An excerpt from The Grazier’s Guide to Trees: How to Integrate Silvopasture for Resilience and Profit, Second Edition, by Austin Unruh, published by Acres U.S.A.
Grazing has only scratched the surface.
It has only scratched the surface because it has almost exclusively been applied to the surface—those few short feet above and below the soil line.
And yet, grazing has come a long way. The art and science of grazing have improved by leaps and bounds over the past few decades. Grazing management has been systematically improved by a host of graziers, scientists, innovators, and mavericks—from set stocking to simple rotations to, well, whatever your preferred term is for management-intensive grazing. Improvements in portable watering, fencing, shade, and coops—along with upgraded branding and marketing opportunities—have unlocked new worlds of possibilities for producers. Meanwhile, the grassfed movement has grown into a powerful force for landscape-scale soil regeneration and has become a wellspring of nutritious, wholesome food. Well- managed grass farms have transformed diets, watersheds, and communities for the better. Grass farmers have taken plowed, eroded, overgrazed, and burned-down lands and restored them back to life by providing perennial cover and reintroducing the modern versions of migrating bison, elk, and mastodons. Now, grazing is ready for the next step—up.
A next step is needed because, despite so much progress, certain problems persist and are felt by nearly every grass farmer. These problems are so persistent that they are taken as inescapable facts of life, regrettable yet as inevitable as death and taxes. Summer will bring heat stress, forage slumps, and drought. Winter brings cold stress and big hay bills. All these things can of course be compensated for, but only at real cost and effort, eating away at the financial viability of grass farms and hence their ability to sustain a joyous, simple, and rooted way of life.
The beauty is that it doesn’t actually have to be this way. The solution lies not in some new chemical, shiny machine, or magic potion to spray on the pasture. The solution lies in trees. Simple, reliable, old-fashioned trees. No gimmicks, no magic bullets, no get-rich-quick schemes. Instead, for those who can muster some patience and forethought, integrating trees into a pasture operation represents a proven route to take grazing to new heights. The right trees will lower your expenses and raise your productivity, giving you more margin than before. They can diversify your income and give you greater resilience to whatever the weather and markets throw your way—all while fostering more life in the soil, birds in the air, and hope on the farm. It’s about real-world dollars and cents, but also so much more. It’s about making tangible improvements to the land—improvements that get better year after year. It’s about investing in the long-term regeneration of a place. It’s about leaving a bright legacy. What starts as a tiny seedling—no thicker than a pencil when you tuck its roots into the soil on your farm—will before long provide the shade, shelter, and feed your farm needs for decades or centuries to come.
New as it may seem, silvopasture is deeply rooted in the richness of savanna ecosystems from around the world—ecosystems that support vast numbers of wild and domestic animals. While the African savanna is the most iconic, much of the American landscape was once a lush oak-hickory-chestnut savanna teeming with bison, elk, deer, bears, and turkeys. This grazier’s paradise—which was lost due to neglect, the plow, and industrial agriculture—can be reimagined and recreated through the thoughtful care of the stewards who are already committed to this meaningful work.
This abundant, profitable, resilient future is available to all who act. No patents, secrets, or restrictions stand in your way. But act you must, because trees do take time to grow and become useful. And before you act, you will need a plan of action.
The purpose of this guide is to give you the tools and insights you need to use trees—to make that plan so you can take grazing to new heights on your farm. We created it so those tools might be accessible to farmers well beyond the small radius of southeastern Pennsylvania where Trees For Graziers is located. While the species used may change the farther you are removed from our region, the principles will remain the same regardless of where you are.
