A Bold Return To Giving A Damn:

A conventional, industrial farmer transforms his land and community by ditching concrete feedlots for grass pastures.

Will Harris, a Georgia farmer who historically confined animals, spread copious amounts of manure, and relied on chemicals to keep his animals alive produced the intended commodity he was ultimately after, meat. He was good at this type of farming, but ultimately quit this industrialized, centralized, commoditized production to one that is much more in tune with our ecosystem. Will decided to farm, as he puts it, “radically traditional” by raising all of his animals out on pasture, all the time. These animals are rotated daily, and get to see, smell, eat, and move to fresh grass every sunrise.

To some, this type of farming evokes stories of great grandpa's subsistence farm from over 100 years ago. On the contrary, White Oak Pastures is not your grandpa’s farm. Will raises roughly 72,000 chickens raised for meat, 9,000 egg-laying chickens, 3,000 ducks, 2,000 guineas, 2,500 geese, 1,000 sheep, 1,000 goats, 700 cows, 100 hogs, 100 rabbits and 7,000 turkeys. He does this with the help of over 180 employees and on about 5,000 acres worth of land. By definition, this would be considered a CAFO. The difference is that the animals are outside, the land gets impacted by animals but then gets healthy amounts of time to rest. Not only does this allow for the regrowth of beautiful lush grass, but also the sequestration of carbon. A recent study showed that Will’s farm, despite the productivity, actually sequestered more carbon into the ground in the form of organic matter than he was emitting. No manure lagoons, no spreading toxic liquid manure, no polluted waterways.

Instead, Will uses a concept as old as time, by allowing animals to express themselves onto nature's landscape, and moving in such a way that enhances the ecological resilience of our planet, instead of taking from future generations and leveraging public health for personal financial gain like modern dairy CAFOs do. Yes this farm happens to be in the south. But look to Organic Valley, Full Circle Farm, Waseda Farms, Brown’s Ranch, and other regenerative farms in northern latitudes providing nutrition for the public, while giving a thriving healed ecosystem for future generations.

Critics often tell Will that “He’ll never be able to feed the world this way.” In response Will responded something to the effect that he never tries to feed the world, he just tries to feed his town and surrounding communities. In addition, I would ask critics of Will how long this game of “how many cows can we fit in one building” last? Centralized, commoditized, industrialized food production has directly led to a decreased ability to produce food for the future. Our polluted waterways, erosion, and air pollution is a terrible legacy that our children will have to endure and cannot be sustained. However, if every farm helped directly feed their local community like Will does, what problems would we have feeding the world?

By Mark Villers, DCEC Board Member