Real World Ranch Restoration — For ten transformative days …
Posted on April 9, 2016 by Mike Callicrate
In late March, a fascinating group of forward-thinkers, innovators and change-makers converged at Callicrate Cattle Company for a ten-day intensive regenerative farm planning and design workshop led by Darren Doherty, a world recognized consultant and facilitator.
Owner Mike Callicrate met Doherty a few years ago on a business trip to Australia and immediately began a long-term collaboration with the native Australian, who is considered a leader worldwide at shifting farms and ranches from the current “extractive industrial model of production” to sounder approaches based on regenerating and rebuilding soils, landscapes, ecosystems and rural communities.
“I wanted to put together a systematic plan going forward that accomplishes our goals rather than just talking about it and never doing it,” Mike explained. “It’s a complex undertaking. It’s hard rebuilding a broken food system. It’s hard for a ranch even to stay in business without fair markets or a democratic food infrastructure that serves everyone equally.”
In the final analysis, he considered it as important to avoid missteps as to brainstorm the full range of possibilities suited to the short-grass prairie environment, which is particularly fragile because it overlies the rapidly depleting Ogallala Aquifer. (He discusses his concerns about the dwindling water supply HERE as part of an HBO special investigation.) MORE