Improving landscape and producer sustainability by successfully managing weeds in pastures and rangelands
Semi-finalist
Kathy Voth
The cost of this invasion is economic and environmental. We spend about $5 billion annually in the United States to fight weeds in pastures, rangelands and natural areas and losses to production equal that amount. Yet, the environmental costs are far greater. Weeds alter plant and animal communities, reduce biodiversity, cause erosion and change water-flow regimes. Over the past decade, their impacts have been reported on every continent except Antarctica. In fact, 9 out of 21 of the most endangered
ation to a wide variety of soil and climate types
In North America, this invasion has been called a "metastatic cancer" spreading at a rate of 14% annually, to infest an estimated 140 million acres by 2010.
The cost of this invasion is economic and environmental. We spend about $5 billion annually in the United States to fight weeds in pastures, rangelands and natural areas and losses to production equal that amount. Yet, the environmental costs are far greater. Weeds alter plant and animal communities, reduce biodiversity, cause erosion and change water-flow regimes. Over the past decade, their impacts have been reported on every continent except Antarctica. In fact, 9 out of 21 of the most endangered ecosystems and two thirds of endangered species in the United States are significantly impacted by weeds. This problem will increase as global warming continues because of weedy species' ability to adapt to a wide variety of environments.
Our reliance on herbicides has provided limited success and caused the list of weeds now resistant to herbicides to grow. Fire is sometimes successful and sometimes disastrous, as are mowing and tilling. Importing insects from weeds' native environments are sometimes quite successful but slow. All these control efforts are quite expensive.
My idea for improving farmer/rancher sustainability while controlling the expansion of weeds is to use livestock, and cows in particular, as weed managers. By thinking of weeds as forage, and training cows to eat them, we have a tool that can work every day. This solution also works with nature's underlying processes and patterns. By grazing them, we reduce weeds' competitive advantage and reduce pressure on other more traditional forages. Finally, with cattle numbers in the U.S. at 104.5 million, this represents a significant workforce in the war on weeds.
This is a true trimtab process because one small change leads to much larger improvements. By enlisting cattle and managing the appropriately, I see a future where we can begin to control weed populations, improve biodiversity, and enhance wildlife habitat. In addition, using cattle in this way encourages transition to organic and grassfed beef operations which will in turn increase the quantity of cancer reducing CLA's (conjugated linolaic acids) in our diets. We are also turning a food source into a tool for reducing our largest planetary problem: global warming. Organically managed grasslands improve soil quality and sequester more carbon than forests, thus reducing climate change.
Solution: Training Cows As Weed Managers
Based on two decades of research on how animals choose what to eat, I have developed a series of steps to teach a cow to eat a new weed in as little as 5 days and include it as a normal part of her diet within 10 days. The initial cost is as little as $3.50 per head in materials.
In short, science tells us that animals learn what to eat from watching mother and peers. Thus, cows don't eat weeds because Mom didn't. But animals also select foods based on nutritional feedback from the gut to the brain. Nutrients tend to increase palatability, and toxins (found in all plants) tend to decrease it. The good news is that weeds are generally equal to or better than the nutritional "gold standard" alfalfa, so if an animal tries a weed, she will likely continue eating it in pasture.
My training process is four steps:
1. Know your plant: I begin by finding out about the nutrients and toxins in the target weeds. As along as the toxins it contains are not harmful (and very few plants are harmful) the weed is a good candidate for being grazed.
2. Work with the right animals: The best trainees are yearling, bred females because young animals are more willing to try new things, and mothers will pass training on to their young. Thus, the first year's investment in training is reduced by 50% every time a cow has a calf.
3. Reduce the fear of new foods: I give trainees a series of nutritious, unfamiliar foods, once in the morning and once in the afternoon for 4 days. On the fifth day, they are accustomed to me bringing them good foods, so I put weeds in their feed troughs accompanied by a familiar flavor. I feed weeds for 2 to 3 days until cows clean their plates.
4. Practice in pasture: I put cows in small pastures where they can practice harvesting the weed themselves.
I have used this process to train cows to eat 7 weeds that are significant threats in the U.S.: Canada, Italian, milk and distaff thistles, leafy spurge, and spotted and diffuse knapweed. There were no health problems associated with cows eating weeds. Cows gained weight at or above expected rates and had healthy calves. More information is available at my web site:
http://www.livestockforlandscapes.com
This new approach is an inexpensive alternative to controlling weeds and can be easily replicated. First, it requires only a small investment in time and a variety of bagged feeds to turn a few cows into weed eaters. Second, research shows that knowledge transfer among animals happens rapidly. As an example, 12 cows I trained in 2006 taught a herd of 120 cows to eat Italian thistle in 2007 as part of a project in Marin County, California. Third, because the training steps are based on universal animal behavior principles, they work for all weeds and livestock operations. Finally, base on the rapidly growing response from producers and agriculture agencies in North America, this solution is likely to be successfully and broadly adopted. After only 9 months of sharing news about this solution in my column in "Stockman Grass Farmer" I have 2 speaking engagements per month in the U.S. and Canada beginning in January of 2008 and will be training staff at 7 locations in Colorado, California and Montana.
Financing the solution
Initial development of the training steps was financed through grants for pilot training projects, and through sweat equity for creating training videos and materials to share my solution with others. Because the solution itself is so inexpensive to implement, local associations and agencies generally have funding necessary to cover my travel and time for a ten day to two week visit where I train animals with the assistance of staff and producers so that they will be able to do it themselves in the future. Doing these trainings has helped me stay afloat financially, but the cost is that I have little time left to put together comprehensive training materials.
To increase the implementation speed of this solution I would use funds from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge to develop training videos and planning handbooks that agriculture professionals and producers can use as a step-by-step guide to training animals on their own and for understanding how to appropriately manage their livestock on the landscape. Funds would also support attendance at producer and manager conferences.
Next Stage - Getting the Word Out
My qualifications:
• Almost two decades of experience working with communities and individuals in developing solutions for natural resource issues, first with the Bureau of Land Management (a U.S. federal government agency) and more recently as a research associate at Utah State University and as a private consultant.
• A decade of research and experience in managing livestock (goats and cows) for reducing fire danger, managing weeds, improving biodiversity and enhancing farmer/rancher viability.
• Three national level awards recognizing excellence in environmental education and interpretation and leading community involvement in natural resource management.
• Monthly column in "Stockman Grass Farmer" to share the latest on training cows to eat weeds and other animal behavior management tools.
• Connections with a network of organizations and individuals for spreading the word including:
- BEHAVE Facilitators Network - Co-founder of this train the trainers network of over 100 academics and agriculture professionals interested in sharing information and training on this solution. - Organic Grassfed Beef Coalition - I am linked on their site and they are actively promoting the concept.
Strategic Partner Qualifications:
I continue to work with researchers at Utah State University who are wold-renowned for their research in animal behavior. Through my association with them I have access to the latest research in the field, staff at the national Poisonous Plants Lab for input on target weeds, and experts in online course and video development.
In North America, this invasion has been called a "metastatic cancer" spreading at a rate of 14% annually, to infest an estimated 140 million acres by 2010.
The cost of this invasion is economic and environmental. We spend about $5 billion annually in the United States to fight weeds in pastures, rangelands and natural areas and losses to production equal that amount. Yet, the environmental costs are far greater. Weeds alter plant and animal communities, reduce biodiversity, cause erosion and change water-flow regimes. Over the past decade, their impacts have been reported on every continent except Antarctica. In fact, 9 out of 21 of the most endangered ecosystems and two thirds of endangered species in the United States are significantly impacted by weeds. This problem will increase as global warming continues because of weedy species' ability to adapt to a wide variety of environments.
Our reliance on herbicides has provided limited success and caused the list of weeds now resistant to herbicides to grow. Fire is sometimes successful and sometimes disastrous, as are mowing and tilling. Importing insects from weeds' native environments are sometimes quite successful but slow. All these control efforts are quite expensive.
My idea for improving farmer/rancher sustainability while controlling the expansion of weeds is to use livestock, and cows in particular, as weed managers. By thinking of weeds as forage, and training cows to eat them, we have a tool that can work every day. This solution also works with nature's underlying processes and patterns. By grazing them, we reduce weeds' competitive advantage and reduce pressure on other more traditional forages. Finally, with cattle numbers in the U.S. at 104.5 million, this represents a significant workforce in the war on weeds.
This is a true trimtab process because one small change leads to much larger improvements. By enlisting cattle and managing the appropriately, I see a future where we can begin to control weed populations, improve biodiversity, and enhance wildlife habitat. In addition, using cattle in this way encourages transition to organic and grassfed beef operations which will in turn increase the quantity of cancer reducing CLA's (conjugated linolaic acids) in our diets. We are also turning a food source into a tool for reducing our largest planetary problem: global warming. Organically managed grasslands improve soil quality and sequester more carbon than forests, thus reducing climate change.
Solution: Training Cows As Weed Managers
Based on two decades of research on how animals choose what to eat, I have developed a series of steps to teach a cow to eat a new weed in as little as 5 days and include it as a normal part of her diet within 10 days. The initial cost is as little as $3.50 per head in materials.
In short, science tells us that animals learn what to eat from watching mother and peers. Thus, cows don't eat weeds because Mom didn't. But animals also select foods based on nutritional feedback from the gut to the brain. Nutrients tend to increase palatability, and toxins (found in all plants) tend to decrease it. The good news is that weeds are generally equal to or better than the nutritional "gold standard" alfalfa, so if an animal tries a weed, she will likely continue eating it in pasture.
My training process is four steps:
1. Know your plant: I begin by finding out about the nutrients and toxins in the target weeds. As along as the toxins it contains are not harmful (and very few plants are harmful) the weed is a good candidate for being grazed.
2. Work with the right animals: The best trainees are yearling, bred females because young animals are more willing to try new things, and mothers will pass training on to their young. Thus, the first year's investment in training is reduced by 50% every time a cow has a calf.
3. Reduce the fear of new foods: I give trainees a series of nutritious, unfamiliar foods, once in the morning and once in the afternoon for 4 days. On the fifth day, they are accustomed to me bringing them good foods, so I put weeds in their feed troughs accompanied by a familiar flavor. I feed weeds for 2 to 3 days until cows clean their plates.
4. Practice in pasture: I put cows in small pastures where they can practice harvesting the weed themselves.
I have used this process to train cows to eat 7 weeds that are significant threats in the U.S.: Canada, Italian, milk and distaff thistles, leafy spurge, and spotted and diffuse knapweed. There were no health problems associated with cows eating weeds. Cows gained weight at or above expected rates and had healthy calves. More information is available at my web site:
http://www.livestockforlandscapes.com
This new approach is an inexpensive alternative to controlling weeds and can be easily replicated. First, it requires only a small investment in time and a variety of bagged feeds to turn a few cows into weed eaters. Second, research shows that knowledge transfer among animals happens rapidly. As an example, 12 cows I trained in 2006 taught a herd of 120 cows to eat Italian thistle in 2007 as part of a project in Marin County, California. Third, because the training steps are based on universal animal behavior principles, they work for all weeds and livestock operations. Finally, base on the rapidly growing response from producers and agriculture agencies in North America, this solution is likely to be successfully and broadly adopted. After only 9 months of sharing news about this solution in my column in "Stockman Grass Farmer" I have 2 speaking engagements per month in the U.S. and Canada beginning in January of 2008 and will be training staff at 7 locations in Colorado, California and Montana.
Financing the solution
Initial development of the training steps was financed through grants for pilot training projects, and through sweat equity for creating training videos and materials to share my solution with others. Because the solution itself is so inexpensive to implement, local associations and agencies generally have funding necessary to cover my travel and time for a ten day to two week visit where I train animals with the assistance of staff and producers so that they will be able to do it themselves in the future. Doing these trainings has helped me stay afloat financially, but the cost is that I have little time left to put together comprehensive training materials.
To increase the implementation speed of this solution I would use funds from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge to develop training videos and planning handbooks that agriculture professionals and producers can use as a step-by-step guide to training animals on their own and for understanding how to appropriately manage their livestock on the landscape. Funds would also support attendance at producer and manager conferences.
Next Stage - Getting the Word Out
My qualifications:
• Almost two decades of experience working with communities and individuals in developing solutions for natural resource issues, first with the Bureau of Land Management (a U.S. federal government agency) and more recently as a research associate at Utah State University and as a private consultant.
• A decade of research and experience in managing livestock (goats and cows) for reducing fire danger, managing weeds, improving biodiversity and enhancing farmer/rancher viability.
• Three national level awards recognizing excellence in environmental education and interpretation and leading community involvement in natural resource management.
• Monthly column in "Stockman Grass Farmer" to share the latest on training cows to eat weeds and other animal behavior management tools.
• Connections with a network of organizations and individuals for spreading the word including:
- BEHAVE Facilitators Network - Co-founder of this train the trainers network of over 100 academics and agriculture professionals interested in sharing information and training on this solution. - Organic Grassfed Beef Coalition - I am linked on their site and they are actively promoting the concept.
Strategic Partner Qualifications:
I continue to work with researchers at Utah State University who are wold-renowned for their research in animal behavior. Through my association with them I have access to the latest research in the field, staff at the national Poisonous Plants Lab for input on target weeds, and experts in online course and video development.
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