Values and adoption in regenerative grazing practices and associated wellbeing outcomes for cow-calf producers

For our context, regenerative grazing is defined as practicing Holistic Planned Grazing (HPG), the grazing method within Holistic Management. HPG utilizes multiple paddocks to control livestock movements and requires the development of grazing plans of when and where to move animals with an emphasis on recovery periods for the paddocks rather than grazing periods. A crucial aspect to HPG is monitoring to adjust grazing plans given changing conditions. We will work with three cohorts, starting with 20 Michigan residents in each, anticipating some attrition to 15 – our required sample size.

C1. 15-20 new regenerative grazers, who adopt regenerative grazing through this project.

C2. 15-20 regenerative grazers with 10+ years of experience, who have previously participated in MSU-run regenerative grazing programs.

C3. 15-20 continuous (non-regenerative) grazers, our control.

Our general approach is to treat farms as social-ecological systems, which requires understanding the ecological, social, and economic components of the system, and how they are connected. To understand this, based on previous work by this team, three established wellbeing tools will be used in a longitudinal manner:

Ecological wellbeing: We will use the Ecological Outcomes Verification (EOV) Short-Term Monitoring tool, a practical and scalable soil and landscape assessment methodology that tracks annual outcomes in biodiversity, soil health, and ecosystem function (water cycle, mineral cycle, energy flow, and community dynamics) (Xu et al., 2019). Co-developed by Raven, a key principle of EOV is that it is outcomes-based – any producer can utilize it, no matter their practices. EOV measures key indicators of ecosystem function resulting in an Ecological Health Index (EHI) score, which in the aggregate indicates positive or negative trends in the overall health of a landscape. If a producer is using practices that increase the ecological wellbeing of their land, their scores will increase year-by-year. The empirical and tangible outcomes of EOV provide the producer, as a steward and manager of the land, with ongoing feedback from which to make better management decisions. By monitoring land regeneration trends, a farm or ranch is eligible for EOV verification and associated incentives if land health moves in a net positive direction, through the Land to Market Program. We will train all cohorts in EOV, so they can assess their own land’s ecological quality, and will work with them on an annual basis to monitor their land, with on-site assistance during the early years and assistance through an online platform in all years. Having gone through the EOV training, all participants will be qualified as EOV Short-Term Monitors and can then earn additional income from verifying others’ land.

Social wellbeing:  Historically, wellbeing metrics originate from within economics and derive wellbeing from census data and global surveys, conflating wellbeing with socio-economic indicators such as income, assets, and social status. This approach is lacking, as a high level of income does not necessarily reduce stress or increase happiness – indeed, often the opposite is true. Therefore, to truly measure wellbeing we have created a tool to monitor what we see as the three core components of social wellbeing - psychological, subjective, and physical wellbeing. The tool combines the Satisfaction with Life Scale developed by Diener (1994) with the Scale of Psychological Wellbeing developed by Ryff (1989), incorporating both subjective and psychological aspects. Given that psychological wellbeing is based upon the idea of ‘living within your value’ we also include a validated held values survey tool, that of Schwartz (2012), and a set of grazing-specific relational values created from our previous work (Mathison and Hodbod, 2019). Finally, we also included questions about indicators of physical wellbeing - financial status, education, sense of community, anxiety, and physical health (sleep, exercise, healthy eating), that are typically found on rural mental health surveys such as the one developed by Kelly et al. (2010). The tools will be introduced to all cohorts in a training about wellbeing and values, with a post evaluation of their knowledge. We will then introduce the survey tools for annual completion, building participant’s skills in monitoring and analyzing their own wellbeing.

Economic Wellbeing: Economic wellbeing is a synonym of present and future financial security and as such, it depends on two main variables: income and wealth. However, there is a subjective aspect to it: the degree of satisfaction or fulfillment. With each cohort of farmers, we will complete a financial wellbeing analysis in years 3 and 4 that includes both objective and subjective (feelings/perceptions) measures. For the objective measures, we will help them complete their balance sheet and income statement. In addition, we will help them complete an enterprise budget to understand the profitability of their cow-calf enterprise. They will receive training in record keeping, developing coordinated financial statements (i.e. balance sheet, income statement), and financial ratios, which can be tracked over time and benchmarked against other farms. Depending on their degree of comfort with computers, they will be asked to use digital or paper spreadsheet templates, which Colella and McKendree have already developed for other studies and farm consultations. The enterprise budget will give us information on the cow-calf enterprise economic profitability, including opportunity costs (land, labor, capital). We will also track their off-farm income, health insurance coverage, perceived economic wellbeing, and their degree of comfort with their finances in general, and with those of the cow-calf enterprise in particular – i.e. economic wellbeing measures that are not included in the farm finances. Knowing their income and their satisfaction information will allow us to look for correlations between these two variables and make programming and management recommendations.

There were some delays in Y1 given the travel and research restrictions in place at Michigan State University during 2021 given the COVID19 pandemic. This project requires trust between the participating farmers and the research team to support asking about social and economic wellbeing, and trust-building requires face-to-face communication. Because this wasn’t feasible, we were delayed in recruitment which occured in the first quarter of Y2.

To use our time efficiently, we spent Y1 preparing research protocols, priming for recruitment in cohort 1 and 2 via ecological wellbeing monitoring on farms we have previously trained in EOV, and relationship building through our MSU Extension colleagues and their networks. Below is the adapted outline for our project, summarising activities in Y1 and Y2 and the anticipated structure for Y3 and Y4 (given the No Cost Extension which we applied for in Spring 2022).

Year 1 (2021):

• Winter and Spring: team building at MSU – We partnered with MSU Extension (Lake City Research Center; LCRC and Upper Peninsula Research and Extension Center; UPREC; Farm Management Unit; Beef Team), building relationships and familiarity amongst the team.
• Summer: EOV (ecological wellbeing) data collection on 17 farms by Raven and Derry. 14 have been previously introduced to EOV where their long-term monitoring was completed, so monitoring in 2021 was the short-term EHI monitoring. 3 were new participants for whom Raven and Derry oversaw long-term and short-term monitoring. All 17 are likely participants in our project, likely to be members of Cohort 1 and 2.
• Fall: Onboarding of student researchers (Jonathan Vivas Aragon and Sarah Hubbard), including their education in wellbeing theory. Deeper development of conceptual framing for the project. Literature review of wellbeing tools released since proposal was submitted. Revision of social wellbeing tools. Developing new record-keeping training modules and tools to complement established tools for economic wellbeing monitoring.

Year 2 (2022):

• Winter:
  • We used our relationships with MSU Extension (Lake City Research Center; LCRC and Upper Peninsula Research and Extension Center; UPREC) to prime these organizations to be ready to distribute our recruitment materials.
  • We prepared the recruitment survey: MSU_Wellbeing_Study_Recruitment
  • We prepared recruitment materials – email language, social media posts, magazine articles, and flyers (i.e., https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/wellbeing-on-beef-farms-in-michigan, 2022 0323 MSU Beef Wellbeing flyer, )
  • Dr. McKendree (lead of economics components) was on maternity leave.
• Spring:
  • We distributed our recruitment materials and survey link widely, with assistance from stakeholders such as MSU Extension Beef Team and MI Cattleman's Association. There were 98 responses in March 2022.
  • We invited 61 to participate in the project, anticipating some attrition.
    • 11 declined between April and November 2022.
    • 13 were removed in Summer 2022 for lack of response to outreach/scheduling solicitations.
    • 37 farms remain as active participants (sometimes with multiple participants per farm, given multi-generational or partner management).
  • The participants didn’t evenly fit between the three cohorts, with initial classifications as:
    • 6 adapting
    • 20 already adaptive
    • 11 conventional
  • During the recruitment process we discussed with participants what they would like to achieve through the project and integrated further components if feasible or connected them (through MSU Extension) to relevant programs or staff.
  • As a first packet of information, we shared an ‘intro to wellbeing’ document with all participating producers while scheduling their intake interview for May 2022: 2022 0425 Intro to Wellbeing
  • Intake interviews with 34 of the participating farms were held by zoom or phone in May 2022. The protocol is here: 2022 0513 Protocol for intake interview 
    • After interviews, 1 farm was moved into the ‘adapting’ group so the final cohorts were:
      • 7 adapting
      • 19 already adaptive
      • 11 conventional
  • Immediately following the interview, participants completed the social wellbeing survey, either independently online after being emailed the link or on the phone with one of our team. The survey is here: 2022 MSU_Social_Wellbeing_Survey
    • 38 people representing 35 of the farms completed the survey. The survey elicited information about psychological, subjective, and physical wellbeing along with values, for the latter we integrated a replacement for the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale (which we originally planned to use). The survey will be repeated annually so we can study change in wellbeing and values over time for all cohorts.
  • Dr. McKendree (lead of economics components) was on maternity leave.
• Summer:
  • EOV training was offered to all participants by the Ecol WB team. There were 3 Short Term Monitoring (STM) workshops taught during the summer of 2022 at Lake City Research Centre (5/25 – 5/27; 6/15 – 6/17; 7/6 -7/8; 7/27 – 7/29). These 3-day workshops taught participants to identify and score leading ecological indicators on their farm.
    • A total of 31 producers participated in the three STM workshops.
    • On the last day, producers scored four sites and had to be within a standard deviation of the official score of the instructors.
    • Furthermore, they received additional instruction when their farm was monitored.
  • The Ecol WB team conducted Ecological Monitoring on 39 farms during the 2022 growing season using the Ecological Outcomes Verification (EOV) protocol developed by the Savory Institute in conjunction with Ovis21 and Michigan State University. EOV consists of Short Term Monitoring (STM) which evaluates 15 leading ecological indicators on an annual basis and Long Term Monitoring (LTM) which measures lagging ecological indicators every five years.
    • LTM and STM were conducted on 27 farms during the summer of 2022 (mostly in Cohort 1 and 3) while 12 farms were monitored only with STM as they had previously been monitored and LTM site was already established (mostly in Cohort 2).
    • As part of the LTM, the 27 farms newly monitored in 2022 were offered the opportunity to have additional monitoring conducted, including soil-testing (the Cornell Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health), done at reduced rate through MSU which will establish baseline lagging ecological indicators such as soil health beyond that which the EOV Short-Term Monitoring will collect. This would allow producers to join the Land to Market program, the world’s first verified regenerative sourcing label, if they so desire.
  • The Ecol WB team offered a series of other trainings to create the intervention towards regenerative ag:
    • A Holistic Management training course was offered to C1 (6/22 – 6/24), with a specific focus on Holistic Planned Grazing.  This workshop provided the foundation to managing holistically and served as the pre-requisite for the remaining HM workshops.
      • • 14 producers completed the course.
        • There were 13 who had already taken the Introduction course during other opportunities .
    • A specific Holistic Planned Grazing was taught to 23 producers during the height of the growing season (7/14 – 7/15).
      • Producers left the workshop with a grazing plan for the remaining portion of the 2022 growing season.
    • A Holistic Land Planning course was offered and had 17 producers participating (8/16 – 8/17).
      • They left with a forward-thinking plan for their farm leveraging concepts learned from the previous workshops.
  • The Social WB team analysed the 2022 survey data.
  • The Econ WB conducted a literature review on financial wellbeing to begin developing a farmer-specific financial wellbeing framework that includes both objective and subjective measures of financial wellbeing. 
• Fall:
  • Producers who attended an STM workshop and at least one HM workshop were eligible to apply for a mini-grant (form here: MiniGrant_Application__JH_MMS), distributed by the Ecol WB team. There were 16 producers eligible, 15 applied for and received a $2,500 mini-grant.
    • Five spent their funds on fencing, five spent it on improving water for livestock, four for hay bale unrollers, and one for seeding.
    • All expenses were appropriate for moving their operations towards a more adaptive approach to grazing.
  • The Social and Ecol WB research assistants led data analysis for the annual social and ecological wellbeing data, along with the creation of summary documents to share with the participants.
    • Each of the 39 farms that had EOV conducted on their land received an EOV summary report specific to their farm in November 2022. Each report is approximately 15 pages long and explains the results of the monitoring as well as providing some feedback about what farmers could do to align their production goals with sustainable management practices. Here is an example: EOV_APF_2022
  • The Econ WB team developed and distributed a financial record-keeping survey (Initial_Contact_Survey for IRB 11-3-22) to understand the current state of the financial records of the participants as well as their level of record-keeping knowledge. Additionally, we continued to develop the financial wellbeing framework - Framework20230406.

Year 3 (2023):

• Winter
  • The Ecol WB team began creating an online EOV training platform and accompanying material, secured supplemental funding from SARE through the conference funding line to subsidize the Holistic Planned Grazing workshops, and began planning for Spring and Summer courses. 
  • The Social WB team began to prepare a methods publication with the data from 2022. We also made some edits to the survey for clarity/efficiency and worked with the Econ WB team to integrate concepts related to financial wellbeing. The revised survey protocol for 2023 is here: 2023 MSU Socio-Economic_Wellbeing_Survey
  • The Econ WB team finalized the financial wellbeing framework (including having the framework reviewed by other experts from academia, Extension, and the beef sector) which influenced their survey inputs but also the objective financial wellbeing data they planned to collect as farm financial records. They also began developing the financial record-keeping educational modules.
• Spring:
  • The Ecol WB team planned the 7 sessions for 2023 and ran 2 during this period:
    • 9 producers took advantage of a 4-hour planning session on March 10th 2023 to develop their grazing plan for the 2023 growing season. Each participant left the workshop with a poster-size chart to help them plan and monitor their grazing system: Grazing Chart 
    • We held a HPG 2-day course (5/25-5/26) with 5 participants. This included 2 producers from our project cohorts and 3 non-project producers.  
  • The Social WB team collected social and economic wellbeing data (i.e. psychological, subjective, and physical wellbeing; values; perceptions of financial risk) in April-May 2023, to update the social wellbeing dataset with a second time point and add the first time point to the economic wellbeing dataset. Data was collected online or via a telephone-based survey, depending on the comfort of the producer. 42 surveys were completed (some farms had multiple decision makers who each did the survey).
  • The Economic wellbeing team held a webinar for SARE participants on May 30th 2023, teaching the basics of farm financial management and explaining the timeline and goals of data collection. Here are the slides: Econ Data Collection Webinar and the recording is here: https://mediaspace.msu.edu/media/SARE+Financial+Wellbeing+Webinar+on+May+30%2C+2022/1_h1ea208y 

• Summer: There was some attrition during this period, with 3 participants dropping out so our total cohort is 36. 
  • The Ecol WB team:
    • Hosted another short-term monitoring training (July 6/7) with 5 participants – 2 of which were part of the project cohorts and 3 were non-project producers.
    • Hosted a Holistic Land Planning course Aug. 5/6. We had 5 participants, 2 of which were part of our project. 
    • Repeated the short-term EOV monitoring on 31 farms throughout late summer. Although we planned to have the participants carry out the assessment by themselves and submit photos to an online platform, we found that the producers did not want to do the monitoring themselves. They preferred we came to their farm and did the monitoring while they walked along and asked questions. Thus, the MSU team conducted the monitoring for 31 producers, 5 did not respond to communications to schedule the monitoring or submit the results of their own monitoring.
  • The Social wellbeing team:
    • Analysed the 2023 survey data.
    • Continued to prepare a journal article ‘Exploring the Relationship between Regenerative Grazing and Ranchers' Wellbeing’ outlining the social wellbeing framework and using the 2022 data as an example application.  
  • The Economic wellbeing team met with 15 participants to collect the data for and create their financial reports (including whole-farm ratios and enterprise budgets) - protocol here: Financial Data Collection Worksheet. Visits were a mix of in-person and virtual, depending on the participant’s preference. The majority of participants did not respond to the econ team’s invitation to create the financial reports. The econ team took this as feedback to consider how to make the process more appealing in future iterations. 
• Fall:

• • The Ecol wellbeing team: 
    • Prepared 31 individual farm reports, ~10 pages, with data integrated into the report to help illustrate changes in ecosystem function over time. An example is here: EOV_APF_2023
    • Hosted a Holistic Financial Planning Course (Oct. 24/25). We had 4 participants, and 3 of them were part of this project. 
    • Launched the online EOV training (https://www.canr.msu.edu/regenerative-agriculture/eov-training/) to which all project participants were given access. We did not have a tracking mechanism for our project participants, but we had 10 non-project participants request access in Nov/Dec of 2023.
  • The Social wellbeing team:
    • Prepared and then distributed reports summarising each participant’s social wellbeing data as a short report in November 2023 (an example is here: MI_08_2023 report), along with a summary report looking across the whole group (SARE 2023 general report). 
    • We also submitted the social wellbeing framework paper to Journal for Rural Studies in November 2023: JoRS Wellbeing Manuscript 
  • The Economic wellbeing team:
    • Analysed the financial report data collected in Summer 2023 and re-shaped the data collection tools to improve both the analysis for the farms that did share, as well as future data collection efforts.
    • Analysed the subjective financial wellbeing data from the survey.
    • Were made aware of the departure of Dr. McKendree from MSU (and academia) and were planning how to move forward.

Year 4 (2024):

• Winter:
  • The Ecological wellbeing team:
    • Created and distributed an “end of project check-in" survey (protocol here:2023 1114 SARE_Exit_Survey) to understand what project participants had gained from participating in our trainings. The survey was distributed to all 31 active EOV participants and we received 27 responses. More than half of respondents reported making changes to the frequency of grazing rotations and what indicators they look for when monitoring grazing spaces. 
    • Contributed to the holistic wellbeing paper described below. 
  • The Social wellbeing team:
    • Received 'minor revisions' decision on the social WB paper, made the revisions, and resubmitted it: MSU SWB Manuscript_Revised
    • Led preparation of a publication outlining our project’s framework for a holistic (social-ecological-economic) wellbeing index and analysis, to be submitted to Environmental and Sustainability Indicators in Summer 2024.
    • Prepared the socio-economic wellbeing survey for final distribution in Spring 2024 - protocol here: 2024 MSU Socio-Economic_Wellbeing_Survey
  • The Economic WB team rebuild after Melissa McKendree left MSU. During this time, they: 
    • Were still analysing the financial report data collection from Summer 2023, and polishing the data collection tools for their repeated use in 2024.
    • Additionally, to respond to the poor response rate in 2023, the Econ team updated an 8-module self-paced online farm financial course, “Farm Money Matters” for SARE participants. All SARE project (n=36) participants were invited to participate in it in March 2024 (Farm Finance Invitation). They were also invited to two group check-in meetings per month that will be held until February of 2025 to ask questions and discuss course content and/or other farm business management and recordkeeping issues with the course instructors. The course covers farm strategic planning and management, financial statements, financial analysis, budgets, succession planning and recordkeeping, including guides to QuickBooks, PC Mars and accounting spreadsheets. 
• Spring:
  • The Ecological WB team:
    • Will spend spring updating their monitoring tools to make data collection easier and more efficient.  
    • Have a grazing planning two-day course scheduled for May 22/23.  
    • Will also continue to collaborate with Social team on the holistic wellbeing journal article. 
  • The Social WB team will distribute a final iteration of the socio-economic wellbeing data collection in April-May 2024 (online or by phone).
  • The Economic wellbeing team will run two check-in meetings per month to answer questions about the online farm finance course, supporting participants in developing their own financial statements. Certificates of completion will be provided in exchange for all completed budgets.  
• Summer:
  • The Ecological WB team will carry out a final EOV assessment on all farms.
  • The Social wellbeing team will analyse the final survey dataset and prepare and distribute annual reports – 1) for each individual participant and 2) a project summary.  
  • The Economic wellbeing team will carry out a final data collection activity via zoom for those not participating in the online course. Additionally, they will run the two check-in meetings per month for those participating in the course.  
  • All teams will collaborate on the analysis of the annual social, economic, and ecological wellbeing data and contribute to overarching evaluation to answer research questions: 
    • Analyze relationships between cohorts – how does management relate to social, ecological, and economic wellbeing? 
    • Analyze within cohort temporal patterns - How are ecological, social, and economic wellbeing and values influenced by or influence adoption? i.e. are producers’ values and wellbeing measures static or dynamic? 
    • Synthesize the pathways (conduits and barriers) to adoption of regenerative grazing practices. 
• Fall: 
  • The Ecological wellbeing team will prepare and distribute the final annual EOV reports, which will integrate data from all three years of monitoring to illustrate changes over time on each individual farm.. 
  • The Social wellbeing team will facilitate a dissemination event, made of two parts: 
    • Firstly, we’ll share out results with participants and representatives of our secondary audience, i.e. Extension educators, university faculty & researchers, beef sector stakeholders including the Cattleman’s Association, consumer representatives, and policy makers, SARE. 
    • We’ll then ask our participants to stay for the afternoon to further explore conduits and barriers to adoption of regenerative methods given the experiences through this project and through other resources participants have sought out. 
    • This will also act as a networking event – where the different cohorts meet in person and we can establish what structures we can establish for ongoing networking (facebook group, sign up for MSUE emails etc.).  
    • We will also hold evaluative focus groups within these events for representatives from primary and secondary audiences. 
  • The Econ WB team will carry out a final record keeping check-in by phone/email/zoom.
  •  

We anticipated conducting five producer trainings and over 180 producer check-ins with our participants, as well as a regional online survey to understand social/economic wellbeing and views on regenerative grazing across a representative population of cow-calf producers. We have already (April 2024) conducted 6 producer trainings and 46 producer check-ins.

Inputs required to achieve this are SARE grant funds; land, facilities, and equipment of two MSU Research and Extension Centers; time, labor, and expertise of the researchers, Extension personnel, and producers.