The educational materials listed on this page are about Grazing Management.
Grazing management is critical to any pasture-based livestock farming system. Rotational grazing, intensive rotational grazing and management intensive grazing are key to successful and sustainable rotational grazing systems. So, what is rotational grazing? Careful grazing strategies include stocking rates of cattle, time spent on each paddock or pasture, how many times a herd revisits that same paddock or pasture throughout the year, and incorporating multi-species grazing to reduce parasite loads. Management approaches used to increase grazing uniformity, such as water sources and fencing, improve livestock grazing distribution problems. Rotational grazing cattle may also require capital expenditures. Thus, less expensive, practical solutions, like selecting cattle with desirable grazing patterns and culling cattle without, have been suggested as tools for improving managed intensive rotational grazing. This makes a rotational grazing definition difficult to refine depending on geographic location. Key practices include holistic management, grazing management, rotational grazing, livestock breeding, stocking rate, rangeland pasture management, pasture renovation, watering systems, multi-species grazing, continuous grazing.
The Rangeland Management Strategies bulletin has information for multi-species grazing and winter grazing, and it offers advice for forage management and vegetation management, as well as practices for protecting riparian areas. SARE’s Small Ruminant Toolbox offers producers with small ruminant livestock enterprises practices that provide pest, weed and parasite control. Smart Water Use on your Farm or Ranch can be used to better understand the role of water in a farm system and in grazing management.
Showing 1-10 of 29 results
Farming Strategies for Adapting to Extreme Weather
SARE partnered with PBS KVIE to produce an episode of RFD-TV's America's Heartland that highlights how farmers and ranchers across the United States are using sustainable and regenerative practices to adapt to increasingly challenging and unpredictable weather conditions. Adapting to Flooding and Drought on Hurricane Flats Farm in South Royalton, Vermont Ashley Loehr and Antoine […]
2023–2024 Report from the Field
SARE grants havehelped our viabilityas a business anddemonstrated thatsmall businessescan make a positiveimpact on theenvironment when wedevelop relationshipswith each other forthe benefit of all. Jeanine SeabrookGlass Rooster Cannery Letter from the Director I have always appreciated the value of long-term research as well as the long-term impact of both applied and basic research. The core […]
Grazing Networks for Livestock Producers
Grazing networks promote a mutual self-help approach to learning that is based on shared local experience and that provides several benefits to participants. This publication offers suggestions for finding or starting a grazing network and provides examples of the kinds of activities grazing networks might conduct. It also contains recommendations for sustaining a grazing network […]
What is Sustainable Agriculture?
This award-winning report provides a sampler of best practices in sustainable agriculture—from marketing and community vitality to cover crops and grazing—as well as eight profiles of producers, educators and researchers who have successfully implemented them.
Leaders in Sustainable Agriculture Featured on America's Heartland
SARE partnered with PBS KVIE to produce an episode of RFD-TV's America's Heartland that features four farmers describing their commitment to sustainability, how they plan to meet farming challenges of today and tomorrow, and how SARE has impacted their farming and ranching practices. The full 24-minute video is available, as is each segment featuring the […]
Manage Weeds on Your Farm Video Series
In this series, experienced farmers from around the country talk about how they have found success controlling weeds by following ecological principles, and without resorting to the use of herbicides. To do so, they rely on a range of cultural and mechanical practices, including diverse crop rotations, well-timed cultivation and targeting weeds when they're at […]
Transitioning to Organic Production
Transitioning to Organic Production lays out many promising conversion strategies, covering typical organic farming production practices, innovative marketing ideas and federal standards for certified organic crop production.
2021–2022 Report from the Field
Report from the Field features 12 stories from around the country of recent SARE grantees who are finding new ways to improve the sustainability of U.S. agriculture. The report also summarizes our total investment in research and education projects since 1988.
Selecting Cattle to Improve Grazing Distribution Patterns, Rangeland Health and Water Quality
This project is the first and only study that we are aware of that has evaluated whether grazing distribution has the potential to be improved through intensive breed selection. Most of the management approaches currently used to increase grazing uniformity, such as water developments and fencing, can resolve livestock grazing distribution problems on both private and public lands. However, these practices usually require large capital expenditures.
Smart Water Use on Your Farm or Ranch
As producers throughout the nation grow increasingly concerned about water scarcity, farmers, ranchers and agricultural educators are beginning to explore new, conservation-oriented approaches to water use.