The vaccine, dubbed MSX-1, was engineered by the university’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) with proteins found in bovine TB-producing bacteria.

VIDO’s most recent round of MSX-1 studies in mice proved successful, with the vaccine reducing disease bacteria in their lungs and spleens. It also minimized weight loss and overall lethality caused by bovine TB.

WHY IT MATTERS: Bovine tuberculosis is a reportable disease of cattle that often prompts herd depopulation when found on dairy and beef operations.

The diagnostic advantage

The initial proof-of-concept trial saw the VIDO team testing two vaccines: MSX-1 and Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG), a long-used treatment for managing tuberculosis in humans.

Both vaccines helped mitigate the bacterial infection in lab mice, but their respective strengths were different.

Although 100 per cent of the mice exposed to BCG survived, the vaccine continued to exhibit the same trait that has kept it from becoming a feasible bovine TB treatment for livestock. BCG interferes with the tuberculin skin test that allows the disease to be detected, creating false positives.

Meanwhile, MSX-1 protected 80 per cent of the mice from a highly virulent bovine TB sample but did not compromise the accuracy of the tuberculin test.

“The BCG vaccine is not compatible with the diagnostic tests for bovine TB in livestock, in the sense that if you vaccinate cattle with BCG down the road, if they do get infected, you will not be able to distinguish between whether they were vaccinated or they’ve actually gotten infected with the disease-causing bacteria,” said Jeffrey Chen, VIDO’s principal investigator on the project, shortly after the study’s publication.

Part of the project involved assessing a highly virulent laboratory strain of bovine TB used in a previous study where mice were also used as subjects. Although MSX-1 wasn’t 100 per cent effective against the strain — which was much more virulent than the strains found on cattle operations — it proved successful enough to warrant testing in live cattle.

That conclusion was based on the low likelihood of the vaccine encountering comparatively strong bovine TB strains in a farm environment. Because MSX-1 had an 80 per cent success rate against the lab strain, the investigators decided it should have no problems tackling the milder forms of bovine TB found in the cattle barn.

Moving to cattle

The next step, says Chen, is to isolate the common strains of bovine TB and test the vaccine against them in cattle.

“If we are successful, I’m proud to say that this will be a homegrown first in Canada: a Canadian-made bovine TB vaccine,” he says.

“There is no licensed bovine TB vaccine, per se, that is already available. So if we are successful at gaining regulatory approval and finding a commercial partner to license to develop into a commercial vaccine, we will be the first in the world to actually get something like that to the market.”

“It will be an incredibly proud day for Saskatchewan and for Canada, of course, and it will be the highlight of my research career.”

Prairie detections and producer impact

There has been a slow but steady series of detections of bovine TB in herds across the Prairies since 2023, with incidents in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Because herd depopulation is Canadian Food Inspection Agency protocol in the event of a bovine TB discovery, producer compensation has become a hot-button issue. In response, the federal government recently extended a tax deferral period for livestock producers affected by bovine tuberculosis in 2024 and 2025.

Safety and the road to market

Now that the VIDO team knows MSX-1 works, the next step is figuring out why it works — for the sake of both efficacy and regulatory approval. This will necessitate a parallel study concurrent with the cattle trials, says Chen.

That study will involve working from the immune system out to untangle the mechanism by which MSX-1 protects the host animal.

“We have to define its safety because in the vaccine business, there are two very important things that one needs to meet: efficacy, showing that it will work. And two, that it’s absolutely safe. This is paramount, considering that we’re going to be vaccinating animals that will enter the food chain,” he said.

On the production side, the researchers need to prove the vaccine doesn’t affect animal growth.

“If it’s beef cattle, (they have) to put on the weight that our normal, healthy animal would. It would not have any adverse effects.”

So how long will producers have to wait before a vaccine is available if the cattle trial is successful?

Chen’s most optimistic — although admittedly unlikely — timeline is three years. A more realistic scenario would be five to 10 years, depending largely on how long it takes to receive regulatory approval from the CFIA.

People sometimes get the wrong impression about how long it takes for a vaccine to come to market based on the quick turnover involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, says Chen.

However, that involved the co-operation of scientists from all over the world working night and day for several months. The search for a bovine TB solution lacks that same urgency.

“This is slightly different in that this is bovine TB, a disease that’s been there for a while now. There are already programs in place to control it but not necessarily eliminate it.”

However, there is a possibility of doing just that, he says.

“I would argue that a vaccine for bovine TB has the potential to actually lead to its elimination.”

Funding the next phase

With around $500,000 in funding from Saskatchewan Agriculture, the cattle research component is covered financially, notes Chen. However, the added expense of performing the mechanism testing will require extra.

The VIDO team is already reaching out to a range of agriculture interests to promote the value of investing in the program. Chen is optimistic on this point, acknowledging the support they received from the Beef Cattle Research Council for the project’s proof-of-concept component.

“We are grateful for that initial kick-start, so to speak. They took a big chance. They took a big risk. They had the confidence in our concept and actually allowed us to generate that proof of principle data that now allows us to leverage that and get more funding to actually test cattle.”

The post Researchers advance first-of-its-kind bovine TB vaccine to trials appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in an email on April 8 that new admissibility requirements for commodities originating from Greece have been set up in CFIA’s Automated Import Reference System (AIRS).

WHY IT MATTERS: Data from Greece’s tourism industry show over 300,000 arrivals in that country from Canada in 2024 alone.

According to the World Organization for Animal Health, Greece began reporting cases of foot-and-mouth disease on March 15 with nine infected cattle at a farm on the island of Lesvos, marking the country’s first such cases since 1994. Its most recent cases, in sheep and one cow on the same island, were reported March 29.

Greece’s cases so far have all occurred on farms in the northern regions of that island, in the Aegean Sea off the west coast of Turkey. So far, 438 animals in total have been confirmed infected.

The findings make Greece the fifth European Union member country currently under foot-and-mouth restrictions from Canada. Hungary, Slovakia and Cyprus all reported cases last year, while Bulgaria is the lone EU member country “not usually considered free” of foot-and-mouth disease.

Germany regained disease-free status last month, while CFIA’s restrictions on Austria were lifted last September.

While findings of the disease in Greece are so far limited to Lesvos, Canada’s new restrictions apply to the entire country, unlike certain other nations such as Brazil, Argentina and Peru in which CFIA classifies some but not all provinces or states as free of foot-and-mouth disease.

What products are prohibited?

At-risk commodities covered by Canada’s import ban include live animals and germplasm; animal products and byproducts; uncooked meat and meat products; raw milk and milk products made from raw milk, such as unpasteurized cheese; unprocessed manure; laboratory material; blood products; livestock feed and equipment that has been in contact with affected animals; raw or unprocessed pet foods; raw hides, skins, wool, antlers, horns, hooves; and any other non-heat-treated products or byproducts from vulnerable animal species.

Species vulnerable to foot-and-mouth disease include hogs, cattle, bison, sheep, goats, camelids (llamas, alpacas) and cervids (deer, elk, moose) among others.

CFIA’s restrictions apply to any at-risk products dating as far back as 28 days before the first symptoms were detected in an affected country.

Foot-and-mouth disease, according to CFIA, is a viral disease characterized by symptoms including blister-like sores on the tongue and lips, in the mouth, on the teats and between the hooves; foot lesions, accompanied by acute lameness and reluctance to move; and loss of appetite or milk production. The virus can spread between animals through direct, indirect or airborne transmission.

Canada is free of the disease and has not reported any cases of the disease in livestock since 1952, when an outbreak in southeastern Saskatchewan is believed to have originated with a visitor from an infected farm in Germany, carrying the virus either on clothes or an infected sausage.

Advice for farmers visiting Greece

Canadians are still free to travel to Greece, but CFIA recommends they avoid visiting farms when doing so. Travellers who do visit farms should make sure clothes and footwear worn during those visits are free from soil or manure. Footwear should be cleaned and disinfected, and dry-cleaning of the clothes worn is recommended.

Travellers should also avoid contact with susceptible animals, including farm and zoo animals and wildlife, for 14 days after returning to Canada.

For farmers who travel to Greece, contact with farm animals is not recommended for five days upon return to Canada, when “strict personal decontamination measures” are applied to clothes and footwear, CFIA says.

Travellers also must declare all food products upon arrival in Canada. Generally, CFIA says, meat and dairy products from foot-and-mouth infected countries won’t be allowed, but foods that are “cooked, shelf-stable, commercially prepared and hermetically sealed” may be.

The post Canada blocks meats, dairy from Greece over foot-and-mouth disease appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Hittinger, the chair of Gateway Research Organization, collaborates with Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR) and is involved with the On-Farm Climate Action Fund (OFCAF).

“The opportunity came up and they were looking for someone to trial the system, and I thought it might be a good fit for my operation,” said Hittinger, who runs 200 head on 1,600 acres of pasture.

WHY IT MATTERS: More virtual fencing options in Canada give ranchers more opportunities to find the right fit for their operation.

How Halter works

The Halter system, created in New Zealand, uses GPS-controlled collars with a solar panel to charge the battery. Hittinger’s trial will also examine how the units function in Canadian cold weather.

Using an app or an aerial image on the internet, producers set up virtual fences wherever they want them.

“You don’t have a physical fence in place. You tell the map, ‘This is where I want this virtual fence to be.’ It downloads the GPS information to each collar, and the collars then know whether they are inside or outside of that boundary, and they guide the cows that way,” he said.

Hittinger can program a virtual fence for a specific herd and put cattle in an area of pasture that is not cross-fenced.

“I draw the fence in the app on the map, and that information is downloaded to the collars via Wi-Fi and then the collars know via GPS signal where they are in proximity to that,” he said.

Cattle are directed into a specific area, called a break. If they try to cross the virtual fence, the collar gives off an audible tone.

“If they continue to cross and continue further, then they get a shock that’s delivered by the collar,” he said. “Once they’re all trained, they will turn around at the sound of the tone. The shock usually provides a second level warning.”

Other virtual fencing options in Canada include systems by Gallagher, NoFence and Vence. Unlike the Gallagher system, where the collar hangs on a strap around the cow’s neck, Halter uses a metal fibre woven into the collar itself.

“The collar looks like a seat belt. They’re adjustable and you can fit them to fit with certain tension on their neck. You don’t want them to fall off, but you don’t want it too tight, particularly on younger animals. You need to provide some room to grow,” said Hittinger.

Advantages of the Halter system

Hittinger has found several benefits. He can manage cattle location from anywhere.

“I can do it from wherever I am,” he said.

He can also divide feeding into blocks on a flexible schedule.

“If I want to do one-day blocks, I could feed, say, five one-day blocks of feed. Or I could do a week’s worth, say, seven blocks of feed. Right now, we’re feeding five silage bales a day. I can roll out five bales in each of the seven paddocks and then have it so the virtual fence moves every day at a set time, whenever I decide that should be,” he said.

The primary benefit is moving cattle without physical fencing.

“For winter feeding, that makes swath grazing quite a bit easier. That makes bale grazing quite a bit easier because I don’t have to go wading through the snow and worry about the cattle pushing on the electric wire, or all the issues surrounding fencing in a winter-feeding system,” he said.

Bred heifers and second calvers with higher nutritional needs can be grouped separately.

“I will go out and feed the bulk of all of these animals in one group, but those animals that need extra nutrition, I give those animals access to a separate area where they can get better hay,” he said.

In summer, Hittinger will be able to rotational graze using half-day, one-day or three-day moves — whatever suits his operation.

Cost and practical considerations

The Halter system is subscription-based at $97 per collar. Towers must also be purchased at about $6,000 each. By comparison, Gallagher collars run about $350 to $400 depending on volume.

Hittinger noted that producers still need a perimeter fence even with virtual fencing. During windstorms or lightning, cattle will scatter and cross the virtual boundary.

The Halter system will be eligible under OFCAF funds for the new funding year, which opens April 10, 2026. The Canadian Forage and Grassland Association also has funds available for producers who want to try the system.

The post First Canadian trial of Halter virtual fencing system underway near Westlock appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In a March 30 news release, crop insurer Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) reported it was republishing AgriStability cattle prices for animals over 900 pounds for the 2024 and 2025 program years.

WHY IT MATTERS: Producers who received AgriStability benefits for heavy weight cattle in 2024 may now face unexpected repayment demands due to a pricing model error outside their control.

AFSC adopted a new model in 2024 to determine cattle prices for the AgriStability program due to “increasing difficulty” accessing cattle pricing data.

As a result, it priced heavy weight cattle based on a different weight assumption than the one used to establish historical prices.

“Inventory valuations did not accurately reflect market realities, leading to inappropriate AgriStability program benefits being issued to clients for the 2024 program year,” read the release.

Once AFSC discovered the inconsistency, it recalculated heavy weight cattle prices for 2024, including a reassessment of files featuring heavy weight cattle.

“The recalculation determined that certain clients had received benefits to which they were not entitled.”

The insurer says it has contacted affected clients to discuss the reassessment of their files.

“We are committed to supporting these producers by offering flexible repayment arrangements, including interest relief where appropriate, to help manage any impact.”

A review of all market prices found the pricing disparity was limited to animal weights over 900 pounds.

“Going forward, AFSC has added additional oversight to the cattle pricing process to monitor and review unusual price movements and ensure greater accuracy.”

AFSC is asking clients with questions or concerns to contact their preferred branch offices, call its client care centre at 1-877-899-2372 or use live chat on AFSC Connect or afsc.ca.

The post Alberta producers must repay AgriStability benefits after cattle pricing error appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Almost 20 per cent of the beef we’re consuming in North America is now imported beef,” Perillat said.

Brazil has emerged as a major force in the beef market, rapidly boosting output through better herd efficiency and limited feedlot finishing.

“In just a few short years, Brazilian beef production has skyrocketed … they are becoming more efficient overall,” he said.

Despite tariffs, Perillat said Brazilian beef can still land competitively in the U.S., and shifting Chinese quotas and tariffs may divert even more South American beef towards North America.

At the same time, pest issues and border policy are complicating live cattle flows. The long-running sterile fly program, used since the 1960s to control screwworm, has not fully contained the northward spread. The U.S. and Mexico border remains closed to some live cattle movements due to disease and pest concerns, such as New World screwworm.

New World screwworm has reemerged in Mexico just south of the Texas border. To date, there have yet to be any confirmed cases of New World screwworm in the U.S. since the breakout in Mexico.

The Canadian herd has still struggled to recover from BSE-era losses and recent droughts, Perillat said. But feedlot capacity has expanded.

More than half a million feeder cattle are expected to be imported from the U.S. this year, which Perillat said is a case of “too much money chasing too few cattle in Canada.”

He warned that today’s high prices are being supported by exceptional demand, and history suggests a correction of 25 to 35 per cent from cycle highs is still possible.

Perillat urged producers to use futures, price out insurance and take advantage of other risk management tools to protect against a potential sudden downturn in prices, especially as interest costs and feed prices remain key pressures.

The post High-stakes balancing act for beef market appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A University of Guelph-funded global study tracking 61 unfertilized grassland sites across six continents over 15 years found that fertilization increased pasture biomass by an average of 43 per cent.

A three-year forage fertility trial at Elora conducted through the Ontario Forage Network produced similar findings.

The U of G study, part of the university’s Food From Thought program, underscores what many agronomists have long suspected: pasture fertility is one of the most underutilized levers in beef cattle production.

“Improved pasture fertility can absolutely bring improved yield — and improved production, which can absolutely enhance that pasture,” said Colin Elgie, soil fertility specialist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness (OMAFA), speaking during the Beef is ON fall webinar series.

How pasture fertility differs from row crops

Unlike row crops, pastures draw down soil fertility more slowly. However, several factors still deplete nutrients over time:

• Organic matter breakdown
• Soil pH changes from precipitation and erosion
• Nutrient removal through harvesting, grazing, and manure management

The scale of removal depends on production type. Removing two tons per acre of grass-legume hay strips approximately 80 lbs. of nitrogen (N), 22 lbs. of phosphorus (P), and 90 lbs. of potassium (K) per acre. By contrast, cow-calf stocking at a half pair per acre removes only 5 lbs. N, 3.4 lbs. P, and 0.6 lbs. K per acre.

“We’re actually taking more off the field, but through urine and manure, that nitrogen is returning,” Elgie explained — though he noted that a quarter to half of that nitrogen can be lost through volatilization.

Livestock meat and milk production also removes roughly 10 to 30 per cent of ingested phosphorus and potassium from the field.

Why soil testing is the critical first step

Elgie emphasized that no single fertilizer program fits every pasture — making soil testing essential before any fertility decisions are made.

Proper soil sampling technique matters as much as frequency. Key guidelines include:

• Frequency: Sample every four to five years
• Cores: A minimum of 20 cores per field, taken in a zig-zag pattern
• Depth: Six inches, to capture the nutrient-rich root zone
• Tools: Use stainless steel probes and plastic pails — avoid galvanized metal tools, as zinc can leach into soil and skew nutrient analysis
• Labelling: Clearly and correctly label each sample

“We want that nutrient-rich zone where the majority of the roots are, the majority of the nutrients are, to really get a good analysis of what’s going on,” Elgie said.

Putting soil test data to work

Once producers have soil test results, Elgie recommends using OMAFA’s AgriSuite tools to:

• Input soil test results
• Generate crop-specific nutrient recommendations
• Estimate nutrient removal rates under grazing or haying scenarios

Sampling helps identify deficient and limiting nutrients, monitor fertility shifts over time, guide lime decisions, and prevent both over- and under-fertilization — a critical consideration, since pastures rarely have uniform fertility across a field.

Bottom line for beef cattle producers

Soil fertility management is not a one-time fix. It requires consistent monitoring and a willingness to tailor fertilizer programs to individual pasture conditions. But the return on investment — in the form of higher forage yields, healthier pastures, and stronger farm profitability — makes it one of the most cost-effective management tools available.

“One fertilizer program is not really going to fit every single pasture,” Elgie said.

The post How soil fertility management can boost pasture yield by 43 per cent appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

For one thing, it’s good to review what’s available for treatment and prevention and what could happen if they were not allowed.

As well, new diseases will inevitably arise, requiring new treatments and the funding into their research and development.

It’s with a heavy heart that I heard recently of the many agricultural federal research facilities that will be shut down.

How do we test new products or develop new varieties of plants and test and validate growing or harvesting techniques without qualified researchers trying to answer these difficult questions and work doggedly to make the livestock industry safe?

The two protozoal diseases I am referring to are:

• coccidiosis
• cryptosporidiosis

Coccidiosis was once a very common disease in slightly older calves and feedlot animals.

In the past several years of practice, it was getting rarer and rarer to see a case.

The big question is why the improvement?

Both protozoal diseases have a life cycle that starts with an egg or oocyst, and then lives in the intestinal cells, destroying them before the eggs start to appear in the manure.

Coccidia

With coccidian, this whole life cycle takes about a month.

Again, prevention or control starts with treating before animals are likely to start to contract it.

This condition can be largely prevented with ionophore products such as rumensin or bovatech provided in complete feed rations in the feedlot or put into minerals for calves or mixed into pellets.

All cows carry some coccidia, but it is the calves that get clinical disease.

Cows will increase shedding before calving, which is why producers used to treat their cow herd to prevent shedding and infection of newborns.

This has changed considerably in the last 10 to 20 years.

A product called toltrazuril (Baycox) was developed as a specific preventive for coccidiosis. It is given more as a preventive long withdrawal, but also used on young animals, and specifically for cocci in pigs and sheep as well as calves.

Veterinarians often prescribe antimicrobials such as potentiated sulphonamides, if cocci get out of control, but by then the damage has already been done and calves suffer a big setback.

Prevention is key so that less antimicrobials are used.

My big worry is that in these antibiotic-free programs, there was talk about ionophores falling into disregard, which would be a very bad move long term.

Practices such as manure cleaning help with biosecurity, of course, but the oocysts are very small and very resistant in the environment and so a very pesky thing to totally eliminate.

Crypto

The other protozoal disease is cryptosporidiosis, which these days commonly comes to mind if you hear of a bad scours outbreak in a vaccinated herd.

Very bad diarrhea in slightly older calves is hard to treat and recover from and is very contagious because one clinical case quickly spews out millions of eggs that other calves can ingest.

This is also the disease that people can catch from handling calves, and many a technician at a clinic or farm worker has contracted crypto over the years.

That’s another good reason to prevent this disease.

It’s likely the most common zoonosis that people contract from cattle besides ringworm.

Veterinarians in Manitoba figured out about 20 years ago that toltrazuril works to prevent cocci and crypto.

They started compounding the toltrazuril in capsules for oral use and these diseases pretty much disappeared.

I don’t know what percentage of herds have been prescribed this treatment, but it is quite high in many beef-producing regions across Western Canada.

It is now compounded by an Alberta company for veterinarians.

It’s given as an oral pill at birth or shortly after.

This is something that your veterinarian would have to prescribe.

Toltrazuril is the best example I can give of an extra label usage of a product to treat disease that went viral (word of mouth) between veterinarians.

This also means our friends in the medical profession don’t have to treat crypto in people.

The disease is still around and recently made the news when it got into the water supply of an Indigenous community.

It would be nice if research could eventually be done to allow on-label use of this medication.

However, in light of the recent closure of federal research facilities, we may need more products to go extra label through our veterinarians, which puts a lot of pressure on them.

The good news is that these medications are used only on young animals, so the long withdrawal requirement becomes a moot point because they are six months or more away from slaughter.

If you’ve had trouble with either crypto or cocci — even one case — ask your veterinarian for their thoughts on using toltrazuril in its many forms.

The post Beef sector needs more research into protozoal disease appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

At the Beef Farmers of Ontario’s (BFO) annual meeting in Toronto on Feb. 18, Brocklebank told Glacier FarmMedia her focus is on national delivery and stakeholder engagement, noting the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA) is at a turning point following Dennis Laycraft’s retirement, after guiding the sector through crises for 30 years.

“With a change in leadership, it’s a good time to have that conversation,” said Brocklebank.

WHY IT MATTERS: Alberta’s July exit from the Canadian Cattle Association over fiscal transparency, governance, and communications issues would remove more than half of the CCA’s funding.

“CCA has a strong national and international voice built on sound principles and producer-led advocacy and policy,” she stated. “Producers who come to these boards really want to make sure the industry moves forward as a whole.”

She believes the Provincial Working Group’s unified approach supports that goal.

Provincial Working Group

The Working Group, a coalition of provincial beef associations, seeks to provide the CCA with insights to align with producers’ evolving needs while upholding national unity.

As a fourth-generation Alberta beef producer whose original farmstead was near the Toronto Airport, Brocklebank says she understands that Canadian beef production is diverse, with distinct challenges in cow-calf operations, backgrounders, feedlots, and processing.

Brocklebank noted that even though the conversations can be difficult, openness to solutions and change fosters collaboration and results.

“We’ve experienced that in the past, with policy discussion, that there isn’t always consensus,” she explained. “Generally, it comes (down to) what’s best for the long term and what’s best for the industry.”

Craig McLaughlin, BFO’s past president, sits on the working group with BFO president Jason Leblond. McLaughlin said Brocklebank’s approach to the Working Group’s concerns regarding fiscal transparency, governance, and communications is positive.

“Andrea’s a breath of fresh air. She’s open to change, and she’s certainly been having dialogue with Alberta beef producers,” he said. “She’s optimistic. The Provincial Working Group is optimistic. When you have people with that kind of mindset, you overcome barriers.”

Despite this optimism, BFO members still voiced concerns about how Alberta’s exit from the national organization could affect their CCA check-off payments.

McLaughlin suggested CCA reserves could ease transition costs, but he remains optimistic that Alberta will stay.

The post Incoming Canadian Cattle Association CEO embraces winds of change appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We would be very arrogant if we said we were the first to take a holistic approach and see our connection to our life-supporting environment,” 90-year-old Allan Savory, who splits his time between Zimbabwe and his home in Florida, said during a virtual question-and-answer session.

“As far as I know, every single Indigenous culture in every part of the world saw that. So that’s been seen for 50,000 years by humans. It was only lost in modern Western science the last two or three centuries. The common example that’s given is Native American tribes seeing the damage to the environment. They didn’t have laws, they didn’t have regulations, but they had to do some customs.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Taking a different approach from traditional agricultural practices can help move the world to better land management.

The holistic principle for grazing livestock builds on the concept of rotational grazing.

Cattle can rehabilitate degraded land by mimicking the natural grazing patterns of wild herds of herbivores as they escaped predators while packed in large herds and frequently moving between different areas.

High animal impact over shorter grazing periods gives the land time to make a full recovery before being grazed again.

The animals are used to to break soil crust, trampling older material to build cover and using manure and urine as fertilizer.

Creating conditions that favour perennial grasses and forbs, if done correctly, can produce denser, deeper-rooted grasses, better biodiversity and water infiltration to go with higher carry capacity over time.

The triple bottom line

Savory has seen it all: farming and ranching, consulting in five countries and working as an ecologist, wildlife game officer, public servant, solider and member of Parliament.

Many livestock producers at the conference swear by the principles drafted by Savory as he formed the foundation for the Savory Institute in the United States.

He noticed that areas where animals had been excluded were degrading worse than areas that had been grazed and then allowed to rest.

It led to a significant breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation and desertification of the world’s grasslands and planted seeds of holistic management.

A holistic approach combines the principles of life and family (time, stress, purpose, succession), economics (profitability, cash flow, debt, investment choices) and land and animals (biodiversity, soil, water cycle, animal health).

The link between finance and stewardship

Savory stresses that producers cannot just “manage the land” while ignoring other tenants. A short-term, ultra-aggressive profit motive can destroy soil health, but a “green” practice that improves the ecology but bankrupts the movement has no staying power.

“If you can’t finance your family, everything else doesn’t matter. Men commit suicide when they can’t support their families. So you manage a family, then you manage the economy. Only then do you manage nature, your farm, the ocean, whatever you’re managing there to produce every single form of food and everything that makes civilization possible,” he said.

“You can’t divide these, they have to be managed simultaneously and indivisibly. There is no chance of anywhere in the world, the same family, the same family values, the same culture, the same economy they’re operating in, or the same climate piece of land being replicated. That’s why holistic management is so unique to every single farm and family.”

Grassroots growth amidst global challenges

In a paper by Deb Stinner at Ohio State University, she talked to ranchers and farmers who trained under Savory. All but one saw an increase in biodiversity in the first year, while the average of all of those farms was a 300 per cent increase in profit. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people in farm families went broke in the same markets.

Nevertheless, the world has been slow to implement holistic management, despite the formation of organizations such as those in Canada.

Savory applauded the efforts of the producers in the room who have adapted the holistic principles to their operations, adding it will be the producers themselves who lead the movement from the grassroots into a global consciousness rather than top-down action by government.

In the 1980s, Savory was set to help train 18,000 people in the U.S. forest service with his holistic management foundations, but the initiative was cancelled.

“What we’ve seen is since then, global biodiversity loss get far worse, desertification, as a consequence of it, get far worse. Accelerating climate change get far worse. All of those feeding on each other now in a feedback loop going out of control,” said Savory, who just published a memoir, Unsavory: African Stories of Wildlife, War, and the Birth of Holistic Management.

The post Holistic management upends traditional grazing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Producers got a close look at several of those approaches during a Jan. 12 winter grazing tour at the Bos family farm. Jordan Bos demonstrated how cover crops, straw and silage pile grazing fit into the operation’s winter feeding plan.

Rather than relying heavily on chopped silage, the operation is grazing a mix of feed sources through the winter. These include pea straw, barley straw and hay at roughly 20 pounds of dry matter per head per day.

“Three times a week we come out with a rack of straw and just roll it out for them so they all have access,” Bos said.

WHY IT MATTERS: Experts say that using cover crops, straw and silage grazing can help cattle producers manage winter feed costs, as long as rations are carefully balanced to meet herd nutritional needs.

Cover crops on the Bos farm cost about $35 an acre to establish, with funding support for a water site provided by a local watershed district.

“It’s nice if you can get some funding and cut the cost,” Bos said.

The farm typically fertilizes its corn but not its cover crop.

The tour included a demonstration of the farm’s feed truck and TMR mixer, which they call “Mad Max.” The truck reduces labour during the winter.

“The idea is to use that truck as much as we can for a good part of the winter,” Bos said.

Silage pile grazing in practice

Silage pile grazing was another stop on the tour. Cattle are grazing the pile with minimal waste, Bos said.

“I don’t think they’re wasting much. They’re eating it right down to the dirt,” he said. “It seems to be working good.”

The silage pile is about 70-feet wide, with both sides exposed, providing roughly 140 feet of space for about 300 head. Electric wire is adjusted daily to control access and manage utilization.

“You get pretty good utilization like this,” Bos said. “It’s cheaper than hauling it out.”

The winter feeding system appears to be meeting cattle needs, Bos said.

“The animals seem pretty content and full.”

Importance of feed testing and balanced rations

While alternative feed sources like pea and barley straw can help manage costs when available, provincial livestock and forage extension specialist Kristen Bouchard-Teasdale said that it’s important to ensure proper feed testing and balanced rations.

“Winter feed supplies are our biggest expense in these cattle productions,” she said. “How people feed and what proportions they’re able to mix into their ration is going to be dictated by the quality of the feed ingredients that they have on hand.”

Producers incorporating straw into winter rations need to ensure cattle receive sufficient protein and energy, particularly during extreme cold periods like the one that has been gripping most of Manitoba for the past few weeks.

“Cows can’t eat enough of those fibrous feeds, like the pea straw and the barley straw, to be able to meet those energy requirements in particular,” she said.

That’s why feed testing is so critical for developing effective winter feeding strategies, she added.

“Get your feed tested, know how much you have of something and exactly what’s in it, and then you have that information. It makes it much easier to be able to change your strategy if need be,” Bouchard-Teasdale said.

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