LAKELAND – Regenerative agriculture and cattle grazing management not only increase the health of a pasture but may also combat climate change through natural carbon sequestering and repairing broken water cycles, according to Steve Kenyon.
Kenyon was one of a handful of speakers scheduled to attend an event at the Bonnyville Rodeo Grounds in late January focused on soil health.
Kenyon began his career 25 years ago in the cattle business, which led him to do custom grazing where he manages pastures, rather than owning cattle.
“My main purpose is sequestering carbon,” said Kenyon, speaking with Lakeland This Week, ahead of the Jan. 25 event in Bonnyville. The pasture management techniques Kenyon uses work with nature and focus on plants’ ability to release organic carbon compounds into the soil through root exudates.
“The cows stimulate the plant when they graze on it, keeping the plant in a vegetative state. If the plant goes to seed, the roots stop pushing exudate out. If an animal comes along and grazes it, it kicks the plant's growth state back into gear, which means it continues pushing out exudate,” explained Kenyon.
He feels the shift to regenerative agriculture is important for the health of the planet, and to ensure the future of generations to come.
“One of the big ones for me is repairing the water cycle. We’ve known that agriculture breaks the water cycle for over 2,000 years. I’ve got a great quote from Plato in around the year 400 BC describing the broken water cycle and how we’ve damaged it. We haven't learned in over 2,000 years the damage we’re doing,” said Kenyon.
Kenyon brought up the environmental crisis of the 1930’s.
“The dirty thirties — that is tillage, that is agricultural damage, and it created a broken water cycle. We’re still in this phase. Zero till has made some progress but not near enough — there is still so much tillage out there. Poor pasture management is also causing a lot of evaporation, runoff, and erosion,” said Kenyon.
He further elaborated about how important fixing the water cycle is for climate change.
Kenyon explained the water cycle can be broken down into stages: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. The cycle is broken when the land cannot hold the water.
Because agriculture produces a lot of bare soil, the water evaporates from the soil or runs off. Because moisture in the soil moves through diffusion, the sun beating down on bare soil pulls water reserves up and out.
The biggest concern Kenyon hears about in this area is droughts, which makes the restoration of the water cycle even more important.
“The funny thing is, it’s really easy to fix the water cycle. It’s simple, I’ve done it on my ranch. It takes time, but you leave litter, you leave [crop] residue, and you build your sod - you don’t break your sod,” said Kenyon.
He said the biggest challenge involved is convincing farmers to get on board with fixing the water cycle.
“It’s not necessarily fear holding farmers back, it’s lack of education or misguided education,” said Kenyon.
Kenyon is clear that his education has been self-directed through conferences, seminars, books, and first-hand experience.
“In Alberta here we have the applied research associations around the province, they bring in speakers and put on the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health & Grazing. I would give them a lot of credit because I gain a lot of information from those sessions,” said Kenyon.
He said regenerative agriculture is still the minority, but the internet is providing farmers with access to information so they can self-educate.
“That’s how we’re expanding so quickly. Twenty years ago, I was banging my head against the wall trying to tell people this stuff, and now everybody knows about it,” said Kenyon.
Because Kenyon manages land he does not own, he must face instances where the land gets sold out from under him. He recalls the heartache he felt watching one of the first quarter sections he had restored get sold to a grain farmer to be ripped up and seeded with a mono crop.
Commonly, Kenyon will build a report with a farmer who appreciates how he manages the ecology, though when the farmer passes away, their family aims to sell the land to the highest bidder.
“They don’t care about the ecology, the dragon flies and the riparian areas, they just want to sell it,” said Kenyon. “It doesn't hurt my feelings anymore... I lost 160 acres to a farmer, but with the knowledge I got from that quarter, I now influence over one million acres of land,” said Kenyon.
A great way to get started in regenerative agriculture is to introduce polycrops or rotational grazing.
“Get away from monocultures. Plant the wheat crops, spray it out if they need to control the weeds - I know that’s their priority – then go back in and seed in a cover crop mixture. Get some other roots in there to help the wheat out. Or halfway through the season go broadcast some seed out there in July, above your crop, then you get that living root in there in the fall,” said Kenyon.
Designing fencing that controls grazing periods to avoid overgrazing can be a first step for ranchers.
Kenyon spoke about the government funded opportunities there are for farmers to pursue regenerative agriculture including the On Farm Climate Action Fund (OFCAF), which allocates carbon tax dollars towards helping farmers who are doing regenerative practices.
“I’m helping people design grazing plans for this program. The money they get helps them jump into it,” said Kenyon.
He also mentioned Alberta’s Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program (RALP) which, according to the program’s website, “may cover up to 100 per cent of eligible expenses to support producers in their ability to implement and maintain projects over a three-year term [that supports environmental resilience.]”
“I’ve never seen this much money thrown at regenerative agriculture before . . . There’s also a mentorship program that’s been developed that will cover 85 per cent of the mentor's fees,” said Kenyon.
Despite Alberta’s harsh weather, Kenyon said the basic concepts in regenerative agriculture for grazing stay the same, they are just adapted to the environment.
“I meet people who think they can’t do it because of the area they are in. With regenerative grazing, it doesn’t matter what area you’re in. I’ve been all over the world and every type of environment has producers who are doing it.”
