Holistic Management Comprehensive

Learn how to manage for complexity & build a profitable enterprise on your farm with our 9-day, hands-on course at Heifer Ranch in Arkansas.

Our holistic management framework can help you build climate resilience, food security, and financial viability on your ranch. We believe the solution to global challenges can be found in holistic management of our land, livestock, and people.

Holistic Management is a decision-making and planning procedure that provides the insights and management tools needed to handle nature’s web of complexity, resulting in informed decisions that balance social, environmental, and financial considerations.

The Holistic Management Comprehensive course is a 9-day intensive, hands-on experience. This course is part of the accreditation requirements for becoming an accredited professional (AP) with the Savory Network.

This course is open to anyone looking to improve how they manage their farm or ranch enterprise, not just those seeking accreditation.

Program Overview

• Foundations of Holistic Management: Our first session is a deep dive into the Foundations of Holistic Management. You will learn about the four ecosystem processes: water cycle, mineral cycle, community dynamics, and energy flow. We will explore tools available for managing your ecosystem, as well as the effects these tools have on the ecosystem and environment. As you uncover your Holistic Context, you’ll learn how to use filtering questions to ensure that your decisions align with your values, resources and long-term goals.
• Holistic Land Planning: Holistic Management relies on a decision-making process to help ensure that actions taken to restore land and livelihoods are ecologically, socially, and economically sound, and rooted in the context of the people involved. The future you want to create emerges by viewing your land through the lenses of efficiency and land health. Over the course of the land planning process, we will discover how you can increase profits while improving your quality of life and productivity. This section sets your direction as you move into Holistic Planned Grazing.
• Holistic Planned Grazing: Holistic Planned Grazing is a planning process that aims to simplify the great complexity that livestock managers face every day while integrating livestock, crop, wildlife and forest production models. The approach aims to ensure continued land regeneration, animal health and welfare, and profitability.
• Holistic Financial Planning: Financial planning under a holistic management model relies on a simple, cash-based planning procedure that allows farmers and ranchers to be profitable while maintaining the quality of life they desire and improving the health of their land base.
• Basic & Comprehensive Ecological Monitoring: Understanding the health of your farm or ranch requires robust ecological monitoring to understand the impacts of our actions. We cover Basic and Comprehensive Monitoring Procedures to help you monitor your own land and ensure that your actions lead to the desired outcome.