Progress report for ENE23-187
Project Information
Problem or Opportunity and Justification:
Silvopasture mitigates many of the most pressing agricultural and ecological challenges of our time. Integrating trees into pasture simultaneously addresses issues around farm economy (over-reliance on single-income streams and off-farm feed), animal welfare and climate resiliency (heat-stress, cold-stress, feed availability during drought). It also reduces stormwater runoff and erosion, while enhancing biodiversity. Silvopasture is ranked as the number one means of sequestering carbon in the temperate zone (1). Therefore it directly addresses the cause of climate change, while simultaneously protecting livestock and farm income from its impacts.
A challenge is that few farmers and ag professionals are well-versed in both grazing and trees, especially tree establishment in the challenging conditions of active pasture. Silvopasture systems are relatively complex and specialized knowledge is required. Because of this, most farmers are ill-equipped or intimidated to develop silvopasture on their own. But with professional support, the potential scale of application is tremendous. Any farmer who raises animals (ruminants, horses, pigs or poultry) on pasture stands to benefit from integration of trees.
There are many general silvopasture resources, but to date there are no programs or resources specifically designed to train professionals to systematically develop and execute silvopasture plans with farmers in the Northeast.
Solution and Approach:
The solution is training planners to successfully implement and manage silvopasture in partnership with farmers. This involves developing professional-level resources, workshops and coaching in real-world applications. The course will provide this. And because we are practitioners ourselves, participants will have the unique learning opportunity of touring existing silvopasture systems as well as discussing case studies with the actual planners who planned and implemented them.
Professionals must understand details beyond what most farmers need to know, such as designing and managing a project, selecting well-adapted stock, and accessing cost share. These detailed how-tos are simply not available in a user-friendly educational format at the moment, mostly due to the reality that almost zero professionals are actively engaged in planning, implementation and aftercare of silvopasture systems. Of those, an even smaller portion is experienced in curriculum development. This means that at present, silvopasture implementation know-how in the Northeast lives almost exclusively in the heads of the few experienced project leads. In order for silvopasture to be adopted at scale, this knowledge needs to be shared with other professionals.
We at Trees For Graziers have helped 20+ farms establish 16,000+ trees on 360+ acres in just the past three years, in a geography where previously almost no silvopasture was happening. By equipping professionals with the tools to make silvopasture effective and easy for farmers to adopt, we are confident that similar rates of success will follow elsewhere.
Citation
- Table of Solutions | @ProjectDrawdown. (2021, August 16). Project Drawdown. https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions
40 service providers will write at least 80 plans for 80 farms that are raising livestock on pasture, directly affecting at least 2,500 acres. During the timeline of the grant, at least 15 of those 80 farms will have started to add trees to their pastures.
Problem or Opportunity and Justification:
Silvopasture mitigates many of the most pressing agricultural and ecological challenges of our time. Integrating trees into pasture simultaneously addresses issues around farm economy (over-reliance on single-income streams and off-farm feed), animal welfare and climate resiliency (heat-stress, cold-stress, feed availability during drought). It also reduces stormwater runoff and erosion, while enhancing biodiversity. Silvopasture is ranked as the number one means of sequestering carbon in the temperate zone (1). Therefore it directly addresses the cause of climate change, while simultaneously protecting livestock and farm income from its impacts.
A challenge is that few farmers and ag professionals are well-versed in both grazing and trees, especially tree establishment in the challenging conditions of active pasture. Silvopasture systems are relatively complex and specialized knowledge is required. Because of this, most farmers are ill-equipped or intimidated to develop silvopasture on their own. But with professional support, the potential scale of application is tremendous. Any farmer who raises animals (ruminants, horses, pigs or poultry) on pasture stands to benefit from integration of trees.
There are many general silvopasture resources, but to date there are no programs or resources specifically designed to train professionals to systematically develop and execute silvopasture plans with farmers in the Northeast.
Solution and Approach:
The solution is training planners to successfully implement and manage silvopasture in partnership with farmers. This involves developing professional-level resources, workshops and coaching in real-world applications. The course will provide this. And because we are practitioners ourselves, participants will have the unique learning opportunity of touring existing silvopasture systems as well as discussing case studies with the actual planners who planned and implemented them.
Professionals must understand details beyond what most farmers need to know, such as designing and managing a project, selecting well-adapted stock, and accessing cost share. These detailed how-tos are simply not available in a user-friendly educational format at the moment, mostly due to the reality that almost zero professionals are actively engaged in planning, implementation and aftercare of silvopasture systems. Of those, an even smaller portion is experienced in curriculum development. This means that at present, silvopasture implementation know-how in the Northeast lives almost exclusively in the heads of the few experienced project leads. In order for silvopasture to be adopted at scale, this knowledge needs to be shared with other professionals.
We at Trees For Graziers have helped 20+ farms establish 16,000+ trees on 360+ acres in just the past three years, in a geography where previously almost no silvopasture was happening. By equipping professionals with the tools to make silvopasture effective and easy for farmers to adopt, we are confident that similar rates of success will follow elsewhere.
Cooperators
Educational approach
Engagement
Trees For Graziers has an expanding contact list of farmers and TSPs interested in silvopasture (currently over 1,000). We are also well connected within the agroforestry community, including companies and nonprofits in the space via advisory committees, workshops we lead, and both formal and informal partnerships.
We also advertise in the major grazing-related publications. There we plan to advertise our resources so TSPs can be made aware directly, and also so that farmers can relay the information to TSPs they work with. Between the publications well over 10,000 households are reached regularly.
We also have invitations to write for major grazing publications, and have already published several articles in OnPasture and Graze. Because of this, we can reach the audiences of these publications with in-depth articles, then refer them to our resources.
Our work to equip participants can be split into two broad categories. One is live, in-person workshops where participants can delve deep into the practice of silvopasture. The other is through resources (documents, curated resource libraries, webinars, videos) that participants can freely access at any time. Those resources can then serve as supplements to in-person workshops, or stand-alone resources for those not able to attend workshops.
We aim to have 40 TSPs go through our 3-day workshops, 45 more people attend single-day workshops, and have 300 individuals make use of our online resources. All participants will get registered for email updates so that we can provide them with quality resources as they are developed, while keeping them aware of events. For the duration of the grant, we will require email addresses be submitted in order to download free material, so results can be tracked and people get signed up for notification of new resources. Once the grant is finished, the registration wall will be removed.
Learning
In-person workshops will focus on demonstrating to participants the nuts and bolts of silvopasture plantings and how they can be applied to their own practice. They will address issues such as landowner recruitment, project design, project management, materials to use, etc. Then we will spend significant time developing silvopasture plans for clients of participants.
Online resources will include:
- A free, updated version of TFG’s flagship resource, The Grazier’s Guide to Trees. We will use SARE funding to update and expand the book and make it freely available as a PDF, thus making a high quality, very practical resource (the vast majority of which was already written at TFG’s expense) freely available to the public
- A workbook guiding participants through the process of adapting silvopasture to their contexts
- Guide on how to become certified TSP with NRCS for silvopasture
- Guide to accessing NRCS funding
- A directory of NGOs able to help with funding
- A curated guide to the best nurseries for commonly used silvopasture stock, including small up-and-coming nurseries with specialized stock for agroforestry
- Detailed and comprehensive species profiles for commonly used silvopasture trees, going into great detail for certain species that are of high value and no other comprehensive resource exists, like for mulberries and honey locust
- A guide to developing their own cuttings nursery for willow and poplar
- A producer intake form
- Video tours of silvopasture projects
- A contact list of TSPs, so that farmers can find people to help them, and TSPs can be connected to clients
- Webinar on developing a silvopasture service
- Other articles, some aimed at farmers and professionals, some geared just for professionals
We plan to host these resources both on SARE’s website, and on the Trees For Graziers website, where we already have a suite of resources. That way we can keep resources very easily accessible by farmers and TSPs alike.
Evaluation
Our main deliverable will be silvopasture plans written and executed. We will track this during our training, and further verification of plan writing and implementation will happen through ongoing coaching and polling of training participants after the courses have been completed. During this time we will collect further data on types of farms served, acreage, etc.
We will track participants in our workshop as well as views and downloads of materials from our website so that we know how many people are being reached. Each workshop will include an evaluation form so we can improve our offerings for the next round, as well as make relevant resources available following workshops.
Milestones
August 2023 Format of online resource library at treesforgraziers.com will be published. First resources uploaded. Notify our networks. (Complete) “Learning”
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- Participants: Will be shared with 1,200+ contacts via email and social media. We will also use this opportunity to promote workshops in November
- Learning: Resources will include:
- Workbook to adapt silvopasture to TSP’s context (In progress)
- Nursery recommendations (Complete)
- Producer intake form (Complete, with additional intake form that includes explanations of why we ask certain questions)
- Detailed species profiles (Complete)
- Silvopasture Cost Share Proposal in NRCS format. (Completed. This is a new document, not part of our original proposal, but offers advocates a useful resource that uses the standards and formats of NRCS to advocate for better silvopasture support through EQIP.)
- Completion date: August 31, 2023
- Team: Advisory committee will distribute notification and resources through their channels and networks as well
Summer 1-day workshops. “Learning” (Complete for 2023. Total of 17 participants, with 8 ag professionals and 9 farmers. Complete for 2024. Total of 13 participants, with 8 ag professionals and 5 farmers.)
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- Participants: We will offer day-long silvopasture workshops targeting ag professionals. These workshops will be less of a financial and time commitment than the 3-day workshops, so they will be accessible to more people and start to build a wider pool of interested participants. We aim for 15 participants per workshop, with 8 ag professionals (we expect farmers to come as well, though they will not be our main target audience)
- Learning: Given that these will be summer workshops, matters relating to heat stress, shade and drought will be at the forefront of people’s minds. We will tour different farms each year so we can highlight different aspects of each.
- Completion dates: August 31, 2023/2024/2025. Once annually.
- Team: Advisory committee will share event notifications through their channels
November 3-day workshops. 2023, 2024, 2025. “Learning” (Complete for 2023, with 19 participants. Complete for 2024, with 31 participants)
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- Participants: 10 in 2023, 15 in 24/25
- Learning: Participants will learn the practical details of silvopasture plantings and how they can be applied to their own practice. They will address issues such as landowner recruitment, project design, project management, materials to use, etc. Then we will spend significant time developing silvopasture plans for clients of participants.
- Completion date: November 30, 2023/2024/2025. Once annually.
- Team: Core team members will participate in the training
Post-Training TSP Coaching. “Learning” (Completed for 2023 cohort. Meetings scheduled and in progress for 2024 cohort.)
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- Participants: 10 in 2023, 15 in 24 and 25
- Offer support and coaching for those who went through the 3-day intensive courses as a means of helping them put into practice what they learned. Also, will allow us to track the results of our training by understanding how many farms they've worked with to develop plans.
- Completion date: April 1, 2024/2025/2026. Wrap up all coaching in the 4 months after the training.
- Team: Austin and consulting team will participate in coaching
February 2024 Additional Resources uploaded to website. “Learning”
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- Participants: Will be shared with 1,500+ contacts via email and social media
- Learning: Resources will include:
- Guide to accessing NRCS funding (Completed in article regarding CSP)
- We determine that we are not well suited for this, as we had hoped, as Pennsylvania NRCS has still not opened up cost-share for silvopasture. When we wrote the grant, we were optimistic that the practice would be turned on by now and we would get expeirence with navigating the NRCS system. The good news is we have received a CIG in collaboration with Pasa, but it looks like we won't get NRCS approval for several years.
- Guide to becoming silvopasture TSP in NRCS system
- See above. We attempted this year to get some of our consulting team members approved as NRCS TSPs for grazing plans, and were faced with numerous roadblocks to doing so. While certain NRCS staff were very helpful, others seemed to block our efforts. Again, we are not in a good position to write on this subject, unfortunately.
- A directory of NGOs able to help with funding
- We determined that this is too transitory, given how often grants come and go.
- A guide to developing their own cuttings nursery for willow and poplar
- Not yet complete. We have a live stake nursery going in Spring 2025, which will allow us to take pictures and document that process
- The Investment Case for Silvopasture
- An 19-page whitepaper diving into the reasons professionals should consider investing in silvopasture. This can be applied by professional investors, farmers, land management companies, nonprofits, etc. The aim is to highlight to unique opportunities presented by establishing trees on underutilized land, and how one would develop a business around this unique opportunity, thus scaling the adoption of this practice in the process.
- SilvoPro Business Course Guide
- This makes publicly available the material we developed for the SilvoPro Adapt course in early 2024. This workbook guides readers through the process of outlining their own agroforestry service, starting with a base of understanding themselves, including strengths, weaknesses and goals. They then get into their regional context, farmer goals, project management, running a business, and much more.
- Silvopasture Economic Model.
- Sticking with the theme of silvopasture economics, this spreadsheet allows users to input their own values and estimations for their silvopasture system, thus getting an idea of the financial returns and timeframe they can estimate. This tool was years in the making, and the SARE grant allowed us to refine it and make it much more user-friendly.
- Guide to accessing NRCS funding (Completed in article regarding CSP)
- Completion date: February 28, 2024
- Team: Advisory committee will distribute notification and resources through their channels and networks as well
Summer engagement push. “Engagement” (Completed for 2023 and 2024. We regularly send resources and articles via our email list, which by January 2025 has over 2,200 subscribers and a 66% open rate. We have also been published in Acres USA, The Stockman Grass Farmer and Graze)
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- We will promote both our online resources and upcoming workshops to all our contacts via email and social media. We will also line up articles to be printed in major grazing publications during the summer months, when heat stress is prominent and the need for shade and silvopasture is on people’s minds
- Learning: We will highlight resources on shade and heat stress, while referring people to our growing library of resources. Articles for publishing will focus on heat stress, shade, drought, etc.
- Completion dates: August 31, 2024/2025
- Team: Advisory committee will distribute notification and resources through their channels and networks as well
February 2025 Additional Resources uploaded to website. “Learning”
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- Participants: Notification of resources will be shared with 1,500+ contacts via email and social media
- Learning: Resources will include:
- Video tours of silvopasture projects
- Webinar on developing a silvopasture professional service
- Completion date: February 28, 2025
- Team: Advisory committee will distribute notification and resources through their channels and networks as well
February 2026 Final resources uploaded to website. “Learning”
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- Participants: Will be sent to 1,800+ contacts via email and social media. We will also advertise in major grazing publications (reaching 10,000+ households) to make people aware of the suite of resources available
- Learning: Resources will include:
- Revised and updated version of The Grazier’s Guide to Trees will be available for free download, and as a paid hardcopy
- Revised and updated versions of resources previously provided
- A contact list of TSPs, so that farmers can find people to help them, and TSPs can be connected to clients
- Completion date: February 30, 2026
- Team: Advisory committee will distribute notification and resources through their channels and networks as well
Milestone activities and participation summary
Participants in the project’s educational activities:
Performance Target Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes - Service Providers
Target #1
40
40 service providers will write at least 80 plans for 80 farms that are raising livestock on pasture, directly affecting at least 2,500 acres. During the timeline of the grant.
80
2,500 acres
Performance Target Outcomes - Farmers
Target #1
15
15 farms will start to add trees to their pastures
Additional Project Outcomes
2023 Annual Report Narrative
Introduction
The work for this SARE grant got off to a slow start in 2023, and ended the year on a very strong note. Given that the award was finalized during tree planting season, which is all hands on deck for our company, very little happened for the first several months. We did determine that we should hire for a Director of Education to handle this SARE grant as well as the other educational work we have going on, including more professional trainings. Joshua Greene agreed in May to work for Trees For Graziers, but could only start after the summer fishing in Alaska. Once Joshua started in August, we started working intently on the deliverables for this grant.
Summer SilvoPro
Our first summer SilvoPro session was well attended. We had aimed for 15 in our grant proposal, opened the event up for 20, and had 17 people attend. Some of those who registered ended up not showing, and we aim to avoid that in the future by charging a small registration fee as a commitment device. If there’s a little skin in the game, we hope to see better attendance, especially given that we’re capping the registration, and anyone who registers but doesn’t attend limits the ability of someone else to attend. We had 8 TSPs attend and 9 farmers.
It’s really nice to be able to plan these events far in advance, knowing that we have the funding to put them on. We have already posted the registration for our event in August 2024, which will be held at a newer silvopasture planting near Harrisburg, about an hour away from Fiddle Creek Dairy, which hosted our first event. That will give some geographic and context diversity and make it easier for certain people to attend. Now that Joshua is fully up to speed (he had only just started a week or two before our 2023 event), we’ll be much better organized to take registration, have handouts, break up into smaller groups for hands-on activities, etc.
November SilvoPro
The November SilvoPro is the event that I was the most happy with, as we had a fantastic turn-out this year. We had set as a goal in our proposal to have 10 participants, but as the event approached we determined that it’s best to train a larger cohort, so we opened up the registration to 20, and had 19 attend (one person who registered could not make the trip from Nebraska last minute). We had participants attend from PA, NY, IA, DE, MN, MA, TX and TN, including 4 in extension services in NY.
We were very glad with the outcome of the training. There was great group cohesion despite the larger group size, and we were able to train up a whole group from Cornell, as well as a bunch of other independent folks from NY that can all collaborate together. We were also surprised by the distance people were willing to travel for this training, which seems to indicate that there’s a real need to develop this type of training in other regions as well. We are already doing a regional spinoff in Ohio, with requests for SilvoPro trainings in North Carolina and Maryland as well.
We have monthly calls scheduled for our SilvoPro alumni to keep in touch, address questions, and offer new resources. We also have our November 2024 event scheduled and registration open, again for 20 attendees.
“SilvoPro Adapt”
Since the November SilvoPro, we have started working on a follow-up course offering called SilvoPro Adapt, which is built on this SARE grant but not included in the scope of the award. For those who want to continue on with additional coaching to develop a silvopasture service adapted to their context and region, we will be offering a group coaching and consulting program. This first round in 2024 will be a dry run, much like we did in developing this SilvoPro training before we submitted the grant for funding. It needs to happen, there is demand, and we want to see people run with this, so we’ll make it happen, and maybe somewhere down the line we’ll seek a grant for it. We had set our sights conservatively, to only seek out a small group of 5 for the first round, and already have 8 folks, of which all but 2 went through one of our in-person SilvoPro events. They represent new services (and in this case, all private business services) starting up to serve farmers in NY, MD, VA, MN and TN. This was exactly our goal from the outset, which we’re excited to see come to fruition.
Resources and Articles
Outside of the courses offered, we have also been developing a suite of resources geared at professionals. Those resources can be found here on our website, which Joshua was able to modify for easy posting of resources going forward. Resources to-date include:
- Silvopasture species profile, going into some detail on the main species we use in silvopasture
- Planting Plan Blank, which is our standardized intake form for consulting clients
- Planting Plan Blank with Explainers, which reviews why we ask the questions that we do, so we can educate TSPs who have questions about the need for certain questions in our intake, and how the responses might sway a plan
- Nursery Recommendations
- Silvopasture Cost Share Proposal in an NRCS format, which professionals can use to present to NRCS if they are involved with the process of advising or changing NRCS policy or cost share rates. This has already been used by folks in several states to advocate for better silvopasture support
In addition to the above resources, we continue to write and post articles, many of which are specifically geared towards consultants who will be working with many farm clients. We’ve written about the emotional rollercoaster of the first few years of silvopasture when there’s no benefits to the farm yet (The Dip), Precautionary principles to follow so as to avoid making costly mistakes in projects, and how to use NRCS CSP cost-share on small silvopasture plantings, regardless of state.
2024 Annual Report Narrative
Introduction
In 2024 we made several updates and additions to the SilvoPro course, adjusting based on experience and feedback from 2023. We started off the year by offering the course SilvoPro Adapt in February, which gave participants the tools they needed to adapt silvopasture services to their own contexts. The summer course was again successful, and the November course was fuller than we’d ever had before. The interest in silvopasture, among farmers and professionals, is growing indeed.
Summer SilvoPro
Our second edition of the summer SilvoPro was again well attended. We had aimed for 15 in our grant proposal, opened the event up for 15, and had 13 people attend. We had a similar no-show rate this year, despite charging an entrance fee, with the aim of having some more skin in the game. Even though we didn’t see a change, the sample size was very small, and the entrance fee allowed us to hand out hats and books to participants, which was well received. We had 8 TSPs attend and 5 farmers.
November SilvoPro
This year marked the largest group we’ve ever had for a SilvoPro course. We set a cap at 20 initially, and then kept pushing that back as the demand grew, as it’s hard to turn folks away from wanting to learn about silvopasture. Our final count was 31 participants. Our constraint really was mostly due to the facilities an lodging we had available at our host site. Going forward to 2025, we are changing our host site, such that it will require less driving from site to site, and also does not offer food or lodging, thus simplifying our coordination and removing the constraint of lodging. Attendees will be on their own to find breakfasts, supper and lodging, and we’ll have a caterer bring lunches. Hence, we could conceivably have even more people attend the 2025 version. Because less traveling will be needed to visit sites, we’ll compact the event from spanning three days to just two days, and are confident we can cover all of our bases in that time.
We will also be moving the Fall course from November to September, thus avoiding our busy fall planting season. When we started the course several years ago, fall was less busy, but coordinating SilvoPro and planting projects got to be more than ideal this year. September will also offer nicer weather for field trips.
“SilvoPro Adapt”
In February we ran what we called the SilvoPro Adapt course, which trained (aspiring) professionals on how to start and operate a professional silvopasture service for farmers in their regions, including outreach, project coordination, seasonal cashflow and much more. It was very well received, and we plan to offer it again in the future. We also plan on offering a course focused on writing plans and designs for farms. The current aim is to do that course in August or September 2025.
Resources and Articles
The two of the three large, professionally-oriented resources we worked on this past year were an economic model for silvopasture returns on investment and a piece called The Investment Case for Silvopasture. Both attempt to quantify for professionals the financial returns they can expect to see from investing the time, energy and money into planting trees into pastures. Most everyone is convinced of the ecological benefits of the practice, but the financial outcomes are harder to quantify, particularly because they help avoid costs, rather than give a new product to sell, such as a chestnut or apple.
The other resource is the curriculum we developed for SilvoPro Adapt, which walks readers through the process of crafting a professional agroforestry service for themselves, to serve farmers in their region.
Our writing of new articles slowed down in 2024, but we did put out several with professionals in mind, including The Case For Investing in Trees over Land, as well as the nuances required for Adaptive Grazing in Silvopasture systems.