25/08/2025
Regenerative agriculture. It’s a hot topic! For us it means regenerating the land. Taking land that has been overgrazed, eroded, neglected, or otherwise damaged by human activities and restoring it to a flourishing and functional ecosystem. Although we use multiple methods to accomplish this, livestock are at the top of the list of tools that we use.
Livestock have a bad reputation when it comes to climate friendly, sustainable, and regenerative agriculture. Popular belief is that livestock degrade the land and are a net negative for sustainability. Most of this belief comes from scientific studies based on large scale industrial agriculture. Predicated on what we were seeing in other contexts and on other farms, the idea that livestock can only be detrimental didn’t seem to be the case. We hypothesized that it is not the livestock themselves but the management that could tip the scales between livestock being detrimental or beneficial for the land. The question was, could we utilize livestock for regeneration in such a fragile environment as the high desert in New Mexico. What is possible in Virginia and Missouri isn’t necessarily going to be so here.
Three years ago I rented a small area, just over 1/6th of an acre, to house my hogs and some chickens. The area had previously been used by the local 4-H to keep hogs but had been abandoned for multiple years. I divided the space approximately in half and put the pigs on deep bedding and let the chickens free range. The other half was to be my regeneration pilot project.
I planted some native giant sacaton grass in the pilot plot, spread out a yard or so of wood chips, and irrigated pretty heavily in the dry season for the first year. I tried to plant cover crops and vegetables for the hogs to eat but between the pack rats, ground squirrels, mice, and quail, I never managed to get any seed to germinate. I rotated the pigs through the area when we were getting enough precipitation and put them back on deep bedding when we weren’t. They rooted depressions into the ground that facilitated water pe*******on and aeration while leaving their manure and its fertility. The chickens moved freely between the deep bedding and pilot plot area, also leaving their manure, scratching and aerating the soil, and eating insects and seeds.
I remember distinctly looking around last year at the area and comparing it to the other side of the fence. I really couldn’t see a lot of difference. I felt as though I couldn’t find the time to dedicate to the more intensive management methods that I was starting to suspect would be needed to get the regenerative ball rolling. I gave up hope to some extent and didn’t bother to irrigate, plant, or add organic material to the pilot project area last year. Another year passed. We were busy consolidating our operations at a new location and I thought it was likely that we wouldn’t continue to rent the area where the pilot project was running. Oh well, the new location would give me a chance to reconsider the methods I was using and try again.
As summer rolled around this year we ended up moving most of the hogs but kept our breeding pair and a handful of chickens at the old location. One day in July after the monsoon had started to squeeze out some rain things started to get green. I didn’t immediately think so much about it, that is what always happens when we get rain. The sacaton was looking really good and things kept growing and growing. After feeding the hogs one day I took the time to walk over to the fence and was surprised to see the clear contrast. I took the pictures above as I realized that I had been a bit too hasty in drawing the earlier conclusions. The fertility that the animals had been leaving in the soil had continued to build and now the results were becoming obvious.
Many of the species that I could see are often considered “undesirable.” My hypothesis is that these are the native pioneer species. They thrive in full sun, poor soil, tolerate the heat and drought, and condition the soil just enough for the next set of species. They are the first species of the ecological succession. The organic matter that they add to the soil will enrich it by providing food for microbes. The shade they provide will help to maintain the moisture in the ground. They are the necessary impetus for the next succession of species which will subsequently be the impetus for the following set of species. With each succession the ecosystem becomes richer and more diverse. Eventually this would allow us the possibility to integrate plants that are edible by humans or livestock into the system.
Only time will tell but I feel like we are starting to see some preliminary results that indicate that, even in the high desert of New Mexico, with careful management, livestock can be a valuable tool in the regeneration of the land and a valuable asset in sustainable agriculture.
