiring regenerative practitioners, advocates, researchers, and eaters to get started on this wonderful and world-changing journey.
|
|
Travel Journal of Regenerative Agriculture in the North East of the United States.
by Wendy Millet and Celia Hoffman
|
|
|
Over the past month, I got the chance to visit some amazing farms in Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts focused on food, farming, research, outreach, and education. These amazing organizations grow food, care for the environment, and teach people about a healthy food system and stewarding nature. I was particularly struck by these organizations' work to bridge the gap between ecology and agriculture.
|
|
The Regen Ranching Data Round Up
by Megan Shahan
|
|
|
As a learning laboratory, TomKat Ranch engages in a range of activities designed to support and scale the science and practice of regenerative ranching. We carefully monitor the results of our management, trials, and experiments through our partnership with Point Blue Conservation Science. This monitoring gives credibility to our findings and also lets us know when we should adapt, adjust, or change course altogether.
 In addition to making our data and findings publicly available, we also run trials for technologies that can decrease the cost of ecological monitoring and other forms of data collection, such as various pasture management tools, handheld soil spectrometers for testing soil carbon in the field, and remote sensing to test the effectiveness of analyzing bareground and plant diversity.
|
|
Growing the Table Update!
by Kathy Webster
|
|
|
The pandemic has highlighted long-standing inequities in our economic, social, and food systems. As one example, while approximately 108 billion pounds of food goes to waste each year in the United States according to feedingamerica.org, millions of people struggle to find their next meal. Meanwhile, in California, a state that grows the majority of the nation’s produce, many people, especially people of color, don’t have access to healthy, local food and many small and diverse farms are left out of incentive programs and struggle to access new markets. In an effort to address inequalities around food access, TomKat Ranch and Growing the Table connect healthy, locally grown food from small-scale farmers with communities in need.
"GTT funding has enabled us to continue delivering produce to over 190 families each week without interruption after the end of the USDA's Farm to Families program." - Doria Robinson, Executive Director, Urban Tilth
|
|
Defending Beef - Revised and Expanded Addition
by William Milliot
|
|
|
Nicolette Hahn Niman’s first edition of Defending Beef, the Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat should have been a coup de grâce to the anti-meat movement given the plethora of facts it brought to the debate about whether beef is healthy and if it can be raised in an ecologically sound manner. However, several years after that book was first published, the debate rages on. Recently, Hahn Niman picked up her pen to update the book with new scientific developments, latest “food” trends, and other considerations that support the “ecological and nutritional case for meat.”
 For those unfamiliar with Nicolette, she’s a mother, wife, devoted vegetarian, environmental lawyer, rancher, and author. That list alone should be enough to prove she’s qualified to write about the environmental and nutritional benefits of meat. As a mother and wife, she’s dedicated to looking out for the health and welfare of her family. As a vegetarian, she has personally decided meat is not for her and is, therefore, not biased towards it. As a rancher, she has hands-on experience stewarding land and livestock. And, as an environmental lawyer, she’s trained and skilled in researching and understanding scientific literature around environmental impacts as well as the art of laying out a strong argument.
|
|
|
|
|
