Fjällbete, a farm in Undersåker, Sweden, is making waves in its community for returning to a long-standing relationship with the land – and in doing so, a new generation of young people is feeling it be called to use regenerative agriculture as a way to build a better world. Jörgen Andersson, who is now the driving force behind Fjällbete, comes from a conventional farming background – driving a tractor and relying on machines is how he was raised on the farm.
When he was a child, animals – especially cows – began to disappear from the landscape and with their removal resulted in significant degradation in the soil. It wasn’t until later that Andersson concluded that it was detrimental to take animals out of agriculture, but when he started Fjällbete about 20 years ago, he said, “People remember the animals that used to be here. In such a short period of time, all the animals were gone. ”first
Animals shape the landscape
As a regional center of the Savoury Global Network, Fjällbete is the learning venue for Holistic Management Sverige – the Savoury Center in Sweden. Combining livestock with grazing management is just one part of regenerative farming practices that are enabling farmers around the globe to avoid most of the chemical pesticides, fertilizers and other pitfalls of public livestock. while building carbon-rich soils that increase crop health and livestock productivity.
At Fjällbete, their mission is “to bridge the gap between land and people”2 – to restore “laghum”, an old Swedish word meaning “what is right for everyone”. “To make things great is to bridge the gap between people and land,” the film says,3 and this starts with the return of the animals.
“The connection here in tourism, is there a knowledge that the landscape is shaped by those animals, or it’s an intuitive thing that when you see them back into the landscape, you feel feel great,” says Andersson, and “that’s even before they start learning about the benefits of animals in the landscape. “4
Holistic management practices acknowledge the complexity of living systems and the fact that animals, humans, plants and more, such as fungi, must all coexist and form relationships. interconnected system.
Whereas conventional farming has attempted to simplify the natural world into monoculture environments where one crop exists at a time, to the detriment of plants, insects and wildlife. On the other hand, regenerative agriculture encompasses complex ecosystems and is geared towards working in harmony with them. As explained by the Savoury Institute, which is working to facilitate the large-scale regeneration of the world’s grasslands using holistic management:5
“The natural world is comprised of beautiful and incredibly complex adaptive living systems… and how we manage decisions between complex living systems are important issues.
In this modern industrial age, we are taught from an early age how to reduce a problem down to its simplest components. This works for machines and other ‘complex’ systems where the individual parts can be fully defined, but when biology comes into the picture, it also has to be modest and move from ‘control’. control’ to ‘cooperation.’
Animals serve a higher purpose
When Andersson started Fjällbete, there were no animals on the land for 30 years. He describes bringing animals to the farm as a form of returning home – a feeling that resonates with others in his community.
“The whole concept of holistic management is that we can come up with a viable and competitive land use that we didn’t know about before,” Andersson said. While at one time Andersson was content to run his own farm, separate from the surrounding community, he now says: “The goal is not to take care of my farm myself.”6
Instead, “Fjällbete is facilitating a network of regenerative agriculture in Northern Europe and helping people discover their ‘caring power’ as farmers and community builders.”7 The goal is for the community to cooperate with nature to trigger expansion, healing the soil, and putting animals back at the heart of the regeneration process.
Master-planned grazing is key to regenerative agriculture and also ecological restoration of grasslands, as it mimics the natural predator/prey relationships that already exist in the environment. from ages ago.8 Andersson is now seeing a wave of young people who want their land back, even though they don’t come from a farming background.
Young people find miracles in agriculture
Maja Bohlin, a shepherd and community builder at Fjällbete, says she feels most comfortable and happy working with the land. When people visit, they feel that Fjällbete is more than just a business or a hobby or a workplace. “It’s bigger than that,” she said.9 The animals too, have a larger purpose, helping to regenerate the soil and thereby helping the people living on it.
“There are so many levels to it. It’s not just helping the earth and helping the earth,” said Bohlin, “It’s also, when you see people just visiting, helping you herd sheep for example, and you can see the glint in their eyes… these animals. really changed the world… and being a part of it, I feel proud of it. ”ten
Know that they are making a difference to recreate the landscape that gives meaning to life and is attracting more and more young people to the farm. Adam Bergstedt is another shepherd and community builder in Fjällbete who says he can’t rationally explain why he needs it – “It’s a call from the depths of the forest, from the earth. ,” I said.11
The connection he feels to the land guides the way he eats and interacts with the land and the people around him – and the message he shares. “A landscape for everyone, every body… cows and goats and birds and insects and all bodies, landscaped in the best way for everyone.”twelfth
As they graze the sheep on a ski slope, Josephine Eilso Mors, also a shepherd and community builder at Fjällbete, explains that what they are doing is not like a work, “It’s like a purpose. ”13 After graduating from high school, all her friends went to college, but she chose a more practical way to make a difference.
“The combination of interacting with animals, interacting with people and moving the body – doing the physical work – and looking out over the landscape,” she said, “is magical. Really.”14
Can regenerative farming save the world?
Total management is a form of regenerative agriculture, which involves capturing the relationships between large herds of wild and grassland herbivores, and developing strategies for managing domestic livestock herds. to mimic wild herds. The Savory Institute explains: “Total management succeeds because it is cost-effective, highly scalable, and based on nature.15
Critics have pointed to the fact that livestock can release excessive amounts of methane into the environment, but this is only an issue with livestock raised in crowded conditions with concentrated livestock operations ( CAFO), which maintains manure lagoons and converts forests and grasslands into corn. and soybean monoculture used as animal feed.
“It can be concluded that an intact ecosystem effectively balances the production and decomposition of methane by ruminants,” continues the Savoury Institute:16
“Healthy, well-aerated soil – a characteristic quality of pasture in a well-planned grazing regime – contains bacteria called methanotrophs, which break down methane. Soil methane breakdown can be equal to or greater than methane production in ruminants, depending on animal density, soil type, and soil health. Therefore, the benefits of ecosystem restoration through Holistic Management far outweigh the methane emissions caused by livestock.”
This is also a boon to food security, as it allows landowners to increase profits and yields without jeopardizing the long-term viability of the land. According to the Savory Institute, using total management to prepare fields for agriculture can more than quadruple yield without additional inputs.17
Although seemingly simple, the movement of herbivores has a complex and beneficial role in increasing soil productivity by up to 400%, which is achieved through:18
- Hoofs break up soil and trample plants, aiding seed germination and enhancing water filtration
- Grazing, stimulating grass growth
- Solution and urine, acting as natural fertilizer for the soil
Desertification, which occurs when large grasslands are plowed, exposing soil and causing runoff and evaporation, is also a growing problem. According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture, nearly 2 million acres of federally protected grassland and wetlands in North Dakota alone were removed from the conservation program between 2007 and 2015.19
Comprehensive management and planned grazing can also help here, as it increases soil organic matter, which helps the soil retain water. A 40% increase in water holding capacity has been demonstrated in a study of the masterly planned grazing land use.20 From increasing food security and reducing drought to improving poverty by turning impoverished areas into productive areas, regenerative agriculture can truly save the world. As Andersson said:21
“If we want our children to have a safe place to live, what do we need to do to make that happen? … With our ingenuity and creativity, there are many places where we can facilitate and support and help life on this planet.
So obviously we can make this place greener and more diverse than ever. And for me that’s just step one. Regenerative agriculture is the natural step of mankind right now. It’s a huge leap forward, and there’s basically no way around it.”
