Will Harris drew this diagram with a pen on a crumpled piece of paper one August 2016 afternoon. He wanted to visually explain his land management system on the 2500 acres here at White Oak Pastures. Our Multimedia Manager Laura Mortelliti added a few bells and whistles to the imagery, but the concept is fully Will's and we are excited to share it with you.
In this diagram, Will thoughtfully explains the "organism" that is his holistically managed farm, and maintains that a commoditized, industrial farm would be more of a linear diagram, with excess and nutrient loss at every step. As you can see in the diagram, White Oak Pastures has a patchwork of land types. Our land ranges from the fertile soil on the traditional Harris family pastures which have been grazed by cattle for 5 generations, to the extremely nutrient-depleted soils of recently aquired industrial crop land, to old timber property, to abandoned, overgrown, fallow land, etc. We are working each of these properties differently with our ten species (Read this blog post: Restoring Productivity Of Overgrown Forest Through Holistic Animal Impact for an example with visuals). We use the species and their specialties to rehabilitate, maintain, and improve the land, all the while working towards our ultimate Savory Institute Savannah Paradigm.
