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Help the next generation of farmers join a “movement that is actively making change in our food system” by donating to the EcoFarm Scholarship Fund. “The California operation Shepherdess Land and Livestock is one of the groups dedicated to battling the West’s growing fire problem. The outfit is helmed by Brittany Cole Bush, a SoCal-raised leader in regenerative agriculture. Decked out with long dark hair, dirt-streaked arms, and a leather hat, Bush has pretty much single-handedly made shepherding cool again, especially among the urban California crowd.” Continue Reading.

Carrying the Work Forward: Reflections from SAFSF’s Funder Forum on Land, Capital, and Community

• I oftenwondered how this rapid development could also foster rich culture, like the vibrant andcolorful culture I experienced visiting below the border into Mexico.
• Using controlled grazing in an urban or suburban area is a very useful idea and Brittany Cole Bush is an excellent spokeswoman for its use.
• Unfortunately, what we’ve seen over the years is that these inputs have depleted our soils and have depleted the resiliency of our landscapes.
• Having been awarded a scholarship to attend this year, I was able to experience the positive impact of EcoFarm myself.
• Saturday, July 22 – presentations of business plans to each other and potential market partners; farewell dinner.

And we really do need to reevaluate how we approach, large-scale agriculture, and I don’t feel that all, all inputs are bad. Cole has appeared in numerous media outlets as an expert on the subjects of fire mitigation, prescribed grazing, climate-beneficial agriculture, land stewardship, sustainable fiber production, and identity and inclusion. So, the first one is what I’m so passionate about which is what I call modern day shepherding.

Listen to Brittany’s stories about why goats love poison oak so much, all the way through to working with organic cow hides in the fashion industry. At the root of finding a sense of ‘meaning’ and ‘belonging’ is learning to care — for oneself, for the land we live on, and for one another — because “caring” is love in action. And love in action is what liberates us all. To be caring for the animals while experiencing their interaction with the environs that I grew up in, the familiar smells, the colors, the sounds, affirmed that I am doing the work that I am called to do. Transhumance uses all of the skills I’ve built working throughout California, while grounding the knowledge I’d gained by studying pastoralism and the art and science of shepherding in Spain and France.

A healthy ecology is one that has functioning biological processes and symbiotic relationships to the animals that rely on productive cycles and feedback loops in nature. As land stewards we can usher in practices that help restore the momentum of the Earth’s powerful ability to recover and adapt but it takes proactive tending to do so. In short, well-managed grazing can support the transition back to a healthy, functioning ecology that is fire safe and fire ready. Food production that really focuses on making our landscapes, our natural landscapes better and improving things that have been degraded on our natural landscapes. And there’s more and more faces like me who folks who haven’t come from agriculture who are pivoting and shifting.

Instead of throwing the C02 upwards the animals help bring it back down to the Earth and into the soil with the help of their plant pals and the animal’s basic biological activities of dunging and urinating. It’s quite a match made in heaven when we are looking to find alternative solutions to the current norm! Along with machinery, the use of chemicals has been prevalent in the management of fire hazardous vegetation.

As the market demands better products, we will shift our innovation, and I would love to learn what’s going on in other countries that are very innovative such as New Zealand, how they’re tanning and processing their pelts. So another aspect of my stock business model is taking the pelts, the raw hides after the animal has been harvested. And stopping the trend of what happens right now, which is pelts, raw pelts get bailed and shipped to China and processed into myriad of products. They enculturate their young to have this amazing salad bowlfor all of these things we want them to graze.

Announcing: Shepherding School of the Midwest

• In short, well-managed grazing can support the transition back to a healthy, functioning ecology that is fire safe and fire ready.
• Food production that really focuses on making our landscapes, our natural landscapes better and improving things that have been degraded on our natural landscapes.
• Help the next generation of farmers join a “movement that is actively making change in our food system” by donating to the EcoFarm Scholarship Fund.
• Brittany Cole Bush (BCB) is a modern-day shepherdess and the founder of Shepherdess Land and Livestock, a targeted grazing business based in Ojai, California providing climate beneficial vegetation management services.

Through her own journey to create a viable career and livelihood in regenerative agriculture and land management, Cole will share how prescribed grazing sheep and goats in the west is opening pathways for next-generation agrarians seeking impactful work that addresses climate, public safety, vital food and fibersheds, and social change. My biggest joy, on the other hand, is meeting and beating the limiting factors and challenges I’ve faced. We grazed hundreds of acres as contracted land stewards with hundreds of animals together working to build a more fire safe and resilient community in the Ojai Valley. We have begun to create our own culture of being SoCal shepherds. We care for one another, have pride in what we do, and are part of a regional guild of folks who are practitioners, entrepreneurs, educators, and the like who are running beside us with the shared mission of making our region a better place. All the while having a quality of life that is fulfilling, rewarding, full of friendship and camaraderie and it’s worth meet brittany cole bush every square inch of sunburn, hours of thirst, chasing goats or guard dogs, or getting tangled up in electric fence netting.

Brittany Cole Bush, Shepardess: Grazing For Change Consumer Revolution Mc And Speaker

The School works to answer to the tremendous demand for labor in the reblooming industry of prescribed grazing, developing curriculum to cultivate an expanded grazier workforce and supporting entrepreneurs in food and fiber, and ecological monitoring. And this can be all over the world and I think that that as a consumer somebody who chooses not to be a shepherdess for example. I think that just becoming aware and conscious is creating power and support of those who were trying to create a conscious product. So it is amazing to see that people like you and other folks that are forefront of this sustainable agriculture movement in the US and beyond are implementing and innovating these practises that will help not only the environment also public health without having a regulatory mandate.

In order for beginning farmers, ranchers, graziers, or land-base entrepreneurs to even get started there needs to be access to land and capital. The limiting factors I’ve struggled with tremendously are the realities of student debt, the cost of living, health care, and land access in a place where the value of land is so high that development will always win over small or mid-scale agriculture. My journey to starting this business has taken me over a decade as so many pieces needed to be created or acquired.

Magic opportunities had to emerge and the timing had to be right personally for the leap I’ve made to have any chance of turning from a free fall into a soar. Of course I am not just acting alone but with a community of people who share my vision and values. Vision and values that will keep our heads and heart in the game. I just think that there’s a lot of opportunity for us to grow and look at other dynamic natural ways, natural functions to address how we create good food for people.

Meet Brittany Cole Bush

Although an often temporary solution, chemicals do not solve the underlying problem of an ecology out of balance. Subsequently, Julie began working for the Kansas Rural Center, in December 2011 assuming the position of executive director. In that role, she led several strategic investments and grant initiatives, including farmer education and training programs. She also led a new focus on the nexus of public health, community food and agriculture. Year in land stewardship and fire hazard reduction programs in Californiaʼs Bay Area.

We, as a people have forgotten that we all come from agrarian roots. SoCal-raised, I am earnest, all American with a pioneer past embedded in my story – one that many folks in North America hold. My ancestors are of two places — the one from Brittany, France sailed to the Americas on the Ark and Dove and traveled West by wagon to homestead in Utah, and the other from the Four Corners, a region of the Southwest where Colorado, southeastern Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. This lineage weaves an amalgamation of Spanish, Mexican and indigenous peoples.

Cost

Rarely I have the time to realize the finished objects but visualizing through inspiration sometimes is enough. I’d already been plotting to knit a couple of projects from the book, but it will be even more fun as part of a KAL. I’m so inspired after every episode, and really appreciate all the work you put into it. I would love to hear an interview with a herding dog trainer.

Land Access Strategy: One Farmer And 8,000 Landlords At Fordhall Farm

Meaning in our lives and work, and belonging in community. Meet Brittany Cole Bush, a shepherdess in the Ojai Valley of California. That one word, “shepherdess,” encompasses her job and her entire business. But Shepherdess Land and Livestock, her targeted grazing company, seeks to do so much more than graze sheep and goats. For Cole, as her friends call her, Shepherdess is about “the marriage of innovative approaches and land stewardship.” As the hazards of climate change, from wildfires to invasive species to erosion, close in on her beloved corner of Southern California, she deploys innovative herding techniques to improve the local ecosystem. My name is Brittany Cole Bush and Iʼm a 28 year old self-deemed modern dayshepherdess– of animals, people and projects.

Meet Brittany Cole Bush

With over a decade of experience, Cole has successfully treating thousands of acres on private and public lands throughout California for ecological enhancement and fire hazard reduction. Her experience derives from managing upwards of 2,500 head of sheep and goats in the Bay Area of California to perform stewardship and fire hazard abatement projects. Agrarian Trust’s mission is to support land access for the next generation of farmers. For many years friends and colleagues in the fields of regenerative agriculture and land stewardship have deemed EcoFarm as one of the most impactful and inspiring events of the year. No matter their size nor species, animals need you 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. As a first-generation (more like ‘skipped’) agrarian with over fifteen years of experience in caring for flerds of several hundred sheep and goats and teams of dogs and shepherds, I have learned from this work that we all want to find meaning and belonging.