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GrassWorks History Blog

Effort is underway to publish the history of GrassWorks in a more official capacity. Until that project is complete, this blog will serve as a holding ground for compiled information so that our history is searchable and not lost.

GrassWorks Chapters

Chapters Received

Otto Wiegand

Vance Haugen

Carl Fredericks

Dan Patenaude

Jeanne Patenaude

Mike Gingrich

Otto Wiegand & Charlie Opitz

Andy Hager

Rick Adamski

Laura Paine

Mike Rankin

Otto Wiegand & Lynn Johnson

Jim Vanderpol

Heather Flashinski

Dick Cates

Greg Galbraith (Eder)

Greg Galbraith (Adamski)

Paul Daigle & Tom Cadwallader

Jill Hapner

Bert Paris

Gene Schriefer

Rick Klemme

Margaret Krome

Meghan Filbert

Cheyenne Christianson

Ben Bartlett

Paul Dietmann

Kay and Wayne Craig

Mary C. Anderson

Tom Kriegl

Randy Cutler

Mike Casler

Mike Cannell (posthumous)

Kevin Mahalko

Joel McNair

FORWARD

Grassworks History Project (Otto Wiegand and Vance Haugen)

The Board of Directors of GrassWorks, Inc. decided in 2024 to compile a history of the organization dating back to its roots in the 1980s. Former Board members, Otto Wiegand and Vance Haugen, offered to take on the roles of editor and co-editor. Part of the process was to have important figures in the history of the organization write their individual stories. The final product would also contain a timeline of important events, and lists of founders, key grazier contributors, executive directors, board members, conference speakers, and local grazing networks. 

GrassWorks, a Wisconsin-based organization with an extensive Midwest and national reach, was formally organized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 1994. There was a previous non-profit called the Southwest Wisconsin Farmers Research Network (SWFRN), organized in 1988, that morphed into GrassWorks. Dairy graziers formed the majority of farmers who started the two organizations. The first designated Wisconsin Grazing Conference occurred in 1993, so GrassWorks started numbering its conferences from that time. The history of GrassWorks was and still is closely intertwined with the history of managed grazing in Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest. Not all graziers were affiliated with Grassworks but both groups were certainly influenced by each other. 

There were several terms used for grazing over time. Initially, the term grazing was used to differentiate it from earlier pasturing practices. Grazing became rotational grazing as influenced by authors Andre Voisin and others, and by New Zealand systems. There were terms like cell grazing, planned grazing and intensive rotational grazing. Then there was managed intensive rotational grazing (MIRG). Then it became managed intensive grazing (MIG). MIRG and MIG are often seen in the literature of the time. Now it is just managed grazing. Two other terms are important. Grazers are livestock that graze. Graziers are those who manage grazers.

Although a number of farmers were practicing some form of managed grazing before the 1980s, there were several events that spurned an interest in grazing among dairy farmers in the 1980s. What was called “The Farm Crisis of the 1980s” featured high interest rates, falling land prices, low milk prices, high input costs, and high debt levels that pushed conventional (largely non-grazing, confinement) farmers to the edge. A severe regional drought in 1988 compounded the problem. Many farmers were forced to either go out of business or look for alternatives. A growing environmental movement and opposition to chemical agriculture by consumers and producers were additional factors. 

Managed grazing wasn’t necessarily an obvious alternative at the time. Conventional dairy farmers, looking for ways to survive, were often tinkering with things like fertilizer rates, forage species, crop rotations and alternative breeds of cattle. Then grazing philosophies by authors like Voisin (Grass Productivity) and Bill Murphy (The Grass Is Greener on your Side of The Fence), already practiced in New Zealand, came to light. 

The New Zealand model of managed, low-input, dairy grazing was particularly attractive to many Midwest dairy farmers. The model featured low-cost milking parlors, small field divisions (paddocks), moveable electric fencing, long grass rest periods, and seasonal milking among other things. Dairy graziers in the Midwest discovered that with such technologies, managed grazing could often net them over $1,000 per cow per year on small farms while offering less stress, rebuilding of topsoil, and conservation of the environment. 

There were initial centers of managed grazing in Wisconsin. The first was in the southwest including Lafayette, Iowa, and Grant Counties. The second was in the northcentral part of the state including Taylor, Clark, and Marathon Counties. The idea of managed grazing quickly spread over the state and across state boundaries. 

GrassWorks became the educational and networking engine for this movement, hosting 33 well-attended, annual conferences to 2024 in key locations such as Wisconsin Dells, Stevens Point, Wausau, and Middleton. The conferences attracted well over 12,000 attendees. Regional conferences and pasture walks attracted thousands more. At least 45 grazing networks have existed in the state. Thousands of grazing plans were written. At least 85 individuals, most of them farmers, have served on the GrassWorks Board of Directors. GrassWorks became dedicated to all classes of livestock including dairy, beef, sheep, goats, hogs, poultry, and others. 

GrassWorks depended heavily for several years on Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) funding for its conference and other activities. When that funding ran out around 2012, GrassWorks had to innovate with belt-tightening and other sources of funding. Thanks to extensive grant writing and good fiscal management by the Executive Director and the Board in the recent decade, GrassWorks is in 2025 in good financial shape. 

BACKGROUND

Effects of the 1980s Farm Crisis (Otto Wiegand)

GrassWorks and its predecessor, the Southwest Wisconsin Farmers Research Network (SWFRN), organizations that promoted rotational or managed grazing, were a result of several responses by Wisconsin dairy farmers to what is commonly known as the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. Not only did farmers face bankruptcy, but several banks, credit agencies and farm suppliers also went out of business. The focus of this chapter is to show what happened to dairy farms in Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest that led to managed grazing and the formation of GrassWorks. 

By the 1980s, dairy farmers had been moving away from pasturing to confinement systems. Dairymen increasingly owned their own cropping machinery, fed their cows for higher production, and expanded their herds. The Secretary of Agriculture under the Nixon and Ford Administrations, Earl Butz, urged farmers to “get big or get out” and to plant commodity crops like corn from “fence row to fence row” (Wikipedia). Small farms became increasingly unstable. 

Larger influences came into play. The 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis precipitated an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo and a U.S. cutoff of agriculture exports to Russia (Ron Johnson, Agri-View, Dec. 29, 1989). The U.S. Government reduced price supports and dairy purchases. Energy prices increased. Interest rates in the U.S. rose to between 10-20%. There was an oversupply of milk. Land values, the underpinning for farm debt, plummeted. The farm sector experienced the worst economic depression since the 1930s. Dairy farm numbers, decreasing for decades, were expected to drop 30% by 1995, according to Robert Cropp, dairy economist at UW-Platteville (New York Times, Jan. 22, 1985). Severe droughts in 1983 and especially in 1988 added to the misery. There were many farm auctions. 

The first Farm Aid Concert, held in 1985 and organized by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, and several other celebrities, raised $9 million for family farms (Wikipedia). John Kinsman of Lime Ridge, Wisconsin, a long-time farm activist, founded Family Farm Defenders in 1994 (Grassroots International, Jan. 2014). The federal government implemented the Whole-Herd Buyout Program to reduce the milk supply. This author left dairying in 1987 under that program. Most dairy farmers who wanted to survive looked for other options to reduce costs and increase revenues. Spouses took off-farm jobs. Consumers, who wanted to know more about where their food came from, were questioning the use of hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, animal confinement and other farm practices.

Organic markets were one option for higher milk prices. The Coulee Region Organic Producer Pool (CROPP) cooperative was formed by seven farmers in Viroqua, Wisconsin in 1987 (CROPP Cooperative Roots, The First 25 Years, 2013). The next year, the Organic Valley label was added. The organization, which added managed grazing as per United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) rules, has become a billion-dollar business.

By the late1990s, the idea of managed grazing had successfully appealed to over 4,000 Wisconsin dairy farmers to reduce costs (Laura Paine, UW-Madison PATS Survey, 1999). Many were those who found a way to convert from confinement. In other cases, new young farmers saw an opportunity to get into farming on the cheap, according to Greg Andrews, UW-Extension Ag Agent for Pierce County (Tom Lawin, The Country Today, Aug. 26, 1987). Auctioned farms and cheaper land became available.

An old dairy barn with stanchions or a retrofit (fitted into an existing space) milking parlor sufficed. Farmers no longer needed machinery for every field operation but hired the neighbors instead. Almost all tillage and planting operations were abandoned. Cattle harvested their own feed and spread their own manure for half of the year. Most expensive feed supplements were no longer needed. Veterinary visits became rarer. Milk production dropped, sometimes to only half of what it was before, but the cost savings and cow longevity more than offset the drop. 

A single family could run a profitable dairy farm. Fifty cows might suffice. Farmers who were working too hard suddenly had a reasonable lifestyle. Profit margins increased. Many graziers reported netting $1,000 or more per cow per year. Graziers only needed enough contiguous land, electric fencing, a simple milking facility, a tractor with loader and manure spreader, perhaps a four-wheeler, and a pickup truck. Some graziers stopped feeding grain altogether. Several practiced seasonal milking. Some even kept their dried-off herds outside in the winter. 

Farmers didn’t keep secrets but shared their methodology and financial information with others. Older, experienced farmers readily tutored new, younger farmers. Dairy apprenticing began.

EARLY DAYS

Chapter 1 – Origin of SWFRN and GrassWorks (Carl Fredericks)

GrassWorks grew out of the Southwest Wisconsin Farmers Research Network (SWFRN), a project of the Wisconsin Rural Development Center (WRDC) in 1986 and 1987. WRDC, formed in 1984, was one of several family farm advocacy groups organized in Midwestern states during the farm crisis of the mid-1980s. Influencing agricultural research was a priority, especially in Wisconsin where the bovine growth hormone (BGH / rBST) controversy was unfolding. Those involved in WRDC wanted public policy, agricultural research, education, and technical assistance directed toward supporting small family dairy farms as well as encouraging less chemical-intensive cropping practices.

Creating a network of farmers actually doing what was being advocated accomplished several things. It attracted publicity in the farm press, and in the pre-internet era, the general print, TV, and radio media. Farmers could themselves be communicators, both to the public and to policy makers, with the goal of advancing government legislation, university research, and agency technical assistance while supporting their scale of operations and practices. The network idea invited engagement with university researchers, both to show what the farmers were doing, and as a way of learning what science-based data collection would be accepted by academics and not dismissed simply as a “farmer testimonial.” Farmers’ sharing of documented results was also seen as the most effective way to reach other farmers.

The most visible result of this advocacy in Wisconsin was the establishment of the Wisconsin Sustainable Agriculture Program by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) in 1987. Funded projects under the program started in 1988. Several states had sued Exxon Oil for overcharging consumers during the Oil Crisis of the 1970s, winning a $2 billion settlement in 1985. In Wisconsin, a portion of this money was directed toward on-farm demonstrations and applied research for energy-conserving farming practices.  

When I came to Wisconsin to attend Land Resources Graduate Program in the Institute for Environmental Studies (now the Nelson Institute) at UW-Madison in the fall of 1984, one of the first fellow students I met was Rick Adamski. Rick was one of the first WRDC board members, so I was aware of the organization and its activities at an early stage.

In 1987, I worked for 10 months at the Center for Rural Affairs on their Small Farm Resources Project in Hartington, Nebraska. WRDC board members Carl Pulvermacher and Don Rudolph came to Nebraska during the summer for a Center workshop. I had been on Carl’s farm in the fall of 1986 for a field day and was familiar with the Center and its activities.

The DATCP Sustainable Agriculture Program was getting underway, and Carl Pulvermacher was on its advisory council. Dick Cates had written a proposal to DATCP to fund the WRDC network with himself as coordinator of the project. However, Dick had been hired by DATCP to help run the Sustainable Agriculture Program, so was ineligible to manage the grant. I was working part-time for DATCP and encountered Carl one day when he was there for a meeting. Carl asked me if I was interested in coordinating the research network. I interviewed for the job in Paul and Judy Swenson’s kitchen, was hired, and moved to Dodgeville in March 1988 to begin work.

The DATCP-funded SWFRN made a slight name change (Southwest changed to Southern) and focused on what Dick Cates had proposed in the first 1988 grant. The focus included both cropping and grazing practices. To make the proposal more attractive, Dick recruited a few additional farms to join the original WRDC farms. These additional farms were involved for the first two years.  A few more became involved through contact with SWFRN farmers.  

Although the original Cates grant had envisioned collaborating with UW-Platteville to run on-farm trials, that proposal wasn’t very successful due to the 1988 drought and lack of interest and enthusiasm on the part of Platteville faculty. We were successful, however, in collaborating with UW-Madison agronomist, Mike Casler, in getting a grant through the United States Department of Agriculture Low Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) program, later renamed Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE). That effort established randomized, replicated on-farm grass variety trials starting in 1990 that were very encouraging.

We received DATCP funding to collect data and sponsor events, largely continuing the objectives of the original Cates proposal, until the Sustainable Agriculture Program ended in 1992. SWFRN was a very close-knit network, both by location and socially. There was never a feeling of needing to attract more farmers to join or create a membership organization. A reason for this was a growing and energetic organic farming scene evolving through Organic Valley. Early Midwest Organic Systems Educational Services (MOSES) organic conferences were also an outlet for more involvement with other farmers.  

Although we collected data and publicized both crop and grazing practices, the grazing events attracted increasingly more people and interest. Except for a handful of county extension agents and a few agency employees, there was a void created by a lack of university and agency interest in grazing dairy cows in Wisconsin that we filled.  SWFRN-sponsored winter programs in 1990 and 1991 in Dodgeville attracted over 100 each year. We also shared speakers with other groups around the state.

After the DATCP funding ended in 1992, we needed to determine how to continue our work. SWFRN organized a gathering of “grass radicals” (Andy Hager’s description) from around the state at Clyde in Iowa County in the fall of 1992 to explore the idea of organizing as a statewide membership organization. A similar effort had been started in Ohio, so we invited an Ohio State University Extension Agent, Mark Bennett, to talk about how they organized and to consider if their idea might work here. However, no consensus was reached at the meeting that a centralized organization was needed in Wisconsin. This was most likely because there were already successful local networks popping up all around the state that people were heavily committed to.

The year 1992 also saw a one and only First Annual North American Dairy Grazing Conference sponsored by Allan Nation of the Stockman Grass Farmer Magazine from Mississippi. The event was held at the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells. We had invited Allan a couple times starting in 1990 for some programs, so he knew of the interest in dairy grazing in Wisconsin. Allan’s event, however, had a bit too much rose-colored salesmanship for many Wisconsin dairy graziers. Some of us thought we could run a more practical, educational event ourselves, so we started to plan the first Wisconsin Grazing Conference for 1993. 

Several things came together remarkably smoothly, including good weather, that made the first conference a success. I had run several events since 1988 that attracted large crowds between 100 and 250 at field days and programs. I knew the basics of event planning. Dan Patenaude, who exhibited fence supplies at farm shows, also knew what a good trade show looked like. John Cockrell, the UW-Extension Ag Agent in Lafayette County, brought in retired extension agent, Elmer Kohlstedt, and his wife Florence to handle registration duties. Because the publisher of Agri-View Magazine was supportive of grazing, writer Joel McNair enlisted the magazine to run the registration process free of charge and publish a grazing supplement. The DATCP Sustainable Agriculture Program, which was coming to an end, had some unspent funding, so contributed $7500 to cover expenses.  

There was no shortage of good ideas for topics and speakers coming from networks of farmers and supportive agency people around the state. At that time, the greatest interest in grazing was among southwest Wisconsin dairy farmers. Several of us met in John Cockrell’s Extension office in Darlington to plan the event.

Farmer presentations were the focus of the 1993 program which was largely presented as panels. That format was partly a response to single speakers droning on too long at the 1992 Stockman Grass Farmer event. Furthermore, more and better discussion came out of moderated panels, and we were putting farmers on equal footing with non-farm speakers.

Two Ohio State University speakers were on the 1993 program, David Zartman, the Chairman of the Dairy Science Department, and researcher Bill Weiss. Both had been involved in the Mahoning Project, a five-year study of a seasonal grass-based dairying that provided useful information on supplemental feeding. The project was also an example of applied, on-farm research that some of us felt would be a good model for Wisconsin.

The meeting room capacity was 300 and we filled it. Later conferences attracted even larger crowds. There were nearly 650 in 1997 when Joel Salatin was on the program. The 1993 event laid a solid foundation for everything that followed. David Zartman wrote to me later that the conference was one of the finest meetings for dairy farmers that he had ever attended. It certainly filled a need for good grazing information that was hard to find at that time. It was also a lot of fun to be with hundreds of optimistic grazers in the middle of winter, everyone eager for green grass and a fresh start in the spring.

As an independent, incorporated nonprofit, SWFRN was in a good position to handle the finances and organizing of the event. However, there was a need to evolve from an entity created to manage DATCP-funded projects to one focused on grazing education, specifically for the conference. In May 1994, the network was reorganized as GrassWorks, a name coined by Mike Cannell meaning both “grass works” (to feed cows) and recognizing the importance of networks of farmers to support and educate one another. 

The 1994-1998 conferences were held at the Holiday Inn in Stevens Point. They were very moderately priced, $50 per person or $60 for two people from the same farm.  We knew how much it cost for rooms, meals away from home, and hired help to milk at home for a couple days, so we wanted to make it affordable to our largely family dairy farm attendees. We included a large trade show that covered a lot of our conference expenses. Our overhead expenses were low as I was only working full-time on the conference for a few months of the year.

Stevens Point was a good location for the large number of central Wisconsin graziers, but the Holiday Inn was becoming increasingly expensive and in disrepair. The final straw was an out-of-service hot tub in both 1997 and 1998 and construction debris in the hallways. Michael Murphy, a respected Irish dairy grazier, was our main speaker in 1999 when we ran the conference in the Madison area to see if we could attract a nationwide audience with easier travel access. That turned out not to be the case, although Madison did allow much easier access to the conference for UW-Madison students and faculty.

In the late 1990s, UW agronomists Dan Undersander and Dennis Cosgrove proposed merging GrassWorks with the Wisconsin Forage Council. This idea was rejected because there would be no advantage to GrassWorks which filled an independent space between the university and government agencies. Grazing networks were organized by extension agents, county land conservation staff and farmers themselves and it was to our advantage to be supportive to all but not a formal part of one player or another.

There were changes when GrassWorks received over $100,000 in funding from Senator Heb Kohl’s office in 1999. Most of this money went to support various county conservationists and grazing networks. Conference attendance peaked in 1997 but dairy farm numbers were also declining steeply and there were many one-day winter grazing meetings and regional conferences all over the state. The GrassWorks conference was no longer the only place one could get grazing information. Local meetings could do so with less cost and time commitment.

GrassWorks had a small board of five farmers representing networks from around the state.  An increasing number of networks combined with falling conference attendance and revenue and the possibility of funding through the new Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) meant that GrassWorks needed to be reorganized differently. One issue was that the board was self-selected with board members nominating their replacements. This practice worked for a few years, but we ended up with a resignation, no identified successor, and a small four-member board in 1999. 

I would have liked to have moved GrassWorks toward a Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) model. It had heavy farmer involvement in applied on-farm research with results shared at their annual conference. I felt this would give a good purpose to the organization and encourage an involved membership, and proposed continuing as coordinator if this path was taken. There was a split 2-2 vote with no decision to move in the PFI direction, so I resigned in Spring 2000 after running my last conference at the Stoney Creek Inn at Rothschild.

Chapter 2 – Wisconsin Grazing History, 1980s and 1990s (Margaret Krome)

Wisconsin’s embrace of managed grazing in the late 1980s benefited from a fortuitous confluence of new fencing technology just at the time when competitive grant funding became available to Wisconsin farmers and groups to demonstrate energy efficient and sustainable farming practices. In 1986, leaders at the nonprofit Wisconsin Rural Development Center (WRDC) worked with the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) Legislative Liaison, Jim Arts, to successfully shepherd a bill through the Legislature to use $2 million in Stripper Well Oil Overcharge dollars returned to the state to fund a Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Program. 

The program was implemented beginning in 1987 with the full support of Wisconsin’s Agriculture Secretary, Howard Richards. In its first round of funding, out of 184 final applications, the program in early 1988 spent $790,000 to fund 34 projects. Projects funded included those to individual farmers innovating with grazing. Included were Northeast Wisconsin dairy farmers, Rick and Valerie Adamski as well as Ken and Darlene Raspotnik in Ashland County, who grazed sheep on turnips, rapeseed, and comfrey. The program also funded grazing networks that hosted pasture walks and educational events. Those efforts incubated an invaluable network of graziers across the state whose experimental fervor fueled a spirit of shared discovery that lasted long past the end of the program’s funding.

In early February of 1987, WRDC and other groups co-sponsored the state’s first Sustainable Agriculture Conference at UW-Stevens Point. More than 275 farmers, environmentalists, researchers, policymakers, educators, and others met for two days, fostering candid dialogues between proponents of sustainable agriculture practices, especially on managed grazing. When UW-Extension scheduled three dates for a touring conference on sustainable agriculture in March of 1988, one of their topics was “Alternative Grazing Systems for Wisconsin Pastures.”

On a sunny day in the late 1980s, Dan and Jean Patenaude hosted a grazing field day on their dairy farm in Southwest Wisconsin, featuring Jean’s brother, Bill Murphy, a University of Vermont Professor. Murphy was the author of Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence. His book became essential reading nationally for farmers interested in management intensive grazing and pasture management. Murphy described the revolutionary effects of versatile high-tensile electric fencing developed in New Zealand and electric chargers that maintained protection even when fences brushed against wet weeds. Several farmers on WRDC’s Board who were already pasturing their cattle for portions of the year attended, and they left with a gleam in their eyes.

For a small nonprofit, WRDC played an outsized role in sustainable agriculture and policy development in the 1980s and 1990s. It was noteworthy that so many of its Board members and members of the WRDC-sponsored Southern Wisconsin Farmers Research Network (SWFRN) became managed grazers. Dean Swenson and Carl Pulvermacher in the Southwest, and Don Rudolph and Rick Adamski in the Northeast, were examples of WRDC’s early leaders who promoted and wanted the University of Wisconsin to research and support managed grazing as well as other sustainable practices.   

In 1988 and 1989, WRDC led the complex campaign in the Legislature and University to create Wisconsin’s sustainable agriculture research and outreach hub, the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS). Its governance structure created an advisory council composed of a careful balance of farmers, conservationists, and others with demonstrated experience in sustainable agriculture. Building out of CIAS’s spheres of expertise, in 1995, Dick Cates, previously with the DATCP Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Program, created the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers (WSBDF) and housed it at CIAS. Over the next decade, in response to farmer and nonprofit advocacy, University Extension hired a number of grazing specialists and supported county agriculture agents in gaining expertise in grazing.

An innovative public-private structure at the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) called the Resource Conservation and Development Councils (RC&Ds) took an active role in grazing in Wisconsin. River Country RC&D, Pri-Ru-Ta RC&D, Glacierland RC&D, Badgerland RC&D, and Town & Country RC&D were among the Wisconsin RC&D institutions affirming and supporting the value of managed grazing to their constituents.  When USDA funding for these entities dwindled, alternative funding became necessary and sometimes hard to identify, but some continued to be crucial hubs for grazing work.

An important federal program became a long-term funding source for Wisconsin grazing, starting soon after it began funding competitive grants in 1988. The USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program was previously briefly called the Low Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) program. It extended its range of programs over the years from research / education grants to university researchers to professional development or “train-the-trainer” grants, farmer / rancher grants, graduate student grants, and most recently partnership grants. From 1988 to 2025, SARE funded over $2.5 million in over 80 grazing-related grants to Wisconsin. 

Another major force to support managed grazing emerged from a 1988 meeting in La Farge, Wisconsin, when farmers banded together and formed a cooperative that would become known as the Coulee Region Organic Producer Pool (CROPP / Organic Valley label). The cooperative’s farmers eventually recognized the potential role that managed grazing played in meeting goals of quality milk under emerging organic standards, while the cooperative’s commitment to a fair milk price for farmers supported many farmers as they transitioned to grazing systems.  

In Madison, the Willy Street Coop provided buses and outreach to educate its members when WRDC and later the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute led farm tours throughout the 1980s and 1990s for Madison-area city folks. Among sites they visited included grass-based cow and goat dairies, beef herds, sheep flocks, and pastured hog farms.

Journalists’ roles can also be important in documenting a trend. In the late 1980s and 1990s, several of Wisconsin’s agricultural newspapers covered grazing. But none did that more thoughtfully than Agri-View, with Joel McNair reporting on field days, pasture walks, and remarkable stories of farmers overcoming production, financial and marketing challenges with grazing. When McNair left to form a family company with his wife Ruth in 2000, it wasn’t surprising that a principal purpose was to start the magazine Graze, which quickly became a central source of innovation and farmer information exchange.

In the mid-1990s, Kim Cates, Dick Cate’s wife and state agriculture staffer for U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, and grazing educator, Mary C. Anderson, among others, collaborated with activists in other states to successfully pass national legislation that created a federal grazing program within the NRCS called the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI). Starting in 1998 and working with DATCP, the GLCI program funded scores of projects supporting grazing education, technical assistance, and farmer grazing networks. In 2002 alone, GLCI provided over $850,000 for prescribed grazing plans in the state. Even after funding was cut nationally in 2008, Senator Kohl supported GLCI’s funding in Wisconsin for a few additional years through Congressional-directed funding.

In 1994, emerging from SWFRN, a number of grazing farmers created a new nonprofit organization called GrassWorks, Inc. to coordinate grazing education and outreach across the state. The pasture walks, workshops, and conferences sponsored by GrassWorks became and still are the go-to places in Wisconsin for exchanges of grazing information, from production strategies to market development to animal nutrition to ecological considerations. Funded with federal GLCI grants for several years, GrassWorks has diversified its funding in the last dozen years and become an essential fixture on the State’s grazing landscape.

Starting in 1996, the Michael Fields agronomist, John Hall, used Kellogg Foundation funding and in later years congressional funding to collaborate with UW-Agronomy professor, Josh Posner, and USDA’s Dairy Forage Research Center researchers to launch long-term farming systems research. These were the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trials, which later added managed grazing as one of the systems in the study. In addition to supporting insights through the decades covering crop, nutrient, ecosystem, and financial aspects of cropping systems, these long-term research investments have paid off in more recent years with data that help strengthen understanding of carbon’s function and storage in grass-based and cropping systems.

Wisconsin’s flagship research institution, UW-Madison, made a major investment in grass-based systems in 2003 when it hired three professors as part of an agroecology cluster hire. Randy Jackson, a grassland ecologist, as well as a sociologist, Michael Bell, and an entomologist, Claudio Gratton, were employed. The integrated nature of these hires has continued through two decades of collaborative research, teaching, and community engagement.

Wisconsin grazing has benefited from nearly four decades of collaboration from state, federal, university, private, corporate, nonprofit, and grass-based farmers. When one resource lost funding, others stepped in to provide support. Much of the foundation for that work emerged early, from the grazing grants and networks funded in the late 1980s, the education and outreach cultivated through the University’s CIAS, and the years of investment by USDA’s RC&Ds and GLCI. Throughout it all, individual farmers have taken grazing’s fate into their hands and advocated for investments important to the grass-based farming systems they value so much.

Chapter 3 – Wisconsin’s Public Efforts to Create a Socially and Environmentally Just and Enduring Agriculture (Richard L. Cates Jr.)

The history of every nation is written in the way in which it cares for its farms, farmers, soil and water, flora, and fauna—collectively, the land. Therefore, it is my commitment, as a farmer and teacher, to communicate the conviction that the fate of how we care for our land is everybody’s future, everyone’s vital concern. It is imperative we work together toward the goal of a socially and environmentally just, and enduring agriculture across our nation—Richard L. Cates Jr. in A Creek Runs Through This Driftless Land: A Farm Family’s Journey Toward a Land Ethic (2024).

The Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Program

I developed the first draft of this ethical position at the start of my PhD in Soils at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980. I have adjusted it a bit over the years, but not by much.

In the autumn of 1987, guided by this ethic, I enthusiastically accepted the opportunity to work as “agriculturist” in the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Program (SADP), a newly minted grant program within the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP). It was eventually encoded as DATCP Chapter 45 of the Wisconsin Statutes. The new program was lobbied for in the Wisconsin Legislature by desperate farmer leaders who were barely surviving the 1980s farm crises. It was funded through the Wisconsin Oil Overcharge Fund, an outcome of federal court settlements between major oil companies and the US Department of Energy. The program had as its stated goals to fund on-farm demonstrations of production farming practices that resulted in energy savings, environmental benefits, and farm profitability. 

Creating this program on the fly, our small staff of two full-time and one half-time appointments (mine was the ‘half’) wanted to be sure to include the range of concerns we felt should be addressed in a so-called “sustainable” agriculture. In addition to the official stated goals, the grant projects were also evaluated on criteria such as how well the farming approaches that were being demonstrated supported community vitality, farm family health, and food safety. These all were things that could and should be included in my ethical statement, and I could hardly wait to begin checking them off.

Over the years, with the consensus of the citizen advisory board that oversaw grant selection, innovative demonstrations to address the program criteria were put in place across the state. We had grant projects demonstrating pasture management, integrated pest management, conservation tillage, cover cropping, and manure nutrient management. Projects further ranged from apples to Christmas trees to ginseng, large and small-scale cash grain, processing crops, dairy, beef, hogs, sheep, and poultry livestock operations, multiple uses of hedgerows and windbreaks, woodlot management and reforestation. Projects included a few surveys to look at farmers’ perceived barriers to reducing petroleum-based inputs. We funded the development of ten regional farmer networks to help communicate and share the innovations happening on individual demonstration farms. We conducted hundreds of outreach field days and winter classroom gatherings, as well as a few instructional programs within public and private institutions. All intended to help spread the word about the sustainable agriculture innovations taking place in Wisconsin.  

Over eight years, I had the opportunity to serve as acting director of the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Program several times, and as the agriculturist overseeing and advising all 176 of the demonstration grants. I thought the world of agriculture was changing rapidly in exactly the way we had been advocating, right in front of my eyes. 

After eight years, Wisconsin’s Oil Overcharge Fund ran out of grant funding and the demonstrations largely ceased. However, as a result of this journey, I carried with me pieces of wisdom I came to value immeasurably: 

I vowed to hold on to this wisdom, and I certainly did. 

Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers

By the mid-1990s, dairy farmers who had survived the farm crises of the past decade began to be concerned more than ever about where the next generation of herdsmen and herdswomen would emerge. With fewer farm families on the land, additional first-time farmers would have to find their way to the farming vocation from a non-farm background. The big question was who would be available to train them? 

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Farm and Industry Short Course (FISC) was in place to train the next generation from farms to go back to farms. There simply wasn’t a training program anywhere in Wisconsin for those with a non-farm background. So, as it happened, as the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Program (SADP) wound down, farmers who recognized the existential need for proper training of a next generation, some of the same farmers who had been up and down the halls of at the Wisconsin Capitol on behalf of the SADP, began lobbying to have this need seriously addressed. 

The dean and director of FISC, as well as the leadership of the Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems (CIAS), also located at the University within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, heard the call. With two-years of grant funds available, a new training effort termed the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy Farmers (WSBDF, or the School), was to be a training and mentoring program for the next generation of dairy farmers in our state. “If you have a dream to farm, we’re here to help you” eventually became its tag line.

WSBDF planned to focus on a business approach which utilized “rotational or managed grazing” to provide the bulk of livestock feed for the projects. The SADP demonstrations had shown managed grazing to be a lower capital-cost and environmentally-sound approach to begin dairy farming. In fact, I had adopted managed grazing the first year of the SADP demonstrations in the summer of 1988 on my own livestock farm business that I was in the process of building. I applied for and was hired to be the first coordinator of this new School, again, at a 50%-time appointment. 

It was up to me to shape the program to meet the needs of the students who most needed us. Keeping in mind the wisdom I drew from the SADP, for each classroom session, I paired a university, technical college, or industry representative with a practicing dairy farmer who was down-to-earth experienced in the particular topic(s) on the agenda for the week. And, respectfully, we committed to providing the farmer-speakers with a stipend for their time and travel which was always accepted, or waived, with gratitude. We conducted tours to dairy farms, often those operated by our farmer speakers. And we offered our students up to four months of internships with mentor farmers at the end of the 15-week classroom session.

Our two-year grant was extended one additional year, and as that came to an end, there was a call to action to address a series of practical issues. What had we found to be our unique training niche? Who were the students that wanted to attend, and what were they asking for? Finally, how would the effort be funded into the future? We held a two-day gathering of our farmer advisors and internship mentors, UW and technical college instructors, industry representatives, and recent graduates to strategize.

What emerged was a course of action that set the stage for the next more than two decades. We would:

My colleagues and I established a modest endowment supported by Wisconsin businesses, as well as named scholarships, to assist students with the cost of the School’s tuition and to provide the essential farmer-stipends. We initiated a bicycle ride across Wisconsin, the “Ride to Farm”, as an annual fund-raiser conducted for nearly 20 years, as well as many other efforts to build invaluable community support.

I retired from leadership of the WSBDF in 2018. The University of Wisconsin- Madison ended the program in 2022. More than 600 would-be farmers attended the school over the years, and at the time of our last survey, more than three-quarters were farming. About half had started their own farm enterprise, and almost all our graduates who weren’t farming continued to dream of farming one day.

Where does all this bring me? I circle back to the ethical statement I began to verbalize 45 years ago. I still believe in it wholeheartedly. Have we as a culture made any progress? Some. What should come next?

We Need the Imperative of a Land Ethic

As Leopold admonishes in The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac: “Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” I see more and more young people who understand this imperative. There continues to be an

increasing number of high school and university studies that focus on ecology, regenerative agriculture, and soil health. This is most hopeful.

I have helped some of the best and brightest young people in Wisconsin to get started or stay in farming. They are often successful rural businesspeople who are productive, contributing families in their communities. Significantly, taking the long view, they are perpetuating our core values by tending to our land. A next generation of farmers with an ethic of care and stewardship of the land is essential to a healthy, enduring culture in America. These bearers of a land ethic need our abiding support. We all need to commit to protecting and preserving our farmland and the waters of the nation. We all need to share with the next generation of farmers what we have learned along the way.

These are the questions that really matter in developing and perpetuating a socially and environmentally just and enduring agriculture across our nation: 

Although these questions may feel quite personal to us, they are pertinent. If we are going to develop a land ethic which I assert is “an ecological necessity,” these are the questions we should be asking each other.

I have come to understand in my bones, after a long journey, that a land ethic, boiled down to its essence, is as basic and as powerful as the necessity of taking personal responsibility for the care of the soil, water, plants, and animals, collectively, the land under our care. Ultimately such a land ethic is the only thing that will save our species. I advocate that our next public efforts towards an enduring agriculture need to engage the evolution of a land ethic, front and center. This would continue to give me hope. 

Chapter 4 – How Rotational Grazing Changed Wisconsin Agriculture (Jeanne Patenaude)

In the summer of 1982, I traveled with family members to Vermont to visit my brother, Bill Murphy. Bill had taken a position at the University of Vermont, teaching Agronomy. The charge he was given by the University was to find ways for small farms in Vermont to thrive. They didn’t want Vermont to revert to forest. Bill had spent time, in the late 1960’s, doing research in Brazil for the University of Wisconsin, where he was introduced to André Voisin’s work on intensive grazing. He now brought those ideas to Vermont where he began doing his own research at the University’s Shelbourne Farm as well as on his own farm in rural Colchester, Vermont. I found his farm divided up with temporary electric fence netting, called Flexinet, which was powered by a Gallagher energizer from New Zealand. Bill was grazing a flock of sheep. It was all quite interesting!

When I came home, I said to Dan, “You should see what Bill is doing!” We were keenly interested. We had just started our 30-cow dairy in the Town of Clyde, Iowa County, Wisconsin in 1980, just before the “Farm Crisis” years.  

The next year Dan and I returned to Vermont to have a look. Bill was totally excited about what he was seeing on his farm with his sheep. We visited his experimental plots at Shelbourne Farm. He also took us to Doug Flack’s farm where we saw something amazing. We had raised sheep from 1974-1980 and knew how difficult it was to fatten lambs on grain. Doug had a beautiful crop of lambs, using temporary fence to move them across very lush pasture in early August when pastures were usually dry and insufficient. It was a life-changing discovery for us. We returned to Wisconsin with a Gallagher energizer purchased from Doug, and a lot to think about.  Dan spent the winter reading Voisin’s book, Grass Productivity: An Introduction to Rotational Grazing.  

Over the next ten years, we learned and benefitted from what was called “controlled grazing”, or “management intensive grazing”, or “rotational grazing.” Under that system, your farm was divided into “paddocks” with single strand moveable or permanent electric fence, and the pastures were rationed out to your animals over the growing season.

We immediately needed fencing materials. There were none available anywhere nearby, or if there were, the dealers were not knowledgeable about how to use them.   We met Jack Knox, who had sheep and from whom we had bought our first Border Collie. He was familiar with the West Virginia Fence Company, and we first learned about “high-tensile fencing.” We traveled to West Virginia, and met Bill Sears who taught us about how to tie knots, build the braces at corners, drive posts down to 4 ft. deep, etc. We came home with reels of plastic and stainless steel polywire and step-in posts, which we had never seen before. 

Eventually we became a dealer for West Virginia Fence. We called ourselves “Perfect Pastures” and began to learn more each year about electric fencing as we attempted to spread the word to other farmers. Farmers like us were excited and curious. I can recall many a night when the phone would ring at our bedside as we were going to sleep. Someone was calling to find out how to do things, like how many paddocks are needed and how large should they be for how many cows?  

It was all very experimental. There were concepts which we had read about, but took us a couple years to understand, like “untoward acceleration.” It was an exciting time. Meanwhile, Bill was working on a game-changing book that came out in 1987 called Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence.   

In 1984, we invited Bill to come to our farm to talk to a group of farmers about grazing. I cannot recall how we got the word out. I do remember that it was a very rainy day. Rather than trudge out to the pasture in the pouring rain to see the grazing in practice, Bill dug up a scoop of grass, brought it into the kitchen, and laid it on the kitchen table. He illustrated what it contained, how it came to be there, and what it could mean for dairy farming. There was a small newsletter at the time called Pasture Talk.  Dan would write articles for it as well as advertise our fence products.

Over the next dozen or so years, interest in grazing grew. There were many pasture walks at various graziers’ farms around the state. We were asked to do fencing demonstrations. Pasture walks allowed farmers to meet, look for answers and share ideas. These were usually followed by a picnic. The camaraderie was inspiring. It changed the way we felt about farming. I have often stated and wholeheartedly believe, that if not for grazing and the people we met while learning and practicing grazing, we would not have stuck with dairy farming.  

Chapter 5 – Grazing and GrassWorks Beginnings (Rick Adamski)

My exposure to organic and sustainable agricultural practices grew during my time at UW-Madison while I was pursuing a Master’s in Land Resources. I wanted a major with an interdisciplinarian background. While I was conducting my coursework, I met several other students and faculty interested in these same topics. My advisor was Herman Felstehausen from the Landscape Architecture Department. He had a keen interest in sustainable farming practices that he observed during his travels around the world. Herman saw the need to help small and mid-sized farmers.

Herman connected me with one of his former students, Tom Lamm, who was working with Tom Mosgaller, to start the Wisconsin Rural Development Center (WRDC). They brought together farmers and farm activists to raise awareness of the plight of family farm agriculture. There were other similar organizations that cropped up across the Midwest because the 1980s were a difficult time for farmers. The Land Institute in Kansas was led by Wes Jackson. The Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska was led by Marty Strange. The Farm Unity Alliance was an activist branch of the Farmers Union, led by Tom Quinn, that was trying to preserve family farms.

I remember reading about rotational, managed grazing systems in The New Farm magazine, a Rodale Institute publication. I learned that New Zealand was employing managed grazing techniques that included moveable electric fencing.

In the summer of 1985, I attended a week-long Rural Institute conference in Nebraska hosted by the Center for Rural Affairs. I stayed with Marty Strange and his wife Annette Higby at their home. There were 15 other participants from across the country. That week gave me a more thorough understanding of the many forces working against small family farms and what could be done to counteract those forces. One branch of the Center was the Small Farm Beginnings Project located in Hartington, Nebraska. I met Steve Hopkins at the conference who was an intern at Hartington at the time. Steve later received his master’s degree from UW-Madison in Land Resources and also had Felstehausen as his advisor. We developed a solid friendship that subsequently led to Steve becoming the best man at my wedding in 1990.

I attended the Rural Institute because I was deeply involved in supporting the work of the Wisconsin Rural Development Center. I wanted to impact the future of Wisconsin agriculture, but I was also trying to find a strategy for operating our own farm. Managed grazing seemed to be providing some of the best options. My philosophy was to strive for the maximum profit margin, or at least a reasonable profit. My parents and uncle operated the farm by not seeking the highest yield but rather an optimal yield. That strategy seemed reasonable to me at the time. The Rural Development Center brought together farmers with those similar philosophies. I met other farmers who were interested in learning from each other and in ways to avoid getting trapped on the conventional technology treadmill. I ended up serving on the first board of directors for the organization. 

Carl Fredericks was another master’s degree student studying with Felstehausen. Carl’s work included helping lead the farmers of southwest Wisconsin to learn from each other on lower cost farming methods. He was instrumental in beginning the first Wisconsin grazing conferences which led to the creation of Grassworks.

I learned much about managed grazing from Dan and Jeanne Patenaude when I visited their farm near Richland Center. Jeanne is the sister of the late Bill Murphy, the professor who wrote the book, Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence. Bill and Jeanne grew up in Freedom, WI only about 20 miles south of our farm. I learned a number of skills about high-tensile fencing from Dan. He was a dealer for the West Virginia Fence Company from which we ordered the first fencing products for our farm.

At the time, I was also talking with Russ O’Harrow, a member of the UW Board of Regents. He was from Oconto Falls, only about 25 miles northeast of our farm, and was a strong proponent of managed grazing. Russ had travelled to New Zealand to observe their grazing practices. I remember visiting with him on a Sunday afternoon to watch a slide show of his trip. His son Charles employed managed grazing to raise replacement heifers for his brother Tim’s dairy farm. At Charles’s farm, I saw for the first time a perimeter high-tensile fence designed for rotating cattle. Charles said that the fences were the “grass farmers’ machinery.”

Russ brought State Senator, Gary Drzewiecki, and Assembly Representative, John Ainsworth, to our farm in the early 1990s to show them how managed grazing worked and to encourage them to promote it. They appeared to be open to the idea, but neither became champions of the managed grazing movement in their legislative actions.

I remember attending my first grazing conference organized by Allan Nation, and then the next year when Carl Fredericks was the main organizer. Both events were at the Chula Vista resort in Wisconsin Dells. The facility was a much smaller version of the complex that exists today. I remember attending several conferences at the Holiday Inn in Stevens Point. That hotel no longer exists.

In the fall of 1987, I started an experiment with portable fencing and allocating paddocks (portions of pasture) to our dairy herd. The alfalfa-orchard grass hayfield was fully blossomed. I made sure that the alfalfa was mature because I didn’t want to worry about bloat. The experiment was successful, and I grazed the dairy herd and replacement heifers from 1988 until Valerie and I quit dairy farming in 2014. Now we employ managed grazing with our beef cow herd.

Another person that helped with my understanding of managed grazing was Mike Cannell. I still remember his quote, “There are two things that always happen when you cut hay, one is that it never gets any better (quality) after you cut it, and it always costs you money (to harvest it).” I have shared that quote with many others through the years to explain a strong reason for using managed grazing.

In 1988, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture implemented a program that would demonstrate sustainable agriculture practices. The funding for the program came from a class action lawsuit that returned money to all states because oil companies had been overcharging for their petroleum products. Dick Cates directed that program. He helped me write a grant to research and demonstrate managed grazing. I received $8,000 to collect data, compose a report, host field days, share what I learned to educational institutions, and write news articles. We had help from Ken Uhland, the Farm Business Management instructor at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC). I was enrolled in their 6-year winter classroom course at the time. Ken was very interested in learning what we were doing and wanted to learn more about managed grazing.

Data was collected from weekly pasture clippings. Samples were weighed and taken to the Bonduel AgSource lab for analysis. We collected and reported daily milk yield and quality. We measured the body condition score of every cow in the herd before the grazing season and at the end of the season.

The biggest drawback in 1988 was the worst drought of my farming career. Forage production was almost non-existent in the middle of the summer. Our farm survived because we had more acres than necessary for a herd of 40 cows. I remember that we grazed second-crop hay that was only about a half ton of dry matter per acre, however its relative feed value was a whopping 250! We had to buy additional hay to get us through the winter.

We participated in the Northeastern Wisconsin Sustainable Ag Network. Most of its members were from the Door County area and organized by Ken Uhland’s fellow instructor at NWTC, John Bobbe. I remember sharing the results from our 1988 demonstration grant with this network and the attendees at the next Grassworks conference.

Valerie Dantoin and I were married in 1990. We went to Burlington Vermont to spend a day of our honeymoon with Bill Murphy. We learned about his research at the University of Vermont.

I do not recall exactly when the conferences became the seed for the Grassworks organization. Valerie and I attended the 1992,1993, and 1994 conferences as attendees. Valerie eventually served on the first GrassWorks Board of Directors. She was able to get her nephew to sketch a picture of our cow Lucia that became the logo for Grassworks. Valerie and Mike Cannell were the two main inspirations for the name “Grassworks.” 

The GrassWorks conferences were always important events on our farming calendar. We learned many new techniques at these conferences. Socializing and networking were equally important. Bonds of friendship were developed. We would attend others’ pasture walks throughout the year.

We learned that New Zealand farmers had implemented study groups to spend more time learning from others. We then started and participated in a group of about 5-8 farms throughout the center of the state. That group was facilitated by Mike Sabel from Mid-State Technical College in Wisconsin Rapids. Paul Onan was a student and friend of Mike’s. Just like Ken Uhland and John Bobbe from NWTC, Mike wanted to learn from and help farmers learn from each other. The group met once on each member’s farm during the growing season. We walked the farm before lunch, then analyzed some of the financial reports from the farm. Mike Sabel would meet with the host a few weeks before the meeting to prepare the financial records and to learn what the host wanted to focus on. Those groups were extremely helpful to improve our grazing management and our farm business management skills. The groups would not have happened without the annual Grassworks conferences.

The list of friends that we gained from the grazing community was both numerically large and broad, from acquaintances to true lifelong friends. The concept of learning from others was the central piece of the grazing conference. The attendees represented a broad spectrum of the farming community. They ranged from back-to-the-land subsistence survivalists to high-tech, high-finance members. All of us wanted to learn from each other. Those learning experiences ranged from breakout room presentations to the bar or at the dinner tables. That spirit of sharing and learning was the origin of the conference and the common thread that keeps it going today.

Chapter 6 – University Response to Early Managed Grazing (Rick Klemme)

The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) on the UW-Madison campus was established in 1989 as a response to growing concern from many farmers throughout the state that the University wasn’t adequately addressing sustainable agriculture. Dairy farmers who were adopting managed intensive grazing were a core concerned group. The Center was established by a broad coalition of agricultural and environmental groups with an emphasis on engaging University research and outreach to issues facing sustainable agriculture in Wisconsin.

The Center established an 11-member Advisory Council that included seven farmers from the sustainable agriculture community, two conventional, large-scale farmers, and two representatives from the environmental community.  As the Center evolved, it encouraged cutting edge work around two content areas: management intensive grazing, and local food systems. The impetus for these two areas was to integrate the local knowledge and expertise of farmers with UW faculty and staff expertise. Council members Jerry and Elise Heimerl, Russ O’Harrow, Doug Spany, and Karl Stieglitz from managed grazing operations were the primary catalysts in both connecting and engaging with UW staff on campus and throughout the state.

This core group of individuals brought many others into the conversation including graziers Mike Cannell, Kevin Kiehnau, Altfried Krusenbaum, Charlie Opitz, and Dan Truttman. Organizers and journalists such as Carl Fredericks and Joel McNair, county-based Extension educators such as Tom Cadwallader, John Cockrell, Andy Hager, and Vance Haugen were brought in as well as county conservationists like Paul Daigle. The innovative and entrepreneurial spirit impacted the research and Extension outreach programs for several faculty members including Mike Casler, Dave Combs, Mark Powell, Steve Stevenson, and Dan Undersander.

Grazing turned out to be a great opportunity to level the playing field among many participants. These included graziers, the faculty and staff of CALS, state and federal agency personnel, and Extension field staff. Important innovations covered included low-cost milking systems, evaluation of alternative legume and grass-pasture mixes, the development of practical, effective, and affordable fencing and watering systems, dairy crossbreeding, and eventually the development of value-added dairy products from grass-fed grazing enterprises.

From my perspective as Center Director, the most valuable outcome was the co-development of research and outreach through Extension activities and programs. Early on, my goal was to engage the staff in the College with Extension agents and their grazing communities on farms. Graziers had a lot more knowledge about the day-to-day aspects of grazing and the nuances involved in making these business successful and profitable that was only becoming apparent within the University community at that time. Over time, the collaboration increased the mutual respect among all parties involved. I believe that everyone benefitted resulting in more successful grazing operations, better engaged agency and Extension personnel, and more robust campus-based research and outreach Extension programs. As the Director and professor of agricultural economics, I learned a lot about grazing and admired grazier’s financial management skills.

In summary, the grazing community’s innovation and (I dare say) disruption within the traditional pasturing community has had major impacts. Graziers became teachers, learners and influencers, and campus-based staff changed and broadened their programs to address issues important to the grazing community.  The dairy industry greatly improved through the integration of low-cost dairy parlors and facilities, and managed grazing systems for heifers and dry cows. It was one of, if not, the most satisfying opportunity of my 34-year career at the UW-Madison and UW-Extension.

PERSONAL JOURNEYS

Chapter 7 – My Extensive Grazing Support (Mary C. Anderson)

My history with GrassWorks has expanded throughout my entire conservation career. I have in multiple capacities been a producer member, board member, vice president, conference planner, and advisor representing GrassWorks to many government and non-profit organizations. I have testified in Madison before the Wisconsin Senate Agriculture and Budget Committees to plead for more funding for grazing, grazing organizations, the University of Wisconsin, the Research Conservation and Development Councils (RC&Ds), the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy Farmers, the Great Lakes Grazing Network (GLGN), and most importantly, for GrassWorks itself. I have traveled to Washington DC for similar efforts. 

I served as President of the Wisconsin Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI), as did Gerald Jaeger and Paul Onan. One year, I brought in the National GLCI committee for a fall tour and business meetings in Eau Claire on the Huntsinger beef farm and the Jim and Bonnie Jackson dairy farm. This was a three-day meeting, promoting managed grazing at the National Women in Agriculture Conference in St. Louis. It also promoted Wisconsin’s efforts to solicit federal and state funds at the National GLCI meeting held in Nashville that I attended with Governor Jim Doyle.

Over my career, I was able to write 350-400 grazing plans. For my work, I received the 2024 Jerold Berg Grazing Advocate Award from GrassWorks. I had received the Grazing Award in 2012 but turned it down in frustration at that time because state support for GLCI grazing had been removed. 

I had dabbled in this thing called “grazing” in the late 1980s when my stepfather’s farm was going into foreclosure. The event was devastating to me. At the time, I didn’t understand why markets crashed, and farm values collapsed, causing hundreds of moderately sized dairy farms to fall into foreclosure, including ours. My stepfather was once the Conservation Farmer of the Year in Trempealeau County, and then the farm was gone. Perhaps luckily for me, college called me away, and a career in soil conservation sent me forward.

I began my career in the early 1990s as a soil conservationist in La Crosse County. Little did I know at the time, the office I was moving into was the same office that my future good friend, Paul Daigle, had occupied prior to his departure to Marathon County. It was around this time, as directed by Don Franke, the La Crosse County Conservation Director, that I delved into managed grazing and nutrient management for soil conservation purposes.

In 1995, our department was approached by the local technical college educator, Dennis Dietelhoff, to assist in managing his workload. He asked that our department to manage a group of grazing farms that called themselves the Coulee Graziers. This group of forward-thinking dairymen had been reading articles by Joel McNair in Agri-View about a money saving way to cut expenses, keeping cows healthy, and keeping farms profitable. The group included farmers from La Crosse, Jackson, and Monroe Counties. Among them were Don Reisenweber, Jerry Wagner, Steve Kling, Ed Sye, Gerald Knoblock, and Mark and Lynn Sedelbauer.

My husband Bruce was intrigued by the ideas that McNair wrote about and began implementing them on his family farm in Trempealeau County. We attended pasture walks hosted by Jim Brown, Mike and Charlotte Cannell, Lloyd and Patty Degroot, Wayne and Kay Craig and many others around the state. We were listening, learning, and implementing the improbable practice of managed grazing that our local community said was stupid and would not work. They believed that cows needed to be inside, that the farmer working for the cows, not the cows working for the farmer. However, in our case, grazing worked. Our registered Holsteins milked well with amazing health. The reduction in our expenses was obvious.

While Bruce became the grazing practitioner, I began writing grants for grazing workshops. The Wisconsin Agriculture Development and Diversification (ADD) grants, overseen by Dick Cates, were an excellent source of funds to assist farmers already in managed grazing and to teach others the methodology of the practice.

A young man named Carl Fredericks asked if Bruce would be interested in being on a panel of dairy farmers for a new event called the Wisconsin Grazing Conference. Bruce sat on a panel with Bert Paris, Dan Patenaude, and Jere Mann, a former air-traffic controller who had been fired with others by President Ronald Reagan. The conference was a huge success. I realized that this effort had great potential to change the face of dairy farming in Wisconsin.

We are all painfully aware that when the legislative arm begins to change, programs can be cut. The ADD program had been cut. Dick Cates had begun to work with the UW-Madison Ag and Industry Short Course to offer a grazing course. But unfortunately, we were entering a soft dollar desert, where would outside funds had to support the budding grazing effort.

It was also at this time that Jim Wallace, a Regional Conservationist with the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the Upper Midwest, requested that a group of grazing supporters attend a meeting in Madison to discuss a national effort called the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI). Beside farmers, those invited included representatives from GrassWorks, Marathon and La Crosse Counties, the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy Farmers, University Extension, and other USDA staff. GLCI had the potential to become vital support for grazing efforts on the ground. 

It was at a 1996 Coulee Grazier fall meeting in Hixton that Assistant State Conservationist, Jim Enlow, was told by a self-proclaimed grass radical, Don Reisenweber, that the National Research Conservation Service (NRCS) needed a soil conservationist who knew grass, grass, grass. This conversation was taken seriously by NRCS. By the next GrassWorks Grazing Conference, a newly hired NRCS State Grazing Specialist, Brian Pillsbury, made his appearance.

Brian worked diligently within his agency to identify earmarks that would allow him to further coordinate Wisconsin’s GLCI with the multi-agency Land and Water Grant Program. This program was used to support many soil conservation efforts as well as grazing activities. Brian was key to getting additional dollars for implementation of the newly designed 528 Prescribed Grazing Standard, which provided incentives per acre for farmers to implement managed grazing systems. This support was critical for on the farm implementation. 

Unfortunately, the education dollars were going away that supported so many grazing networks and their educational efforts. Direct funding for specific projects was requested from NRCS in 1999. A new funding route needed to be established that was competitive for these funds to make it to the field where they would be best used. Of course, we all wanted direct funding for an executive director for GrassWorks.

My career path changed slightly when I had an opportunity to become the Crops and Soils Agent for UW-Extension in Trempealeau County. By 2000, I had become more involved in GrassWorks, attending meetings as an advisor and colleague farmer, providing input on where to find funds to keep the fledgling organization going. Paul Daigle and I were working hard to ensure the future of the conference as Carl Fredericks’s path was changing direction.

I was able to convince my Extension Committee that it was a valuable effort to help plan the next Statewide Grazing Conference in 2001. At the time, there was no conference planner. Paul and I agreed to share the responsibilities. My local bank (Royal Credit Union) allowed me to open a savings account with $5. A stipulation was that they would create cashier’s checks at no cost to funnel the proceeds and expenses that were related to the statewide conference. The conference went off without a hitch and was well attended.

I left Extension after just a couple of years as it was a short-term contract. As a recognition of my successful local network planning and innovative education programming, I was hired in 2000 by River Country Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D) through a grant to spearhead a one-year feasibility study to determine if the West Central Region of Wisconsin had significant demand to warrant having grazing specialists. It was unclear from the farming community who was the best resource for grazing information. In some counties, Extension agents fostered and nurtured farmer-driven discussion groups (networks). In other counties, grazing was less supported.

As a result of the study, it was determined that there should be one grazing specialist for every two counties in the region. I had the privilege to design and write some of the first grazing plans in our part of the state. The goal of the grant was for 20, however, I wrote 23.  All the while, GrassWorks was part of my effort and success. The main questions were who would be hired to write the plans and how would they be funded.

In partnership with several of the Great Lakes States, John Bobbe had recently formed the GLGN utilizing a Kellogg Grant. With Tom Kriegl of UW-Madison, they collected several years of data comparing different dairy systems. They proved that managed grazing dairies could be at least as profitable if not more so than their confinement counter parts. Kim Cates and I were invited to represent Wisconsin as advisors to the GLCN and to help share the importance of the data to gain state and federal support to continue the initiative. 

After attending several strategy meetings, the GLGN group decided it was time to go to Washington DC to educate our legislators about the importance of grazing for soil conservation and farm profitability. Senator Herb Kohl and Representative Dave Obey held key positions of power and immediately began to create a direct allocation to the Wisconsin Grazing Initiative which would become the GLCI Grant program. This was the result of hard work, attending hearings and meetings with our state and federal legislators. Over three successive years from 2004-2006, we were able increase the federal funding level to $900,000 per year.

First came the federal dollars. The first $250,000 came directly to the NRCS state budget to fund five grazing efforts. The GrassWorks executive director was included as were other grazing efforts from around the state. As the federal dollars increased, more RC&D’s as well as Extension agents were applying for these soft dollars. Then the GLCI group began to reach out and educate our state representatives. Paul Daigle was able to get Senator Russ Decker to secure a partial match for State of Wisconsin dollars through an expanded GLCI Grant program starting in 2008.

Throughout my life and career history, I have had the pleasure of seeing the GrassWorks board of grow and change. I have been a part of the many mission and strategic planning meetings to create bylaws and the internal business structure that would help to propel GrassWorks into the future. Years have passed since I first learned of this grassroots organization that was created by farmers for farmers. 

Over the years, federal and state support has ebbed and flowed, while the face of Wisconsin farming has changed significantly since 2000 when I first became involved. The effort to keep managed grazing in the forefront of agriculture continues to be led by GrassWorks. The life of this organization has seen highs and lows. When both state and federal funds that supported the executive director position and the annual conference disappeared in 2013, the Grassworks future was in peril. However, GrassWorks has come back from the brink of bankruptcy to once again be the guiding light for grass-based farmers. The so-called grazing fad of the 1990s has continued as a viable system well into the 21st century.

Chapter 8 – Our Grazing Path of Discovery (Bert Paris)

I remember walking into our house after attending my first Grassworks Grazing Conference. My wife, Trish, turned to me and asked, “How was the conference?” I looked at her and said, “We are going to graze.”

Thirty-two years later, she still describes that moment the same way: “His eyes were on fire!” We had no idea that this would mark the beginning of a new way of farming and multiple ventures directly related to grazing that would shape the rest of our lives.

The thought of grazing our milk cows was unimaginable until I started reading articles about dairy farmers grazing in the late 1980s. Most of those were written by Joel McNair, who was writing for Agri-View at the time. I first met Joel at a dairy coop meeting where we started talking about grazing. He helped answer some of my greatest grazing conundrums. Number one on that list was how you could justify grazing “good corn ground” profitably.

Along with Joel, I was fortunate to hear Carl Fredricks speak at my young farmer technical school class. He answered more of my questions, and to say the least, I was one of the only farmers lining up to ask Carl more questions after class. I maintained conversations with Carl, learning that he was planning the first Grassworks Grazing Conference in 1993. I could not wait to go.

Sitting at the bar with Joel and Carl at the first Grassworks Grazing Conference, talking about what a graziers’ network was, is still a vivid memory. I could not wait to host a local pasture walk. I knew it would be a way to jump start my knowledge on setting up a grazing farm. The concept of fencing for grazing wasn’t making sense to me. Dan Patenaude, a true pioneer in grazing and fencing implementations, was able to attend my pasture walk. Building this network was my best path to convert grazing theories into practices on my farm. 

 We purchased and moved on our farm in February 1992. On March 23, 1993, I held my first organized pasture walk on our farm for a group we later named the Dane-Green Graziers. More than 30 people attended. At the time, I think I knew half of them. A good portion of the other half became good friends over the next few years. 

My most profound memory from that walk was coming over the crest of a field to see an unbelievable amount of water running through a waterway, the lowest part of our farm. The water was 100 feet across and a depth I wasn’t about to measure. Granted, it was a warm day in March with quickly melting snow, but I could not believe what I was seeing. We collectively wondered, “How are you going to graze through that?” Converting the corn fields uphill from the waterway to hay and pasture was all it took. Since that first year, I have never seen anything close to that amount of water running through that pasture again, and I have been enjoying grazing our whole farm for 32 years and counting. 

A year later our network was now a full-fledged fun and functioning group of graziers. We organized walks at different farms and scheduled as many as twelve walks a year. Crowds of 20 or more were not uncommon in the 90’s. We pushed the boundaries of our network, reaching out to graziers in other parts of the Midwest. 

A trip to Art Thicke’s farm, sitting atop the steep hills of La Crescent, Minnesota, was especially cool. Grazing was key to Art’s farming philosophy: have fun, work less, and be profitable. As soon as I saw his winter bale grazing concept, I had to try it myself. He taught me a method of concentrating winter grazing to one or two paddocks versus light bale grazing in every paddock throughout the winter. It was an efficient way to build fertility and allowed for pastoral renovation. That one pasture walk in Minnesota gave me a solution to some flaws in my grazing management.

I moved toward grazing our whole farm in 1995. By then, I knew I was passionate about grazing, and I realized that grazing could be more profitable per acre than row crops. The other big undertaking that year was cross breeding our Holstein cows. The first crosses were primarily Jersey, Dutch Belted, and Milking Shorthorn. I still remember the anxiety of doing such a crazy thing at the time to a dairy herd. I asked a dairy genetics professor at World Dairy Expo what he thought I should do with the 3-way cross calves we had. He was adamant that I needed to immediately go back to a Holstein-Jersey cross. He thought it would not work. With the help of my grazing network buddies, we all forged ahead and never looked back.

Crossbreeding was the way forward for many reasons. Today, I affectionately call our cows “mutts,” and I love them that way. Well, most of them. We have crossed more than seven different breeds. For the last 15 years, we have either used our own bulls or swapped bulls with my good friend and fellow grazing cross-breeder, Bill Gausman. Our breeding program, I believe, allowed our dairy to become and stay seasonal. Our cows are thrifty, uniform, healthy, and know how to graze. Grazing our healthy crossbreds was about to lead us to opportunities I never could have imagined.

In March 2003, we were approached by a group in the veal industry asking if we would be interested in raising veal calves on grass with the mother. I had no desire to raise my calves in that system based on our established facilities and management styles. I offered an alternative solution, to raise the veal the way we raised our heifers. Put the calves in group pens of 6-8 calves. Feed them fresh grass milk from our cows in milk-bar feeders. This represented a very radical change from individual hutches for dairy and individual crates for veal, the respective industry standards.

That June, a field man from a veal-growing organization, and a veal grower himself, came down to observe our process. He looked at our calves and commented on how healthy they looked. I’ll never forget what he asked next, “Do you really think this is going to work?” My response: “I guess we are going to find out.” 

It was a conversation that still looms large in my mind. My gut feeling all along was that our new system would be profitable and more accepted. My gut was correct. Using a weight scale, we quickly learned that the calves were gaining weight at the same rate, if not more, than the conventional system. A few very respected, local chefs really enjoyed the veal as well. Raising veal humanely allowed them to put it back on their menus, a primary goal of the project from the start. Our veal project came to an end just over a year from when it began, but that wasn’t the end of the story.

Much to my surprise, in 2006, I opened the Agri-View newspaper to a headline that read, “Veal Industry to Make Changes.” Within 2-3 years, all veal must be raised in groups of 4-6 animals per pen. After reading the first few lines aloud to Trish, I looked at her and said, “Well how about that, what a great idea.” Sometime after the initial veal project, Trish and I were honored in 2004 by The Glynwood Foundation in New York City with an innovation award. For our first ever trip to New York, we still remember it as one of our favorites.

With no veal to raise and a bit more time on my hands, thanks to grazing, I pondered what challenge I might take on next: how about buying a cheese factory. A fine factory for sale outside of Monticello, Wisconsin, with a cheese maker and marketing already in place, had hit the market. We started by making a test batch of big Swiss cheese wheels. Our grass milk infused the cheese with a color, smoothness, and complexity of flavor that was unique to our taste buds when compared to conventional milk cheese. Along with several other local graziers, we started shipping our grass milk there together, forming the Edelweiss Graziers Coop. To our much-anticipated delight, the gouda, cheddar, and jack cheeses, all had similar characteristics to the Swiss. The cow’s grass diet was the key to making a new and unique cheese.

Educating consumers on grazing and its benefits through our cheese was one of the primary goals in starting the coop. The other was to hopefully obtain premiums for our milk. Despite doing plenty of cheese demos, we were not moving the amount of product that could sustain the concept. We had opportunities to make butter and yogurt. Again, the products exhibited an extraordinary flavor, the butter especially. We demoed our butter at the Madison Beer and Cheese Festival one January. At one point, we had longer lines waiting for butter samples than the beer!

The butter was truly amazing. Unfortunately, the ability to produce butter and yogurt came to an end. Outsourcing production wasn’t reliable enough to sustain a long-term business model. With cheese sales unable to reach our goals, we were forced to dissolve the coop and sell the factory in 2015. To this day, we carry with us a lot of great stories, memories, and relationships from that time.

After dissolving the coop, we continued grazing, but had no idea what the future might hold for our farm. Not long after, our daughter Meagan, the second oldest of four kids, brought us an answer. She came over for lunch with her two-month-old daughter, Olivia, on a mid-March afternoon. Much to our surprise, she stated she wanted to milk cows for a living. This is the same daughter who in her mid-teens stomped up the stairs and said this about our farm family, “Now I know why you had all these kids. It is so we could do all the work!” I grew up on a dairy farm with my four brothers. She voiced an opinion I felt as a kid but had never mustered the courage to say out loud.

To say the least, we were ecstatic about the idea. She wanted to come back to the farm. One of the main reasons she was interested was grazing, a fact I didn’t learn from her until years later. She knew it was a less stressful lifestyle and way of farming. She wanted to give her kids the opportunity to grow up on a farm, just like she did.

In 2019, Trish and I moved into our new home on the south edge of the farm, about a half-mile from the farm buildings. From our new house, we can see almost every paddock on the farm, and we savor every moment the cows are within sight. Paddock 9 puts those cows about 30 feet from our window. It is one of our great joys as we ease into retirement.

Back in that first grazing summer of 1993, I was standing with a group of older farmers looking at my newly created paddocks. It was a very wet early summer and a group of older farmers I was with were complaining about how hard it was to make hay. Being by far the youngest in the group, I sat quietly and listened. My neighbor Ozzie, a very conventional farmer 40 years older than myself, looked at me and said, “You do not give a damn how much it rains do you, Bert.” My mouth said no but my brain was exploding with all the realizations of that very moment: all the hay I didn’t have to make, less insurance for stored hay, less tractor time, and all the high-quality forage the cows could consume without being damaged by rain. That was a lightbulb moment for me.

Grazing has meant so much to us, especially great friendships, and great experiences. We traveled to Europe twice to speak to groups about our grazing practices. We remember the truly great times at numerous pasture walks and the Grassworks grazing conferences over the years. Grazing our cows is hands down the best professional decision I ever made. My exciting new farm adventure is adding biology to our pastures as a way to boost resiliency and productivity. My passion for grazing has been a part of me from the first day I let the cows out on May 8, 1993. Since then, I have never looked back.

Today in 2025, Meagan is well on her way to taking over our grazing operation. For me, I continue to work with Meagan, but at a slower pace. It is such an exciting time for our farm, and none of it would have been possible without the support of my wife Trish, our four kids, and the grazing community. As I have said many times over the last 30 years, “I feel so lucky to be a grazier.”

Chapter 9 – Full Circle Community Farm Conservation (Greg Galbraith)

Full Circle Community Farm in Seymour, Wisconsin has a history steeped in conservation. Valerie Dantoin and her husband Rick Adamski are long standing members of the Wisconsin’s grazing community. One of the reasons they chose the Full Circle Farm name is because the couple does not feel stuck in the past. They keep rolling forward while taking the best ideas from the past and applying new appropriate technology. Dantoin cited as an example portable electric fencing which is a technology that has made managed grazing more feasible on dairy and livestock farms.

The farm is a multi-generational operation. Rick and Valerie are transitioning the farm to their son Andrew Adamski, his partner Heather Toman, and another partner, Scott Rosenberg. That transition began in 2017 and it included Andrew changing the farm name to Full Circle Community Farm to better reflect the principles that guide the operation. While Rick and Valerie have changed from milking cows to raising grass-fed beef, Andrew, Heather, and Scott run a community supported agriculture (CSA) vegetable operation that includes pasture laying hens and pasture heritage hogs. Their greenhouses and gardens have replaced the infrastructure where cows were once milked, and calves were raised.

Rick Adamski pointed out the historical importance of cooperatives and their role in Full Circle’s past. His grandfather, whose former home is now where Andrew, Heather, and Scott live, was instrumental in establishing a dairy cooperative just down the road from Full Circle. Now that land is used to raise pheasants for a local hunting club. It started in 1905 and it operated until 1969. It was a canned-milk factory that included 30 farmers. It was called the “Lesser Maple Grove Townline Cheese Factory.” Rick feels the cooperative movement is challenging in our current era because as he put it, “We live in a culture of competition and survival of the fittest.” 

Grazing livestock has always been a part of the history at Full Circle Community Farm going back to Rick’s grandparents and extending forward to the couple’s dairy career and their current pursuit of raising grass-fed beef. It’s also part of the current pork and egg laying portion of the CSA operation. Because managed grazing is often referred to as the gold standard for conservation-based livestock farming Full Circle’s pursuits go hand in hand with stewarding the land in a way that enhances the soil and protects the water. Rick spoke passionately about the importance of farming in a way that maintains or even increases soil organic matter. 

Full Circle has implemented a number of conservation-based changes to their farm since the early 1990s. Through the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), they added a wildlife habitat buffer that has been host to various new wildlife sightings. “Pollinator pockets” as Valerie described them, have been planted in several locations on the farm. As a certified organic farm, they have buffers around their farm that have been allowed to go wild along with a pond and a natural wetland. Their farm also includes a wooded portion. Even simple practices like adding bluebird houses have been part of our formula. Of course, the real foundational and central element has been managed grazing. Managed grazing is one of the best practices a farmer can do to preserve the soil and keep nutrients out of the waterways. It means having a green living blanket spread across the landscape for nine months of the year. Even in a Wisconsin winter there’s living roots under the ground, thus increasing organic matter and soil biology. This allows the circle of life to thrive all year long on a managed grazing landscape.

Another approach with conservation benefits is Full Circle’s approach to composting manure. The cattle manure comes from the beef herd’s winter bedding pack. By keeping the manure on the farm, they do not incur the transportation cost that is part of the large farm liquid manure model. It’s an important component in the current farm’s vegetable operation. The process is documented by Andrew Adamski as part of the organic certification requirement.

Rick Adamski described the farm’s conservation practices as being science based and linked that to organic farming. The organic community is a big umbrella with varying opinions on how the science of organics work. We have our opinions too and it is a lifetime learning process to be successful within the constraints of organic regulations. In organics, you need to understand how the soil works to be successful. Other farm management practices outside the organic model are more formulaic.

Full Circle Community Farm represents five generations of agricultural pursuits with a commitment to conservation beginning with Rick’s great grandparents and extending to the current model developed by Andrew Adamski, Heather Toman, and Scott Rosenberg. The entire team has recently been recognized by Marbleseed as the 2024 Organic Farmers of the Year. Marbleseed is the organization formerly known as the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES).

The farm also one of four candidates for the 2024 Wisconsin Leopold Conservation Award. The award, sponsored by Sand County Foundation and the American Farmland Trust, is supported in Wisconsin by Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. It honors farmers and forestland owners who go above and beyond in their management of soil health, water quality and wildlife habitat on working land. Named in honor of renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold, this award recognizes landowners who inspire others with their dedication to environmental improvement. 

Note: After the interview, Full Circle did win the Wisconsin Leopold Conservation Award. Adamski and Dantoin are most appreciative to the sponsors of the Leopold award. The award demonstrates an opportunity to get the message out that one can farm and have conservation on the farm at the same time.

Chapter 10 – My Evolution to Grazing (Gene Schriefer)

An observational youth.

I grew up with horses. Since horses are herd animals with a social hierarchy, we made the decision to keep each horse in a separate paddock to prevent fighting.  Anatomically, the shape of the jaws and fact they are hind gut fermenters with no rumen means they do not need to take time to ruminate. Instead, they graze continuously and can quickly and severely overgraze paddocks. 

When one of the horses died, I observed the vacant paddock quickly growing back in grass. I opened the gate to enable another horse to graze the regrown paddock. The horse consumed the forage in the new paddock quickly while the now empty paddock started to regrow. Clearly, we were grazing faster than the grass was regrowing (overstocking). When mowing the weeds in the vacant paddock, I observed that all the manure was located in a single area, not distributed evenly across the paddock. I took our old Farmall tractor, hooked up a drag and kept pulling the manure further and further across the paddock. With a little rain and a little time, the paddock grew back much denser.  

I reasoned that if we had more paddocks and could “rest” them until the grass recovered, we would need less hay. Convincing Dad to build a few more paddocks was an exercise in frustration. So, I started stringing together baler twine, closing off areas, and putting my old show pony out for day grazing. This worked extremely well until the pony discovered the string wasn’t electrified. That was the end of day grazing.  

We often purchased two feeder lambs for the freezer and fed hay and grain until they finished (my job). Always wanting to reduce my workload, I found a pair of leather dog harnesses, wrestled the uncooperative sheep to the ground, and put a harness on each. Then I tied a 20-foot nylon rope on each harness and tied the other end of the rope to posts outside the horse paddocks to graze the lawn I otherwise had to mow. First lesson, sheep are stupid. They quickly became entangled with each other. Next step was moving them further apart. Problem solved. Over the course of the summer, the lawn turned into a patchwork of half-moon and circles of various shades of green and regrowing grass.  

Fast forward to my freshman year at Purdue. During a forage class, Professor Chuck Rhykerd introduced the idea of frost seeding red clover as well as the value of clover in a pasture sward. During winter break, I went to our local AgWay Coop, and purchased a 50-lb. bag of red clover seed. Rhykerd never spoke about seeding rates, just timing and the freeze / thaw cycle. Over spring break, I walked the entire steer paddock and spread about 25 lbs. by hand.  

On one of my Sunday evening calls to home, Dad started off by asking what I did in the steer paddock. I explained frost seeding again, since he apparently didn’t listen the first time. And that the clover would provide excellent feed for the steer. Shortly, all the neighbors were stopping to ask what I did. When I inquired about how the steer was doing, Dad reported that the steer wasn’t interested in hay or grain anymore.

In a senior farm management course (~1982), I reviewed different cropping budgets and learned about “improved pasture.” I asked my “economics” professor what an improved pasture is. He stated rather vaguely that if you put better forage species in a paddock, fertilize, mow, and move animals occasionally, they say you get more productivity. What he described was what I had already been observing and trying to do for several years. Now I realized it had a name. Grazing for me came naturally and just made sense. 

In the course, I initially developed budgets for corn, hay and beef cattle and then ran various enterprise combinations over a 5-year period on a state-of-the-art PC, a Radio Shack TRS 80. My intent was to produce and sell high quality hay, while feeding any low-quality hay to cows. I would keep corn in the rotation with hay, while grazing the pasture. The economist recommended our base corn price should be $3.25, or $3.00 if we wanted to be “really” conservative. Pasture and grazing always appeared to be a better profit opportunity. Thinking about my experience raising a few lambs back home, I explored what a sheep enterprise would look like compared with beef cattle. It became apparent to me that sheep might be an enterprise to strongly consider if the opportunity came along.    

I began searching for potential farms, specifically for land with a balance of pasture and crop land. My family was able to purchase a farm in Iowa County, Wisconsin, in the middle of the 1980s farm crisis just as land prices were falling. The 260 acres included overgrazed paddocks with eroding streambanks, 8-foot-tall thistles with cow tunnels through them, and crop fields laid out in rectangles running down the slopes with significant erosion. One had to have great imagination to fall in love with the property and see past the mess for the opportunity.  

After graduating from Purdue, I accepted a position with UW-Extension in Rusk County. So, I wasn’t initially able to run the farm personally but hooked up with a beef farmer who was interested in renting the farm on a multiple-year lease if he could subdivide the pastures to improve grazing. His idea aligned with the direction I planned to take the farm. I agreed, offered to help him install the fencing, and took the farm plan as a learning opportunity. By the third year of grazing, the drought of 1988 had hit. If I had any reservations about the value of managing grass, this was the year they disappeared. When every other pasture in the county was done in June, ours were still producing grass.     

I noted that after three years of grazing, weed pressure had decreased, streambanks were starting to stabilize, and water infiltration had improved judging by the increase in stream flow and the number of new springs opening along the valley. Good grass management had positively affected the local water cycle. 

While in Rusk County, I was able to learn more about grazing and sheep after meeting Tom Cadwallader was at the Spooner Ag Research Station. Tom put on great field days and seeded many ideas I that wanted to implement. I also established a relationship with Peter and Hillary Wood in Blanchardville who were already on the path I hoped to follow. They raised Finn / Rambouillet sheep under managed grazing and were a huge early influence for me.  

By 1990, I found myself in Extension in Columbia County and close enough to directly manage our farm. I chose to begin with sheep. My logic was simply that with $5000 to invest, I could purchase 50 ewe lambs or 5 or 6 heifers. The ewe lambs would lamb at a year of age. I would have marketable lambs 18 months after purchase. And I could turn my dollar quicker which would help with cash flow. Since these sheep were prolific crossbreds that tended towards twins or triplets, expanding the flock would be quicker. Over the next three years, I was able to expand to 200 ewes in just four years. By then, I was able to graze much of my pasture. 

John Cockrell, the Lafayette County Extension Ag Agent, wrote articles on grazing dairy cows, seasonal grass dairying, and even how two 11,000-lb. cows could generate greater profit than one 22,000-lb. dairy cow. Many in the local dairy community ridiculed him for this, missing the points of the articles. Up to this point, it never occurred to me that we could graze good cropland and not just marginal pasture.

In the early 1980s, Steven Bauer was the Extension Ag Agent in Rusk County where I worked. I kept pestering him about grazing. He then transferred to Iowa County as the Ag Agent where our farm was located. Steve introduced me to Dick Cates in Spring Green and cautioned me that if we stayed too long, Dick would put us to work building fences. 

I met Dan Patenaude, a local dairy grazer was also selling fencing and where I was invited to my first pasture walk. There was a large crowd and grassfed beef was served at lunch. I had been searching for investment opportunities in grain feedlots. However, I have since learned how to properly grass finish beef.  

Grazing interest in Southwest Wisconsin got a boost from the Wisconsin Rural Development Center in Black Earth that provided financial help to support technical help for dairy graziers. They hired Carl Fredricks to work with early grazing adapters like Dan Patenaude and Charlie Opitz. At the same time, Michelle Gale-Sinex with UW-Madison coordinated with Noel Bridgeman at the Taranaki Polytechnic Institute in New Zealand to begin an online grazing discussion group. Their purpose was to connect Wisconsin dairy graziers with New Zealand graziers.  

Prior to Joel and Ruth McNair starting Graze Magazine, the primary grazing resource was Stockman Grass Farmer written by Allan Nation.  Allan wrote many articles on dairy grazing focused on southwest Wisconsin. Carl Fredricks and Allan organized the very first and successful dairy grazing conference at the Don Q Inn in Dodgeville. From then on, dairy grazing took off in southwest Wisconsin. In the mid-1980s, there was enthusiasm and sense of certainty that dairy grazing was inevitable and would conquer the world. 

Within a couple years, enthusiastic dairy grazers sought to create a permanent statewide grazing organization that became Grassworks. In later years, I have been a presenter as Grassworks. I feel that I have learned far more from the conference than I have contributed. 

You do not know you are in a box until you are outside of the box.

  I read articles by Clark BreDahl of Iowa and Leo Tammi of Virgina on the value of alfalfa as a grazing forage for sheep. Bob Jordan at the University of Minnesota had done some work on grazing sheep on alfalfa. I started fall grazing alfalfa with a lot of apprehension and fear over bloat. While there is an acknowledged risk, in my opinion this can be managed. As the flock and beef herd continued to grow, I grazed more alfalfa acres. Alfalfa represented a very productive summer crop producing excellent rates of gain and gave some flexibility to my system.  

Grazing alfalfa also enabled me to learn to stockpile graze, extending the grazing season and reducing the need for stored feeds and winter feeding. Winter feeding is the largest expense for our farm and less we do, the better our bottom line. By the early 2000s, I was working as a grazing specialist for the entire southwest corner of the state and running 420 ewes.  

I have always seeded grass with alfalfa. For me, it just makes a better forage crop and reduces the bloat potential for the alfalfa. The dilution of the alfalfa smell with grasses also helps make it a less attractive target crop as insects tend to migrate towards stronger smelling, pure alfalfa stands.  

Early on, my neighbor advised me to spray my alfalfa because the spittlebugs would reduce forage yield. I called the coop to come spray a pesticide. That evening I walked the field looking for evidence of living spittle bugs. What became clear was how totally effective the pesticide was. There were no bugs, zero, zilch. What was also missing was the usual low-level buzzing sound from the tree canopy. It was eerily silent, dead. Intuitively, I realized that my decision had killed everything in addition to my main target. We have never been organic, but I then resolved to not to use pesticides unless an absolute last resort. What happened was that the spittle bug and leafhopper pressure declined over time naturally without spraying.  

Grazing is for the birds.

Laura Paine brought Rod Nilsestuen, the Wisconsin Ag Secretary, out to our farm to see some grazing. One of the comments was the abundance of bobolinks. I had no clue what a bobolink was. Laura explained they are an important and threated grassland bird species. My quick retort was that they were clearly not threatened here. It a moment of awareness for me that our grassland management was encouraging a diversity of birds, most of which I didn’t recognize. The list of bird species documented on our farm was far larger than I could have imagined.  

I have always made the farm available to students / researchers from the UW system, the Department of Natural Resources, and other agencies. Rhonda Gildersleeve became our County Ag Agent. Jerry Doll was the UW-Madison Weed Specialist. Rhonda and Jerry organized pasture walks focused on weeds in grazing systems. I attended several of these with other sheep graziers.  

A lot of weeds that dairy and beef producers were having trouble with were not an issue in sheep pastures. In effect, we coined the idea that, as long as a weed was eaten by something at some point, was it really just an alternative forage, not a weed? Why bother spending time and money trying to kill or control it? I spent a few summers collecting weeds the sheep and cows were consuming and sent them in for forage analyses. Weeds can be good eats!  

UW-Madison started an agroecology program. Their first hires were Randal Jackson, Michael Bell, and Claudio Gratton. Claudio was interested in insects in pasture systems when compared with conventional cropping and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acreage. I volunteered our farm.  

Throughout the summer, Claudio’s grad students set traps to collect insects. On the final collection, Claudio came with his students. Before we could begin discussing the results, he excused himself to get another collection tube because there were so many bugs in the traps. I thought he was going to say that because there were tons of bugs, we would have to spray. He didn’t say that at all, explaining that over 30% of the insects were instead predator bugs, a number and diversity he wasn’t seeing on other farms. Some grassland birds also eat insects. What the students were collecting was what the birds had not eaten yet. 

Bud Williams, a noted Western U.S. grazier and inventor of the Bud Box cattle handling system, was known to claim that it was hard to go broke with too much cash or too much grass, while it is easy to go broke with too many livestock at the wrong time. In the drought of 2012, I watched my grass that spring and made the decision that without rainfall by July 1st, I should start to depopulate the herd. I first sold yearling steers to reduce forage demand. I weaned lambs early and sold cull ewes that were not productive enough.  Alfalfa and red clover were still growing but grasses had dramatically slowed. As the paddocks growth rate slowed, I made the decision to lock the cow herd on a single paddock and feed hay, maintaining a residual 3-4 inches of grass in the other paddocks. 

Southwest Wisconsin received a single one-inch rain event in July, and within two weeks, my pastures were back to 8-10 inches of forage. There was one more rain event in August. We managed to keep the breeding cow herd and best of the flock intact. Having an easily depopulated group of livestock provided significant flexibility to help manage around drought conditions. Gratefully, the rain returned the next year.

Evolution of grazing thoughts.  

During the 2012 drought, I visited the Kellogg Research Station in Michigan where I saw plots of bioenergy grasses including switchgrass, Indiangrass and big bluestem. Michigan was having the same drought and heat as Wisconsin, and these forages were still producing very well. Historically, I had discarded the idea of warm season grasses as not offering much in improved value to my grazing operation. The following year, I visited the University of Illinois where I met with Rob Mitchell from United States Department of Agriculture, Ag Research Station in Nebraska. His focus was on warm season native grasses, providing data on productivity, grazing, and rate of gain that got my attention.   

I considered whether big bluestem could be an alternative to alfalfa. Good alfalfa seed was getting more expensive as were the necessary inputs of phosphorus and potassium. Yields were comparable, maybe slightly higher for bluestem. Quality was higher for alfalfa but was higher than what my cattle or flock required.  

In 2014, I established my first 10 acres of bluestem. After four years of trying the new species, I concluded that it had a place in our farm and expanded it to about 30% of our acres. What pushed me in this direction was the unanticipated benefits. Big bluestem was able to stand up to winter snow, keeping the forage available to cows later into the year. When it captured snow early in the season, the ground didn’t freeze. Water infiltration from December – March is a wonderful thing. We are better able to capture and store water by reducing or eliminating spring runoff. Bluestem also attracts pheasant and turkeys for nesting in spring. Furthermore, on a typical 28-35-day rotation, there was no manure from the previous grazing event on bluestem. Yet, on many pastures I have visited over the years, I could find year-old or older cow pies.

Let us dance.

Everything on the planet gets eaten eventually by something else, either when alive or after it is dead, recycling nutrients back though the system. If there is nothing to eat, whatever needs to eat never shows up. Modern agriculture spends huge resources in time and money trying to keep their system in balance. Because we focus exclusively on killing pests, something that eats that pest never has the opportunity to become established. This in my opinion is the weakness of a system built on monocultures, and the need for perfect fields.  

Good grass management impacts soil and harvests and stores rainfall. It is not how much rain you get; it is how much you keep. Good grass management creates a microclimate with a canopy that sustains the plants by keeping soil cooler while providing habitat for other species. Grassland birds, for example, are an indicator species of a heathy ecosystem.  

One conclusion for me is that diversity represents strength and resilience. It adds flexibility and redundancy to the system, which in turn reduces risks. Systems over time establish an equilibrium so that regardless of the environmental or economic conditions, that system continues to function. Natural systems have back up plans, and back up plans to the back up plans. Whether it is hot and dry, or cool and wet, the system continues to function. What changes are the species that are favored and able to expand.  

If we consider then that monoculture agriculture is the antithesis that displaces diversity and creates more imbalance in the system, then the costs to achieve the appearance of balance (inputs) will only rise. Monocultures will either crash and burn or become unaffordable.   

The industrial agriculture model has become deaf to the rhythm of life, of nature and seeks only to dominate and beat into submission a willing partner. It abuses soil, it kills life. Natural systems are my partner. If I support my partner, it supports me. It is a dance with each listening to the rhythm, the music, moving in synchronicity through the seasons and the years.  

Chapter 11 – The Eders Move to Australia (Greg Galbraith)

This chapter was adapted from Agri-View, May 2 & May 8, 2022, from articles entitled: Can Take the Boy Out of Wisconsin but …, and Paradise Lives Down Under, written by and used with permission by Greg Galbraith.

Bob Eder attended the 2023 GrassWorks Grazing Conference held in Wisconsin Dells. He and his wife Barbara previously owned a grass-based dairy farm near New London. Their daughter Rachel Bouressa now resides on the family’s former dairy farm, having converted it to her own farming enterprise where she raises and direct-markets grass-fed beef. Rachel was instrumental in organizing the conference. 

Since 2005, the Eders have turned their farming efforts to Australia, where they own and operate a 220-cow grass-based dairy farm. They have a microclimate that allows them to graze year-round.

It was a winding road that led to Bob Eder attending his first grazing conference in 1992. After his sophomore year of high school, he moved with his family from Wisconsin to Flagstaff, Arizona, for his final two years of high school. His intention was to return to Wisconsin after high school to attend the University of Wisconsin to study dairy science. But to do that, he had to spend a year in Wisconsin to get the in-state tuition rate for Wisconsin residents. He spent his first year back in Wisconsin working on the family dairy farm. Bob worked for his Uncle Earl, who had taken over the family farm he grew up on. Uncle Earl continued to have an important influence throughout his life.

Bob entered the University of Wisconsin in fall 1972, joining the dairy-science program. The following spring, his best friend died in a canoeing accident on the Little Wolf River. Bob was traumatized.

Bob moved to Arkansas instead and entered the carpentry trade while working on a girlfriend’s family farm. After 18 months, he traded what farm equipment he had invested in for a postal van converted to a mobile home, with a vision of traveling the country. “I got about 200 miles when it broke down,” he said. So, he returned to Flagstaff to begin a bicycling adventure that would take him across the country. However, that didn’t go smoothly either. “Not long into that venture I was run over by a motor home,” he said.

When Bob traveled in 2023 to Wisconsin Dells, he took a break from what he describes as a “slice of paradise” near Bodalla in Southeast Australia. That’s where they own and operate a 1,022-acre dairy farm with 386 cleared acres and 220 milk cows.

When the Eders were farming in Wisconsin, they started a post-evening milking ritual of sitting in their old farm truck after milking, sharing a beer before heading to the house. “It was like a little happy hour before going in to face the kids,” Bob Eder laughed. “I would draw plans for different ideas on the fogged windshield and we would talk before heading in.” Eder said that was where they had valuable discussions.

At one point, Barb said she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life on their Wisconsin farm. She said 25 years was long enough in one place and that she wasn’t a fan of the cold winters. Bob understood her perspective and wondered how they could make it happen.

When the Eders visited Australia for the second time in 2004, they were interested in learning about the crossbred, Aussie Red, dairy cattle there which incorporate Swedish Red genetics. They learned a lot more than that. “When we saw pastures with mixed Holsteins and Red cows just like we wanted, we were floored by their beauty,” Bob said.

A tip led the Eders to a farm with a For Sale sign in a paddock along a roadway. After meeting the owners and learning the morning’s milking time would be at 5:15 a.m., the Eders took a motel for the night. Bob could not sleep and went to the farm for the morning milking nearly an hour early. He milked with the owner, and by Saturday was in the library researching the plausibility of buying an Australian farm.

Bob described the property they eventually named “Loch Lomond” as being more like a park than a farm. It had its own private creek that borders all the grazing paddocks. There was a 200-acre lake with an Everglades-like wetland. The west boundary was a state forest, without a cleared acre for 50 miles. Bob added that there was another private creek that comes out of a mountain spring 10 miles west that runs right past the buildings and eventually turns brackish. “You have to see it to believe it,” he said.

In Australia, farms are considered “Primary Production Properties” and are salable to foreigners without any formal review. The following day, the Eders scheduled a realtor-guided four-hour tour of the farm. “Barb and I were a quarter way through the tour, and we knew we were going to buy the property,” Bob said. “We felt we had to at least try to make it ours.”

Bob’s Uncle Earl was mentioned as someone who has played a role through Bob’s entire life. At the age of 80, he again played a role. To make the deal a reality, Bob needed to ask his uncle to wire $157,000 to Australia to make the purchase a reality. “He came through,” Eder said. “Of course, we paid it back; it was our only way to instantly secure the deal.”

Rachel described the email her mother Barbara wrote to her and her siblings. It started with, “Kids, I hope you’re sitting down,” she said. Rachel talked to a brother that night wondering what it meant for them. She laughs now but said they felt abandoned. She and her siblings joked about becoming orphans. Their New London home and farm would likely be part of a sale, and they felt they would lose the family connection. At the time, Rachel was managing a restaurant in Madison, and didn’t know what fate would eventually bring her back to the home farm.

The Eders use a consultant and do a lot of networking to help make their Australian dairy successful. With the ocean in close proximity, they enjoy a micro-climate that allows year-round grazing, with summer temperatures being in the mid-70s at the warmest. Bob said one consultant stated Loch Lomond was one of the most challenging places on earth to successfully manage as a dairy farm.

The Eders have persevered through many challenges, including the Australian wildfires of 2020. “It affected our entire farm, and we lost neighbors and friends,” Bob said. As they were preparing for a direct hit, the wind changed, and it saved their farm. Then three weeks later during a period of intense wind, Loch Lomond was threatened again by fires. After a day Bob described as bedlam, with embers flying and the 220-cow herd spooked out of control, the worst was finally over. More than 100,000 cattle were lost in the fires, but the Eders lost none.

A theme of positivity and perseverance characterize the Eders. That and a youthful attitude, along with help from Uncle Earl, have made the path long, winding and interesting for the former Wisconsin farmers.

EVENTS / REGIONAL EFFORTS

Chapter 12 – GrassWorks Conferences (Heather Flashinski)

In 2006, I bought the farm. I had been Executive Director of River Country Research Conservation and Development Council (RC&D), the Conference Planner of the Midwest Value-Added Conference, and trained as a grazing specialist for organizing educational pasture walks and writing grazing plans. I had a bachelor’s degree in animal and plant systems, plus courses in agricultural industries and marketing. Along the way, I received non-profit management training, executive director leadership training, and a holistic management certification. However, at 29 years old, I was ready to farm and implement my growing knowledge toward becoming a good steward of the land.  

That fall, Paul Nehring asked me to help him increase the number of sponsors and exhibitors at the annual grazing conference that GrassWorks had been putting on since 1993. Paul knew that I had a reputation for marketing and creating partnerships and sponsor relations. He in turn was very knowledgeable about grazing and in finding the speakers and topics that people were excited to learn from. Additionally, I took on writing the Green Book, an annual collaborative documentation of all the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) grazing grant recipients and the work they were doing across the state. Paul and I worked together for the 2007 and 2008 conferences. It was shortly after that second conference that Paul decided to step away as the Executive Director of GrassWorks.  

I was then asked to be the planner of the entire GrassWorks conference. I took on the task with excitement, working with groups of graziers across the state to plan a well-thought-out agenda while continually fostering the sponsor and exhibitor relations. I understood how to negotiate with hotels to get a better deal for the organization. The conference moved from Stevens Point to Wisconsin Rapids to Wisconsin Dells and finally to the original site in the Dells of the first ever Wisconsin Grazing Conference at the Chula Vista Resort. I encouraged sourcing food directly from our farmers and insisted that venues would work with me to facilitate those donations and purchases.  

In 2008, a new Executive Director, Valerie Dantoin, was hired. Valerie was a visionary who set GrassWorks on a new course by creating the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship Program (DGA) and other programming to help graziers across the state. It was during Valerie’s leadership that I had baby #2. Deciding that GrassWorks was in great hands, I stepped away to focus on family and farm. Lanice Szomi was hired to plan the conference and moved it back to the Wausau area. After two years, Valerie left, Jill Hapner was hired as Executive Director, and I was asked to come back to help again with sponsors and exhibitors.  

In 2015, I was asked to return as the overall conference planner and continued in that role until 2022. As I had with Valerie and Lanice, Jill and I worked well together. Jill had a good track record with another non-profit world as an executive director. I had a good track record as an event planner. GrassWorks ran well. 

The year 2017 was an especially fun year for GrassWorks and me. We got to celebrate the 25th year of hosting the conference. It was a blessing to honor those that were at the first conference, have some of them join us, and learn from their experiences.  

Over the years, I helped GrassWorks with Enews letters, communication, strategic planning, and membership recruitment. I enjoyed collaborating with farmers on the board and working side by side with great leaders. Through changes of board members, executive directors, and Covid, the mission remained strong, and conferences were well-attended.  

Under my tenure covering 14 of 16 years, I worked with over 400 speakers, including the likes of Joel Salatin, Allan Savory, Allan Nation, and others. Sponsorships increased from less than $6000 to almost $40,000 each year, for a total of over $300,000. Attendance grew from over 300 a year to over 400 a year.  

Chapter 13 – A Brief Michigan Grazing History (Ben Bartlett)

          This chapter is a look back at some of the reasons, forces and activities that started the idea that “grazing” could be a profitable and useable livestock feeding system. Grazing occurred in the age when the livestock and dairy industry was moving towards more technology and higher individual animal production. I am not sure there was a starting date, but I will use the first grazing field-day held in Michigan in 1985 as an approximate beginning.

 People do not change unless their situation changes. It is important to appreciate the agriculture world in the 1980s. Some of the forces that were causing change for livestock and dairy producers were the volatile interest rates of up to 20%, high oil prices, high production, and lower prices for farm products. The bottom line was that farmers were going broke and out of business. At the same time, new fencing equipment and new ways of grazing were becoming available in the US that had been used in New Zealand. This was critical as the changes in grazing needed both new ideas and new tools to be able to practice these new techniques. 

Therefore, we had farmers under stress and new ideas available, but a catalyst was needed to get changes to occur. I believe this third element, the catalyst, was the number of Michigan State University (MSU) Extension Agents who worked with farmers. They realized that just getting bigger with more investment and more production wasn’t the solution for all farmers. This feeling was generally not shared at the university level because there wasn’t a lot of support, nor grants for grazing programs, neither was there past research in improved grazing systems. That was the situation – a need, a possible solution, and people who felt they could help make changes.

  The first grazing field-day was held in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, not a main-stream agricultural area. It involved a dairy grazing herd, dairy heifers, and a third farm demonstrating feed quality and forage yield. It was one of the first times that pounds of gain per acre, and pasture feed quality, a feed analysis similar to a feed ration analysis, had been considered and presented. Between this first field day in 1985 and 1991, there were many farmer meetings across Michigan, usually paired with an established beef or dairy meeting.  

Grazing was initially looked at as going backward, not as a viable way to feed livestock. There was no university-based research, only on-farm demonstrations and farmer testimonials that said that it worked. It wasn’t the same as grandpa’s grazing. During this early period, more extension agents began to make grazing education and support part of their programs, and a few university personnel also took interest in new grazing systems. Grazing was still the ugly duckling program, however interest and success by farmers kept the program going. It is interesting to recall that there wasn’t an agreement on the name of this improved grazing program. Controlled grazing, cell grazing, rotational grazing, and planned grazing were all terms used. Finally, management-intensive grazing (MIG) proposed by Jim Gerrish of the University of Missouri, and Allan Nation of Stockman Grass Farmer magazine became the most often used title at the time. There was also confusion regarding the term “grazer.” Technically a “grazer” is the livestock that eats grass, and a “grazier,” a term unknown to many at the time, is the person who owns or manages grazers. 

 It is important to recall that this situation in agriculture wasn’t a specific to Michigan, Wisconsin, or the Midwest. All of U.S. agriculture was hurting, and consequently other states or businesses were looking for ways to pick up on the new opportunities. The Stockman Grass Farmer magazine, published in Mississippi, became a leading source of information, and highlighted the people that were active in MIG grazing. Gallagher Fence was one of the first New Zealand fence companies to actively merchandize their wares in the US. Before 1980, there were no highly effective, New Zealand fence chargers, no construction information or high tensile wire for smooth wire electrified fences, or step-in posts for polywire temporary fences. The new ways to build fence, the new ways to manage stock on pasture, and the idea that production wasn’t per animal but per acre were all new ways to evaluate profitability. All these new things, especially the how-to-do things, like building fence or setting up paddocks, generated great attendance at meetings.  

One important consideration during the early years of improved grazing was that while there was active interest in learning more, there were often only one or two expert stockpersons in a given locale. The grazier was the odd farmer, often considered as someone who could not make it the traditional way and wasn’t given much support or sympathy for trying something different. This was important because graziers had to look for fellow graziers who may have been across state or even in another state.

This led to the idea of a state-wide conference, the Michigan Grazing Conference, which was begun in 1991. It was organized, funded, and staffed by the county extension agents on mostly a wing and a prayer. It was a two-day event running from about noon to noon with an overnight stay. The conference featured out-of-state speakers from industry and universities and was located at an off-campus but farmer-friendly location. This was a very significant departure from the usual two-hour program with only university speakers. 

The Michigan Grazing Conferences ran for five years with an average of 300 people in attendance. There was a great sigh of relief after that first conference because no one had to “wash dishes” at the venue, meaning that all the speakers and other bills got paid. Furthermore, the conferences were very significant because they became the largest farmer-attended events (not counting fairs) in Michigan. The University took notice, the local farm magazines ran articles, and grazing was being accepted, although still not widely embraced. At the same time, Wisconsin also started a grazing conference, now known as the Grass Works Conference. There was considerable back and forth of the county agents and farmers between Michigan and Wisconsin to visit farms and share ideas on how to enhance grazing education.     

  It would be important to recognize all the Michigan county agents who were so supportive and made the grazing conferences possible. I am sure that some have been missed. A few of the agents at those first Michigan grazing conferences included Bill Bivens, Glenn Kole, Lynn Gould, Rod Courtright, Roger Betz, Laurie Rhodes, Maury Kaercher, Stan Moore, and Jerry Lindquist. The conferences were truly grass-roots efforts, no pun intended. They were not University-sponsored nor industry-funded but were instructional and very supportive to those early adapters. Since graziers didn’t have a neighbor who they could talk with about their grazing challenges, the conferences brought those grazing neighbors together, even if they were many miles apart. It was very important to learn that other people saw the same opportunities and had the same problems as themselves.

 The art and science of grazing was picking up interest at the university level as the viability of grazing and funding support for grazing research began to increase. The conferences not only broadened the interest in grazing for producers but also created a network of grazing educators from various states and Canada. Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Stockman Grass Farmer had been offering conferences but there was interest in expanding the geographical base. In 1996, the International Great Lakes Grazing Conference brought together Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Ontario. The conference registration was $40 for the first person and $25 for additional people from the same farm. The people involved to pull this multi-state effort were Bob Hendershot and Tom Noyes from Ohio, Ann Clark from Ontario, Ed Ballard from Illinois, and Victor Shelton, from Indiana.   

The International Great Lakes Conferences were held for six years and moved from state to state (missed Canada) to expand the access and vary the focus. The conferences were successful, but there were significant new sources of information becoming available. Graziers themselves had learned to implement the programs while some organizational fatigue existed among the volunteer conference staff. In addition, the world had moved on, interest rates had come down, commodity prices had gone up, and the traditional way of doing business was working again. By 2001, we had a group of people who were die-hard graziers and who continued to make their grazing systems work better. We had new people who wanted to learn about grazing, but we still had the 90%-plus group of farmers who got bigger, increased production per animal, and continued to be the face of agriculture. 

          While grazing on the farm was in a holding pattern, there was other spin-off from the early growth in improved grazing. In 1999, Extension, the University, and farmers from Michigan and Ohio did an agricultural study tour led by Rich Leep from MSU and Chris Penrose from Ohio State University with a grazing focus of the Netherlands, England, and Ireland. 

A highlight of the trip was participation in the three-day British Grassland Society summer meeting. The Water Systems for Grazing Livestock demonstration and booklet were created with funding from the Great Lakes Basin Grazing Network lead by John Bobbe from Wisconsin. Over 5,000 booklets were printed and distributed. The Natural Resource Agriculture and Engineering Service produced a 150-page paperback book on Forage Utilization for Pasture Based Livestock (NRAES-173). I wrote the chapter on Tools for Grazing Livestock, which covered fences, waterers, and laneways. 

In addition, interest in how other countries’ agriculture and grazing systems worked stimulated MSU sponsored trips to Argentina, Scotland, New Zealand, and Australia. The Kellogg Biological Research Center established an organic, grazing dairy with robotic milkers in 2005 to demonstrate the blending of technology and grazing. Sherill Nott, of the MSU Agriculture Economics Department, worked with Tom Kriegl from Wisconsin to research and develop economic analysis and budgets for dairy grazing operations. 

While increased grazing on the farm had slowed, the knowledge and educational support had continued to grow. While, in general, MSU campus staff had not been the leaders in grazing educational efforts, they were very supportive of the agents and staff who took leadership roles. As the agents and farmers showed interest, agronomy, dairy, and animal science staff developed projects and research efforts to support the new ways of grazing.  

Life on the farm had been challenging at times, but in the next 15 years (2000 – 2015) there wasn’t as much stress to survive or adopt a radical idea like MIG to stimulate a whole new approach to feeding forage. Instead, in the decade since, there has been new emphasis on soil health and on the radical idea that there is life below the surface in the soil. The other new farming issue is climate change and more importantly, how our farming practices and livestock contribute to or sequester carbon and impact climate change. Put these two factors together, soil health and climate change, and we see livestock moving back on the land. Grazing was promoted in the 1980s as a way to survive. Now it is seen as an important component to regenerative agriculture.  

Cattle and grazing have gotten a lot of negative press due to compaction on crop land and the release of methane contributing to global warming. New research with cover crop grazing is demonstrating that grazing cover crops can be a win–win situation. The cattle get fed, the cover crop is removed, and the manure and urine are put back to fertilize the land. The carbon capture / global warming issues of grazing livestock are still being researched. However, current research shows that grazing livestock is only slightly positive or negative for global warming, depending on the trial. The methodology of how we graze, the tools, and the knowledge are taken for granted today. However, these grazing skills and techniques were all built on the improved grazing information that was started in the 1980s. Today’s grazing ideas include adaptive grazing, the new name for grazing with knowledge and purpose and the impacts of grazing and recovery time management that are building on the knowledge that was new to the U.S. 40 years ago. 

As we look at the current status of grazing education in 2025, we see that it is a mix of old and new. MSU still provides yearly basic and advanced grazing schools in addition to pasture crop information. The University through efforts by Jason Rowntree is currently co-leading a 19-million dollar, four-state regional project looking at the impact of adaptive grazing on producer profitability and well-being, carbon sequestration, soil health, and environmental impact. We may finally have answers to the impacts of grazing on carbon sequestration. As we look back at the history of grazing in Michigan, we see not only a past, but also a future for grazing, even in this age of increased technology and artificial intelligence.

Chapter 14 – Managed Grazing in Marathon and Lincoln Counties – Twenty-Five Years of Progress, 1990-2024 (Paul Daigle & Tom Cadwallader)

Background: Prior to 1994, UW-Extension Agents, Tom Cadwallader of Lincoln County, and Andy Hager of Taylor County, began to reshape the narrative on managed grazing in North Central Wisconsin. They did this through small groups and one-on-one education of farmers who were willing to listen and try something new rather than continue to fail during the dairy crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. A change in the attitudes and mindsets of some farmers began, mainly among young dairy farmers, who were struggling with low dairy prices and high interest rates. As a result, a number of farmers began to convert their farms to managed grazing. With the move toward grazing, there developed a need for skilled technical assistance that worked on the heavy soils and colder climate of North Central Wisconsin. This included help to layout fencing systems and build water and lane systems. Paul Daigle, of Marathon County Land and Conservation, began to provide the technical aspects of conversion to managed grazing during this time.   

Network Formation: In 1994, a dozen grass-based farmers and agricultural professionals formed an association called the Central Wisconsin River Graziers Network with the following mission statement: To promote the feasibility of grazing-based farming as a profitable way of farming that enhances lifestyles and protects and improves the environment. The Network represented the second major grazier’s group formed in Wisconsin after the Southwest Wisconsin Farmers’ Research Network (SWFRN) in the southwest part of the state. 

To meet the increased technical and educational needs of the landowners and the Graziers Network, the Marathon and Lincoln County Land Conservation Committees developed a joint project to advance managed grazing as a resource practice. In 1998, the Marathon and Lincoln County Managed Grazing Project was established as a three-year project. The four objectives of the project were:

In those two counties, Tom took the lead on educational delivery and Paul took the lead on technical assistance. Farmers were instrumental in discussing their experiences with managed grazing and as well as showing their finances. The objectives became the way things progressed going well beyond the initial three years. The ongoing success of the work continues up to today. In 2007-2010, there was a shift in roles as Tom retired and Paul moved into management. Bill Kolodziej became the grazing specialist. He provided technical assistance and held pasture walks and winter meetings. 

UW-Extension didn’t fill Tom’s vacancy and education wasn’t as robust with his retirement. Bill took the network into his passion area, which was beef. He had great success growing the number of serious beef graziers in these two counties. 

At that time, there was also a shift away from dairy farming. High corn and bean prices allowed some established graziers to retire and rent their farms out for high rental rates. There was no formal transition planning in place. The network made early efforts to create mentor and dairy transition planning which created the first formal incubator project, but much more effort was needed. Joe Tomandl III became involved as he considered some of these early ideas. With his agricultural education background, he formed the first formal Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA) program in the nation. Paul and Tom both assisted this effort with Joe was the lead. Tom worked part time for a decade with DGA after this retirement from UW-Extension. DGA is still active and growing, with its roots in the Northcentral Wisconsin.   

Project Output: To date, over 400 managed grazing plans for 35,000 acres of pasture have been developed. These plans provide design assistance to landowners for practices such as cattle travel lanes, watering systems, fencing and pasture management. A key part of this project is to provide educational and technical support on the farm to individual farmers during their transition to grazing. Each year project staff visit dozens of farmers to assure that their transitions are successful and proper management is being carried out. 

There were robust educational efforts, with newsletters, which circulated 12 times per year to 550 landowners, and annual winter conferences which averaged 95 attendees. There were 10-15 pastures walks each year with an average of 25 attendees. There were tours for state officials. Farm Tech Days in 1996 included two Marathon County graziers, Lyle Guralski, and Mark Mroczenski. Farm profitability analyses were done on 42 farms. Sixty students attended the UW School for Beginning Dairy Farmers at UW-Marathon County.

Economic Impact: Managed grazing continues to provide livestock producers with a low-cost and profitable entry opportunity for beginning farmers, as well as a profitable production model for existing producers. By reducing labor and energy costs, farmers keep operational costs lower (Taylor, J., and Foltz, J. (January 2006). Grazing in the dairy state: Pasture Use in the Wisconsin Dairy Industry, 1993-2003, with CIAS and PATS). For the two counties, managed grazing is a low-cost management practice that is unmatched in soil and water conservation benefits. In Wisconsin, dairy farmers using managed grazing earn similar household incomes with half the number of cows, have less debt, and are more satisfied with their overall quality of life than other types of farmers (Lloyd, S., Bell, M., Kriegl, T., and Stevenson, S., August 2007, Milking More Than Profits: Life Satisfaction on Wisconsin Dairy Farms, University of Wisconsin–Center for Dairy Integrated Agricultural Systems). 

 The managed grazing project in Marathon and Lincoln Counties has received over a million dollars of state and federal funds to provide technical and educational assistance to landowners. These funds have leveraged an additional $750,000 in county and non-profit contributions directly toward staff and educational funding. In return, over 400 grazing plans have been developed on over 35,000 acres. These changes have had unmatched environmental benefits, leveraged nearly $2.5 million in direct landowner grants, and assisted 125 new farm start-ups. The cumulative effect is that these farmers generate nearly $50 million in direct economic input into the local communities through investment in public resources to start and maintain this project, all while helping to meet the soil and water resource objectives of the counties.

Partnerships/Fiscal Contributions: The grazing project has represented a collaboration of several private and public partnerships that have contributed time and funding to sustain the project. Funding sources include Marathon Co. – $450,000, Lincoln Co. – $205,000, Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) – $512,886, Department of Agriculture, trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) – $492,468, Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) – $839,290, Conservation Set-Aside Program (CSP) – $1,059,330, WI Waterfowl – $1,000, U.S. Fish & Wildlife – $4,500, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) – $25,000, Pheasants Forever – $8,000, and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) – $82,672. Marathon and Lincoln Counties’ Land Conservation departments also receive significant support from UWEX, DATCP, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), as well as help from Grassworks, and Central Wisconsin River Graziers Network, provide technical assistance and education to livestock producers to promote managed grazing and economic activity. 

Environmental Benefits: Managed Grazing is recognized as a best management practice. Some of the benefits include reduced chemical use by 76% per cow versus confinement operations, reduced fuel costs by 31% (Kriegl, T., 2006, Production Costs in 2005 on Selected Wisconsin Grazing Dairy Farms, Center for Dairy Profitability), increased nesting habitat by 1400% per acre versus row crop farming (Undersander, D., Temple, S., and Paine, L., 2000, Grassland Birds: Fostering Habitats Using Rotational Grazing, UW-Extension), increased soil organic matter, and carbon sequestration (Donovan, P., August 2008, What Grass Farmers Have Known All Along – Research Shows Grass Sequesters Carbon, American Grassfed Association). Most importantly to this project were the impacts on land and water conservation efforts. The reductions in phosphorus and sediment losses were key measuring parameters. Included in the table are the cumulative impacts. 

Northcentral Wisconsin Conditions: As to why grazing caught on in this area, it had a great deal to do with a combination of soils, climate and the prevalence of the number and types of farms that lent themselves to grazing. The area had been known as Wisconsin’s Clover Belt.  The soils tend to be heavier and more acidic, with the bedrock being granite rather than limestone, and the growing season being cooler and shorter. The growing degree days are in a U-shape in Wisconsin with the heat units lower in Marshfield than even Spooner where Tom was the shepherd at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Research Station for six years which is much farther north. These factors make it more difficult to grow things like alfalfa and soybeans and easier to grow good clover and cool season grass pastures since they tend to hold up well throughout the growing season. As far as farm size and numbers, the region was a part of Wisconsin’s northern “cutover” with farms settled as the forests were harvested. The area didn’t lend itself well to being cropped as the prairie areas of the state. All these factors came into play but importantly, successful graziers were willing to share their farm success stories and agricultural professionals recognizing the benefits managed grazing offered to farmers in the area. They provided unmatched educational and technical assistance for over two decades.  

Chapter 15 – Great River Graziers (Vance Haugen)

The Great River Graziers (GRG) was started in 1993 when about 30 local farmers met with me, Vance Haugen, the Crawford County Agriculture Agent, at the Utica Lutheran Church to organize a group that would focus on promoting grazing as a way to keep farmers profitable on the land. Pasture walks had been successfully organized in adjacent counties in recent years and there was a definite interest in having that type of education closer to home. In honor of our location so close to the Mississippi, one of the founders of the group, Doug Spany, suggested the name “Great River Graziers.” From its start of primarily Crawford County farmers, the group has expanded its educational efforts to include farmers in Minnesota, Iowa, and other Wisconsin counties. I facilitated the GRG pasture walks during my tenure in Crawford County from 1992 to 2017, and as a volunteer during my retirement from 2018 to 2025.

Averaging 12 pasture walks per year, with an average attendance of 20, members of GRG have promoted managed intensive grazing for all species of livestock. In the early years, the dairy grazing was most prominent enterprise. Now 25 years later, we have a mix of 60% beef, 30% dairy, and 10% sheep, goat, pig, and chicken pasture walks with dairy continuing to dwindle. Our pasture walks have been successful because of the commitment of the GRG members and their making sure that pasture walks were organized and facilitated in a manner that was conducive to education. I developed a Pasture Walk Method paper for that purpose.

UW-Extension supported and facilitated GRG for about 25 years. As a local educator, I made sure the group had the needed resources including coordination, mailings, and publicity. GRG has been very effective. In recent years, Extension support for GRG has been mixed due to educator positions not being filled in the county, however Extension administration remains supportive of the overall model. Several other organizations have provided a great deal of assistance to GRG such as the Kickapoo Grazing Initiative championed by Cynthia Olmstead, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), GrassWorks, the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship program, the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), and Crawford County Land Conservation. More recently, the Crawford Stewardship Project, led by Amy Fenn, has been very supportive.

Direct marketing to the Plain People (Amish, Mennonites, etc.) has been a component of GRG. Given the large population Plain communities in the area, it was a focus of mine to reach out to those communities in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Although a large number of that community attended our pasture walks, it took about 20 years to finally get an Amish farmer to host a pasture walk. In the past two years, two Amish farmers hosted pasture walks and one was a guest lecturer on sheep grazing under solar panels. For a better understanding of the outreach efforts, check this: Effective Communication and Programming When Working with Amish Farmers: Reflections from a Wisconsin Agriculture Educator at (https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1208&context=amishstudies).

None of the educational efforts happened in a vacuum. There were many interconnections. Doug Spany interacted frequently with Joel McNair, a writer for Agri-View and Graze magazines. McNair moved in the same circles as Don Austin, an early organic grazier. I worked extensively through Extension with Ag Agent, John Cockrell, of Lafayette County. John was working with Charlie Opitz of Mineral Point, the largest and most influential pioneer grazier in Wisconsin. Dan Patenaude, a co-founder of Uplands Cheese in Dodgeville, was a brother-in-law to the famed Vermont grazing guru, Bill Murphy, whose writings influenced many early graziers. Jim Wedeberg was a GRG founder as well as one of the original seven dairy farmers who started the Coulee Region Organic Producer Pool (CROPP) / Organic Valley in LaFarge. These connections forged the larger grazing community. While much of the activity started locally, graziers were willing to look beyond their own farms. These are just a few examples of how grazing networks and networking developed. There were literally hundreds of these connections.

GRG has sponsored several projects over the years. There were milking parlor raisings patterned after the old-style barn raisings. The first parlor was done on Roger Dahlberg’s farm and became a poster child for ultra-low cost retrofit parlors. (https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFTDr2RFnb0&list=PLcgD71Adzaf5l_Gp2a2u61WWCBR4uJW0I&index=1&t=6). There was a heifer exchange program for beginning farmers modeled after the Heifer International program. There was a home-raised breeding bull exchange. There were kura clover establishment demonstrations with UW-Extension researcher, Ken Albrecht, and Extension Grazing Specialist, Rhonda Gildersleeve. 

Another achievement was the purchase of an Aitchison no-till drill that, according to the manufacturer, could plant anything from alfalfa to acorns. Funding was provided through local grazier’s funds, DATCP grant dollars and a Crawford County Land Conservation loan. Mike Boland and his son Don volunteered to maintain the drill and coordinate its rental. Several thousand acres have been seeded with the drill. 

GRG facilitated the hiring of Dennis Rooney as a grazing specialist to assist with our various actives and to augment my own work. Dennis helped with a great number of the pasture walks, wrote numerous grazing plans for NRCS, and contributed mightily to the overall efforts of the grazing network.

While GRG operated on its own, it always paid allegiance to the greater good. Other grazing network events were attended by our members both in-state and out-of-state in Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and New York. GRG always had a presence at the annual GrassWorks conference from the beginning. Several of our members have attended over 25 GrassWorks conferences and several were at the first conference. In recent years, GRG gave scholarships so younger members could attend this premier education event. GRG emphasizes the importance of continued education and networking beyond our own membership.

By encouraging and facilitating grazing for land management, pasture establishment and pasture renovation, thousands of tons of soil have been saved from erosion, farmers have been able to stay on the land, and new farmers have been brought in, all while making sure that peer-to-peer education remains the main focus of the group.

Although the largest number of members have been men, women were always welcomed throughout GRG’s 30-plus years of its existence. Many have had key roles. Children were also welcome at the pasture walks.

The basic principle of GRG is to have positive participants working together to help one another, and not to compete against each other. As the old guard moves on, the sons and daughters, and the grandsons and granddaughters will continue the tradition of farmers helping farmers while continuing to promote grazing as one method of keeping people connected to the land.

Chapter 16 – NW Graziers Story (Otto Wiegand and Lynn Johnson)

The Northwest Wisconsin Graziers Network (NW Graziers or Network), started in the 1991, usually serving six NW Wisconsin counties: Burnett, Washburn, Sawyer, Polk, Barron, and Rusk. Its activities often reached into Douglas, Bayfield, and Ashland Counties. The Network is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with a working steering committee. It collaborates closely with UW-Extension, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), County Land & Water, Resource Conservation and Development Councils (RC&Ds), and local Watershed Committees. Northwestern Wisconsin is different than most other parts of the state, featuring an abundance of trees, lakes, and tourism. Soils tend to be lighter. Agriculture is less concentrated. Although there were several dairy graziers in the region in the past, those are mostly gone, and NW Graziers now largely serves smaller beef and small-ruminant farmers. Most of these farms are part-time operations.

NW Graziers has sponsored over 120 pasture walks with about 4,000 attendees since 2004 (Wiegand Extension Success Story, 2015, and updates). Prior to 2004, there may have been another 40 pasture walks with 1200 attendees. Since 2004, there have been 23 conferences with close to 2,000 attendees. There were roughly 10 conferences before 2004 with 600 attendees. In summary, NW Graziers since 1991 has sponsored at least 160 pasture walks and over 30 conferences with close to 7,000 total attendees. NW Graziers participants would also have attended many co-sponsored events by other networks in the area. One could say that the educational reach of NW Graziers, especially in the past two decades, may even be compared to that of GrassWorks itself. Certainly, other networks in Wisconsin would have had similar successes.

Pasture walks, free of charge, are often attended by 25-75 persons, and are usually held for 2-3 hours on Saturday mornings. Drinks, snacks or sometimes a meal may be provided for a donation. The walks start with introductions of participants, a brief description of the event by the hosts, and then a tour of the farm. Larger walks may have multiple focuses and groups. Typical pasture walks attempt to serve both experienced and beginning graziers.

Host farms for pasture walks are chosen for several reasons. Diversity of species and practices, or a specific strong point, and receptiveness to hosting are among them. A few of the hosts hold events every year. Dave Fogerty in Burnett County conducts forage and silvo-pasture research with UW-River Falls that brings college students to his farm for their classes. His bison operation is always an attraction for non-farm participants who in turn will learn something new about agriculture. Mike Miles and Barb Cass in Polk County feature beef, swine, poultry, silvo-pasture, keyline swales, solar power, community supported agriculture (CSA) gardens, local markets, interns, environmental activism, workers’ rights, catering, and other enterprises and practices. 

Conferences have been held in various locations including New Richmond, UW in Rice Lake, NW Technical College in Rice Lake, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe College in Hayward, Shell Lake Community Center, UW-Spooner Research Station, Das Lach Haus in Cumberland, and The Lodge in Siren. NW Graziers actively recruits exhibitors at its conferences, sometimes up to forty in number, by just charging them like other attendees. Evaluations are collected and compiled for each conference. They are typically very positive and are important tools to determine subjects covered in the next conferences.

The networking resulting from NW Graziers events has had significant impacts in local marketing. Hundreds of animals have been sold to participants. Many breeding animals have been lent or sold. Many grazing arrangements have been initiated. Beginning farmers have been mentored. Lynn Johnson has sold 80 hay feeder rings manufactured by Vance Haugen. Conference exhibitors have sold thousands of dollars’ worth of products and services including fencing, seeds, and cattle feed and veterinary products. During Covid-19, commercial store shelves were often found lacking, so a network of direct marketers evolved. One example was Lynn Johnson organizing the movement and sale of hundreds of feeder pigs. 

The founders / early participant farmers of NW Graziers included Wayne Jansen, Kevin Roske, Mike and Victoria Brenna, Jan Knutsen, Gene Nelson, and Grant Burdick, among others. NRCS and Land & Water Agents Gary Schmiedlin and Pat Richter, and Extension Agent Tim Jergenson, were early agency promoters. The organization was coordinated by Otto Wiegand from 2005-2017, and by Lynn Johnson since that time. From 2004-2017, Dean Retzlaff wrote about 100 grazing plans, and Randy Gilbertson another 100. Both had previously worked for NRCS and wrote many plans with that agency. Wiegand considered his teamwork with Johnson and Gilbertson to be a high point of his career.

NW Graziers received $250,000 in Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) funding from 2005-2014 to employ interns and employees, fund conferences and speakers, purchase materials and provide free grazing plans and soil samples. Pri-Ru-Ta RC&D and River Country RC&D handled the funds. At one point, NW Graziers had the best rating in the state among grazing networks for cost-effectiveness, plan delivery and follow-up.

Under GLCI, 162 grazing plans were written covering over 10,000 acres.  The leading counties in plans were Washburn (42), Polk (35), Barron (29), Burnett (24) and Sawyer (23). Of those plans, 68% were fully implemented at the time, 34% were new graziers, 19% were women operators, 23% took soil samples, 15% took forage samples, and 50% used Environmental Quality Improvement Program (EQIP) cost-share funding from NRCS. Beef farmers represented 65% of the plans and dairy farmers 14%. The average EQIP contract for graziers has been estimated to be $5,000 (probably higher), meaning that 81 farmers with EQIP would have received over $400,000 in federal funding.  It is also common that farmers implementing managed grazing could easily double their grass yields. If the 68% of the 10,000 acres yielded just one ton of hay more per acre at $50 per ton, it would have yielded an additional benefit of $340,000 to NW Graziers farmers with plans.  

A four-page anonymous survey was mailed in June 2014 to over 500 farmers on the Northwest Wisconsin Graziers Network mailing list to find out what farmers owned and raised, what their participation was in the Network, what they thought about NW Graziers services, what educational and technical support they needed, and what they would be willing to pay for services if privatized. There were 103 surveys returned with sufficient information representing 19% of the total mailing.  

Level of satisfaction with NW Graziers was high with many of the services ranked over four points on a five-point scale. The highest ranked categories were client respect, pasture walks, learning obtained, conferences and meetings, consulting / follow up, response time, phone calls, and farm visits, in that order. The top results or behavioral changes noted by farmers were a desire to continue participation, receive the information needed, gain better management, improve the environment and benefit from networking, in that order. Farmers preferred delivery of education in the following order: pasture walks, local meetings, outside speakers, farmer panels and workshops. Of the 50 choices listed for future grazing education, the top ten topics in order were beef, grazing management, soils, environment, cost of production, cover crops, forage quality, improving production, nutrient management, and weed control. The average maximum distance that farmers would travel to a meeting was 48 miles, and to an all-day conference was 80 miles. Results of the survey were published in a following Extension newsletter. 

METHODOLOGY / ENTERPRISES

Chapter 17 – Uplands Cheese Co. (Mike Gingrich)

Uplands Cheese, a startup business venture, was based on the idea that pasture grasses have a key flavor influence on cheese made from the milk of cows that grazed those pastures. My friend and neighbor, Dan Patenaude, and I became interested in the profit potential of a 200-cow grazing operation, so we sold our original farms and together purchased a 300-acre conventional dairy farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. We converted it to a seasonal-calving, rotational-grazing farm, building a parlor in the tie-stall barn and installing electric fencing and underground water lines for 20 separate paddocks. We began milking in 1995. Once we got through the conversion and had the farm operating, we began thinking about starting a business to market a product made from our grass-based milk. 

Intrigued that experts claimed cheese made from the milk of cows eating fresh pasture had a superior flavor intensity and complexity, I asked a couple of University of Wisconsin researchers why that might be so. They directed me to Bob Lindsay who had been studying milk flavors in the UW Center for Dairy Research for many years. Bob confirmed that, indeed, there were specific components in grass-fed milk that didn’t exist in the milk of cows fed ensiled feeds. So, it seemed to me that if there were a real discernable difference in our milk based on component chemistry, and that some consumers preferred the grass-fed flavors, we should be able to create a unique product from our milk that would appeal to a premium-priced niche market. We needed to be able to command a premium price because our small volume and planned hand-made traditional procedures would increase our unit cost significantly.

Dan and I decided that he would manage the milk production and grazing management, while I investigated how we might create a cheese business. The first step was determining what sort of cheese would be best for our purposes. At the suggestion of one of the Wisconsin cheesemakers I talked to, I joined the American Cheese Society and went to their annual conference which was held in Madison that year. I met interesting people from the specialty and artisanal cheese world, but what impressed me most was that all the retailers and brokers were looking for products that were new, different, and interesting. It seemed to me that, if we could come up with something to fulfill this niche market demand, we would be able to build a business on it. I was also referred to a book by Stephen Jenkins entitled Cheese Primer that listed and described over 300 cheeses from around the world. I was immediately interested in the Alpine cheeses from Switzerland, France, and Italy because their flavors were described as dependent on the pasture qualities of the Alpine areas where those cheeses were produced. I was particularly interested in a cheese called Beaufort, referred to as the “Prince of Gruyere’s” which is made in an Alpine region of France. 

I discovered another interesting book entitled Guide to Cheeses by Pierre Androuet. It had a section that included a letter he wrote to his daughter advising her on how to select the best tasting cheeses of various types. Where he described Beaufort and other mountain cheeses, he commented that there was a seasonal difference in these cheeses and that the best flavored cheese was produced in May when the cows are grazing the first growth of new grass. The second time when the flavors were outstanding occurred when cows were grazing the second growth of grass usually in August in the Alpine regions. “Isn’t that interesting,” I thought, “that a new growth of grass yields the best and most highly-flavored cheeses!” Rotational grazing, as we all know, is a strategy for giving cows that new growth of grass every day throughout the grazing season. 

I was excited by this discovery and thought that if we could produce a cheese from our milk, and only our milk, and produce it from early May through late October, we should be able to come up with a product similar to what Androuet described as the best flavored cheese of the whole year and produce it throughout the nearly six-month grazing season. It seemed clear to us that our job would be to figure out how to produce such a cheese using only our milk only during the grazing season. That turned out to be a cheese we called “Pleasant Ridge Reserve.” We started making it in 2000 during the grazing season and started marketing it in Madison in the fall of 2000 and throughout the winter and spring of 2001. In August 2001, we entered it into the American Cheese Society’s (ACS) annual competition. There were about 350 cheeses entered and we won “Best in Show”, validating all our strategic decisions on what to make, and how and when to make it. We won the ACS “Best in Show” again in 2005 and 2010. In addition, we won the only other national cheese contest, the U.S. Championship competition by the Wisconsin Cheesemakers Association in 2003. Pleasant Ridge Reserve was, and still is, the only cheese to win both national competitions. Our business proved very successful, and it was all based on rotational grazing (See also Gingrich, Graze, June-July 2003, Oct 2009). 

2025 Note: Since 2014, Uplands has continued under the ownership of two new families: Andy and Caitlin Hatch, and Scott and Liana Mericka. Andy and Scott began as apprentices under the founders Mike Gingrich and Dan Patenaude.

Chapter 18 – Cheese, Raw Milk, Farm Store (Kay and Wayne Craig)

Our ideas for adding value and increasing income included organic and grass-based production, a cheese venture called Northern Meadows Cooperative, and a farm store where we sold raw milk, beef, poultry, eggs, produce from local farmers, and served as a distributor for two local food companies. We were fortunate to be located on a main highway linking many Northeastern Wisconsin urban centers. There were challenges but our store did well. 

The idea for the Northern Meadows Cooperative and Northern Meadows Cheese originated with Rick and Valerie Adamski. They started working with a cheesemaker near their farm Shawano County who was producing a grass-based cheddar cheese. They approached several farmer friends that were also practicing managed intensive grazing (MIG) about coming together to form a cooperative to expand on the idea. The MIG farmers involved were Rick and Valerie Adamski, Bob and Barb Eder, Stuart and Carol Joas, Altfrid and Susan Krusenbaum, and us. The cheddar cheese we would produce would fill a niche in what we hoped would be a growing trend of grass-based dairy products. Most of the cooperative members had strong ties to the greater grazing community, hosted pasture walks and spoke at GrassWorks conferences. Rick, Valerie, Bob, Altfrid and Kay would all serve in GrassWorks leadership capacities. 

We had several meetings to discuss how our cooperative would function and decided to require a consensus versus majority vote for all major decisions. However, this required much more discussion and compromise to reach final decisions. Some of the big early decisions we needed to make were who would be our cheesemaker, how would we sell the cheese, and how would we get our milk to the cheesemaker because we were spread over a large geographic area. 

We settled on Bob Wills as our cheesemaker. He owned and still owns as of 2025 a cheese factory called Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain in Southern Wisconsin. He was already producing small batches of cheese for a few other farms and groups. He was receptive to our plan and understood the specialty nature of grass-based milk. 

However, our cooperative made its first big mistake by going with vegetable rennet instead of animal rennet (calf gut lining) as part of the cheese making process. We wanted to broaden our appeal to include vegetarians who liked the way pastured cattle were treated but didn’t want animal rennet used in the processing. The problem with vegetable rennet is a possible risk of bitterness occurring the longer the cheese is stored. We didn’t anticipate at the time that we may be forced to age the cheese longer if sales were slow. This became a problem as we related below.

  We found a milk hauler with a large enough truck to haul our combined 20,000 pounds of milk to the factory. The route started in Shawano, then went south all the way to East Troy, and then west to the factory in Cedar Grove. This added to our cheese costs because of the considerable miles involved to collect the milk.

One of the issues we had not considered as we got close to moving ahead with the cooperative was getting approval from our current milk buyer, Organic Valley, to release milk for this endeavor. This was further complicated by rules that the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection (DATCP) had regarding a farm having more than one milk buyer. After considerable back and forth discussions, a compromise was reached.

We made our first batch of cheese in September 2001. As we were excited to begin this new venture, we probably got a little carried away with the size of our operation. Over the next grazing season, we made about 20,000 pounds of cheese without a sufficient market. That was our next mistake.

We then had a difficult time finding a cheese distributor who would take care of cutting and wrapping the cheese, which came from the factory in 40-lb. blocks, and ultimately get the cheese distributed to stores and sold to customers. This turned out to be our biggest mistake.

The cheese distributor we hired was an innovator on packaging commodity cheese. However, they didn’t understand how to position our niche product. They kept saying we would have no problem selling small packages of cheese. They were wrong because this was a specialty product. We also discovered later after switching to a different cheese cut-and-wrap processor that we had been losing double the amount of cheese to cut-and-wrap waste, 20% compared to less than 10%. The cut-and-wrap facility was using the waste in a processed cheese product. We moved on from this cheese distributor, but this all took time. 

Since we were all full-time farmers, we could not do this job on our own. Then we thought we had a breakthrough. United Natural Foods agreed to take on our cheese. They are a national distributor of natural and organic foods. However, we quickly learned they expected us to distribute to the stores and pay the cheese counter manager that took on the product. This included paying for or doing sample tasting in stores on our own. They also expected us to run regular sales promos to move products. We did attempt to do this at local stores, but we could not afford the time away from the farm. We ultimately got our cheese dropped by United Natural Foods. Under their system, if your product didn’t have enough volume going to stores, you were dropped as a supplier after six months. Nonetheless, we would later become a distributor for United Natural. 

The bitterness problem then cropped up. As our cheese continued to age in storage, we noticed some batches were developing a slight bitterness in samples. This was particularly alarming since it was likely this would get worse over time. A friend of Valerie Adamski offered to help. She experimented in her kitchen by making a cheese spread from some of our bitter cheese by melting it and adding cranberries and maple syrup. The finished product was excellent, and no bitterness was detected. We then sought out a local cheese spread manufacturer to make a commercial product for us. The manufacturer was shocked we would use quality aged cheese in a cold pack cheese spread. Most cheese spreads used substandard cheese to get rid of it. 

We forged ahead. We entered the cheese spread in a large cheese competition and won the cold pack category. We were ecstatic. This award opened some doors for us, and we moved quite a bit of the bitter cheese with the spread, but we had more to sell. We were also selling the cheese and spread in our on-farm store. However, it was a drop in the bucket compared to what the cooperative had in storage at the time, about 15,000 lbs.

By 2005, we had opened an on-farm store, called Grassway Farm Store, to market our raw milk, poultry, beef, and a full line of organic products from local producers and United Natural Foods. We had become certified organic in 2004 and were already selling several of our farm products to customers coming to the farm. We did have some advantages going into this retail business because we both had worked for the Farm Credit System and had finance backgrounds. Furthermore, Kay had gone back to school to get a Master’s Degree in Food Science Business. 

We also were willing to try new production methods that other local farmers were not using. We were certainly considered to be on the lunatic fringe by our more traditional farmers in the area. We had built a movable laying hen house to follow the grazing cows in the paddocks and were using a Joel Salatin system to raise pastured meat birds. These production models produced far superior eggs and meat than could be bought in the local stores, so we priced them accordingly. In the years prior to the store, with the combination of raw milk, eggs, and organic chicken, we had a customer base of at least 100 coming to the farm to make purchases. Kay was a natural salesperson and was very successful cross selling various products to these customers. In our vicinity, we had the organic pastured meats niche to ourselves. The local stores that had tried to sell packaged organic products had given up in the early 2000s. 

We converted a bay in our machine shed into a 300-hundred-square-foot store. This included a walk-in refrigerator with a four-glass-door customer access, a four-door freezer unit with glass doors, and a walk-in freezer for storage. As news spread about the store, we found that raw milk was a major driver of store traffic. People would drive an hour to get it and came back at least every two weeks. 

We were fortunate to be located within an hour of Appleton, Green Bay, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Fond du Lac. By adding packaged organic products from United Natural Foods and Alberts Organic produce, we were practically a complete grocery store for our customers. We had enough volume to have their semis stop weekly. We hired a local person to manage the store which allowed us and our son, Rudy, to run the farm. 

At our peak we had two movable hen houses with 400 layers, 1000 meat birds raised in 2 batches on grass, 100 turkeys on pasture, pastured beef, and 100 gallons per week of raw milk sales. We cut up most of the meat birds into parts for vacuum seal packages at the slaughter plant with a crew we brought in. We were able to gross about $25 per bird this way. Raw milk was taken directly from the bulk tank via a pour spout on the main valve. Customers provided their own containers, mostly half-gallon canning jars. This was done by the store manager or one of us on busy days. We sold the milk for $6 and eventually $8 per gallon. With our mostly Jersey herd, the butterfat typically ran from 6% to 8% in the fall with our seasonal herd. Many customers would skim the cream and make butter.

The quality of our farm milk and meats were outstanding because we were fanatical about our daily management. This was the key to store growth and sales, that we didn’t take any short cuts. All chickens and turkeys were moved daily to fresh grass, our 100 dairy cattle were moved from two to four times per day using automated gates. We had a mineral supplement program for cattle including sea kelp, sea salt, humates, and a free choice mineral mix for parasites. Those were combined with soil testing and annual soil amendments with a focus on calcium levels. We annually inter-seeded clovers into our grass stands and spread compost from our winter bedded pack system. The store became the main profit center on the farm and all enterprises were focused on it.

Ultimately, raw milk sales were challenged by a change of personnel at DATCP. When we started raw milk sales in 2004, we followed the language in the law. Raw milk sales were to be incidental, customers had to bring their own containers, and milk had to be drawn from the bulk tank. As additional protection, customers had to purchase a $10 share in the milk license. Our raw milk bacteria and somatic cell counts were always low due to healthy animals. No illnesses resulted from our milk sales. 

In 2009, DATCP tried to stop all raw milk sales in Wisconsin. We ultimately decided to file a lawsuit against DATCP with the help of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund because raw milk sales were the key to our farm store’s success. We appealed an initial ruling against us. The Appeals Court sat on it for five years before ruling against us. We continued to sell raw milk a total of seven years after our initial suit was filed. In 2016 after losing our suit, we decided to retire. We rented the farm to a young couple who continued fighting DATCP and kept selling raw milk for two more years. (2018)

Part of our decision to retire also centered on our age and energy level. We retired in our late 50s. We had started to see a drop in store sales in the mid-2010s as more farmers started to do direct marketing and local stores started to carry more organic products. At its peak, the store was serving a total of 500 families who came to the store at least once annually and gross sales exceeded $500,000. Even when we neared retirement, the store was still key to our farm’s profitability and success. We hated to leave our loyal customers and friends, but our niche had gone mainstream. We had lost some of our pricing power which impacted the bottom line even though we were working as hard as ever.

 The Northern Meadows Cooperative decided to see if there was a possibility to sell our cheese inventory as wholesale. Instead, it was decided to shut down the cooperative. We were paying for refrigerated storage every month. Sales were barely covering expenses. We had also taken out a loan to pay each of us a base price for the milk that went into the cheese, so there were interest charges as well. It was a difficult decision to terminate the cooperative and our dream of selling cheese from our own farms. The reality was we that were at an impasse. Fortunately, the cheese trade was always looking for aged cheese, so we had several offers.  But each potential buyer had to take samples so this was a drawn-out process. We reached an agreement for the whole lot to be sold which paid off our loan and ended the monthly storage costs. 

In summary, we basically broke even and got quite an education. We did have an overall good experience because we got to work with fellow farmers who shared our passions and values. We were fortunate not to invest capital in a cheese-making facility or in other depreciating assets. In hide sight, our plan to sell in the grass-based niche was ahead of its time. In the early 2000s, organic was a much better understood concept by conscientious consumers willing to pay a premium price. When doing taste tests in stores, we found that if we got people to taste the cheese, they would buy it even though it was higher priced. However, we didn’t have the time or money to do this on a large-scale basis. 

We even had our cheese and milk tested for conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) as part of a University of Wisconsin study that showed higher levels due to the grass diet. CLA, a new concept, was showing benefits to reduce cancer risk. The cooperative members also discussed having the entire group become certified organic. Several were in the four-year transition period. However, there was no consensus on certification, so that led to our decision to look to sell our inventory and shut down the cooperative. 

Chapter 19 – Charlie Opitz, Grazier Extraordinaire (Otto Wiegand and Joel McNair)

Charlie Opitz of Mineral Point, Wisconsin had a reputation for being unconventional. He left his father’s conventional farm in Saukville, Ozaukee County in 1979 and moved to Southwest Wisconsin where he became one of the early and most notable managed dairy graziers in Wisconsin.

By the 1990s, Charlie was milking over 1000 cows on over 3,000 acres of managed rotational grazing. He had the largest dairy herd in Wisconsin (Joel McNair, Agri-View, Sept. 23. 1993). Charlie built a double-26 milking parlor in 1993 on his pasture, the largest parlor and first New Zealand swing parlor in the state. The cost was about one-fifth of the typical cost per stall. The parlor lacked tile, used stainless steel only for milk and wash lines, didn’t have rapid-exit gates, didn’t have automatic take-offs, nor employed electronic milk recording. Charlie fed grain in the parlor, a largely abandoned practice, and didn’t grow corn silage for 18 years. The parlor, located in a pasture a mile from housing, was intended to be used only four hours a day and only during the grazing season. Water for the parlor was piped a mile from a well at Charlie’s house. With two employees, the parlor could milk about 160 cows per hour, double the rate of most Wisconsin parlors. Charlie admitted that he might add take-offs and a cheap crowd gate at some point, bringing his efficiency up to 200 cows per hour. 

Charlie was all about numbers, efficiency, and cutting costs. He considered his approach to learning and managing a continuous “mind game.” (Opitz interview). Charlie also didn’t provide water to the cows on pasture (Opitz, Graze, April 2001). Charlie claimed to have developed an early type of total mixed ration (TMR) compatible with his practices. With a herd average between 14,000-15,000 lbs. per cow per year, Charlie saw no need to milk three times per day (Jim Massey, Country Today, May 10, 1989). 

Charlie’s sons, Jeff and Scott, stayed on the Saukville farm until Scott established his own farm in Texas. Jeff and a partner own the Saukville farm which today has over 3,000 cows. Only the heifers and dry cows are grazed there. Son and daughter, Mark and Jen, took over the Mineral Point farm and then split the farm between them in 2016. Charlie partnered for several years on another grazing dairy in Louisiana. Now in 2025 at 85, he is retired and splits his time between the three remaining farms. Charlie still visits other graziers around Wisconsin. 

Charlie stockpiled about a third of his acreage in Mineral Point so that he could put his heifers and cows out unseasonably early in spring. For example, on March 20, 1991, Charlie put 520 heifers out on pasture a week after six inches of snow (Joel McNair, Agri-View, March 28, 1991). The pastures, with grass up to a foot tall, had been allowed to rest (stockpiled) after Labor Day the year before. Some of the over-wintered forage had 24% crude protein. The milking herd was usually turned out on April 1. 

Charlie was critical of confinement dairying (Joel McNair, Agri-View, March 28, 1991). He noted that grazed cows had less stress, fewer veterinary and breeding problems, less mastitis, and harvested their feed and spread their own manure half of the year. There was virtually no tillage. Animal replacement, building, and machinery costs were considerably lower.

In 1990, Charlie discovered an unknown grass growing in a savannah area on his farm (Michael Casler, Hidden Valley Meadow Fescue Grass Released to the Public, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forage Research Center, Madison, Wisconsin, 2019, see also Casler, Graze, May and June-July 2008). For ten years, Charlie spread the grass around his farm. It was identified as a type of meadow fescue brought to the Midwest in the 1800s. In 2013, a USDA feeding trial was conducted on the Larry Smith farm in Viroqua, Wisconsin. The meadow fescue ranked highest in fiber digestibility and milk production when compared to orchard grass, quack grass, and Reed canary grass in the trial, and second to canary grass in stocking rate.

I visited Charlie’s farm in Mineral Point in the late 1990s with an African friend, Hady Thierno Diallo, who was working on a large confinement farm near Madison. We had an appointment for noon. “You have one hour,” Charlie stated. Charlie chose to talk mostly about the grass. He described the different species of grass – one for north slopes, one for south slopes, one for hilltops and another for field bottoms. When I asked him if he would notice if someone had stolen 40 of his cows, he answered that the milkers might notice. At 4:30 that day, we were still there observing the milking in his pasture parlor. Charlie loved to talk, expounding his many theories, and often expressed a distaste for what he perceived as a slow university response to grazing. 

Charlie appeared in a National Geographic article (Dec. 1995) featuring sustainable agricultural practices around the U.S. “Grazing has been around a lot longer than confinement has,” said Opitz, asserting that, “A civilization rises and falls on its agriculture. Grass is life.”

This is taken from the 2018 GrassWorks Grazing Award nomination written by Joel McNair and probably best describes Chalie’s contribution:

“Charlie is quite simply the primary founder of modern grazing-based agriculture in the Upper Midwest, and one of the principal figures in American grazing. He has worked directly with hundreds of grass farmers and agency personnel to promote grazing, and without doubt was the single greatest force in creating momentum toward grazing during the 1980s and 1990s in Wisconsin. In his heyday, Charlie would spend hundreds of dollars monthly on long-distance calls while offering constructive advice to grazing farmers. He was a one-man networking giant. Everyone knew Charlie, and almost everyone who interacted with him truly valued his advice and encouragement. He may have been the single most important person in terms of propelling the formation of Wisconsin’s grazing networks and, ultimately, the annual Wisconsin (now GrassWorks) grazing conference. He hosted many formal and informal pasture walks, including a “summer conference” at his farm shortly after he built the first New Zealand-style milking system on a Midwestern grass dairy – a get-together that drew an estimated 500 attendees. Charlie traveled the state, the nation, and as far as New Zealand to attend and speak at countless pastures walks and grazing meetings. He would constantly invite people to drop by his farm and provide a tour of his 2,000-plus acres if time permitted. And as he traveled, he would drop by farms to talk and offer advice and encouragement. He has continued to be an active promoter of grazing while wintering (and farming) in Louisiana, and last December 2017, received a grazing advocate award from the state’s forage council. It is nearly impossible to overstate how important Charlie has been to the Wisconsin grazing community. He didn’t start it all, but he started a lot of it.”

“Charlie has always been viewed very highly by grass farmers and grazing-oriented agency personnel as having one of the top agronomic minds in grazing-based dairy. While Charlie operated one of the largest dairies in Wisconsin, his network of friends and advisees always included the owners and operators of some of the smallest grass farms. Charlie thinks big, but he also has a place in his heart for the little guy. Charlie has always urged others to view farming as a challenge to be embraced, rather than a burden to be shouldered. His words and actions inspired countless others to taker the risky and often ridiculed leap into grazing.” 

“As an aside, years ago he called Mike Casler, an agronomist with the United States Department of Agriculture and UW-Madison, and told him to come out to look at a highly palatable grass that was growing under some trees. Twenty-some years of development later, the grass, “Hidden Valley Meadow Fescue,” is due out on the market next year.” 

Chapter 20 – Grazing Innovations (Cheyenne Christianson)

I grew up on a small dairy farm with 25 cows. Dad had two bigger pastures that he alternated between and didn’t do intensive / rotational grazing. We green chopped a lot. I didn’t care for that at all. I read all the articles about grazing in the farm papers and Joel McNair’s Milk Pail column in Agri-View. Intensive grazing was much more appealing to me than what we were doing.

My wife Katy and I started on our farm in July of 1993. I was 21 and she was 19. It was quite a challenge to get the barn up and running again and learn how to manage everything on our own. The barn had sat empty for a while and the milking system needed a complete update. Stalls and water cups needed fixing. The whole interior of the barn needed to be scraped and painted. We bought 53 cows from two local farmers who were retiring from milking. The first summer the land was rented out. We did have access to one old pasture to get the cows on so they could eat some grass.

I read more about intensive grazing that winter. We started fencing some of the hay fields in the spring of 1994. I made some smaller set pastures but there wasn’t enough flexibility. They would be either a little too large or not quite large enough. The next couple of years, I pulled out much of the interior wire to create larger parcels using moveable poly wire to provide just the sizes needed. Cows always got fresh pasture twice a day after that. Moveable fencing made it much easier to clip or bale off some hay if needed. We had our main pastures that were always grazed while some hay fields were grazed after first or second crop.

Grazing helped to keep our operating costs lower and was great for cow health. As young farmers, cash flow was tight, so any way to reduce operating costs was important. We were fortunate that we didn’t need off farm income, so both of us could be on the farm full time. I recall our banker looking at our balance sheet each year and being shocked at the large amount of debt we were paying off. He told us he didn’t know how we were doing it but to keep it up. At five years, he said we were doing better than farms he had worked with for twenty years! By our early thirties, we had the farm paid off. There was no doubt that intensive grazing was a big part of that.

In the early years, we grew corn and ground our own cob corn. When we read about the health benefits of grass-only feeding, cutting out grain became a goal. We stopped feeding grain in the late 1990s to focus on forage production. Changes in nutrition are based on observation. No forage sample were taken. Our cows were so healthy, we seldom needed to call the vet. We never used a nutritionist, a family friend, who occasionally stopped in out of curiosity or to share a cup of tea.

My parents farmed with organic principles. We believed that it was the way to go for our family and farm also. We first shipped to a local creamery and then transitioned our farm to organic. We were ready in 1998. However, Organic Valley had sufficient milk supply at the time. They were careful to only grow with market demand. By 1999, however, organic demand had increased substantially. Organic Valley doubled from 100 farms to over 200. Furthermore, Organic Valley, located in Southwest Wisconsin, was willing to come up north to pick us up. They continued to grow to 1500 farms nationwide by 2015.

I had been advocating for grass-only dairying for years as consumer demand grew and more farms were moving that way. The first Organic Valley Grassmilk routes were started in 2013-14 in Wisconsin. It was exciting to have our milk in a grass-fed carton and get a premium for it.

As our children grew, they became a huge help with daily chores and moving animal groups. We always had a John Deere Gator for moving water tanks, poly reels, and posts. The children learned how to manage on their own, especially with pasture sizing, when I was busy with other things on the farm.

I realized early that the short grazing heights promoted in the 1990s were not working. We experimented with different grazing heights, residuals, and rest periods. Cows need more fiber and less protein. I began letting grass grow taller to find a better balance for the cows. We settled around 30 days of rest or longer. Leaving more residual on the field for faster regrowth and drought tolerance greatly improved productivity. If cows chewed grass down too short and it turned dry, regrowth took much longer. 

Twelve inches up to early maturity is our height goal. It is not always easy keeping pastures in that height zone, so it helps to harvest some as hay when needed. Sometimes we have two pastures at different heights, one which we might graze during the day and the other at night to get a good balance. We also have land across the road more distant from the barn that we prefer to graze during the day versus grazing nearer to barn at night to be closer for the morning milking.

I watched manure consistency as my guide, always trying to avoid loose manure from immature grass. Shorter pastures could make more milk in the short term but can burn off body condition and cost more in the long run. It takes a lot of energy to process excess protein from immature grass. Thin cows on excess protein do not breed back as well or gain back condition very well. I would rather have more even milk production than big spikes and then try to recover at the end of the lactation. A mature bale is always kept around the barn for cows who want extra fiber or dry matter.

We found that grass-fed cows could get fat during the dry period yet not have any of the issues that grain fat can cause. We leave dry cows with the milk cows, so they get the highest quality pasture and baleage. Drying up early can help a cow that needs to gain some weight. We switched later lactation cows to once-a-day milking during fall and winter. This worked great for first lactation cows that needed to grow more.

No cattle have been purchased or brought into the farm since the beginning, creating a closed herd for over 30 years. Artificial insemination has also not been used, only herd bulls. There have been no indications of any negative effects of inbreeding. 

We found that growing a few acres of warm-season annuals is a good way to extend the summer growing season. We use Japanese millet or sorghum-sudan grass for summer grazing. In some of the dry years, the annuals kept us going when the pastures slowed or shut down. One nice thing about warm season annuals is that the leaves maintain quality even if the plants get six feet tall. The stems left behind are great for the soil biology.

Our farm is located in Northwest Wisconsin where the growing season is about six months. Around 2000, we realized the benefit of fall oats to extend our grazing season. The first half of August is the best time to plant oats. The oats will be knee-to-waist high by October and stay green well into November. Early frosts do not matter at all. The oats just continues to grow. Cows love fall oats and literally run to start grazing it. We have planted rye or winter triticale with the oats to provide early grazing the next spring. We generally graze two or three passes on the millet, till it lightly, and plant the oats.

We also planted purple top turnips for several years. The turnips are very cold tolerant and stay green into winter. Cows will dig them up from under snow. Turnips are potent energy sources. They worked well in small amounts when mixed with oats. Turnips will flavor the milk, so it is best to graze them right after a milking. Bulbed turnips are not allowed in some grass-fed programs, so we have not planted any since 2013.

I use a rotovator for tillage, just enough to take out the stand. It works great to keep the organic material in the top few inches of the soil. I till in pasture residual and bedding pack manure. Rotations are very long, ten years or more before a pasture is tilled again.

Rototilling is a good way to renovate pastures. We work up rough ground to reseed a diverse forage mix. Having some alfalfa in the mix is beneficial on our lighter soils for drought tolerance. During some drought years, the alfalfa, having a deep tap root, was the only green plant left in our pastures. Northwest Wisconsin often lacks moisture when most of the state is getting rain. Some of the driest years were 2003, 2005-09, 2012-13, and 2020-2024.

Mob grazing is a great way to build organic matter and improve soil health. We mob-graze heifers on the most mature pastures. Basically, take half and leave half. The heifers trample it well and the regrowth is thick. We notice that earthworm populations increase dramatically.

On our farm, there is no such thing as waste. We are feeding our livestock above and below the surface. As organic matter increases, so does the soil’s ability to absorb rain and retain it. It seems that we either get no rain or a downpour, so soaking it in is a must. Forage quality and quantity increase as well.

In 2009, we started using nurse cows to feed the calves. During winter months, calves are housed in a shed that adjoins the milk barn. The nurse cows are let in twice a day to feed the calves. It is best to keep the nurse cows with the herd so they can have access to the best feed. We keep a grassy bale in the nurse pen for the calves to eat. In the summer, calves are on their own pasture full time with the nurse cows. They get new pasture twice a day. Calves are weaned at 5-6 months while learning to graze with the cows.

In 2013, we bought one of the first Shade Haven units to have portable shade for the cows. We have trees on some field edges which give limited shade, however that always transfers nutrients to the same spots during hot weather. Parking the mobile shade unit in the middle of a pasture keeps nutrients out in the middle of the field or on the hilltops where needed. It gives shade for about 40 cows. The cows tend to cycle through, going out for some grass then coming back for a break from the hot sun.

As word got out about our no-grain dairy, I got many phone calls from other interested farmers. We had articles written about our farm and invitations to share our ideas at conferences. One of my first invitations was the GrassWorks Conference around 2005. I have spoken at GrassWorks several times on the different topics. I was invited to many other conferences around the US. I also served six years on the GrassWorks Board. I have always been an advocate for good grazing management.

I wrote articles for Graze and was part of their grass-fed advisor section for several years. I like to help others figure out options for their farm. We have hosted several pasture walks over the years and many farm tours.

I feel intensive grazing is the way to go for dairy. It is great for the cows, the environment, and the farmers. As more research comes out about the benefits of grass-fed livestock, I believe it will have an even brighter future.

Chapter 21 – Low-Cost and Retrofit Parlors Helped Promote Managed Grazing (Vance Haugen)

The 1980s Farm Crisis gave rise to the need to generate more income. Many farmers were looking to milk more cows without increasing labor. At the same time, all things New Zealand were in vogue. Pastures were renamed paddocks. Midwestern dairy farmers were looking to emulate New Zealand farming practices that not only included managed rotational grazing, but also included low-cost, swing parlors. Such parlors became an integral part of a new grazing system that was purported to be the key to a successful dairy farm. The two ideas were often in the same room. Not only did managed grazing lead to increased parlor usage, but parlor usage led to increased farmer interest in managed grazing. 

In the 1980s, thousands of dairy farmers were milking in traditional stall barns, often leading to excessive wear and tear of farmers’ knees and backs. Expanding the herd without improving milking ease wasn’t palatable. By the early 1990s, Dave Kammel, a UW-Madison Extension Agriculture Engineer, had put together a group of experts that later became the Dairy Modernization Team. They helped thousands of farmers plan retrofit milking parlors, as well as low-cost feeding and housing systems, employing a reasonable, stepwise expansion of technology and facilities. I was part of this dairy modernization team and worked with over 500 farmers on low-cost parlors and dairy modernization.

Not all University experts embraced the New Zealand idea. Some acknowledged its benefits in the short term, calling it a low-tech, stop-gap measure at best. Nonetheless, hundreds of dairy farmers beginning in the 1990s adopted New Zealand grazing and milking system practices. They not only survived as dairymen but became very profitable. Hundreds of county and regional events, including the GrassWorks and the Midwest Organic Sustainable and Educational Services (MOSES) conferences, as well as many local workshops, featured the low-cost, New Zealand ideas that enabled economical and practical dairy expansion in Wisconsin and the Midwest (See also Haugen, Graze, April & May 2001, January, February, March & April 2005, May 2008, November 2017).

Chapter 22 – The Development of Managed Grazing with Electric Fencing in Wisconsin (Dan Patenaude)

Early dairy production in Wisconsin was rudimentary by modern standards. In 1937 there were about 180,000 dairy herds (Wisconsin Blue Book for 1937). The average herd size was 12. There were roughly twice as many cows as today producing about one third as much milk. Hay was cut in mid-June with a five-foot, horse-drawn cutter bar, raked with a dump rake, and loaded and put into the barn loose. Milking was done by hand and cooled with water. A ten-gallon can of milk brought $1.20.

Discussions about pasture management up until the 1980s centered around the best turnout date. Early May was the standard and by the end of June, the best grazing season was largely over. The reality that cows milked best on lush grass led to June being declared “Dairy Month” in Wisconsin. May and June exceeded by far other months in state-wide milk production.  

Permanent pastures in those days were on land unsuitable for crop production.  Such land was too wet, rocky, steep, and often had a creek running through it that was a handy watering source. We had all of that on our farm.

We began in the early 1980s to hear about the concept of controlled grazing made possible with electric fence technology that was developed in New Zealand. The New Zealanders had developed sophisticated pasture management into a high art. The idea that intermittent occupation, that is, aggressively rotating grazing parcels with longer rest periods, could lead to better pasture production was nearly three hundred years old by this time. However, the technology to manage grazing with moveable fencing was a long time in coming. “Stone fences don’t move well.”  

My wife Jeanne was responsible, as far as I know, for bringing the concept to Wisconsin. She and our kids drove to Vermont to visit her brother’s family in about 1982. Her brother, Bill Murphy, was an agronomist at the University of Vermont. Bill had the idea that, following the work of Andre Voisin, there may be a way to improve the profitability of Vermont’s family scale dairies. “You should see what Bill is doing”, Jeanne commented on her return. “He’s dividing pastures into little paddocks.” Remembering our own creek, prone to flash flooding that dismantled fences, my reaction was, “I can barely keep up the fences I’ve got. I don’t need more.”

We soon figured out how to manage permanent and portable electric fence, but the most interesting part was the evolution of understanding grass management. There were books available, notably by Bill Murphy, Burt Smith, as well as Andre Voisin in those days which I hurriedly skimmed through looking for “directions”. Well, there were no clear directions. You learn by paying attention to what is before your eyes. As Yogi Berra was purported to have said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” My initial rigid mayhem of paddock guesses soon developed into what I later understood to be what Voisin identified as “untoward acceleration.” This is where insufficient grass recovery results in the need to speed up the rotation to feed the cows. Without this correction, the whole system fails. In our case, when we added to the rotation some hay ground too steep for making hay, suddenly the whole system corrected. Furthermore, with electric fence, we were able to develop a nearly flood-proof creek protection system where we could limit access to cattle while maintaining a Class II trout stream.

Chapter 23 – Fencing for Rotational Grazing (Randy Cutler)

         I grew up on a farm in central Wisconsin. My father passed away when I was a young child. I remember him cleaning the barn with a shovel, a manure spreader, and a team of draft horses. He milked mostly Guernsey cows. We always had sheep. My mother had an auction after his death, selling all the cattle and machinery. We did keep the flock of mostly Cheviot ewes. 

As I grew up, I kept busy raising various animals on the farm that my mother was able to hold onto. I raised laying hens and rabbits. I bought a horse from a neighbor. I added a bred dairy cow in May 1966 for $105 at an auction down the road. I bought some grain from the local feed store in Milladore, but my cow would not eat it. So, I just put her out on pasture every day. 

I had one milk can that I put in a wash tub full of water to cool it. The milk was sold to the Dairy State Cheese factory for around $3.00/cwt. I made $150.00 that summer from her milk. In the fall, I sold the cow for the same price that I paid for her, $105. My brother and I cared for the sheep until he went to college. I kept the sheep another four years until I left the farm to go to college in 1969.

         After college and three years of teaching high school agriculture, I returned to the farm in 1976 with my wife and one daughter. We purchased the 205 acres from my mother and stepfather. I then bought 35 cows and fixed up the old barn. Having very little capital, I decided to try to graze as much as possible. I attended the Spooner Sheep Day programs and gained some good information on rotational grazing. The Wisconsin Sheep Breeders Coop had some good producer educational programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s touting the benefits of rotational grazing. 

Sheep producers were always fighting a war with internal parasites. We found that by moving our animals frequently to new grass, and leaving older pastures idle or for making hay, we were able to slow the problems of parasites.

         As time went on and with another daughter, we needed to either improve our milking facility or change our farming situation. We decided to sell the milk cows. I took a job as a feed consultant at a feed mill in Stratford while still maintaining a flock of sheep. Seeing that rotational grazing was the best way to raise livestock, I got involved in the grazing fencing business, first with the feed company and then on my own. It soon became apparent that I could sell a lot more fence if I would also do the installation.

My wife Sally and I started Cutler Fence LLC in the 1990s. For several years, we also owned an antique store and ran a feed outlet store in the oldest building in the town of Auburndale. With a couple of young men, I started building fences. I purchased an old Shaver post pounder, then sold it to a man whom I would hire to do the post pounding. The Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and Marathon County were advocating for intensive rotational grazing systems at the time. We were eager to install setups for those systems. Most grazing setups were for dairy cows or heifers and usually about 100 acres or less. Many of the projects were cost-shared by County Land Conservation Departments or NRCS.

We initially used the Gallagher “Insultimber” post-and-stay system. This consisted of wooden posts, roughly two inches by two inches by 55 inches spaced at 90 feet apart, with two droppers or stays spaced at 30 feet between the two Insultimber posts. All were made from eucalyptus imported from Australia. We sold mostly 4-8 joule plug-in chargers. 

By the year 2003, Gallagher had stopped selling the Insultimber products and Australia decided to discontinue harvesting the wood. I liked Insultimber because it was such a dense wood that you didn’t need insulators as it would not conduct electricity.  Of course, we always had the option of using treated pine, or local white cedar posts with insulators or fiberglass line posts. 

Along came the Powerflex Company from Southern Missouri. They developed an extruded plastic and wood fiber product called Pasture Pro posts. We used them for quite a few years until the owners of the company split up and sold the product and factory to the Kencove Farm Fence Company.  We continued to use Powerflex posts until Kencove shut down their factory. We still sell Gallagher, Kencove, Plasson Agrifit, Watts and Cresline products.    

Many things have improved in the livestock fence industry over the past few decades. With the addition of remote controls to turn chargers on and off, many farmers have expanded their grazing acreages. Chargers have increased in size from 4-8 joules to mostly over 11 joules. Several 15-30 joule chargers are being used today. Poly products and newer style step-in posts are popular today.  

The addition of lithium batteries has greatly improved the abilities of solar chargers. Today’s solar chargers have greater range and larger potential than the ones from 15 years ago. Some chargers, now called energizers, have the ability to connect with your cell phone. The phone can communicate with the charger to detect overloads and disconnects on the line. Low voltage and amp readings are alerts that are sent to your device. 

Within the last four years, the industry has been embracing a new technology to control livestock movement and containment called virtual fencing. Companies are selling remote sensing devices that you attach to your animals. Grazing boundaries are set by drawing a diagram on your cellular device.  

Our company is still invested in promoting rotational grazing systems. Whether you have one Guernsey cow or a herd of dairy, beef, sheep, or goats, we can provide cost estimates for materials and labor to install a fence. We also continue to install hard fencing such as barbed wire or woven wire. And I still raise sheep as of 2025 on our farm in Milladore.

 I have had many contacts at grazing events, having attended many conferences, exhibited at most, and presented at several. I had a fencing booth at the Grassworks grazing conference for as long as I can remember. I sheared the sheep one year at the Spooner Research Station when Tom Cadwallader was the shepherd there. I exhibited as Ulrich Feeds from Stratford one or two times. I do not think we ever missed a grazing conference held by Grassworks or the Central Wisconsin groups led by Paul Daigle or Golden Sands Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D). I gave several presentations at Grassworks and Marathon County Extension. I have been a speaker and exhibitor at the Organic Conference in Lacrosse. Cutler Fencing has had annual exhibits at local conferences for Marathon County, River Country RC&D, and Northwest Graziers. For my support of grazing, I received the GrassWorks Grazing Advocate Award in 2016.

STUDIES / RESEARCH

Chapter 24 – Degree Work on Grazing (Paul Dietmann)

After spending 1992 living through constant turmoil as my employer, an agricultural cooperative, spiraled towards bankruptcy, the following year I entered grad school at UW-Madison with the goal of learning about “sustainable agriculture.” I had had my fill of unsustainable agriculture.

I asked a good friend of mine who was editor of one of our state’s leading agriculture newspapers for recommendations of people who could help me begin to learn about sustainable agriculture. He gave me two names, Margaret Krome with the Wisconsin Rural Development Center (WRDC), and Rick Klemme, the Director of the Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems (CIAS) at UW-Madison. That started lifelong friendships with both Margaret and Rick, and a lifelong passion for the constellation of farming practices that constitute sustainable agriculture.

Shortly after meeting Rick, he hired me as a Research Assistant in CIAS. My first job was to transcribe hundreds of hours of audiotaped interviews with sustainable farmers. The interviews were fascinating and also a bit frustrating. Each time there was a pause in the conversation, and it seemed that the farmer was gathering his thoughts before sharing some deeper feelings, the interviewer would jump in with another question. It seemed that farmers would speak about their farming practices in a widening and deepening circle, going from production to economics to feelings and emotions. The last part of the circle was repeatedly cut off. It sparked an interest in doing similar work but allowing the interviews to play out more completely.

My Master’s work was a part of my job with CIAS. I was in the Department of Continuing and Vocational Education (CAVE), which was an interdisciplinary program that was part School of Education and part College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). The Department no longer exists.  One of my professors in CAVE was Jerry Apps. I did some other projects there too, such as the video of the construction of the New Zealand-style parlor at Saxon Homestead in Cleveland, Wisconsin. 

For my Master’s thesis, I chose to develop a series of case studies of dairy farmers who had transitioned from relatively conventional operations to grass-based systems. It is a huge leap in so many respects from conventional dairying to managed grazing. I wanted to gain a better understanding of how these dairy farmers made that leap. What caused their changes in mindset? Where did they find support as they made the shift? The farmers I interviewed were Rick and Valerie Adamski, Paul and Cyd Bickford, Altfrid and Sue Krusenbaum, Kevin and Sue Kiehnau, Glenn and Mary Harder, and Tom and Mary Payne. Mary was the daughter of John Cockrell, the Lafayette County UW Ag Agent.

The graziers each described a period in their lives when they began to look critically at what they were doing and came to the realization that something was fundamentally disharmonious and needed to be changed. They then found and connected with other farmers who were feeling the same way about their own farming practices. By joining together and supporting each other, they were able to muster the courage to move away from conventional dairying and into grass-based systems.

One grazier in the study admitted that he really didn’t like working with farm machinery. Another came in the house after spending the day spraying herbicide and had to reject a hug from his toddler because of the chemical residue on his clothes. A third came to the understanding that after making hundreds of thousands of dollars of capital investments in his farm and dealing with the stress of managing employees, his financial situation was getting worse instead of better. Each had a moment of disharmony that set them on a different path, something the adult educator John Mezirow referred to as “a disorienting dilemma.”

In some ways, managed grazing seems simpler than conventional dairying.  There is significantly less capital investment required. Animals tend to stay healthier and last longer in the herd with less costs for feed or vet expenses.  

However, in many ways, grazing is more complex. In the early 1990s, there had not been much research done on grass-based systems. Managed grazing is often more art than science, which makes research more challenging to carry out. Aspiring graziers in pre-internet times had to seek out people who had expertise in managed grazing, had to decide if those practitioners were reliable sources of information, and had to determine if their methods could be adapted in different soils and climate conditions.  Finally, the infrastructure that existed around conventional dairying at the time didn’t support the radical notion of a grass-based dairy. The technology being developed at the time such as bovine somatotropin was predicated on farmers being pushed to adapt to the technology rather than the technology being developed to meet the true needs of farmers.  

The graziers in my study identified several publications that provided much needed information such as The Stockman Grass Farmer and The New Farm magazines. The annual Wisconsin Grazing Conference, which morphed into the GrassWorks Conference, was a very important event at which graziers met and shared information.  

The graziers identified other farmers who led the way in managed grazing including Charlie Opitz, Dan Patenaude, Paul McCarville, and Russ O’Harrow. In the early 1990s, there were several county agricultural agents with UW-Extension who were providing invaluable support to graziers while the University was trying to catch up with the work out in the field. Those agents included John Cockrell, Andy Hagar, Vance Haugen, Tom Cadwallader, and Larry Tranel. Extension agents organized pasture walks, introduced new graziers to more experienced graziers, and helped graziers sort reliable information from hype.

Managed grazing, and more broadly, sustainable agriculture, has come a long way in the past 30 years to 2025 today. It is no longer seen as a radical farming practice. A tremendous amount of university research in managed grazing systems has been conducted over the past three decades. There are new technologies in fencing, including virtual fences, that didn’t exist back in the early 1990s. There are literally thousands of YouTube videos covering virtually any aspect of managed grazing a person could possibly want, and they are all available at our fingertips (https://www.youtube.com/@grassworksgrazing4189/videos). 

One thing that hasn’t changed about managed grazing is the importance of graziers coming together and supporting each other, whether it is at the annual GrassWorks Conference, at monthly pasture walks held all over the state, or via Zoom.  Managed grazing is still an art more than a science, and art is best practiced in community.

Chapter 25 – Meadow Fescue Story (Michael Casler)

I was first invited to meet with graziers in 1988 by Carl Fredericks, who worked with members of the Southern Wisconsin Farmer’s Research Network. I was enchanted by these folks who clearly wanted to partner with someone from the University of Wisconsin to conduct more extensive research on pasture grasses. As a grass breeder and geneticist, I had found my home!

I first met Charles Opitz at one of many pasture walks. We didn’t really connect with each other until after he began calling me to talk about grass, sometimes up to an hour at a time. I used to go to work at about 6 am and I would always tell people that when my phone rang between 6 and 6:30 am, I knew it was either my wife or Charles Opitz. As Charles and I got to know each other better, he asked me to visit his farm, specifically on the hilltop where he was building a new milking parlor on the north end of his farm. 

There was a grove of oak trees on the hilltop. The understory of these trees was dominated by a grass that was a favorite of his cattle. My initial attempts to identify this grass were not very successful, because it was late summer, and I was unable to get the plants that I dug up to generate a flowering head. I concluded that it was probably some type of ryegrass. This was before DNA analysis was widely available. We had to rely on plant traits and all we had were leaves and roots.

A few years later, with many other phone conversations between us, Charles invited me to the farm again. He warned me that I should plan to spend the day. I was definitely intrigued. We spent entire morning driving around in his ATV, looking at pasture after pasture, all containing his “unknown” grass. 

When I asked him how this occurred, he explained that he first allowed a small plot of grass on the oak hilltop to go to seed. He baled the grass and used it as winter feed on another pasture. Once spring came, the grass seedlings sprouted and readily grew in the manured areas. He kept repeating this process, always moving to new pastures. Each year it because easier, because he had more acres to use for haying to produce a ripe seed crop. After about ten years, he had nearly a thousand acres of this unknown grass. What was this grass?

We talked over lunch and then went touring again. He showed me some of the neighbor’s pastures that had the same grass growing in them. For me, the biggest clue as to how special this grass would become was that some of these plants were up to a foot in diameter, clearly surviving many years. This wasn’t something I would have expected from any type of ryegrass. The other indicator of the value of this grass was Charles’ statement that he could always predict increases in the daily volume of the bulk tank when moving cows from a conventional grass pasture to the unknown grass pasture.

Within a week, my entire research crew descended on the Opitz farm to collect hundreds of samples from sites all around the farm. We extracted DNA from these samples and compared them to four known grasses that I felt were the most viable candidates: perennial and Italian ryegrass, plus tall and meadow fescue. I didn’t have any DNA capabilities in my lab at the time, so, I enlisted help from some of my close colleagues in New Zealand, Japan, and Wales. I sent them blind / coded DNA samples of all five grasses. The results came back from all three countries as a real shock – there was no question that it was meadow fescue, a grass that we had no idea was prominent in this part of the world. It was a European grass, common in northern Europe and the Alps.

My students and I began some extensive library research and discovered that meadow fescue was indeed very prominent in the northern U.S. until the 1930s. At this time, tall fescue was introduced into the U.S. and took over the fescue market because of its higher yield. Before the 1930s, meadow fescue was common in the “fescue belt” of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, cattle were loaded onto trains and shipped to the Driftless Area of the Upper Mississippi River Valley for summer grazing. We think that these cattle had meadow fescue seeds in their guts, which they introduced to pastures throughout the region.

We next conducted a survey of the entire Driftless Area of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois, driving a total of 40,000 miles on country roads in 2007 and 2008. We identified meadow fescue growing in pastures on over 400 farms throughout this region. Another DNA survey of these populations showed that there were multiple introductions into the region, probably from European immigrants, as well as the cattle-manure route mentioned above. The meadow fescue populations in the Driftless Area were highly diverse, representing several different regions of Europe.

My agronomist colleague at the United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Station (USDA-ARS) in Madison, Geoff Brink, conducted numerous agronomic experiments in which he documented the high forage quality of meadow fescue. He used laboratory tests to show that meadow fescue has lower fiber and higher digestibility than other common pasture grasses, such as orchardgrass and tall fescue. This led us to release a new variety, Hidden Valley, named after the Opitz dairy farm and created by producing seed on the collections made from that farm. Larry Smith of Viroqua, Wisconsin, a veterinarian and pasture parasite researcher, conducted seed production of Hidden Valley for us on his farm. He also brokered a deal with GrassWorks in cooperation with Byron Seeds to commercialize and market Hidden Valley seed.

Our theory about meadow fescue in the Driftless Area was that it has been there probably since the first settlers arrived. Settlers, who often brought seeds with them, came to the Driftless Area from a wide range of European countries supporting multiple introductions of meadow fescue. As agriculture intensified after World War II, many of these pastures were plowed to plant corn or soybeans. Meadow fescue would have survived on those pastures that were not plowed, many of which were remnant oak savannas where the landowners chose not to log the trees. During our surveys of 2007 and 2008, many of the pastures we found containing populations of meadow fescue were just like the original spot on the Opitz farm – remnant oak savannas where the trees had never been logged. Often these spots were relatively inaccessible, which probably discouraged logging.

Ironically, meadow fescue was one of the “winners” in our first on-farm research project, started just after my initial meeting with graziers in 1988. We evaluated 100 perennial grass varieties on four farms, thanks to incredible support from Mike Cannell, Dan Patenaude, Doug Spany, and Vince and Barb Garvoille. We found that our meadow fescue persisted extremely well and had the best palatability of all the grasses, as determined by the amount of forage consumed by the livestock. The only meadow fescue that we knew about before that time were European varieties that were being marketed in the U.S. and Canada. Little did we know what was to come.

We have since released a second variety of meadow fescue named Driftless, developed jointly by the USDA Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, and by Barenbrug USA in Oregon. This variety is based on many collections made on pastures throughout the Driftless Area. It has undergone improvement for seed production so that it is now available to any graziers who have interest in establishing meadow fescue pastures.

Chapter 26 – Dairy Farm Financial Comparisons (Tom Kriegl)

This information was largely taken from The Financial Performance of Wisconsin Grazing, Organic, and Confinement Dairy Farms from 1999 to 2014, Thomas S. Kriegl, University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability, December 2015.

This report uses 357 farm years of Wisconsin grazing farm data, 174 farm years of Wisconsin organic dairy farm data and over 10,000 farm years of Wisconsin confinement data spanning 15 to 20 years to help understand the economic competitiveness of these dairy systems from 1999 to 2014. It used the Wisconsin Agricultural Financial Advisor (AgFA) data set. AgFA is a sample of Wisconsin dairy farms from which financial and production data are collected annually. Data were originally collected by several providers: Lakeshore and Fox Valley Farm Management Associations, Wisconsin Farm and Business Management Inc., other independent consultants, UW-Extension agricultural agents, Wisconsin Technical College System instructors and Center for Dairy Profitability staff. Personnel affiliated with these associations helped individual farm managers reconcile their financial data. Kriegl, who also worked for UW-Extension in Washburn and Sauk Counties, presented at numerous venues including GrassWorks and Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) conferences. 

Actual farm financial data from organic dairy farms is still scarce but increasing. Because of the scarcity of the organic data in any single year, this analysis and comparison of Wisconsin certified market organic dairy farm financial performance with other systems focuses on a 16-year average for each group. None of the summarized groups were random. 

The grazing data included 7 to 41 observations per year (total of 357 farm years of data) from 1995 to 2014. Until 2006, a few organic graziers were included in the grazing group, but they represented 25% of the grazing herds in 2004 and 2005, and less than 14% in any previous year. The annual average grazing herd size ranged from 50 to 90 cows. The organic herd summaries ranged from 6 to 17 herds with an annual average herd size of 48 to 80 cows (total of 174 farm years of data). Not all organic herds were intensive graziers. The first organic summary was produced in 1999. The average confinement herd summaries ranged from 304 to 928 farms per year, with annual average herd size ranging from 76 to 204 cows from 1995 to 2014.

The number of grazing herds in the annual summaries declined substantially since 2005 because several of the grazing farms that submitted data for several years became certified organic and joined the organic group. Since 1995, at least one of the graziers in the data was transitioning to organic each year, which likely slightly reduced the financial performance of that herd and the grazing group. From 1999, the grazing data also included a few grazing farms that were receiving organic milk prices. Until 2009, the presence of these organic farms had minimal impact on the grazing group’s average NFIFO, but the different cost structure began to show in 2006.  Therefore, beginning with the 2006 data, the summarized Wisconsin grazing cost of production reports do not include any herds receiving organic milk prices. 

From 1999 to 2004, more than half of the farm years of organic data were from farms that were only meeting very minimum grazing standards. As of June 17th, 2010, by definition all certified organic dairy farms in the U.S. practice management intensive rotational grazing (MIRG). The Wisconsin organic data includes farms that grazed only enough to meet organic certification standards, along with organic farms that more seriously practice MIRG.

Since many non-organic farmers are asking how the financial performance of organic farming compares with non-organic systems, a sixteen-year simple average cost of production summary was compiled for Wisconsin organic, grazing and confinement herds. The primary measure used for illustrating in this report is net farm income from operations per dollar of income or as a percent of farm income (NFIFO/$ income) based on accrual adjusted income and expenses. NFIFO does not include items that deviate from normal operations such as off-farm income, sale of land or equipment, but does include sale of cattle.

The use of this measure is driven mainly by two factors. The organic milk price was usually much higher than the milk price received by confinement and grazing herds. The pounds of milk sold per cow by confinement herds was 30% and 36% more per cow sold by grazing and organic herds respectively. Under these circumstances, NFIFO/$ income makes it easier to understand the relative profitability of these dairy systems. 

Table 1: Sixteen Year (1999-2014) Range in Annual Observation Numbers, Herd Size, NFIFO/$ Income and Sixteen-Year Simple Average NFIFO/$ Income For Organic, Grazing, Small Confinement, Large Confinement (More Than 250 Cows/Herd), and The Average Wisconsin Confinement Group.

Dairy SystemFarm # RangeAvg. Herd Size Range16-Year Simple Average NFIFO/$ IncomeRange
Graziers7-4361-9023.49%16.17 to 32.91%
Organic6-1748-8020.99%13.53 to 26.26%
Small Confinement55-21762-6314.94%5.72 to 24.93%
All Confinement304-66096-20410.04%(3.45) to 19.33%
Large Confinement34-80441-6448.79%(7.93) to 15.52%

Observations of the Financial Performance of Wisconsin Organic, Grazing and Confinement Dairy Farms 1999 to 2014

  1. Income and costs have increased dramatically for all systems from 1999 to 2014.
  2. The increasing advantage that confinement herds have in lbs. milk sold per cow is a threat to the economic competitiveness of grazing and organic systems.
  3. Non-organic graziers have fallen behind small confinement herds in NFIFO/cow since 2010, mainly because the small Wisconsin confinement farms were able to offset most of their purchased feed costs with the sale of small amounts of high-priced feed that they raised. This peaked in 2012 and is declining with grain prices. 
  4. Data is scarce from any organic group especially from transitional organic. 
  5. By most measures, grazing systems had the lowest cost of production per unit followed by confinement herds smaller to larger. The organic cost of production averaged about $5/CWT sold higher than non-organic herds.
  6. Organic dairy farms need a price premium of about $5/CWT sold to be economically competitive. The 8-year annual average organic price premium was $5.14 from 1999-2005 and $8.99 from 2006-2014 over the confinement price.
  7. Organic price premiums ranged from $2.70 to $13.02 vs. non-organic herds.
  8.  Organic is most competitive when non-organic price low.
  9. Wisconsin graziers usually had the highest NFIFO as a percent of income followed by organic and confinement herds smaller to larger. Organic had higher NFIFO/CWT sold for 13 of 16 years and higher NFIFO/cow 10 of 16 years.
  10. Grazing practices appear to enhance profitability more than organic practices.

Table 2: Sixteen-Year (1999-2014) Simple Average Cost of Production as a Percent of Income for Wisconsin Grazing, Organic and Confinement Herds

 Graziers*Organic**Confinement
Range of Observations per Year7 to 436 to 17304 to 721
Range of Average Herd Size per Year60 to 9048 to 80110 to 204
    
Percent of Income100.00%100.00%100.00%
    
Expenses   
Breeding Fees1.05%1.01%1.19%
Car and Truck Expense0.74%0.59%0.35%
Chemicals0.53%0.09%1.20%
Custom Hire (Machine Work)3.54%3.36%3.23%
Custom Heifer Raising0.16%0.02%0.33%
Feed Purchase23.57%14.55%22.67%
Fertilizer and Lime2.22%2.93%2.68%
Freight and Trucking0.77%1.07%1.05%
Gasoline, Fuel, and Oil2.67%3.55%2.92%
Farm Insurance1.31%1.67%1.10%
Marketing & Hedging1.08%1.39%0.91%
Rent2.06%4.05%3.78%
Repairs all4.33%6.48%4.54%
Seeds and Plants Purchased1.75%2.79%2.41%
Supplies Purchased4.15%4.24%2.39%
Taxes1.42%1.33%0.81%
Utilities2.33%2.40%1.96%
Veterinary Fees and Medicine1.86%1.24%2.74%
Other Farm Expenses2.53%2.90%6.20%
Combined Non-Cash Adjustments-0.61%-0.46%-0.47%
Depreciation: Livestock0.75%0.87%2.15%
Total Basic Cost58.22%56.06%64.16%
Total Paid Interest Cost4.17%4.83%4.35%
Total Paid Labor Cost3.77%4.78%10.70%
    
Depreciation: Non-livestock10.58%13.34%10.82%
Total Non-basic Cost18.51%22.96%25.87%
Total Allocated Cost (Basic + Non-basic)76.73%79.01%90.03%
    
Unpaid Labor/Management15.10%10.22%5.70%
Interest On Equity5.62%5.08%2.90%
Total Opportunity Cost20.72%15.30%8.60%
    
Total Cost97.45%94.32%98.63%
Total Income – Total Cost2.55%5.68%1.37%
    
Net Farm Income from Operations (NFIFO)23.27%20.99%9.97%
Gain (Loss) on Sale of All Farm Assets0.31%0.55%0.44%
Net Farm Income (NFI)23.58%21.53%10.41%

*The 1999 to 2005 grazing data includes a few farms that were transitioning to or certified as organic. No certified organic farms were included in grazing summaries after 2005.

** The 1999 to 2014 organic data includes certified organic herds regardless of grazing intensity.

Table 3: Sixteen-Year (1999-2014) Simple Average Cost of Production Per Cow for Wisconsin Organic, Grazing and Confinement Herds

 Graziers*Organic**Confinement
Range of Observations per Year7 to 436 to 17304 to 721
Range of Average Herd Size per Year60 to 9048 to 80110 to 204
    
Income$3,323.51 $4,177.36 $4,557.13
    
Expenses   
Breeding Fees$35.11 $43.43 $54.32
Car and Truck Expense$24.52 $25.18 $16.37
Chemicals$16.92 $3.58 $55.48
Custom Hire (Machine Work)$117.44 $140.48 $145.32
Custom Heifer Raising$5.35 $0.60 $13.55
Feed Purchase$771.38 $602.79 $1,009.08
Fertilizer and Lime$73.85 $119.06 $118.88
Freight and Trucking$25.97 $43.87 $48.37
Gasoline, Fuel, and Oil$87.06 $146.55 $128.76
Farm Insurance$43.69 $69.91 $50.36
Marketing & Hedging$36.61 $60.29 $42.37
Rent$68.43 $167.92 $175.48
Repairs all$143.97 $272.96 $209.54
Seeds and Plants Purchased$57.79 $115.17 $107.01
Supplies Purchased$138.30 $180.56 $111.66
Taxes$47.72 $57.40 $38.48
Utilities$77.86 $100.41 $89.33
Veterinary Fees and Medicine$62.70 $53.60 $126.61
Other Farm Expenses$85.24 $118.46 $281.01
Combined Non-Cash Adjustments($19.52)($17.71)-$18.18
Depreciation: Livestock$24.72 $33.74 $103.10
Total Basic Cost$1,925.12 $2,338.27 $2,906.87
Total Paid Interest Cost$139.81 $204.20 $205.15
Total Paid Labor Cost$121.97 $198.20$494.86
    
Depreciation: Non-livestock$356.47 $559.42 $492.68
Total Non-basic Cost$618.26 $961.83 $1,192.69 
Total Allocated Cost (Basic + Non-basic)$2,543.37 $3,300.10 $4,099.56 
    
Unpaid Labor/Management$509.79 $433.92 $265.40
Interest On Equity$192.52 $228.24 $136.07
Total Opportunity Cost$702.31$662.16$401.47
    
Total Cost$3,245.68 $3,962.26 $4,501.03 
Total Income – Total Cost$77.83 $215.10 $56.10 
    
Net Farm Income from Operations (NFIFO)$780.14 $877.27 $457.57 
Gain (Loss) on Sale of All Farm Assets$10.38 $22.66 $20.67
Net Farm Income (NFI)$790.52 $899.93 $478.24 

*The 1999 to 2005 grazing data includes a few farms that were transitioning to or certified as organic. No certified organic farms were included in grazing summaries after 2005.

** The 1999 to 2014 organic data includes certified organic herds regardless of grazing intensity.

Chapter 27 – Grazing Research (Don Austin)

I remember taking my Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA) sheet to our Farmers’ Home Administration lender (the “lender of last resort”) and hearing him say what a good job we were doing. The tie stalls, cow mats, complicated feed rations, and huge, fancy registered Holsteins. We were so careful, we used to take 3-4 days to switch milking schedules for daylight savings time. The cows ate and lived better than I did! The lender said not to worry, that the money would come in. It never did! We had borrowed $73,000, paid $1200 per month for three years from 1984-87, and had not touched the principal because of high interest rates. I felt like we were on the way out of farming. I decided I had to do something besides just shoving more product (milk and meat) out the door.

Around that time, the American car companies were getting outdone by the Japanese companies. Japanese quality and production efficiencies were much better than American. So much so, that we were going to Japan to learn from them. It got me thinking that maybe our farming methods needed a change. While our type of farming piled up big production numbers, could it use improvement, a face lift, an overhaul, or be thrown out entirely?

Our farm has been in the family for three generations. It totaled 200 acres and was a mile long with a small stream and springs that come and go. There was a lot of swampy ground.  causing swampy ground. There were 80 acres of pasture, some of which were too wet or too steep (Driftless Area). We always grazed the milking herd while I was growing up, but somewhere along the way, grass got a bad rap. We then kept the cows close to the barn and fed the silage all year long. I tell you, there’s nothing less fun than snaking a 175 lb. body through an 18 x 20 (inch) silo door! Once, I was exposed to a dangerous silo gas (nitrogen dioxide). Dad thought the pasture was okay for heifers but not suitable for cows or calves.

In 1987, I started putting the grazing pieces together. I bought some electric fencing equipment and divided my mile-long pasture into four separate paddocks. There was an immediate response from my milk cows. I remember filling the bunk feeder with silage and not a single cow stopped to eat it. Instead, they walked out to the fresh grass. Maybe alfalfa wasn’t the “queen of forages” after all.

In August 1987, I read an article in Wisconsin Agriculturist written by Dan Patenaude about controlled grazing. That article changed things for me. Finally, there was public information on grazing, especially about high-quality electric fencing equipment from New Zealand, the low-cost leader of dairy farming. Their fencing equipment was far better than what I had purchased previously. 

The most important aspect of the new information was networking, the access to like-minded farmers. I met the most interesting and unique farmers who were able to think outside of the box. We had been all suffering with a farming system that ran up a lot of bills that we had trouble paying. 

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and Life Sciences (DATCP) received oil overcharge funds. It was decided that some of it should be awarded as grants for farmers to demonstrate how to use less fossil fuel on their farms.

Carl Fredricks applied for a grant to be used for on-farm research managed by the farmers themselves. It involved 10 farms. I felt very fortunate to be a part of that program. The main thrust was sustainable agriculture. The focus was to use less chemicals and less fertilizers with improved crop rotations and managed grazing. We met in little cafes and taverns to brainstorm and develop questions and focal points. 

Carl Fredericks Note: There were seven farms in the original 1988 Dick Cates grant, and I think all had been part of the earlier Wisconsin Research Development Corporation network (I included wives but not all were moving fences). The seven farms were: Dean & Jan Swenson, Paul & Judy Swenson, Tom & Dianne Forseth, Vince & Barb Garvoille, Dan & Jeanne Patenaude, Carl & Cathy Pulvermacher, and Mike & Carlotte Cannell. There were also three others that Dick had added to the DATCP proposal to make it more attractive for funding, but they were just places I tried to collect data from and not really a part of the “network”. A few others like Don Austin become involved a year or two later. The Southwest Wisconsin Farmers’ Research Network (SWFRN) wasn’t a grazing network. The 1988 Cates proposal was more about crops than pasture and Dan was the only one with much grazing experience.

Some of the points developed in our meetings were as follows:

Feed samples:  It turns out that cool season grasses and clover are excellent forages, which is why we milk cows in the Midwest.

Yield tests:  Using dry matter intakes in the paddocks and yield tests in the fields, we discovered something interesting. My best field with 2-3 ft of topsoil and 3 cuttings, ran about the same tonnage as 4-5 grazings on my hilly and wet pastures. Also, the feed quality on the pastures was better.

Soil samples: Before I started rotating my pastures, the organic matter tested at 2.5-3. After a couple of years, it went up to 5-6, which was a big deal since it wasn’t supposed to happen. Carl went around and calibrated our manure spreaders. Doing this helped to calibrate the NPK for optimum yield, not the maximum yield. 

We had a field day in Bear Valley at Carl Pulvermacher’s farm. Instead of Farm Progress Days, they called it “Farm Regress Days.” There were many people there. It was the first time I saw a poly-wire pasture setup. I initially didn’t believe that setup could hold cattle.

 Carl purchased some conventionally farmed, creek-bottom land alongside his property. In between sessions, he would moldboard plow a few yards on each side of the fence. The side that had been rotated (corn, oats, hay, hay) with no spray or insecticides was full of bugs and worms. The other side looked dead. There was no air or water filtration, more erosion, and lower yields. The conventional side meant more fertilizer, higher expenses, and a larger Gulf of Mexico dead zone.

The year 1988 was by far the driest I’ve ever seen. Of the dozen or so strips of corn I was growing at the time, only one strip actually produced a few ears. The grass went dormant. The hay wasn’t worth cutting because you could spend all day cutting and raking, and an hour to bale it up. Armed with my new poly-wire technology, I was able to graze all summer. I put my 44 milk cows in the hay fields right next to the alternating corn strips. 

Several people stopped or called to tell me my cows were out. An older fellow whose opinion I respected, stopped, and got angry with me. He told me my cows were going to bloat, ruin the alfalfa, and cause plagues of locusts and frogs! That was the first taste I got that some people didn’t like that we were doing things differently. They didn’t think you could graze the fields and machine-harvest the pasture. 

I knew we were on the right track when I attended pasture walks and grazing conferences. The interest and optimism about managed grazing was contagious and just plain fun. The GrassWorks and other grazing conferences were an incredible source of information. The opportunity to compare notes and experiences with other farmers was invaluable I feel the SWFRN, and the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) project of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) were huge contributors to this. The small farmer had a better chance grazing, instead of being caught in a mechanized noose of over-capitalization.

PHILOSOPHY, ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 28 – Farmers Are the Experts (Mike and Charlotte Cannell)

A chapter entitled “Farmers Are the Experts” by Mike and Charlotte Cannell of Cazenovia, Wisconsin was published in The Grass IS Greener by the Wisconsin Rural Development Center (WRDC) in January 1995. The report tells the story, from the perspective of the 16 Wisconsin and Minnesota farm families involved, of their involvement in an innovative research, education, and outreach project about management-intensive rotational grazing. The project was funded by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and brought together these farmers, the University of Wisconsin Center for Integrated Agricultural Studies (UW-CIAS), scientists at UW-Madison and the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Land Stewardship Project, and WRDC. 

The editors thought that it was important to include this chapter for the Grassworks history because Mike, who died tragically in a farm accident in 1996, was an important grazing thinker, a founder of GrassWorks, and an early leader of the modern grazing movement. 

In Mike’s words with slight edits – We began using intensive rotational grazing (IRG) eight years ago (1987) on the advice of Dan Patenaude, an Iowa County farmer who had been experimenting with IRG in the early 1980s. I disliked green chopping and decided to try IRG to decrease my dependence on mechanical forage harvesting. Our former bluegrass pasture and the old hay fields that we converted to paddocks are now providing a mixture of grasses and legumes. We frost seed ladino and red clovers each year to maintain an approximate 50/50 mixture of grasses and clovers. Frost seeding is an insurance activity that will give us forage growth on spots that have not been taken over by grass. 

We feed our cows a grain mixture of ear corn, shell corn, minerals, vitamins, salt, dry molasses and, in the winter, some protein. We have 46 milking stalls, so in the future, we would like to milk 43-50 cows in the summer, and maybe 12-16 cows in the winter. We freshen most of our cows in the spring, but not all of them. To us, that is seasonal. We do not dry off all our cows in the winter to take a vacation. We plan to take our vacation in September, after the breeding season. 

My main measures of success are still dollars per cow or cost of production per hundredweight (not counting principal payments and depreciation). Our herd size is growing, and our pasture is maturing. Since we have to deal with a five-and-one-half-month winter feed supply, it will be a while yet before we are talking income per acre like the New Zealanders do. Since we started grazing, our total income trends have been up while our expenses are staying about the same. This is due mainly because equipment investment and equipment repair are decreasing each year.

Our worst year was in 1992, the year we went seasonal. February, March, and April are tough months to pays bills in that transitional year. I would never try to get seasonal in one year again. It costs too much money, selling and buying back cows, delaying breeding, etc. I think it is also going to be a tremendous challenge each year trying to breed our cows to stay seasonal. 

Research Project Built Relationships  

When the United States Department of Agriculture SARE Rotational Grazing Project began four years ago, I got involved because of the connection between farmers and University of Wisconsin researchers. I knew that SARE (called LISA, for Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture at the time), needed farmer involvement, but grazing wasn’t the reason I got involved with the project. When the researchers came out here, I told them, “I am involved in the project because I want the university to learn about small scale dairy farming in Wisconsin. I want you to learn what we think, what we are worried about, and what our dreams and goals are.” I am not at all interested in university researchers coming out and saying if you spend $2 on this or that, you will get $3 back. I am interested in having them understand our reality. 

If you ask me if the money spent in this project was worth it, I would say yes. Some of us were involved with the WRDC, but we involved a lot more farmers, and from that standpoint, I think the project has been beneficial to the farming community. Even if the final report would sit on a shelf, we have done field days, held meetings, and produced farmer interaction that would not have happened without the project.

The money was also worth it because of the interaction between the farmers and UW-CIAS. I applauded the efforts of Rick Klemme, Steve Stevenson, Michele Gale-Sinex, and others in bringing together farmers and university researchers to form the Grazing Dairy Systems (GDS) group. The GDS group is trying to create a different way of looking at research and agriculture. I probably would not be milking anymore by the time they make significant changes. It will take a long time, but they are on the right track.

A lot of people at the university have now talked to and met a lot of others from the state of Wisconsin, the rest of the country, and other parts of the world who are grazing. Now they know that grazing is not something off the wall – it is being done all over.  

I have always been much more concerned with the process of research activity than the subject matter. The project did more good for the relationship between farmers than it did for the relationship between farmers and researchers. 

I split the university into three groups – social scientists, hard scientists (dairy science, agronomy, etc.) and graduate students. I continue to be disappointed in the approach that most of these hard scientists take in dealing with the farmers of Wisconsin. They continue to use the same research methods. Of the hard science group, very few have changed the way they think about farming. I do think that there is an opportunity to be more holistic in attitude, more grass-based, more pasture-based. But so far, researchers have learned from farmers, but farmers have not learned from researchers.

It has been phenomenal the way grazing has taken off. Grazing is a type of methodology that is low impact, low cost, and the results have been very rewarding. It is not a technology that places us at the mercy of most of the input suppliers like chemical and machinery dealers. It shows us that we can milk cows and be successful without spending and more spending. When the next wave of technology comes across, like bovine growth hormone (rBGH) did, I think the experience of grazing will cause more people to think more about the way they farm. Grass technology has balanced rBGH technology. It has given farmers some other way to look at life. Farmers of the future are going to be less willing to go out and buy the newest thing on the market. I do not think grazing will keep people from going out of business – you still need to be a good manager. 

What I Have Learned and Can Pass on To Others

Start by buying two books – Grass Productivity by Andre Voisin, and Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence by Bill Murphy – and read them. Then join a grazing network. If there is no network near you, move to farm in another area, or start one where you live. 

The efficient use of forage is the primary benefit of grazing. The cow is perfectly willing to do the harvesting and spread manure for less cost than it takes with machinery. There is tremendous amount of joy in driving out of the yard at 7:30 in the evening and seeing our herd of Jerseys in the pasture. That is what life is. You are not going to get rich doing this, so you better sure enjoy it.

Everyone who starts must go through the learning curve of pasture management. You make mistakes in the beginning. People should not go to other farms and expect to learn pasture management. You learn by doing.

I am still learning about getting cows out at the right time in the spring, and the proper timing for moving cows through the paddock system. I think we are still thinking more about cows than grass when we mange pastures.

This section was taken from Carl Fredericks, entitled “1997 Wisconsin Grazing Conference, DEDICATION TO MIKE CANNELL, 1941-1996.”

The name “GrassWorks” was Mike’s creation as was the original logo (Editor’s note: the Adamski cow “Lucia” was used for an early logo and later the “international cow” was adopted). Mike was a charter member of the GrassWorks Board of Directors, which (GrassWorks) in turn was an outgrowth of an earlier effort he was involved with, the Southern Wisconsin Farmers Research Network. His thoughtful speaking encouraged and inspired countless graziers over the past decade and helped shape a number of University of Wisconsin projects. 

After his first season of grazing in 1988, I asked Mike to put some numbers together comparing grazing with green chopping. He sent back two pages, mostly words, that included the following:

“Now it is difficult to attach money values to many of the things I discuss above. We are saving the use of green chopper and tractor every day. If we were feeding hay every day, it would take 20 bales at $0.60 per bale to cut, rake, and bale – in addition to feeding it every day, using the green feed rake, going into the haymow to throw it out – cows standing in the mud on occasion – you see, it is difficult to attach a money figure to the wholeness of the comparison, and if one could attach a money figure to the items one could measure, it would result in people discounting some of the most important aspects of the experience.”

There is a lot of Mike in the Wisconsin Grazing Conference. He was outspoken in his belief that what farmers had to say was important, and that research and education without their involvement lacked credibility. He was very pleased with the quality of this year’s program. Over these three days you will hear many people talking about the most important aspects of their experiences. We hope that you will enjoy it as much as he would have. 

Chapter 29 – GrassWorks and Grazing, Community and Family (Jim Vanderpol)

The first Grassworks conference I attended must have been in the early part of the first decade of the century. The conference was held in Stevens Point. Grazing was a relatively new idea for the U.S. Most Minnesota alternative ag efforts were still centered around organic crops and crop rotation. There was a strong emphasis, much of it from the non-farm membership in Minnesota’s Land Stewardship Project, on getting insurance companies that had taken ownership of farmland through foreclosure in the eighties to maintain and extend soil stewardship practices already in place. However, the major interest in crops and organic production with an emphasis on soil health was deemed be the future. Wisconsin, by contrast, was further into the grazing idea and grazing groups were common. This seemed to be due to the strong dairy tradition. Grazing attracted my attention due to its focus on the land and animals without much help from barns and tractors.

I thought then and have not since had reason to change my mind that the grazing idea benefited from the self-destruction of American agriculture. My wife and I had started our farming in 1977, just in time for the 1980s land price meltdown here in the northern corn belt that put us at risk of losing the farm we had bought in 1982. We didn’t lose our farm but did lose most of our nearby neighbors. The bright future we had hoped for in our move from St. Paul back to the farm had already begun to dim at that time. We were actively looking for something different, something that might give us back the excitement (and margins) we started farming with. Grazing was, and is different, and we immediately started building our way into it, a decision that became a critical part of our avoiding complete farm failure with the meltdown of the hog markets in 1998.

A major part of the draw of grazing for us was the way in which it opened farming up to including family and community. It is difficult to include children in your work when that work involves endless summer hours riding powerful tractors and winters involved with sales meetings sponsored by companies that want to sell weed control products. Farming on foot attracts children to follow.

There was a large surge in women at all alternative agriculture events at the time. My first impression of Grassworks is that attendance seemed to be nearly half women. The conventional agriculture winter meetings I was familiar with featured at most a few women.  The presence of women encouraged me. Perhaps, if women were interested, there could be some hope for children being involved, increasing the chances of the farm’s continuation into the next generation.

More than that, the presence of women signaled a willingness to talk about a kind of farming that gets well beyond the horsepower of the tractors and the effectiveness of the latest tillage tool. I think it is not coincidental that the presence of women happens in tandem with the interest in grazing and its tendency to simplify operations and connect animal production more directly with the earth. And it is to be expected that an interest in soil health would follow closely upon a movement toward grazing. 

In 2007, I was asked to speak at Grassworks on the subject of boys and how we are failing them. As a father and husband, I had become concerned with what I noticed about boys and how they were struggling to find a place to fit in. This was closely connected with what I thought I had noticed about agriculture, that it was busily devouring its own offspring. I had read Michael Gurian’s book, The Wonder of Boys, and I talked about it at that conference, telling the group that boys were twice as likely as girls to suffer and die from physical abuse, four times as likely to commit suicide. Learning disabled boys outnumber girls two to one. 

Like all such books, this one excelled at pointing out the problem without strong suggestions for a cure. The author says that boys are tribal. That they need to work together in groups, sometimes sacrifice for the group. It didn’t seem to me that these several tendencies were in any way exclusive to boys. All young people can be described this way, girls as much as boys. And if in fact, women seem more able to live with diversity and make decisions in a context of conflicting needs and goals. Their perspective is going to be valuable in understanding our children. After all, many women are problem solvers by nature.  

Farms may well be adaptable to run with some of these principles in mind. I would not minimize the size of the change needed in our economic thinking to make it happen though.  We will, for one thing, sometimes need to choose labor over technology that tends to replace people. But it is crucial that children’s work with the older generations have economic value.  My early work as a boy had economic value to my family and neighborhood, and it made me into what I am today.

Children’s lives need to have economic impact on their families, and more than just a negative one. They need to be needed and this need must start early. We adults need to admit that we are needy too. And it is not a need satisfied by the wherewithal to buy a new tractor or new pickup. We need a place for us on earth. We first encountered grazing and Grassworks only a decade after the farm financial crisis disposed of many of our neighbors. Grazing defined our “place on earth.”  

In Grassworks, I see a reasonable possibility of men and women working together and because they are doing something they love doing, leading their children into it, even if almost by accident. We are better together. There is something healing in it.  And because I am a father, grandfather, and now recently a great grandfather, I am worried about the children. 

Grass agriculture is a practice nearly ideal for bringing young people into touch with their own natures and giving them the opportunity to feel and be at home. Grazing is biological, having to do with deepening understanding of the essential nature of the animals we work with, in addition to the plants and soils we use. Many women seem already to know this. As we build understanding and appreciation for the livestock and plants, we do so for our own natures as well.   

Chapter 30 – Rebuilding GrassWorks, 2012-2022 (Jill A. Hapner)

In spring of 2012, I was forwarded a part-time position announcement for Executive Director of GrassWorks by my friend, Jerold Berg. As an ecologist, I had previously recruited Jerold and Lester Laack to help with a return-of-farmland to pre-settlement plant communities project for the Mequon Nature Preserve in Ozaukee County. The Preserve project area was part of a large beech-maple, native forest that covered much of the eastern portion of Wisconsin prior to conversion to farmland in 1842. Jerold, Lester, and I enjoyed planning the slow ecological return of active farmland to a pre-settlement forest condition. We became good friends during our journey.

Jerold encouraged me to apply for the GrassWorks position, stating that my skills and devotion to challenging projects were sorely needed. I was familiar with GrassWorks through Jerold and Lester, and my husband was previously invited by the organization as a conference speaker. I learned more while browsing the organization’s website and was intrigued by the nonprofit’s mission and vision. The two-year grant-funded position, however, offered a relatively low rate of pay for a maximum of 12 hours per week. I was already working 30 hours per week for another environmental nonprofit. At the prodding of Jerold, I ultimately applied and was invited to interview by the Board President, David Johnson. Others present at the interview included Kevin Mahalko, Kay Craig, and Wendy Galbraith. 

I was impressed with the dedication of the interview committee and their passionate commitment toward navigating GrassWorks in a new direction. However, I felt they needed a candidate with a stronger agricultural skillset who could donate additional time beyond the paid 12 hours each week. I did have some agricultural experience in my background. I had spent my childhood summers on my grandparent’s farm in Indiana, worked closely with farmers as Washington County’s Conservationist in Wisconsin, and as Soil Conservationist with the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). Yet I felt I wasn’t a good fit for a position which obviously needed a full-time effort. 

By the time I arrived home, I had decided to withdraw my application. As soon as I walked through the door, however, Dave Johnson called and offered the position. He would not take no for an answer. I decided to accept the offer temporarily to help move the organization forward. The “temporary part-time” position continued for a decade. The needs of GrassWorks became an important quest for me, as well as for the Board of Directors, and our loyal membership. 

During the next several years, we operated in a “staffing-drought mode” necessitated by; 1) the discontinuation of our previously dependable funding from Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI), 2) a massive financial loss from the 2013 annual conference, and 3) regaining authority over our finances to find an exhausted bank account balance. Our part-time Communications Coordinator position, originally held by Lanice Szomi, was discontinued when the GLCI funding expired. We had to depend heavily on volunteer hours from me and our Conference Coordinator, Heather Flashinski. We were paid for only 2/3 of our time. Heather was paid with conference proceeds. I was paid with proceeds from annual memberships and donations, and from annual Byron seed sales that included royalties from Hidden Valley Meadow Fescue. However, the combination of “drought mode” staffing, a dedicated membership base, a hard-working (and overworked) GrassWorks Board, and prudent management of our finances helped us to pull the organization back on its feet. At the same time, we were building new partnerships and programs.  

Dave Johnson and I met weekly. We decided to treat the loss of GLCI funding as an opportunity to reach out and share the GrassWorks mission and vision. We established the GrassWorks Foundation Fund with the goal to ensure long-term funding for the leadership and education to advance grass-based agriculture. I worked to match funding opportunities with programs and projects identified by the Board in the GrassWorks Strategic Plan. Much of my time was spent searching for and contacting grantors, and in preparing and delivering grant applications. I continued my role as bookkeeper, grant administrator, and coordinator of our new Grazing Speakers’ Bureau (ultimately re-branded as Grazing Ambassadors). I worked to locate, archive, and organize all GrassWorks’ nonprofit documents and records that were either scattered or missing, but needed for grant applications and for maintaining federal and state non-profit status. 

Exciting new partnerships were formed, and funding sources emerged from those efforts. We established our databank and electronic newsletter. Our membership and science-based fact sheet brochures were updated and reprinted. We developed additional fact sheets, re-vamped the website, and expanded the annual conference. We designed and purchased four table-top displays, taking the GrassWorks message on the road. We designed, produced, and distributed pasture sticks and GrassWorks farm signs. The GrassWorks Grazing Guide was revised, reprinted, and distributed. Working with partners, we organized and held workshops and pasture walks throughout the seasons. The annual picnic was resurrected. Our social media platform was improved. We coordinated grazing plan development for new graziers and created grazing resource guides for county conservation offices. Our annual membership base and annual conference attendance dramatically increased. 

The gradual increase in grant-funded project awards required more of my time and the expansion of the annual conference required more time from conference planners. The increase in grant funding and conference fees continued to cover salaries for approximately 3/4 of our time. The hard-working GrassWorks Board and many generous volunteers helped to carry the workload. 

A vital financial goal was to build an unrestricted checking account to provide a safety net for unexpected expenses such as a low conference turnout due to inclement weather, or to cover expenditures for our many reimbursable grants. For example, we routinely experienced more than $30,000 in accounts receivable at any one time while waiting for grant reimbursements. I didn’t want GrassWorks programs to be limited by a lack of base funds needed for reimbursable grants. Another vital goal was to fully employ a minimum of three staff members due to the growth of our new operations and programs. 

In 2020, the regenerative agriculture movement created funding prospects through federal grant programs and private foundations. Recognizing this opportunity was instrumental in fulfilling our long-term goals toward meeting the need for full-time paid employees. Partnering with Laura Paine, long-time GrassWorks member, past Board member and past advisor to the Board, we ramped up funding applications and program partnerships. By November 2022, I was administering 14 separate concurrent grant projects for GrassWorks. I was pleased with the financial safety net we had all worked hard to build. 

This was the beginning of an exciting time for GrassWorks. Funding opportunities for managed grazing education and technical assistance had greatly increased, presenting an ideal time for our organization to transition again, this time by filling a full-time permanent executive director position. It was my honor to assist with that transition to the next generation of leaders and innovators, and especially to the new full-time Executive Director, Patty Laskowski Morren. 

It was a rewarding privilege to serve as Executive Director of GrassWorks during a decade of great need. I am proud of the organization today and the impact we’ve all had, working with hundreds of outstanding people, groups, and networks to advance the GrassWorks mission. GrassWorks represents the collective efforts of a dedicated Board of Directors and innovative advisors and partners who inspired us to think creatively and explore new directions.

Chapter 31 – A History of GrassWorks Advocacy 2009-2025 (Kevin Mahalko)

Grazing is fundamental to our lives and a support system for diversity and the health of communities on earth. Grazing and pastoralism are key elements of world history. Grazing has been a tradition in my family for many generations, and I hope to see many more families experience the joys of having livestock out on pasture. 

My Dad Ken told me tales of Norse, Slavic, Germanic, Steppe, and Native American grazing cultures. He talked the history of pastoralism in Wisconsin, old Austria, Galicia, Ukraine, Poland, and Hungary, and about pastoral warrior Vikings and Mongols. Dad always inspired me with his tireless observations of nature and the details of ecosystems and biology. He and I had many years of farming and grazing together, and we enjoyed it all immensely. His tireless advocacy for better dairy prices inspired me to find a way to succeed and be an advocate in a tough but important dairy and beef market. Without my dad’s help, I could not have worked on so many grazing projects.

  As a Wisconsin college student and farm kid, GrassWorks influenced me from my first time I saw the power of the “Grass Radical” graziers. I met with my neighborhood graziers Cliff Keepers, Marv Metzler, and Andy Kaufman in the 1980s, along with grazing educators Andy Hager, Mary C. Anderson, Paul Daigle, and Laura Paine. I learned a lot about grazing in the Agri-View newspaper through Joel McNair, in Pasture Talk magazine, as well as in several early grazing conferences in the 1990s. 

An uncle who was a sales representative for Olds Seeds inspired me go to my first GrassWorks conference and trade show about 1993. He said, “You’ll never meet such a group of positive farmers who are talking and laughing with each other!” GrassWorks has since meant for me a large community of graziers with an incredible spirit of cooperation. They come from around the state, nation, and world to help each other succeed and promote pasture-based agriculture. 

It was in 2009, that a local grazier family, Dave and Marilyn Mayenschein with son Mike, encouraged me to run for the GrassWorks board seat that Dave would be leaving. I had spent over ten years with local networks before that and was one of the grazing educators for the Chippewa Valley Graziers, a part of the River Country Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) project. I had worked with not only the RC&D, but also the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), UW-Extension, and the G-Team Grazing Partners. I had been encouraged by the work that GrassWorks was doing, having met with leaders like Joe Tomandl III, Paul Nehring, Valerie Dantoin Adamski, Paul Onan, Jerry Jaeger, Gerold Berg, and many others over the years at the conferences. GrassWorks landed a major grant which grew into the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship Program (DGA) in 2010, now part of the Grazing Alliance since 2024. In my job as a grazing educator, I could work with other network leaders like Bob Brandt, Lynn Johnson, Otto Wiegand, and our team at River Country with Mary C. Anderson, Haly Schultz, and Brian Brezinski. Our goal was always to have the farmers tell their story and learn something new at every event.

I was honored to serve on the GrassWorks Board for two six-year terms (2009-2015, 2018-2024), including several of those years as President and Vice President. I also served as an advisor (2016-2018) and member working on advocacy committees. I have learned from the best and got to work with giants of the Wisconsin grazing movement. Meeting everyone involved in the grazing world is about the most inspiring job one could have.  

It was an exciting time to join the GrassWorks Board. I remember how impressed I was with the kind and equitable proceedings at the board meetings and where such enthusiasm was present. We worked hard to update the GrassWorks Grazing Guide and what would become the grazing outreach pamphlets, both foundational to GrassWorks outreach and education.

Many of the grazing groups in the state were connected through the work of Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI). Mary C. Anderson was its long-time President, and I was Vice President from 2009-2011. GLCI funding combined state and federal funds into a competitive grazing grant program which many graziers utilized to advance their knowledge. 

The biggest challenge during my early time on the board, however, was the cutting of the GLCI program in Wisconsin in 2011 and with it a series of grants GrassWorks had been working with. We faced the reality of having only about $10,000 in the bank and the need to reshape the entire GrassWorks operational model. We knew we would have to be disciplined and work to find funding through conference attendance, memberships, sponsorships, other grant sources, foundation funds, and donations. In 2014, President Dave Johnson and the Board hired Jill Hapner as Executive Director. Jill and Conference Planner, Heather Flashinski, were instrumental in helping GrassWorks grow back from these challenging times. 

Outreach to organizations and people who supported managed grazing and aligned with the GrassWorks mission were my main focus and contributions. These included countless phone calls and video meetings. Even though I ran a grass-based organic dairy farm of my own, I found time to travel to every pasture walk, field day, meeting, or conference that I could attend, putting on many miles. I traveled across the country and went on grazing tours to Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. 

All GrassWorks Board members pitched in to donate time and travel to host events and spread the grazing message (editor: Kevin was above and beyond ordinary). We visited our elected representatives locally, in Madison, and in Washington D.C. It was during this time that Dave Johnson and I accepted the AG Coalition invitation to represent GrassWorks in the state agricultural scene in Madison. This effort helped to keep grazing (now called managed grazing) in several funding bills and initiatives across multiple organizations. As well as other Board members, I did outreach to schools, TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. 

As a farmer member of Organic Valley, I have worked to promote an organizational emphasis on grazing. Although initially there was not a strong emphasis on grazing, the current membership does a great job in having grazing as a critical component of the production standards. I have been part of the Organic Valley Grassmilk team and program for over a decade, and now seeing Grassmllk on shelves from Whole Foods to Walmart. I have served on the Executive Committee and Pasture Committee, worked with the Farmers Advocating for Organic program (part of the 2002 Farm Bill), and am proud to see GrassWorks partner with Organic Valley.  

NRCS has been a great partner on many projects with Grassworks. I worked mainly with Brian Pillsbury, Adam Abel and a variety of NRCS leaders to help GrassWorks secure funding for grazing planning technical assistance and education. We utilized the Conservation Set-Aside Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program on our farm and promote it as a great incentive for grazers. 

The Wisconsin Farmers Union, of which I am a member, is another partner who has helped GrassWorks on many policy and support missions. This crossover of cooperation strengthens both organizations. We have utilized trips to the Wisconsin State Capitol and Washington D.C. to advocate for grazing and good farming policy. The Farm Bureau Ag Coalition has also been a great forum to promote grazing issues and keep GrassWorks engaged in important Wisconsin state and federal agriculture policy.

GrassWorks has partnered with other non-profits like the RC&D’s, Marbleseed (formerly the Midwest Organic Sustainable and Educational Service, or MOSES), and others to amplify our joint message of hope for graziers. We partnered on sponsorship and held a joint virtual conference in 2021. GrassWorks has also been working with Wisconsin Land and Water to protect natural resources and advocate for grazing along with several County Land Conservation and Local Watershed Groups. GrassWorks continues working with DGA to promote the joint mission we have shared since the beginning.  

I did as much as possible to build GrassWorks cooperation with the University of Wisconsin system, working with UW-Extension on many levels and various University organizations supporting grazing. These included the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers, the UW Center for Integrated Agricultural Studies, the UW Organic Program, the Grasslands 2.0 project, as well as various efforts with deans and professors at the UW College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.  

In my role with GrassWorks, I did considerable personal outreach with Wisconsin Legislators, Governors, and the Secretaries of Agriculture. GrassWorks has had a good relationship with the Department of Natural Resources, and many wildlife groups like U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Audubon Society, Pheasants Forever, and Trout Unlimited. We have a great working relationship with Tribal Communities such as Ojibwe and Ho Chunk. GrassWorks partnered with Dan Olson at Byron Seeds to promote good seed variety mixes including the famous Hidden Valley Meadow Fescue. A generous commission from seed mix sales has helped fund our mission. The list of our partners is long, and I am so proud of the outreach that GrassWorks and our many outstanding board members have done over the years.  

I am sure GrassWorks has a bright future. I am happy to see in 2025 the Executive Director, Patty Laskowski Morren, President Deb Jakubek, and the Board grow GrassWorks to ever higher levels. I am happy we were able to continue our work and build our budget and programming since 2012. It was tremendous to gain foundation support and see GrassWorks able to add new staff to support grazing in the last few years. Including executive directors, conference planners, employees, and other contractors, GrassWorks has had more than a dozen staff since its beginning in 1994. We pushed for some large grants and hope to get more as well to gain business partners, sponsors, and most importantly, new GrassWorks members!  Being a member and serving the Board is truly helping build the grazing community and GrassWorks family! 

I want to thank Otto Wiegand for all the time and effort he has put in over the years as our Grassworks historian, for taking photos at conference and other events, and for interviewing so many key people in the history of Grassworks. I have provided the best memory I can of important dates and leaders and still have an archive of documents of my time on the Board that Otto and I spent several hours and trips discussing for the history presented here.

Chapter 32 – Grazing Reflections and Recollections (Mike Rankin)

The evolution of managed/rotational grazing in Wisconsin has been fascinating to both watch and experience. Coming to Wisconsin as the Crops and Soils Agent in Fond du Lac County during the drought year of 1988, there were few, if any, serious dairy graziers in my region of the state. I had come from a conventional farm background and had recently attained my master’s degree from Iowa State University with an emphasis on forage production.

It was during my time in graduate school that I became familiar with the concept of grazing, as beef cattle were major consumers of Iowa’s forage resources. I would often help fellow graduate students with their research projects on out-state research farms, and many of these projects involved forage responses to various grazing regimes.

Once gainfully employed in Wisconsin, alfalfa as a dairy forage resource garnered most of my attention. It was one of the reasons I sought employment here. Of course, my extension job meant also covering all other types of crop production, including grain and commercial vegetables.

In the early 1990s, we had several really bad alfalfa winterkill years, which left dairy farms scrambling for forage. At the same time, milk prices were in the dumpster. Many dairy farmers were metaphorically approaching DEFCON 1 (military readiness alert). Some farmers exited the business, others found that corn silage was a suitable replacement for alfalfa as a primary forage source, and still others looked toward a new, lower input model — namely grazing.

Along with a veterinarian in the county, we attended the first Wisconsin Grazing Conference in 1993. We were both curious about the recent “grazing movement” that was prompting questions from our clientele. That conference in Wisconsin Dells reminded me of a church revival. I heard some things that I liked, and some that I didn’t. There was also a lot of university bashing, which played well with the crowd.

One of the mantras that was often pushed during those early years was that we could implement a ryegrass-based seasonal dairy system in Wisconsin that mirrored that of Ireland or New Zealand. Although many tried, few, if any, actually succeeded. Of course, growing pains are common when any new system is implemented, especially one as big as converting from a conventional to a grazing-based dairy.

A number of farmers discovered the hard way what grazing couldn’t do for them. If poor management was limiting success in a conventional system, it would and did limit success in a grazing system. In fact, one could argue that the latter required more oversight. Also, the farms that tried to get by with no inputs rarely succeeded. Over time, the farmers who implemented a high level of management, had a passion for making the grazing system work, and realized that their forage base was what would separate success from failure survived and thrived.

Three important outside factors played a role in the success and growth of grass-based dairies. The first was the advancement of fencing technologies that followed the growth of grazing system implementation. Reels, energizers, and polywire, when used correctly, played a huge role in how forage could be optimized. Fencing technologies got better with each passing year, and this really helped to move grazing systems forward.

A second factor was the growth of organic milk production. This offered a premium milk market, and it wasn’t that difficult of a conversion for an already grass-based dairy. Many operations took advantage of the opportunity to become certified organic.

A final factor was related to support. In a short amount of time, cost-sharing programs for establishing pastures, lanes, water systems, and fencing became available from both the state and federal level. A large number of farms took advantage of these offerings. In addition to money, installation expertise also came with the package. In time, professional grazing expertise and research grew at both the university and governmental levels. Of course, GrassWorks continued to offer educational programs from start to finish.

Fond du Lac County, or east-central Wisconsin for that matter, wasn’t a grazing hub in the state. We were still very conventional, and many farms chose the expansion model. Nevertheless, we did have some farms that converted to a grass-based system, and I felt the responsibility to support them in whatever way possible. As a forage agronomist, I could at least help directly in that area. Other extension agents in the region didn’t hold a grazing interest, so I also inherited graziers in Washington, Dodge, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Calumet, and Manitowoc Counties. 

Although many graziers in my region belonged to GrassWorks, they expressed a desire to have our own grazing group. In the mid-1990s, I formed the Fond O’ Grass Graziers network. It was populated by graziers from multiple Eastern counties and included dairy, beef, sheep, and other small ruminant producers. Although we weren’t a big group compared to some in the state, we had a core group of “movers and shakers,” including Gerald Jaeger, Wayne and Kay Craig, Bill and Bob Guell, Dave Heidel, Tim Pauli, Mike Cannell, and Jerold Berg.

Initially, we developed a rather aggressive two-per-month pasture walk schedule. Eventually, after we had repeated the same farms multiple times, we cut it back to once per month. I also initiated a late-spring (March) educational program that I dubbed the “Graziers’ Gathering,” which first took place in 1986 and continued for many years after. We had speakers from all over Wisconsin and a few from outside the state. In the latter case, Dave Forgey, an Indiana dairy grazier, and Ben Bartlett, a Michigan beef and sheep grazier and Extension Specialist, come to mind.

Throughout my career, I never viewed grazing as the only avenue to farming success. It was just one of several ways to be successful. We had both good conventional dairies and good grass-based dairies. The system was never as important as the operator’s passion to make it work. Even so, I always liked the idea of an operating model that relied on perennial forages to sustain milk and meat production.

Chapter 33 – Practical Farmers of Iowa (Meghan Filbert)

Using Practical Farmers of Iowa as a Model for Grazing Organizations: Lessons for Grassworks

In the landscape of Midwest agriculture, Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) stands out as a successful model for farmer-led education, community-building, and innovation—qualities that grazing organizations, including Wisconsin’s Grassworks, can draw upon. While PFI’s membership spans various agricultural sectors, its approach to livestock and grazing management provides a particularly instructive blueprint for groups seeking to enhance regenerative grazing practices, bolster farmer networks, and influence public perception.

Many PFI members share that they often feel isolated or misunderstood in their local communities, a common sentiment shared by graziers. Knowing there is a supportive network of like-minded farmers they can rely on—in the heart of industrial agriculture—gives them the strength and encouragement to keep farming and embrace new ideas with confidence.

PFI’s Foundation and Approach

Founded in 1985, PFI’s mission states that it will “equip farmers to build resilient farms and communities,” fostering a big-tent environment that supports a wide range of farming practices and scales. The non-profit organization emphasizes curiosity, farmer-to-farmer learning, applied research, and a strong network of peers who share both insights and challenges. Unlike top-down models that rely heavily on external expertise, PFI empowers farmers to lead the conversation, set priorities, and conduct on-farm research. Through practical field trials, field days, and annual conferences, members exchange information that emerges directly from their own experiences. 

PFI believes livestock keep farms and communities in balance. PFI’s founder, Dick Thompson, is remembered for saying, “When the cow leaves the farm, the oats and hay crops also leave, and the decline of rural communities has begun”  (Practical Farmers of Iowa, Livestock Programs, https://practicalfarmers.org/programs/livestock/).

For livestock producers in PFI, grazing is not merely a management tool, it is a core component of a sustainable system rooted in soil health, animal welfare, biodiversity, and economic resilience. The program Livestock on the Land exemplifies PFI’s hands-on, farmer-driven ethos. This initiative highlights how livestock and crop integration and grazing of perennial and annual forages can heal land, improve farm profitability, and strengthen local communities. By showcasing tangible successes such as healthy pastures that support diverse bird species, reduced feed costs, and improved soil structure, PFI effectively communicates the long-term value of well-managed grazing systems.

PFI has approximately 10,000 members, 21% of whom are based outside of Iowa. With a governance structure that includes a 12-person board, 10 of whom are farmers, PFI remains closely connected to the needs of its farming community. In 2023, the organization hosted 218 events, reaching 5,166 participants, and was represented at 89 other events. Operating with a budget of $11.7 million in 2024, PFI dedicates $3 million per year to compensating farmers for their leadership in education, mentoring, research, and media outreach. To ensure accessibility, PFI offers various annual membership levels ranging from $25 for students and beginning farmers, $75 for a farm membership, to $1,200 for lifetime memberships.

PFI’s signature events, including 60 Field Days per year, the Annual Conference with 1,100 attendees, the Cooperators’ Meeting, and the Beginning Farmer Retreat, provide valuable opportunities for networking, learning, and collaboration. With 57 employees, the organization supports these events and programs, fostering peer-to-peer learning and promoting sustainable farming practices. Approximately 40% of PFI members have livestock, and 70% of those with livestock engage in grazing. 

A Culture of Collaboration and Continual Learning

One of PFI’s defining characteristics is its culture of collaboration. Members serve as both teachers and learners, drawing upon a shared pool of knowledge to overcome challenges. PFI coordinates events such as field days, pasture walks, and small-group meet-ups, where producers engage directly with one another, swapping advice on forage varieties, grazing rotations, fencing strategies, and water systems. This participatory format ensures that the knowledge remains grounded, evolving, and practical. It also fosters trust and camaraderie, turning what could be isolated struggles into communal problem-solving sessions.

Furthermore, PFI invests in research. Members voluntarily conduct on-farm research trials, which are then published and shared widely, enabling others to learn from real-world experiments. While university research is invaluable, the immediacy and relevance of farmer-led trials resonate with peers who appreciate data generated soil, weather conditions and variables that mirror their own.

PFI’s Impact and Influence

PFI’s success lies in its ability to blend down-to-earth goals with broader aspirations for environmental stewardship and vibrant rural communities. This approach has steadily influenced private and government organizational decision making, university efforts, and broader public understanding of regenerative grazing. By grounding its activities in farmers’ economic reality, PFI verifies that livestock farmers who adopt improved grazing practices can remain profitable, encouraging more widespread adoption and, ultimately, a generational shift in how livestock are raised.

Over time, PFI has grown into a respected voice in Midwestern agriculture. Its brand of farmer-led innovation and transparency has inspired similar organizations to refine their models. For Grassworks and other grazing associations, PFI’s trajectory underscores the importance of a member-driven structure. It demonstrates that when farmers are encouraged to shape the agenda, share lessons openly, and build support networks, the resulting innovations gain traction and broader acceptance.

Lessons for Grassworks

Grassworks, founded on a mission to advance managed grazing in Wisconsin, can draw several key lessons from PFI’s example. First, empowering farmer voices must remain central. This means continually seeking input from members about their priorities and co-creating educational events. Second, continuing to offer robust peer-to-peer connection opportunities that foster an environment in which failures are learning moments rather than endpoints. Structured pasture walks, small-group workshops, and mentorship circles can reinforce trust and open dialogue. 

Two successful strategies from PFI that GrassWorks could consider are providing direct financial assistance and storytelling. PFI’s grazing infrastructure, cost-share program, launched in 2022, has helped to lower barriers to adopting regenerative grazing practices and encourages participation from diverse groups of farmers. Additionally, PFI’s use of storytelling, such as the Livestock on the Land film, has effectively communicated the benefits of managed grazing, building public support. GrassWorks could adopt this approach to increase awareness to a wider audience and advocate for managed grazing practices in innovative ways across Wisconsin.

Finally, Grassworks can look to PFI’s long-term success and leverage the importance of presenting a cohesive narrative that links grazing to multifaceted benefits: economic sustainability, ecological health, and strong communities. By weaving these threads together, Grassworks can build on its own history and mission, using the PFI model as a beacon to further strengthen grazing networks, enhance on-farm experimentation, and create an enduring legacy for Wisconsin’s grazing landscape.

Chapter 34 – Managed Grazing Thrives in Spite of or Because of Its Outsider Position (Laura Paine)

As an ecologist by training, I was drawn to managed grazing because of its foundation in ecological principles. Managed grazing is a refreshing departure from mainstream agricultural philosophy, which, in spite of 80 years of evidence to the contrary, continues to place its faith in technology and chemistry to feed the nation and steward our resources. Because it is outside of this mainstream ideology, institutional support for managed grazing has waxed and waned over the decades in response to changing policy and financial priorities, making these institutions an unreliable source of new innovations or even basic information for graziers. 

From the beginning, graziers have turned to each other for learning and support through local grazing networks. GrassWorks arose out of this need and mutual support continues to be a core value of the grazing community. These informal, farmer-led groups formed of necessity to fill a need that wasn’t being met by traditional sources of farmer education, like universities and mainstream farmer organizations. The early graziers learned from places like New Zealand and Ireland, where grazing-based livestock production ‘is’ mainstream, but mainly had to figure things out for themselves! 

I didn’t grow up on a farm but was drawn to managed grazing as a unique opportunity to use ecological principles to make our food and farming system truly regenerative. I have gravitated toward public service as a way to support farmers using a system that has largely been neglected by the private sector. A particular goal of my 30-plus year career in the public sector has been to advocate for alternatives like managed grazing and organic agriculture, especially to help foster a change in what is considered mainstream. I have not been alone in this effort. This chapter seeks to catalog some of the institutional support that has helped the grazing community grow and prosper. I would like to think we have made a difference. I am optimistic for the future. 

Bright Spots of Institutional Support

When institutional engagement has been offered, Wisconsin’s graziers have welcomed it. Grazing farmers have hosted numerous research projects, field days and policy events. The GrassWorks Board has a long-standing tradition of engaging advisors from the Department of Agriculture, Trade and consumer Protection (DATCP), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), UW-Extension, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Marathon County, and other agencies and welcoming researchers to present at the GrassWorks Grazing Conference. This chapter recognizes a few of the many individuals representing these organizations who have been there at key moments in Wisconsin’s grazing history to lend a hand. 

The 1990s

The early days of the UW Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) under the leadership of Rick Klemme and Steve Stevenson were one of those collaborative times. Through the farmer-led Citizens Advisory Council of the CIAS, Rick and Steve worked to engage UW faculty on grazing topics. When those efforts were less than successful, they set up the Graze-L email listserv that connected Wisconsin farmers directly with graziers and researchers in New Zealand. Lively discussions ensued! Covering everything from fencing technology to national dairy policy to the endless debate on what grass species was best (Kiwis were all about perennial ryegrass back then), the listserv was active from the mid-1990s for a decade or more.  

The Wisconsin DNR was an early supporter of managed grazing. In 1992, I was hired as coordinator of the Agricultural Ecosystems Research Project, a partnership between the UW College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS – Dan Undersander) and the DNR. With funding from the DNR, we conducted several ground-breaking studies establishing the conservation benefits of managed grazing, especially in terms of grassland wildlife habitat and trout streams. In retrospect, that work didn’t have the impact it should have. The results were embraced by the grazing community but institutional change within the agency didn’t follow until much more recently. Interest in grazing within the natural resources community revived in 2013 with another project between DNR and UW-College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (Randy Jackson). A multi-year study was conducted to research the use of managed grazing on DNR wildlife areas to manage brush and invasives. An outcome of this research was the 2018 hiring of Mary Anderson as DNR’s state Conservation Agriculture Specialist. 

In 1999, I became the UW-Extension Crops and Soils Agent for Columbia County. Only the third female agriculture agent in Wisconsin, I was met with some headwinds from fellow agents, but much less so from the farmers I served. My position gave me opportunities to attend pasture walks and the GrassWorks conference through my grazing research. Plugging into the existing, farmer-run Columbia County grazing network was easy, and in keeping with the community’s character, they welcomed my help. I became one of the go-to people for “grazing stuff” in Extension along with Andy Hager in Taylor County and John Cockrell in Lafayette County and a few others. Most Extension agents had little knowledge or interest in managed grazing or had a limited comfort level with the pasture walk style of farmer-to-farmer learning.  

The 2000s

In the early 2000s, Senator Herb Kohl helped to bring financial resources into the state for Wisconsin’s GLCI grant program. People like Mary Anderson, Kim Cates, Paul Daigle, and Margaret Krome were instrumental in making that program happen. Then DATCP Secretary, Rod Nilsestuen, welcomed the funding and created the Grazing Specialist position that I held for eight years. It was an honor to hold that position and to manage the GLCI grant program. I saw it do a lot of good—providing resources for local grazing networks to offer both group education through pasture walks and individual technical assistance through grazing planning, as well as support for the GrassWorks Conference. The small portion reserved for research allowed the grazing community to engage researchers like Dairy Scientist, Dave Combs, Forage Scientists, Dennis Cosgrove and Geoff Brink, and Grassland Ecologist, Randy Jackson, among others. 

While at DATCP, I worked with mixed success to build University capacity to support graziers. In 2007, I worked with a group of graziers and Brent McCown, then CIAS Director, in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a grazing dairy research herd at the UW Arlington Agricultural Research Station. In 2008, I helped Margaret Krome in a successful effort to create a UW-Extension Grazing Specialist position that was held by Rhonda Gildersleeve until she retired and the position was eliminated. Fortunately, both these efforts were taken up more recently, and have led to the establishment of a dairy grazing system at the Marshfield Ag Research Station and the hiring in 2022 of Jason Cavadini as state Grazing Specialist. 

The 2010s

The 2010s ushered in an era of ‘belt-tightening’ at multiple levels. Budget cuts at both the state and federal level saw the demise of the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) grant program and a diminishment of institutional capacity. We lost some great institutional support with Rhonda’s retirement, the death of Dennis Cosgrove, the elimination of NRCS funding for regional Resource Conservation and Development Councils (RC&Ds) which hosted several grazing networks, and the loss of three regional NRCS grazing specialist positions held by Jeanne Stramel, Rick Zirk, and Larry Brummond.  

The Future is Bright

Throughout all these ups and downs of institutional support, GrassWorks and local grazing networks have maintained a culture of peer-to-peer learning and mutual support that remains today as the foundation of the grazing community. Although there are fewer networks today–around 13, down from 26 at their peak–a new generation of graziers is flocking to pasture walks and the GrassWorks conference. The community is just as vibrant and is as welcoming, creative, and fun as ever! 

Central to the grazing community’s resilience are the many, many graziers who have stepped up over the years to advocate for managed grazing. Recently, institutional support has rebounded. Staunch supporters like Brian Pillsbury, Paul Daigle, Mary Anderson, Adam Abel and others remain committed to supporting the grazing community and a new generation of agency and university staff are eager to help. In the last couple of years, GrassWorks has started a transition from what has historically been a highly motivated but underfunded group, speaking effectively for the community but without sufficient resources to carry out its mandates. Today, with its first full-time Executive Director and its first paid staff, GrassWorks is finally in a position to fulfill its potential! I am grateful to witness this resurgence of grazing interest and am eager to see what the next chapter brings.

Chapter 35 – Fourteen Characteristics of True Graziers (Andy Hager)

Graziers:

Chapter 36 – Grazing Revolution (Joel McNair)

This book includes many origin stories. These are tales of light bulbs being switched on and the possibilities of grazing first revealed. Some, like mine, are quite specific.

It was June of 1986, and I was writing for the Wisconsin farm weekly Agri-View. My office phone rang. Charles Opitz was on the other end of the line, telling me that I should come and see what he was doing with his grazing. I had vaguely heard of Opitz’s dairy near Mineral Point being the largest in Wisconsin, which at that time meant about 800 cows.

I didn’t know why he was calling me. Maybe it was because I was writing most of Agri-View’s dairy articles, or maybe because I was writing about the blossoming field of “sustainable agriculture”. Or, most likely, Charlie’s friend John Cockrell, the UW-Extension agriculture agent for Lafayette County, had provided my phone number. I had recently called John to ask him for the names of dairy farmers who were doing well in that time of farm crisis. His answer was rather blunt: “Nobody.” But I learned later that he had visited the Opitz spread several times by then. In any event, I wasn’t the first person Charlie had cold-called to talk grazing, and I certainly wasn’t to be the last.

The day of my visit was unusually cool for mid-June, with the Belmont Mound just to the west rising through a fog. Charlie and I walked through a calf-high sward of red clover, bromegrass and many other species that Charlie told me about as my shoes became ever-more soaked. A big and tightly bunched herd of heifers grazed nearby. He talked about how what he was doing differed from the grazing that dominated southwestern Wisconsin pastures, the kind that produced fields nibbled to golf course height by early summer. The rotations, the fencing equipment, the fertilization program, the grasses, and legumes in their lushness — all of this was new to me.

I was impressed, although I have to admit that I didn’t immediately convert to writing extensively about grazing. Opitz was ahead of the Wisconsin curve, and even he had yet to turn his milking cows out on pasture. That wouldn’t happen until the latter stages of the great drought of 1988. And while soon enough I found people who had been managing the grazing of their animals for some time — dairy farmer, Dan Patenaude, beef rancher, Larry Smith, shepherd, Doug Spany, among them — I viewed grazing as being just one part of a larger sustainable agriculture movement propelled by the Wisconsin Rural Development Center (WRDC) and the sustainable ag demonstration program run by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).

We have to understand the situation we found ourselves in at the time. Once an important component of the Wisconsin dairy industry, by the 1980s grazing had been largely, well, put out to pasture. Howard Larsen, a University of Wisconsin dairy scientist, ran a trial in the 1950s and early ‘60s in which he compared “rotational” grazing with green chopping and silo storage. Larsen, who also worked as a consultant to the silo industry, concluded that grazing wasn’t competitive in terms of productivity and economics. He wasn’t employing Andre Voisin’s grazing principles, and New Zealand fencing technology had yet to be invented. It is debatable as to whether Larsen’s biases played a major role in deterring grazing over the next two decades. The post-World War II era was a time of increased mechanization and powerful agribusiness influence. Ever-more expensive feed storage structures, some later dubbed “blue tombstones,” rose across Dairyland. The machinery needed to fill them got more expensive, too. 

Things started changing by the end of the ‘80s as both milk prices and asset valuations declined. Thousands of dairy farmers were beginning to complain about the expense and labor involved with mechanical harvest and storage. A few of them started paying attention to rotational grazing as a way to make milk cheaper and easier. Allan Nation of the Stockman Grass Farmer, previously focused almost entirely on southern U.S. beef ranching, took notice and started running articles about northern grazing dairies, promising that “a doctor’s income” could be attained from 30 cows. Carl Fredericks organized an event featuring Nation that drew hundreds to Carl Pulvermacher’s Richland County farm.

In early 1992, I wrote a series of articles for Agri-View on “The New Dairy Grazing” that included the voices of many of these converts. The response in letters and phone calls ranged from high praise to low ridicule. In any event, never in the more than three decades since has anything I’ve written received such attention. I converted a few people to grazing, and I’m proud of that.

That spring the Stockman Grass Farmer held a conference that sold out the old Chula Vista Resort in the Dells. When Nation said he would not return in 1993, a group of us decided to hold our own shindig at the same site.

It was a somewhat risky venture, as detailed in Fredericks’ chapter in this book. Just a few people divvying up tasks and praying that the weather would hold come conference time. We filled the building once more and made enough money to feel confident about going to a bigger venue the next year in Stevens Point. Soon, GrassWorks was incorporated to handle the burgeoning conference bank account.

Revolution was in the air. By now grazing was the biggest part of sustainable agriculture in Wisconsin. The GrassWorks conference drew more people than did the Midwest Organic Sustainable and Education Service (MOSES) organic conference, now renamed Marbleseed. We (I was there with the farmers in some of this, and by then I had my own grazing operation) demanded that the University of Wisconsin’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) help us learn more about grazing our animals. We were at least partly successful, as a few agronomists, dairy scientists and ag economists started paying attention. Some of them have written chapters for this book.

The greater dairy industry took notice, too. Milk processors were relating concerns that too much spring-seasonal calving would stress their cheese factory schedules and cause large operating losses. I smiled, although the part about threatening to penalize spring milk wasn’t so funny — especially since this tactic was later adopted by the organic dairy sector.

The Wisconsin Grazing Conference got bigger and better with the move to Stevens Point. In those days, at least three-quarters of the attendees milked cows. Let us just say that a goodly number of those dairy farmers liked to blow off some steam during their rare vacations away from the farm. Much networking was conducted late into the evenings and into the following mornings. As is the case to this day, the GrassWorks conference was probably two parts networking for every one part of everything else. GrassWorks’ coffers grew through those first few years.

Grazing could provide all the answers. Profitability, environment, thriving rural communities, young farmer startups — grazing solved these and many other problems. Extension Agents, Tom Kriegl and Larry Tranel, were churning out economic analyses indicating that grazing was more profitable than confinement dairy. Tranel and Vance Haugen designed, and in at least the latter case physically helped, dairy farmers install milking parlors into existing facilities at costs well below those of conventional systems. “Our” technology was as good as “their” technology.

In far northern Wisconsin, Charlie Ylitalo had a rolling herd average near 27,000 lbs. grazing (and feeding a lot of grain to) and gigantic Holsteins, netting three to four thousand dollars per cow with a 40-cow herd. South of Madison, Tim Pauli paid off a farm in about 10 years milking an average of 27 cows. Charlie Opitz was running multiple herds of 400 milkers. Grazing was for every man. And woman. And child.

We were cocky. The revolution was on a roll. Dan Patenaude related a vision in which the western half of the state would be dominated by managed dairy pastures, and I thought he might just be right.

That didn’t happen. By the turn of the century, it was obvious to me that the revolution wasn’t to be.

Don’t get me wrong here. A lot of good has happened in the grazing world since that time. Many new graziers have come into the fold. GrassWorks survived a perilous time to continue sponsoring a successful, informative grazing conference. I will get back to those positives in a bit.

But I have been asked to discuss why the revolution, or at least the dairy part of that revolution, didn’t happen. Almost certainly, truly grazing-oriented dairies (as opposed to those who “pasture” their cows) are fewer in number today compared to the latter ‘90s. Dairy graziers now compose a minority of pasture walk and GrassWorks conference attendees. What happened?

For one thing, dairy grazing wasn’t served well by public and private institutions. Certainly, individuals within university, state and federal entities did, and still do, good work in aiding graziers. Pasture-walk and winter-meeting activities in a given county have most always been directly related to the grazing interest of the county’s public sector personnel.

By and large, though, the institutions themselves never really bought into grazing. Modern agriculture researchers tend to be specialists rather than holistic thinkers, making them square pegs unlikely to ever fit into the round holes of grazing. Agribusiness either directly or indirectly controls the funding mechanisms for much of the research conducted at Land Grant colleges. When it came to dairy support, top leadership at CALS knew who was buttering their bread, and it wasn’t the graziers.

The segment of agribusiness that likes grazing tends to lack the resources for major investments in research and development efforts. As a result, advances in housing, feeding and genetics for confinement dairy outstripped the incremental changes that came to grazing agriculture. Sexed semen to produce female calves put a financial hurt on dairy graziers who had made good money selling surplus heifers to churn-and-burn confinement operations. Federal farm policy kept the cheap grain flowing while offering relatively little support to graziers.

Simple math offers another part of the explanation. Cows were milked on more than 40,000 licensed Wisconsin dairy farms the day I first visited the Opitz farm. Nearly 40 years later that number was dropping toward 4,000. We could say the decline might have been far less dramatic if grazing had received more support, and perhaps there is some truth to this. However, in hindsight we were wrong in thinking we could reverse a sociological and economic trend that had been decades in the making. We weren’t going to be able to address all of the causes.

In the end, it was largely the dairy farmers themselves who decided the revolution wasn’t to be.

Soon enough, I realized that no small number of the dairy farmers attending pasture walks and grazing conferences were doing nothing more than dipping their toes in the water. In the small grazing network south of Madison that I helped organize, there were a few folks who gave up after half-heartedly trying this shiny new object for a year or two. Grazing requires a certain mindset, one that was (and still is) not held by the great majority of dairy farmers. I’ll acknowledge that farmers in some other parts of the state had better grazing mindsets.

While some graziers tried to enlist the university, a large segment of the early dairy grazing population trusted nothing that came from the ag college. This was part of a general distrust of most any institution beyond the local level. As Carl Fredericks notes in his piece, graziers on at least two occasions rejected proposals to form statewide organizations that aimed to enhance farm-level research and demonstration efforts. For better or worse, dairy farmers wanted to talk things over with their neighbors on an informal basis. Some continued to find value in this way of doing things, but others didn’t.

The rapid growth of organic dairy markets after the turn of the century led to mixed results for grazing. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic rules eventually evolved toward requiring grazing, and seemingly this would lead to more of it being done. But what’s on paper for grain-fed organic grazing hasn’t always been enforced, and no small amount of this grazing fails to reach the standards that most of us would want to see. Many organic dairies don’t see the value in grazing.

Land costs spiraled higher, spurred by federal agriculture and monetary policies. Grazing dairies need an adequate base of land within walking distance of the milking facility, and many potential young graziers were shut out of the game due to the costs involved. The revolutionaries got old. Some found new blood to carry on the business; many others didn’t. Dairy farming is not the easiest way in the world to make a living, grazing or not. 

And this is not just a Wisconsin phenomenon. When my wife, Ruth, and I were launching Graze magazine in 2000, Plain Communities (Amish and Mennonites) in Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere were just getting to the stage of excitement that we in Wisconsin had been at several years earlier. Also the same: Within a few years, some of that enthusiasm had worn thin, and for some of the same reasons. The world has changed.

Some of that change has been for the better, with much of that tied to changing markets for dairy and meat products. The biggest single trend driving grazing, both dairy and non-dairy, has been the growth of consumer interest in what graziers are producing. Grassfed beef producers have made tremendous strides in improving the quality of their products, although more than three-quarters of U.S. grassfed demand is filled through imports.

In dairy, grassfed (no-grain) progress was delayed by the value-added market’s emphasis on certified organic, which itself was ignited by anti-rBGH backlash in the mid-1990s. But starting in the second decade of this century we have seen an explosion in demand for grassfed milk, most of it also certified organic. As of 2025, a large share of the supply is coming from Plain Communities. Grassfed dairy is not a guaranteed ticket to financial paradise, but it does require skills and knowledge the early graziers simply didn’t possess. More power to these new pioneers.

So, yes, things have changed. The future of grazing is tied to value-added markets to a degree we didn’t imagine 30 years ago. What started as a movement of veteran farmers looking to add grazing to their existing operations has evolved into one led by new farmers who started their operations with grazing — and direct marketing — in mind. Pasture walks and the annual GrassWorks conference reflect the shift. I don’t get to as many of them as I used to, but I’ve no reason to believe that the people attending these events are learning any less than those who attended similar get-togethers in the 1990s.

Networking counts for a lot, although perhaps not everything. Myself, I’d like to see more solid production data; more solid financial data; more solid evidence at the farm level that what’s being sold is actually working.

But what we have continues to provide benefits. For now, we have what amounts to an evolution. Perhaps someday the revolution will indeed be with us.

AFTERWARD (Otto Wiegand & Vance Haugen)

          This is an attempt at capturing the history of an important Wisconsin centric organizational and agricultural movement. Although the book is historical in nature, and the individual essays speak to each author’s view on both grazing and Grassworks, it could also be valuable as a grazing methodology primer.

We tried to capture the widest swath of important people and major and pivotal events involved with GrassWorks and managed grazing in Wisconsin and the Midwest. We used our best research skills and 75-plus years of experience with living and working with grazing in Wisconsin. We like to think of the list of important contributors as not a Hall of Fame but a “Hall of Graze.” It may not be practical, but GrassWorks could easily find more than one awardee each year to honor and hold up.

          We would like to thank the following persons who didn’t submit chapters but provided valuable information and insights for the editors to consider for the book. They are listed in no particular order: Paul Onan, Janet McNally, Lyle Guralski, Joe Tomandl II, Joe Tomandl III, Tim Pauli, Carl Pulvermacher, Dan Truttmann, Larry Smith, Doug Spany, Bob Wills, Valerie Dantoin, Dave Heidel, Dale Daggett, Karl Klessig, Robert Klessig, Jerry & Elise Heimerl, Jim Goodman, Bonnie Haugen, Wayne Jansen, Paul Nehring, Rachel Bouressa, John Bobbe, Lester Laack, Art Thicke, Altfrid Krusenbaum, Dave Johnson, Jim Wedeberg, Don Boland, Jason Cavadini, Amy Fenn, Deb Jakubek, Patty Laskowski Morren, Kirsten Jurcek, Chris Johnson, Mike Miles, Harley Troester, and others. We especially thank Joel McNair for his edit of this work. Since 1986, journalists and grazing advocates, Joel and Ruth McNair, have had a most powerful perspective on the history of GrassWorks and managed grazing in Wisconsin.

Our apologies to those we have undoubtedly missed or were unintentionally misrepresented. We focused on graziers who connected with GrassWorks and agency people who actively promoted grazing. We conducted scores of background interviews and offered chapters to many. We encouraged chapter writers to identify people who were significant contributors and positive influences on others, in other words, the “heroes” of the grazing story. The more often someone was mentioned, the more confident we were in finding the right people. Unfortunately, we left out many wonderful exhibitors and surely missed numerous genuine graziers. Farmers tended to be more uncomfortable about writing their stories than agency people with more writing experience. At some point, the book needed to be finished and so this is the outcome and product. Hopefully, GrassWorks will continue long into the future when at that future date someone can once again continue the history.

We regarded each chapter as a stand-alone. Acronyms were spelled out in each chapter. Although some editing was done for clarity for future and non-grazier readers, the writing style and version of the story of the contributors was largely left intact. No personal titles were used because we felt that everyone in this history, regardless of their education, status, or contribution, should be recognized on equal footing. We felt it important to position Carl Fredericks, the early grazing proponent and GrassWorks founder, as the first chapter, and Joel McNair as the final chapter of the book.

An artificial intelligence (AI) chapter about GrassWorks was generated using Co-Pilot provided for our use by Kevin Schoessow, UW-Extension Agent in Spooner. Four different questions were asked of the program. The result had good general information about the organization, but mentioned only one person, the current Executive Director, Patty Laskowski Morren. Once the information in this book is in the public domain, AI could produce a reasonable book. One wonders if this will be the last GrassWorks book written by people. 

There are several overarching themes that have defined the GrassWorks and grazing history:  

  1. Connectivity – From the early days of managed grazing to the present, there has been a stream of contacts through individuals, meetings, conferences, field days, publications, advertisements, phone calls and the internet.
  1. Respect / Civility / Inclusiveness / Women – Graziers are generally some of the kindest people around. Women make up roughly 40% of attendees at GrassWorks conferences and participate fully on most grazing farms. Young people continue to flock to GrassWorks events.
  1. Transparency / Collaboration – Graziers readily share their numbers, 

discoveries, and mistakes. Apprenticeship was a natural outcome.

  1. Innovation / Risk Taking – Many early graziers were venturing into the 

unknown amidst criticism from foes and friends. Managed grazing by nature allows for experimentation. Early innovations in agriculture often come from farmers, from the bottom up.

  1. Regionality / Field Events / Local Efforts – One cannot underestimate the power of local networks and networking in the development of managed 

grazing. Networking also created marketing opportunities for thousands of graziers.

  1. Environment – More than most other agricultural endeavors, managed grazing supports the environment rather than threatens it. Managed grazing is not just technology and profit, but includes soil health, erosion prevention, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, happy livestock, and human well-being as well as many other ecological benefits.
  1. Change / Growth – Graziers are incredibly open to change and growth. Yet graziers, like most farmers, do not change much unless the situation forces them to. The Farm Crisis of the 1980s and the 1988 Midwestern drought, among other things, were the catalysts for many of the graziers that emerged.

Abbreviations

A2 – milk containing only the A2 form of beta-casein

ACS – American Cheese Society

ADD – Wisconsin Agriculture and Divesification

AgFa – Wisconsin Agricultural Financial Advisors 

ARS – Agricultural Research Service

ATTRA – Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas

BGH / rBGH / rBST – recombinant bovine growth hormone or bovine somatotropin

BSE – bovine spongiform encephalopathy

CALS – UW College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

CAVE – Department of Continuing and Vocational Education

CCA – Certified Crop Advisor

CDP – Center for Dairy Productivity

CFRA – Center for Rural Affairs

CIAS – Center for Integrated Agricultural Studies

CLA – conjugated linoleic acid

Coop – cooperative

CROPP – Coulee Region Organic Producer Pool

CSA – Community Supported Agriculture

CSP – Conservation Set-Aside Program

cwt – 100 lbs.

DBA – Dairy Business Association

DGA – Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship Program

DATCP – Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection

DNR – Department of Natural Resources

DVM – Doctor of Veterinary Medicine

ED – executive director

EQIP – Environmental Quality Incentives Program

FA – fatty acid

FDA – Food and Drug Administration

FISC – Farm and Industry Short Course

FSA – Farm Service Agency

FU – Farmers Union

GDS – Grazing Dairy Systems

GLCI – Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative

GLGN – Great Lakes Graziers Network

IRG – intensive rotational grazing

ISO – International Standards Organization

LISA – Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture, later SARE

LLC – limited liability corporation

MALWEG – Multi-Agency Land & Water Education Grant

MATC – Madsion Area Technical College

MIG – management intensive grazing

MIRG – management intensive rotational grazing

MOSA – Midwest Organic Services Association

MOSES – Midwest Organic and Sustainable Educational Service, later Marbleseed

MSU – Michigan State University

NAIS – National Animal Identification System

NCAT – National Center for Appropriate Technology

NFIFIO – net farm income from operations

NFO – National Farmers Organization

NRCS – National Resource Conservation Service

NOSB – National Organic Standards Board

NWTC – Northeast Wisconsin Technical College

NWG – Northwest Wisconsin Graziers Network

NZ – New Zealand

OAD – once a day milking

OFARM – Organic Farmers Agency for Relationship Marketing

OPEC – Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

OV – Organic Valley

PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

PATS – Performance Appraisal Tool Survey

PC – Program Coordinator

PDPW – Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin

PFI – Practical Farmers of Iowa

Pri-Ru-Ta – Price, Rusk, and Taylor Counties

RC&D – Resource Conservation and Development Council

SARE – Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education

SWFRN – Southwest (later Southern) Farmers Research Network

SWTC – Southwest Technical College

TAD – twice a day milking

TMR – total mixed ration

USDA – United States Department of Agriculture

UW – University of Wisconsin

UWEX – University of Wisconsin Extension

UWRF – University of Wisconsin River Falls

VMD – Veterinary Medicine Doctor

WDRC – Wisconsin Dairy Research Co-operative

WFU – Wisconsin Farmers Union

WRDC – Wisconsin Rural Development Center

WSAP – Wisconsin Sustainable Agriculture Program

WSBDF – Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers