Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or bird flu has recently been reported in several nearby states and poses a significant threat to commercial and backyard (fewer than 75,000 birds) flocks. While reports of the impacts on pastured flocks have been limited so far, there is an increasing concern, particularly in areas with high concentrations of poultry operations.

Join Mike Badger of American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, Hannah Smith-Brubaker, Pasa’s Executive Director and a pastured poultry producer, along with Chris Pierce, President of Heritage Poultry Management Services, to learn about the current situation with HPAI in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Thanks to the Center for Poultry and Livestock Excellence for sponsoring this webinar.

Recorded March 9, 2022

Complete this form to watch the recording:

The post Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) Risks to Pastured & Organic Flocks appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Congress has tried for years to improve the small meat processing industry. A newly introduced bill, The Strengthening Local Processing Act, addresses some of the issues facing Pennsylvania’s small meat processors, but what else is needed?

This conversation is a continuation of our earlier Listening Session for Small Meat Processors, which you can find here.

Speakers

Michael Kovach, Owner of Walnut Hill Farm and Vice President of the PA Farmers Union

Kelly Nuckolls, Senior Policy Specialist with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The post Listening Session: What’s Next for Small Meat Processors? appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

When managed well, a pasture-based grazing system can lead to optimal dairy cow health and high quality, nutrient dense milk, but when managed poorly the same system can fail both livestock and forage. Dr. Greg Brickner from the Organic Valley veterinary team discusses the nutritional needs of the dairy cow and the grazing practices that can produce high quality forage to meet these needs.

This session covers:

• Strategies for increasing butterfat
• controlling MUN levels
• pasture management
• supplementing pasture as needed

The post Dairy Grazing Strategies for Optimal Nutrition appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Building and preserving soil health is a fundamental component of a secure food system that effectively protects ecosystems and communities. Our Soil Health Benchmark Study is designed to help farmers monitor and evaluate the nuanced soil health strengths and challenges that can exist simultaneously within their fields.

The study was developed and is administered by Pasa Sustainable Agriculture in collaboration with more than 100 vegetable, pastured livestock, and row crop farmers and partners including the Cornell Soil Health Laboratory, Future Harvest and the Million Acre Challenge, Penn State Extension, Rodale Institute, and Stroud Water Research Center.

The study, which began in 2016, is one of the largest and most diverse community soil health research projects in the nation, amassing data from a wide range of farm scales and management systems, soil types, and farmer experiences.

Download our Soil Health Benchmarks 2021 Report below for a detailed review of our study and findings to date. You can also read a summary of our findings here on our blog.

Complete this form to download the report:

The post Soil Health Benchmarks: 2021 Report appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Fluid milk sales have been declining for decades in the United States, while milk production has nearly doubled over the same time period. This has made it exceedingly challenging for small dairy farms to remain financially viable in today’s markets.

In response, many small dairies are looking toward diversifying their revenue streams with direct-market, value-added dairy product enterprises. This could be a promising strategy: Though fluid milk consumption in the United States has fallen, consumption of value-added dairy products like yogurt and cheese has risen.

In this brief, you’ll read the stories of three dairy farms that enlisted the help of a consultant to take a hard look at their proposed or existing creamery enterprises. By reading these stories, you’ll gain perspective on what might be accomplished through a similar creamery consulting process for your own dairy operation.

The post The Farmstead Creamery: Consulting for Success appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

These data indicate that grass-based dairy farms can provide environmental benefits to a local watershed, but due to a lower efficiency in milk production, they may increase the aggregate environmental impacts of regional and global supply chains.

Download the article for a full explanation of our methods and findings. 

This study was conducted in collaboration with USDA / Agricultural Research Service and findings were published in Agricultural Systems in September 2020. 

The post An environmental assessment of grass-based dairy appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

This booklet explores how agriculture has the potential to either degrade and deplete, or protect and enrich, our shared water resources.

By understanding the connections between specific farming practices and water quality and quantity, farmers, communities, and government agencies can more effectively work together to nurture a cleaner, more abundant water supply and a healthier, more secure food system.

While the geographic focus for this booklet is Pennsylvania, the core issues discussed—water, farming, and a sustainable future—are global.

Complete this form to download the report:

The post Water Farming: Managing Agricultural Lands for Clean & Safe Water appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

During this webinar, we’ll show you how to create a customized and effective biosecurity system on your pastured pork farm. We’ll start by defining a key concept of biosecurity: creating lines of separation. Lines of separation, or commonly referred to as the “clean/dirty line,” are the most effective way to manage pathogen transfer onto your farm and to your animals. We’ll also share examples of how to examine your farm for the best locations to establish lines of separation to prevent and minimize contamination.

Speaker information

Dr. Elizabeth (Beth) Hines: Dr. Hines is an animal physiology scientist with 12+ years of practical, hands-on experience and training in the swine industry, research, and education—from mating to marketing. Biosecurity is life in the swine industry, and the trick to effectively managing biosecurity on your farm means to customize it. Beth’s experience in living biosecurity day-in and day-out will help you understand how to apply biosecurity practically to your farm.

Brooks Miller, North Mountain Pastures: Brooks operates North Mountain Pastures, a small family farm dedicated to producing great food using ecologically sound production practices on 84 acres in Perry County, Pennsylvania. Animals are naturally raised outdoors, on grass, or in carefully managed woodlots and fed only non-GMO grain. Brooks and his wife Anna, joined by their children, have been farming together since 2006.

The post Biosecurity for Pastured Pork Farms appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Pasture Song Farm is located on 90 acres of the Lundale Farm Preserve in Chester County. Farmers Jeremy Dunphy and Clara Osborne manage the operation, including the breeding, raising, and marketing of over 150 pigs each year.Pasture Song moves their pigs regularly through annual and perennial pastures in rotation with field crops, including corn and small grains, which are harvested and ground on their farm for feed. The finished pork products are sold through farmers markets, CSA meat shares, and various wholesale accounts. During this virtual farm tour, you’ll learn about the pitfalls and rewards of raising pigs on pasture in rotation with other crops, including strategies for feed, bedding, fencing, shelter, pasture management, and crop rotation.

The post Pastured Pork Fundamentals appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Click the “download” button to access this worksheet. Contact research@pasafarming.org for assistance & more information.

The post Pastured Livestock Efficiency Benchmark Worksheet appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

This is a complex problem, involving daunting challenges in production, marketing, and distribution. As a starting point, it’s important to understand just how much land it takes to produce pastured animals, and where some of the bottlenecks for more efficient production may lie.

In partnership with 10 diversified pastured livestock farms in Pennsylvania, we developed feed and land efficiency benchmarks for the most common meat animals. This research brief both documents those benchmarks, and uses them to consider implications for land use scenarios and the future of sustainable meat farming in our region.

Interested in benchmarking your pastured livestock farm’s land and feed efficiency? We can work with you using the methods outlined in this resource. Our worksheet for calculating benchmarks can be accessed at pasafarming.org/land-feed-benchmarks-worksheet, or contact research@pasafarming.org for more information. As more farmers contribute data using these tools, we can improve the accuracy of our benchmarks and help highlight more innovative practices that improve efficiency.

Complete this form to download the report:

The post Scaling Up Pastured Livestock Production: Benchmarks for Getting the Most Out of Feed & Land appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Join Pasa for a presentation and conversation with organic, grass-fed dairy farmer Ron Holter, of Frederick County, Maryland, as he attempts to answer this question. Ron will present on his multi-generational grazing dairy farm in Maryland, including his work developing grass-fed genetics for his herd and others. Ron has been grazing cows since 1995 and certified organic since 2005. He began line-breeding in his herd in 2006, and developed his first bull for marketing grass-fed genetics the same year he transitioned to 100% grass on the farm, in 2007. The webinar will end with a conversation and attendee questions.

This webinar is offered free of charge through support from a USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Grant.

Speaker Information

Ron Holter is a fifth-generation dairy farmer in Frederick County, Maryland. Ron transitioned his family’s dairy to organic 20 years ago, and now manages a 100 percent grass-fed herd. He also breeds and sells grass-fed genetics from his own herd. Ron’s son, Adam, works alongside his father and is in-line to be the sixth-generation owner/operator of the family farm.

The post Grass-fed Genetics appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

The grass-fed dairy and beef market is growing, but raising grass-fed animals can be a challenge. In this webinar, Delaware Valley University professor Chris Gambino will discuss rumen development in the pre-weaned calf, and the role grain can play at this critical time of life. Is grain necessary for the proper rumen function? If a certification does not allow grain to be fed, how does the livestock manager assure good health in the calf? Chris will look at current and developing research around this important area of livestock management.

Speaker information

Christopher Gambino is an assistant professor of animal science at Delaware Valley University. His teaching focuses on livestock feeding and nutrition, organic livestock management, and the policies of aligning agriculture production with environmental outcomes. He received his PhD in animal science from Washington State University, where he studied how nitrogen cycles in dairy and beef production systems. He researched rumen microbial populations, fed-nitrogen loss, and nutrient loss from manure management strategies. He also holds a graduate certificate in sustainable agriculture from Washington State University.

The post Grass, Grain & the Developing Rumen appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Through our Soil Health Benchmark Study, we’re discovering common soil health problems farmers are facing. These soil health issues are happening for a variety of reasons that might include effects from severe weather, unintended consequences from production methods, or simply not having a practical way to implement effective soil-building strategies.

During this webinar, we’ll review several common soil health challenges and explore how farmers are working to fix them. We’ll also explain how you can contribute to the Soil Health Benchmark Study as a community scientist and connect with a peer-community of farmers advancing the art and science of sustainable farming.

Our landmark Soil Health Benchmark Study is the most diverse farmer-led soil science project in the nation.

The post Insights on Common Soil Health Challenges appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

The post My Soil Health is Excellent, Now What: Improving Efficiency at Blue Mountain View Farm appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

They say “What gets measured, gets managed.” Given that there is a lot to manage on a working farm, effective record-keeping tools are essential to the success of any farm business.

During this webinar, we introduce FarmOS: A free, flexible, and powerful web-based tool for managing farm records for everything from crop planning, to pest management, to livestock inventories.

Among other capabilities, FarmOS lets you map your crop fields, view soil maps, and use modules to track when to plant, cultivate your fields, and apply soil amendments. You can also use FarmOS to contribute to Pasa’s Soil Health Benchmark Study and our other farm-based research projects.

The post Whole Farm Management with FarmOS appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Farmer Matt Bomgardner of Blue Mountain View dairy farm discusses the economics and logic behind various management decisions on his third-generation dairy farm in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.

Once a primarily confined operation, Matt and his family have worked to incorporate more grazing into their management systems at Blue Mountain View—which is in the process of obtaining its organic registration—to create a more resilient farm operation. Matt and his family have been working with a profit team since 2011 to hone their management skills.

During this webinar, Matt shares the history and profile of his farm and discusses topics such as labor efficiencies, production income versus expenses, and herd genetics and grazing tactics, including maximizing stocking rates. Duane Hertzler, a longtime grazier and member of Matt’s profit team, joins the conversation as well.

This webinar is a good opportunity for those looking to begin or increase grazing strategies within their dairy operation to gain a better understanding of both the challenges and benefits of these practices. Current graziers will also benefit from this profile of a grazing dairy that has worked hard on understanding the numbers behind their management decisions.

The post Integrating Grazing in the Modern Dairy appeared first on Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.