Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone, Emma here. We're deep in prep for our new mini-series on Agrarian Futures, where we will be exploring the potential for a better food system rooted in cooperative principles.
Speaker: In the meantime, we've got a special announcement. Agrarian Futures is joining the World Within Studios podcast network. World Within is a nonprofit that invests in solutions and stories that are building an economy that's owned by the many, not just the few.
Speaker: We are delighted to be adding agrarian futures to that effort. Today, we're cross-posting an episode of our fellow World Within Studios show, the How to Change the World podcast.
Speaker: In this episode, my friend Rustam Zafari sits down with Coopert Hibbert, co-founder of Old Salt Co-op, a cooperative of Montana ranchers pushing back against big beef.
Speaker: His co-founder, Cole Mannix, was on a previous episode of Agrarian Futures, and I think this conversation today adds even more to the picture of what it would take to build a better food system.
Speaker: The health of a society can be measured off of the health of a tablespoon of its soil. And I believe that we have a a biological connection to the land. I believe that we have a spiritual connection to land. Deserts in communities, deserts in people, deserts in human heart, they're formed through our relationship to land.
Speaker: and how we steward that land. We are a part of the solution. The earth needs us. I believe I'm here on this earth to create as much life as possible. Life begets life.
Speaker: That's stewardship.
Speaker: From World Within Studios and PRX, you're listening to the How to Change the World podcast. I'm your host, Rostam Zavali.
Speaker: Last episode, we had on Cole Mannix, the founder of Old Salt Co-op. Old Salt is a collective of ranchers outside of Helena, Montana, who are coming together to fight industrial agriculture and reclaim power, dignity, and sustainability for their own communities.
Speaker: Cooper Hipper is one of those ranchers. This is a conversation about what we inherit and what we choose to do with that inheritance. I've learned so much from him, and I know you will too.
Speaker: I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to the How to Change the World podcast. Thank you so much, Coop, for being here. um My friend Cooper Hibbard, he's a rancher and a steward for land and an advocate for land like you've never seen before. So excited talk about all things family, land, food, ranching.
Speaker: But before we get into it, I want to do a quick lightning round. Let's do it. Cows are bad for the environment. No. The land would be better off if we just left it alone. No. Ranching no longer makes sense in the modern world. No.
Speaker: Favorite song?
Speaker: Oh, this moment, um, afterlife by arcade fire. We could all have access to ethically and sustainably grown meat. Yes. Most useful tool on the ranch.
Speaker: your heart and your brain. Being in relationship with the land is directly and enormously beneficial to our personal wellbeing. Yes. Favorite read of dog? Border Collie, hands down.
Speaker: Perfect. ah On a high level, what is ranching and what makes something a ranch? Like what does that mean? And what does that look like on a day-to-day basis for you?
Speaker: So ranching is basically growing, raising livestock for food or for fiber or both. And we do both of that. We raise cattle and sheep. And so like in a place like Montana, which is a harsh climate, um you really can't grow anything but grass.
Speaker: We couldn't grow group vegetables, we couldn't grow grains. There's no no other option than to harvest the grass that is grown and to do so, the the best harvesters in the world are livestock.
Speaker: It's an easily romanticized profession, but it's very, very hard. Animals don't take vacations. They don't take breaks. They need cared for 24-7 every single day of the year, and a lot of things can go wrong.
Speaker: um But it can also be equally rewarding, and as if if you're drawn to that, it can be a very fulfilling experience. profession Your connection um to land starts in large part with your great-great-grandfather and his legacy, Henry Sieben.
Speaker: Reading about him, he came to the U.S. as a very young person, had lost his mother from Germany, you know lost his father in short succession after that. And him and one brother followed, I believe, John Bozeman. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: out to Montana. In 1864. They walked out from Illinois, basically, with a wagon train when he was 17. And they were they're orphans, more or less, he and his brother.
Speaker: He shows up in town, and I think at the time, there was less than a thousand non-natives in the entire state. Curious how... how that has made it into your family's lore, his life. Much like many people at that time, he was just desperate and hopeful for anything better than that baseline that had been his first 17 years.
Speaker: But showing up to Virginia City and seeing men hanging from the tree, you know, he showed up right in the the big vigilante push where there's um citizens took it upon themselves because the law...
Speaker: was not doing its job and basically became the law and went out and started catching these robber barons and and hanging them. And so there was all this not exactly humane, benevolent energy going on that he walked into that he had to learn at an early age to navigate through.
Speaker: And he did, and he did well. And one thing that really, so if you follow the trajectory of his life, he lived until he was 90 years old. And the man who wrote his obituary... This did not show up in his book, but I did read the obituary, and one thing that stuck out to me was that of all the people that he interviewed for information on Henry Sieben, who did end up going from rags to riches in that type of an environment, he couldn't find anyone who would say anything bad about him.
Speaker: not one thing. And I think that that's incredibly telling because a lot of people rose to power in that time by being cutthroats, by being dishonest, by living a life without integrity.
Speaker: And he was the exact opposite. How do you all think well about carrying that legacy of integrity, honesty, connection forward? There's a lot there wrapped up in that question. He cared for and loved animals. He made his he made his wealth ranching. The ranching world, there was quite a bit of money to be made if you played your cards right. And he did. He was one of the few that did.
Speaker: And the fact that there's all these stories that were passed down, like he he would take bull whips away from from freighters who were hauling materials to and from mining camps or whatever, who were mistreating their livestock.
Speaker: This is in the 1800s, like that's that's pretty amazing. and So there's this there's this inherent love of life, inherent love of animals, inherent love of land that we have.
Speaker: And through him, um he had two daughters. And so my great grandmother, his youngest daughter, that's who basically passed on because he was this very reserved man. But that's who passed on our family values. We have a family constitution that basically says we don't own.
Speaker: There's this ranch under our name. We do not own it. We're stewards. We're stewards of that place. That's our mission. That's our life. That's what we do. if And it's that that spirit and that that integrity that pervades who we are as a family, how we conduct he ourselves with respect for others, with respect for animals, both livestock and wildlife, with respect for water, plants,
Speaker: And people, that's our baseline for going about our daily lives, let alone ah generation to generation. That's really, i love that you have a family constitution. Is it what, I guess at what point does, do you get brought into that? Is it something that like, there was like a rite of passage when you were like 16, they talked to you about it. It something from a young age, like you have two kids yourself. When do you bring them into that? How does how does that work? Every few family meetings, we will read the the family constitution just to ground us.
Speaker: And also to help like, through osmosis, just have that permeate into the sixth generation. of Because they aren't around the ranch as much as we were growing up and certainly not around the ranch as much as my dad and his two brothers were growing up. And so the question now is, well, how do you instill this this love of land, this love of place, this love of this place to the point where it's not just a connection, it's a spiritual and sacred connection?
Speaker: That's kind of our proactive way of of ensuring that no matter what, we stick together as a family and that nobody wants to split off or sell off shares of the ranch. Because once one person does that, you're sunk.
Speaker: And so we have to have buy-in from everyone. Absolutely. So, I mean, I think one challenge I see is back in his day, as you said, ranching was lucrative, you know, for a lot of people.
Speaker: um Now, because of the commodity industry and like big, big beef and all these things, that's not the case anymore. So what keeps, since like the the economics seem to have changed, but your your your commitment, your family's Commitment to stewardship hasn't changed.
Speaker: It's only grown, I would say. Why is that? Well, I think i think when money's taken out of the equation, or it's very much a part of the equation, it makes it life very difficult, which is what's happened with Since Henry Stevens time ranching, cattle ranching, sheep ranching, it's now a commodity system. And in commodity systems, they're super efficient. They're very good at what they do, but they suck all margin out, especially for the very first chain of that whole connection, which is where we are. We're literally on ground level. We're on soil level. And so the money from when people go to the store to buy beef, we we get a tiny fraction of that dollar.
Speaker: And why why does all this matter? in terms of In terms of people might say, okay, if someone says, well, big beef is so efficient at it. Yes, we lose a certain way of life. All these ranchers, ranches, you know, there they big you know it becomes outdated, like,
Speaker: How do you respond to that? What is lost if we lose this way of ranching? What's the impact of that? Oh, boy. um is It's pretty drastic, and I think there's a big ripple effect. Let's just say if for whatever reason, my family's ranch, it's no longer my family, and it's bought by someone who doesn't want to see any cattle there, and it's just it just is. Yeah.
Speaker: We have anywhere from five to 13 employees that were putting food on tables for those families. So you'd lose that that part of the the economy, that part of keeping people on the land. Next, what you'd see is the first two years, you'd see a lot of grass grow back.
Speaker: But then the ground would slowly start to die. All grasslands in the world co-evolved with huge grazing herds of mammals. Think of when there were tens of millions of bison in the American prairies.
Speaker: So those grasses co-evolved with that relationship. And when those huge grazing herds of of mammals were going across the landscape, they would be in these big, tight bunches because there'd there'd be predators on on the outskirts. There'd be wolves, grizzlies, coyotes, humans.
Speaker: So they'd stay bunched up for protection and they would eat animals. every single plant in front of them that they could because they they didn't have the luxury of choosing and just kind of moseying on. Like they would they would go to one spot, graze it really hard and leave and not come back for a year, year and a half, sometimes two years.
Speaker: This is a growing awareness in the ranching community that's been starting the last couple decades. And the power that we've seen in harnessing that relationship between grazing mammal and grass, the type of grazing that we're doing at the ranch is called non-selective grazing.
Speaker: And that's grazing the plants in a way to where it's either grazed or it's trampled. You're at such high density, it's either grazed or it's trampled in a very short period of time. We're talking anywhere from one day to maybe seven days until the the animals leave and they don't come back for a year, year and a half. Every plant's put on a level playing field and the plants with the deepest root systems and the most amount of leaf area outcompete.
Speaker: They succeed in that scenario. And those are your desirable species. Those are our native species. And they stay greener longer. They photosynthesize for a longer period of time. And through photosynthesis, they're pulling out carbon dioxide molecules out of the atmosphere, splitting those molecules. Carbon is sequestered in the soil. With each 1% increase of carbon in your soil, you you increase your what your grounds significantly.
Speaker: water holding capacity by 280 000 gallons an acre and so you're increasing your soil health which makes your ground more productive which makes the plants stay greener longer plus you're by default selecting for your desirable species which grow more biomass which means you can run more cattle, the number one driver of profitability for a ranch is what's called your stocking rate. That's how many cattle you can run within your boundaries on a year-in, year-out basis.
Speaker: And by doing this in the last nine years, on average, in one zone of the ranch, we've increased the forage harvest and production rate, or grass harvest and production rate, by 300% nine And one place you did close 900%. Yeah, it was 876% in this one pasture that Because we went hunting this weekend that pasture. Yeah.
Speaker: and this one pasture that you've because we went elk cunning this past weekend on that pasture and You were whispering because we didn't want to scare the elk. You're like, this past year, 876% increase. That's amazing. And, you know, it seems like a there's this huge communal impact. There's a huge societal environmental impact. But it also, there's really personal impact here.
Speaker: Because, in a sense, you're trying to figure this out to save the ranch. And so it's not like... waylaid and like basically left behind by these bigger market forces. Like how do you save it and steward it to the next generation?
Speaker: And part of that journey was kind of giving yourself your own masters in this, and you know, and you, to you know, to my knowledge went to like South America and studied a stint there and then to Japan and I mean, you wanted to save this place, but in doing it, it required going to, it's almost like a hero's journey, going out and getting all these pieces of wisdom from other people, then coming back home and living it.
Speaker: Can you tell me a bit about, yeah, that journey? And then, yeah, just some of the color of that experience. Because it sounds like a, just sounds like an unbelievable adventure. By the time I was 12, I knew what I wanted to do.
Speaker: it was never a choice. was just a knowing. And so I went around my childhood with this kind of freakish intensity of, all right, I know how hard it's going to be. And I know where I'm going to be.
Speaker: What can I do to prepare myself for this? What should I do?
Speaker: to make sure and ensure that we march this the family ranch forward to the sixth generation. I knew I wanted to study agricultural business, so I applied to colleges my senior year of high school, got into Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, which has a great agriculture program, and... um deferred my enrollment for a year and went and worked on the family ranch for a full year so that fully understood what it was like season in season out before I went and studied it. That's actually a really smart thing too it's like i think more of us would benefit from we spend a year in what you kind of want to do after college because then you have a whole different set of questions that you want to ask and learn and you went into that experience knowing what you were going to face yeah and so you're probably better equipped to make the most of that time.
Speaker: i sort I sure felt like it. And i came away from that strongly believing that most kids should do a gap year before they go and study in college, go out and into the real world and just do whatever. That's pretty unfair ask of most 18-year-olds.
Speaker: Like, what do you want to do with the rest of your life, you know? um I decided to go to Cal Poly because and not go to the Montana State University in Bozeman, which is that college, because I knew I'd be in Montana the rest of my life. So I thought getting out of state for four years to probably do me some good. And then graduating, I was like, you know what, I'm not quite ready to go home yet.
Speaker: And so my family gave me four years to go out and study. And so... I wanted to go out into other cultures. I went and worked on two ranches in northern Mexico, and then I worked on a big ranch in Colorado for two years, and I worked on a big sheep ranch in Patagonia, and then another place in northern Argentina, and then went and worked on two huge cattle stations in Australia, northern Australia.
Speaker: And while I was there, that's when my family's like, all right, time for you to come home. you know I got tapped to come home, and um But I wouldn't have changed that for the world, the most amazing experiences, going to these other places, other cultures. And it's just an immediate open door into not just the culture, but the the rural culture, which is really grounded.
Speaker: And it also just gave me a lot of faith in humanity, too. Just all these wonderful people. I was around in every single corner of the globe. So what what did you pick up? insights, philosophy, techniques. Like, like give me some of like the highlights of each of those different areas. Like, yeah, I think to,
Speaker: To distill it down, um so Mexico, both places in Mexico had been practicing holistic management, and holistic management is this way of grazing, basically, that was brought to us by this man, Alan Savory, who um was a wildlife biologist in Africa, and through a series of...
Speaker: ah mistakes and blunders he ended up connecting the dots of that relationship that I mentioned earlier between grazing mammals and grass and how important that is and how if we mimic it it unleashes this huge power and so the first ranch I went to in Mexico was the first ranch to bring Alan Savory to the American continent and so they'd been practicing holistic management for 30 years by the time I'd gotten there I took a bus there to this small town in Coahuila, which is a state in northern Mexico, and two ranch hands met me with this stock truck, this big Mercedes stock truck, which is just like a big truck with a cargo bed in the back that you can load livestock in.
Speaker: And we all pile in single cab. I'm in the middle, and it's a five-hour drive up to the ranch. And so by by the time we're getting to the ranch, it's dark. All you can see is what's in the headlights, and it's just...
Speaker: dirt and rocks and cactus, just what you'd think Northern Mexico would look like. And we're just going along, going along, going along, go through one gate, go through another gate, get to this third gate and he stops.
Speaker: And that grass was on the other side of the fence was four feet tall. It was as tall as the hood of that stock truck. And the driver turned to me and he said, welcome to Valle Colombia, which is the name of the ranch. He's like,
Speaker: Welcome to the ranch. And that's what ah that's the power of holistic management. That was an incredible, very formidable opportunity for me to go there and just see what they'd been doing and also just kind of um solidified how incredibly...
Speaker: potent grazing can be on a global scale. And then there's just this real magic in Mexico. So for instance, I was part of the cowboy crew and um every two weeks we'd swap out horses and the the rest of the horse herd was up in the mountains. And what you do, you'd grab your two horses that you've been riding. You'd get on one and you'd pony the other, which means trail it behind, like holding, leaning a halter rope.
Speaker: We trot out, we'd gather up the horses and And the horses would run down and the cowboys would ride in front of all all these loose horses that they just ran in from the mountains and they'd yell, fordemenci, which is basically like compose yourselves.
Speaker: And these horses would all get in a line and back up in a line with their rumps against the fence. And you'd get off, you take your bridle off your horse, you'd unsaddle your horse and you go over and you pick out your next two horses.
Speaker: It was unbelievable. and And then I asked the lead cowboy, was like, how did you train your horses to do this? Like this is, I've never even heard of this. And he said, I don't know.
Speaker: Basically what he said is it's just institutionalized. It happened decades ago, and the horses teach the yeah the older horses teach younger horses what to do when they yell Fordopense. And so it's just like this, um Northern Mexico is just rich in culture, ah magical place.
Speaker: Also, I think that spiritual connection is something that is really apparent in the way you think about your work and your life and land in general. And that's, it's almost like certain cultures and communities have a sixth sense around nature that has been, you know, can...
Speaker: for a lot of us has been, you know, forgotten or, you know, or kind of removed from our lives. i mean, I remember when we went elk hunting, you talked about there's times where the elk presents itself.
Speaker: And, and like that right there is a, is a, just a level of awareness and the connection nature that most people might not consider. I mean, can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker: Yeah. So we, I grew up hunting and, um, There's times you're you're out in the landscape, right? And you're out in the elements. And as you were a part of, you spot animals and you put on a sneak and you can smell them and you're just you're you're just there and you're trying to strip everything else away just to like be there and and do a good hunt. And when you're close enough to take ah an ethical shot, like this last weekend, for instance, there there was not a good shot.
Speaker: A good shot would be an animal standing broadside, and then you can take a clean shot at the at the heart and the lungs, which is the most humane. And there just wasn't a good shot. But all of a sudden, there was this cow that just, boom, quartered broadside to me and just stood there. Cow as the female elk. Sorry, yeah, female elk.
Speaker: And... And there was another elk right behind her, but and so it was not a was not a clear shot. All of a sudden, the elk that was behind her moved off and just had this clear shot of this cow presenting herself to me. And then something spooked the herd, and they all started to gather up and and move off, almost at a run.
Speaker: But that cow just stood there, waiting. Waiting. And that nine times out of 10 happens to where an animal, it's like undeniable that they present themselves to you. It's like, here, take me.
Speaker: I'm sure a lot of people have their own thoughts or takes or like, that's BS, an animal does not present itself to you. But for me, in my experience, it's been absolutely undeniable. And I think that it's it's this interplay between humans and animals of we're all in this together.
Speaker: So there's this real give and take. I spend the rest of my year trying to make that ranch productive and healthy as possible. And the elk love it.
Speaker: And for me, I interpret that as like them saying, thank you. And then thank you, please um take me to feed your family. If we are fortunate enough to harvest an elk,
Speaker: When we do that, we don't take that lightly either. There's a serious responsibility in that. Some people have asked me, well, isn't that hard for you um taking a life?
Speaker: Yeah, it's not easy, but I would rather it's me than someone else because it's death with dignity because of the intent that I bring to it. I say a prayer for them.
Speaker: I ask them for forgiveness, and I hope that I can be a vehicle for their purpose and what they are, what they're put on this earth for, and what they believe in, that my work can can bring that to fruition.
Speaker: What is for you you, know, you are, Seben Livestock is a member ranch of Old Salt. Old Salt is a cooperative of Montana ranchers who are bonding together to create a super high quality meat product to the market that's local and ground community and very ethical. So given that you're a member among those ranchers who are kind of joining together in this fight for economic justice for ranches right in the face of big beef and um the commodities industry. And I'm really interested in your view of what land is, because I think you're someone who lives that ranch lifestyle day and day out.
Speaker: um And you've traveled the world and you've thought you thought deeply about this question of like, what does land mean? Land to me everything. sorry to interrupt whatever brilliant point i was about to make have a simple request like subscribe leave a comment and most importantly share this conversation with a friend and makes a huge difference to us and helps us grow the channel if you want to learn about our work more broadly check us out online at worldweine dot org yeah back to the show
Speaker: land on me is everything Everything. Land is the common denominator behind everything. And I believe that we have a a biological connection to the land. I believe that we have a spiritual connection to the land.
Speaker: comes from Mother Nature. It's the most powerful force in the world. And that's also what's so powerful about ranching. It's one of the few professions that we work in a wild landscape and contribute we may and contribute to the economy in a way in a very meaningful way where we provide super healthy, nutritionally dense food in a way that's building soil and building communities.
Speaker: My holistic management professor in college made a statement that The health of a society can be measured off of the health of a tablespoon of its soil.
Speaker: Deserts in every sense of the word. Not just deserts that don't have much life above the soil surface, but deserts in communities, deserts in people, deserts in human heart.
Speaker: They're formed through our relationship to land. and how we steward that land. That's why it is of utmost importance that we take this relationship seriously, that we honor, not just that we take it seriously, but we also honor our part in it, that we are a part of the solution.
Speaker: The earth needs us. We just have to listen to it and figure out what to do. It's old salt's tagline, land is kin, and our kin, our family is everything.
Speaker: In a general sense, I'm not talking to my family, like general sense, our family, family, humanity, life is everything.
Speaker: And one of my one one of my credos is, i'm I believe I'm here on this earth to create as much life as possible. Life begets life. That's stewardship.
Speaker: And my grandpa always says the two things you should value above all else is life and wisdom. And what is wisdom? It's using whatever knowledge, tools, resources in stewardship of life. you know I know another thing that we have in common is a love for poetry.
Speaker: And um he actually wrote ah like a three-line poem. He wrote, Mara cho'heshi arzuistin, ze yek yek hame maramon azameen.
Speaker: he says, I have one hope, one wish, one plea. For every member of humanity, wise and pure in heart, withstand. Be stewards of this life, this land.
Speaker: Let good words fill your speech and mind. In good deeds lives joy of a certain kind.
Speaker: Yeah, that that that strikes me. Your father also studied poetry. it's an MFA in it, actually. um Is there a poem that means a lot to you that has given you encouragement?
Speaker: Yeah, I think... um If I may share it. Absolutely. So Wendell Berry is a hero of mine. um He's a farmer from Kentucky. And not only was an incredible poet and just writer, he mean wrote many books, fiction, nonfiction.
Speaker: Being a rancher, being someone connected to the land, you can really feel that he knows what it's like and that there's a lot of wisdom wrapped up in there. And my my favorite poem is called The Wish to be Generous by Wendell Berry.
Speaker: All that I serve will die. all my All my delights, the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field, the silent lilies standing in the woods, the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all will burn in man's evil.
Speaker: or will dwindle in its own age. Let the world bring on me the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know my little light taken from me into the seed of the beginning and the end, so I may bow to mystery and take my stand on the earth like a tree in the field, passing without haste or regret toward what will be my life, a patient, willing descent into the grass.
Speaker: Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker: why um What about that poem speaks to you? There are so many different levels and layers. One is kind of that conscious choice that we all have.
Speaker: Life, depending on how we look at it, could be meaningless. And we could take a nihilistic approach. Or we could say, no, this is worth something. And I'm going to throw myself into it. And I'm going to be a servant.
Speaker: And I'm going to be of service. And i'm goingnna through that, I'm going to find purpose. And even though all in my life will die, the flesh of my flesh, so your own children.
Speaker: Those of the farm and the field, so what you raise as an agricultural producer, will die. All that you care for will die. That's the and den nihilism, right?
Speaker: But if I throw myself into this and create as much life as possible, and then I'm brought into the folds, and I get to be that tree in the field,
Speaker: Maybe the biggest challenge that we all have is dying with grace. I think that's going to be incredibly difficult. And just being accepting of that and that line of patient willing descent into the grass just drives it home. Not only that, just connection to land, place, nature, and the inevitable cycle that comes from our death. There's more life.
Speaker: and death isn't something that is, ah you know, talked about. There's a lot of things that we, there's, know, they set up, they say in like the modern age, like the, um, the rituals that there were in and older traditions or like coming to age. Like there's, there's a lot of these things are kind of like absent in modern American life. And i think conversations around death, I mean, you being raised on a ranch and going hunting, like you were, think have a much more intimate relationship than that. And like,
Speaker: don't know. It's like, it's, do you think that, is there a effect of not talking about death or dying with grace? Does that have an impact on the way we live our lives? Oh, a hundred percent. I think it's a tragedy. People are as removed from their food as they are. Um, everything that we eat died, plant or animal.
Speaker: It was alive. And that's, again, another Wendell Berry saying, the most intimate act that we humans do is eating. Taking that food and putting it into our body.
Speaker: And having, and death is not a, it's not a part of our culture. We don't know how to deal with it. um And even, I've been around death a lot.
Speaker: And I hold on to and something Eckhart Tolle said, which, Death is the opposite opposite of birth. It's not the opposite of life. Life does not have an opposite.
Speaker: You know, what my brother and I, we we raise sheep. He and I are the ones that slaughter sheep. We slaughter these lambs that we raise and we raise with love. That's very confusing and confounding to many people.
Speaker: Like, how how can you do that? um Again, for me, it's easy because it's death with dignity. I'd rather it's me than someone who doesn't respect this animal. And one thing too I wanted to ask you about, we're talking about this past weekend, was all the holistic management, all these things that are like we, you know, kind of ranchers are are doing to ensure healthy ecosystem communities.
Speaker: It's really because of a lot of artificial negative stuff that's been happening. Like, as you said, in a lot of these lands, prairie lands, for thousands of years, Herds of bison, the Native American populations, were phenomenal stewards, and they related to nature in a much deeper, less harmful, extractive way.
Speaker: but You talk about like virtuous cycles and and vicious cycles. how does that How do those relate to land management? What is it that like the natives of this land were doing that was working really well?
Speaker: And what are we doing wrong that requires so much more energy and resources to try to undo? So the... um For the last 10, 14,000 years when Native Americans were here on the American continent, I actually think it's longer than that. Basically, they walked into an ah already functioning ecosystem, right? An ecosystem in the greatest sense of the word of ah all of the interplay and relationships between animals, wildlife, flora, fauna. The way that they tried to change that, this is to my limited understanding, or that the little amount of influence that they had on that was...
Speaker: you know doing some prairie burns and to to get fresh green grass so that the bison would come back and they knew where they'd be in four months. you know and um This is specifically to plains tribes or burns and and woodland tribes, again, for wildlife management and and planting fields of corn and and squash and beans. That was about it.
Speaker: Other than that, they they worked well. around and with Mother Nature and just harvested what they could when they could. Whereas once Manifest Destiny happened and western Western Expansion happened, livestock management, ranching, that school of thought was ah more of a European relationship to how animals are managed. And that comes from areas that are more often than not, you know, have nine-month growing season, just totally different environment than much more forgiving environment than the American West.
Speaker: And so these animals were turned out and it was almost the exact opposite of what the Native Americans were, what they came to when they came across the Bering Strait 14,000 plus years ago, um where predators were taken out of the equation Predators were more or less eliminated.
Speaker: Cattle could go wherever they pleased, when they pleased, for however long that they pleased. And what happens under that scenario is is cattle go around and if their movement isn't controlled, either by fences or by herdsmen, then they will go and eat a plant.
Speaker: the the most delicious plant, the the plant with the highest sugar content, the one that is photosynthesizing most basically, which is your desirable species. They'll eat that plant and then once that plant starts to regrow, they'll come back and eat that again.
Speaker: And general rule of thumb is however much plant masses above soil for grasses, you have the same amount of root mass below soil. And when that plant is bitten, then the energy to regrow leaves comes from the roots and the roots retract about as much as is the plant was bitten down.
Speaker: And when that animal comes back and bites the leaves where the energy came from the roots and not the sun, the roots retract more and it happens again, that plant dies. Then it goes on to the next plant and then the next most desirable plant.
Speaker: And pretty soon you're creating a desert. You're creating bare soil between these plants. They're less desirable plants, meaning that's less... They stay green not nearly as long as the others. They aren't nearly as resilient to drought. and They're not nearly as productive in drought. They don't hold the soil intact as well. They have shallower root systems.
Speaker: And so yeah pretty soon your range conditions are on a negative decline. And one way to look at it is you're either a part of or creating a virtuous cycle or a vicious cycle.
Speaker: There's a threshold that's crossed there and you're either feeding off of itself or eating itself. And that scenario where cattle are going around and they're grazing whatever plants that they want, that's a vicious cycle. You're creating bare soil. Pretty soon you're growing less grass.
Speaker: You're not capturing as much water. You're increasing the amount of evaporation. Less wildlife come around because it's not as as healthy or or robust of a place. um Local communities start to die out. It's not a good scenario.
Speaker: Or the exact the opposite can be true. where you are increasing your grass resource space by 300% in nine years, you know, in the driest decade in the history of the ranch, where everything just kind of feeds off of itself.
Speaker: And so also like the, you you were talking to to me about like how, what you do now grazing, you know, with, with, with cattle across the the land that was being done by on a huge scale, millions of, of bison. And there's no kind of arbitrary line. So they were just going across everywhere and like doing this, whereas now it's,
Speaker: there's less mobility and much less cattle bison doing this work. um And I remember, you you know, you were pointing out, and and when done right, this bird recycle also helps all these field mice you see in this field. And then the field mice are eaten by birds, and then they're elk. And, like, it's so, like you said, it's not linear. It's just, it's like...
Speaker: it's It's world building in a sense. It's life building or it's life canceling. How do you grapple or reconcile with the fact of this land that means so much to your family for now going on to your kids will be the sixth generation was also like belong to another family. Like the the natives, ah like how how does...
Speaker: I think most people, it's true for everyone who lives in the the U S but I don't think most people think about land as spiritually, but I guess, how does that, that history also, do you ever think about that? Is that ever something that's some kind of something that you had to think about ah or grapple with? Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I was, um, my favorite subject at growing up. What I couldn't read enough of was native Americans just absolutely ah obsessed with their culture and found it so fascinating. Um, native American history.
Speaker: um And there was a period of my life where, yeah, I had to grapple with that guilt in a way. um And i I don't dwell on it anymore. i I don't grapple with that anymore. And I think it's, it's you know, they're humans, we're humans, and we're part of we're all wrapped up in this much bigger chaotic flux. Right.
Speaker: And for whatever reason, I feel like Henry Sieben in a way was called to that place. And the fact that we do have the relationship that we do with the land and we, we respect it and revere it to the extent that we do that. That's a consolation. Um,
Speaker: Doesn't mean it heals any heartbreak for the amount of loss of of culture and wisdom. It's being kept alive, thank God, but there's a fraction of it that's been lost for sure.
Speaker: maybe Maybe part of what we can contribute is how important that connection is, you know. the It's interesting to see how many cultures share that love for the earth, the soil. I think about in Iranian culture, and in the in the true Iranian national anthem, and there's a line about the soil, the dirt of Iran, like giving your soul energy. in service of it, right? And I think, I mean, my grandfather, when he left Iran, he um he actually had relatives bring over a jar of dirt that was from the Gamasab River in Nohavand, where his heart and soul will always be.
Speaker: My grandpa talks that like, that the the earth is so rich because it's the blood of all your ancestors and your family that was spilled for it and the culture behind it. And it's all mixed together. It's also nonlinear, right?
Speaker: As we close up, we started off with your grandfather. I want to end there. Now you've had the experience of 41 years, right, on this earth and following a lot of in a lot of ways in his footsteps.
Speaker: If you ask him one question, what would it be?
Speaker: think ah I would ask him if he's proud
Speaker: of his family.
Speaker: I would just like the opportunity to touch base and make sure that we're doing right by him, you know?
Speaker: That's so beautiful. Yeah, I totally know what that means. I always check out my grandfather weekly. Like, hey, am I still making you proud? And it's so beautiful for me. It's like you have this whole worldview and this huge purpose in the world, but you're able to channel it so beautifully into one piece of land, one project. And, you know, it's like the macro speaks to the macro and vice versa. And you've really done an amazing job, so.
Speaker: Thank you so much for for being here with us today and um yeah sharing you not just your story, but your family's story. The How to Change the World podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.
Speaker: World Within is a nonprofit that invests in solutions and stories that help visionary ideas become real and inspire us all to act. Find out more about us at worldwithin.org.
Speaker: Our producer and composer is Alexander Miller. Our editing team is Eve Weston, Martin McGreevy, and Kenny McMillan. Special thanks to Gabe Sweeney for technical assistance. If you were moved by this conversation, please like, subscribe, leave us a review, and most importantly, share it with a friend.
Speaker: Your support means a lot and helps us keep this show on the road. Until next time.
