After six years of building PastureMap from the ground up, George and I are proud to announce that we’ve found the right successors to acquire PastureMap and to invest in its next stage of growth. We are excited to welcome Lew Moorman and Ed Byrne of Soilworks Natural Capital, a public benefit corporation devoted to expanding the regenerative agriculture economy, based out of San Antonio, Texas.
Recent Posts
As COVID-19 continues to develop, here at PastureMap we wanted to check in with a message of care for our community. Rest assured that all our operations will continue - we are fortunate to be a remote team that is already working from home in California and Texas. CK will be continue to be available for all PastureMap operations and support.
2019 has seen the biggest winter storms on record, a remarkably late spring, even snow in May - and we’re only halfway through the year. Looking ahead into the future, the only constant we can expect is change.
That's why we're excited to announce PastureMap's Forage Forecasting and Scenario Planning features. So you can make big decisions during the grazing season, backed by smart data.
We've covered Lydia Carpenter and Wian Prinsloo's decade-long journey from inception to farm ownership. For lessons from the first 5 years, see: Making Farm Ownership Viable for Young People: Lessons from Luna Field Farm Part I
We are very grateful that Ainsley Harris at FastCompany highlighted regenerative ranching in full long-form coverage today. This was a several month process of working with a thoughtful journalist on soil health, research studies, invitations to conferences, etc.. We learned a lot about how much it takes for a smart, engaged journalist to ramp up on an issue as complex and in-depth as regenerative agriculture.
Read FastCompany's full coverage here: The Green New Deal Wants Farmers to Restore the Land, Not Keep Wrecking It
Please share widely. Mainstream media and thoughtful journalists are beginning to take notice.
Photos: Luna Field Farm
How Lydia Carpenter and Wian Prinsloo got to farm ownership, nearly a decade after they started their grazing and regenerative meat business.
Our good friends Lydia Carpenter and Wian Prinsloo are the owners of Luna Field Farm near Belmont, Manitoba. Neither of them grew up with a family farm, but were deeply committed to farming as a career since their 20s. They knew they wanted to farm, but had no clear picture how they would work their way into owning land.
Fast forward a decade, and they have built their way from renting pastures, to rolling three-year leases, to owning their own farm in a succession agreement nearly a decade after they started their business.
Part I: Advice to Young Farmers From Luna Field Farm reposted from our blog in 2016. It starts with building a small, portable business to take advantage of leases. Stay tuned for Part II on a deep dive of how they made farm ownership work.
We couldn't be prouder to support Womxn in Ranching.
We're proud to follow our teammate Erin Kiley's leadership in creating critical spaces of inclusion and belonging. Erin started one of the initial conversations that became Womxn* in Ranching (WinR), in a hallway conversation at Quivira Conference. Erin Kiley asked for more spaces for womxn like herself in the ranching community. Just a year later, Womxn in Ranching is 80 members strong, with a 300+ person waitlist. As a leader in WinR, Erin has helped create 5 Circles in California, Montana, and New Mexico. In her day job, Erin is the Grazing Management and Rancher Success Lead at PastureMap.
When womxn rise, we all rise.
"Womxn in Ranching is not just about womxn, and not just about ranchers. It's about answering the calling of “how do we belong to the land?” and “how do we belong to each other?” The answers reverberate far beyond the circles of womxn, and ranchers, from where these questions originate." - Our CEO, Christine Su, belongs to Circle Two at TomKat Ranch in CA.
The WinR fundraiser has one week left, and has reached 70% of their funding goal. Donate now for a 3x funding match. Achieving $10k will unlock $30k total from matching partners to build WinR Circles in every Western State.
Donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/women-in-ranching-empowering-womens-leadership
PastureMap Pro Tips!
You might have a pond, stream, stand of trees or brush, or other area that you want to exclude from grazeable acreage in a pasture. A bunch of you have been asking how to draw those in PastureMap.
I can't believe it's time to welcome 450 producers to Santa Rosa for Grassfed Exchange 2019: Regeneration Rising in less than a week. As co-chair of the conference, I've been dreaming, planning, and anticipating for a full year. Here are the sessions I'm most excited about:
Our breakout session with Dave Pratt and Deborah Clark on Friday. Real talk on losing millions, pulling out of disaster, and make-or-break decisions that drive ranch profitability.
A version of this post first appeared July 2018. This March 2019 update precedes the Grassfed Exchange: Regeneration Rising 2019 conference.
Many of us in the soil health movement like to think of ourselves as regenerative businesses. But a regenerative mindset isn’t only about land, animals, and plants. Building a regenerative business means including ourselves. We need to invest in what Nikki Silvestri calls social soil building.