FOREWORD

The world of livestock farming has become split between

those farms that exert complete control over animals
and environment to force maximal production and those
farms that graze and allow animals, plants, and land to
interact and thereby attain optimal production. This
book is an elegant and useful guide for the latter. Sarah
Flack provides all the angles needed to ensure a wellplanned and well-managed grazing system.
The need for change in our livestock-rearing practices
has never been greater. Billions of dollars have been spent
at land grant universities on research to fine tune confinement farming over the last 50 years. The farmer has
been removed from the role of steward of the resources
on the farm and forced to act merely as a collection vessel
for the products of agribusiness interests.
The industrialization of agriculture has culminated in
creating genetically modified organisms that farmers are
told they cant do without. Agribusiness has thrown the
Precautionary Principle out the window into a wind that
is already carrying genetically engineered pollen as far as
the wind can travel.
Confinement agriculture leaves its waste upon our
earth in many ways, from huge manure lagoons to the
constant use of antibiotic crutches that have a trickle up
effect of potential antibiotic resistance upon higher levels
of the food chain, notably upon humans. Confinement
farming is also heavily dependent upon petroleum, not
only for diesel fuel but also as the raw material for its
fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.
In contrast, farms that practice grazing depend less
upon prescribed inputs and instead rely upon biological
principles that have withstood the test of time, as Sarah
Flack explains so well in The Art and Science of Grazing.
The main source of energy on grazing farms is the sun.
When the functional anatomy of plants and animals is
allowed to proceed as biologically designedby the
continual interplay of animals grazing plants in a smart
mannerthe land becomes restored both in structure

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and fertility while at the same time providing true health

to the animals eating fresh feeds.
This book gives clarity to the sometimes seemingly
independent factors of soil, plants, and animals in the
ecosystem, beginning with soil-plant relationships, then
adding in the plant-animal relationships, and finally
applying the concepts to ensure a well-designed grazing
system to fit any farm, anywhere.
For animals living directly upon well-managed pastures, their food supplies biologically healthy energy,
protein, and fiber as well as naturally occurring vitamins
and minerals. The bounty of the land is self-perpetuating
when animals and plants are managed in a manner similar to how bison once roamed the prairies, never staying
in one place too long. The more that farm animals can
live like their wild relativesby moving from paddock
to paddock within a farms perimeterthe less likely
they are to suffer from illness. The result is highly nutritious food for society.
Readers who have not taken agronomy or animal
science courses will appreciate Sarah Flacks easy-toread, logical explanation of functional anatomy and
physiology of plants and animals. She concisely covers
every point needed to enhance soil health, plant health,
and animal health, with scientific references for those
wishing to delve further. One of the many positive
effects of implementing a successful grazing system is
a reduced need for veterinary intervention because the
farm animals live as they were designed to: walking
through the landscape eating fresh feeds of nutritional
and medicinal value with plenty of exercise. As a person
who was originally trained in soil science, practiced
management-intensive grazing as a herdsman, and then
trained in veterinary medicine, I am happy to say that
this book covers it all in a friendly, inviting way. I wish I
had had this book when I was a herdsman.
Those new to grazing are especially lucky with
the information provided herein, for it encompasses

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Fo rewo rd

a careers worth of the authors direct observations,

practical experience, and formal education. This book
will provide a novice grazier the knowledge of what to
expect when embarking on pasturing animals, as well
as guidance that will enhance both a farms biological
sustainability and economic profitability. More seasoned
graziers will pick up welcome insights and tips that will
help them make adjustments in their systems. Especially
applicable to those already grazing are the individual
farm profiles (chapter sub-sections called The Art
of Good Grazing) that bring to life the concepts and
details presented. The appendices and resource sections
provide practical information in a condensed format.
The hallmark of this book is that it provides many
options from which to choose and that are applicable to
any specific geographic location. This is in contrast to
the rigidly controlled world of confined animal feeding
operations (CAFOs), which are essentially well-fed and

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well-medicated concentration camps that maintain a

repetitive, homogeneous, blueprint design approach
that hardly takes into account any local specificity. By
contrast, grazing farms can easily adjust to changing conditions just as soil, plants, and animals always have done.
Sarah Flack is in tune with the needs of practicalminded farmers yet also respectful of the biology that
underlies the whole system. She always reminds us of
the continual, interactive forces that each component of
the grazing system exerts on the others. The result is at
once both functional and inspiring, just as agro-ecology
truly is a system that creates healthy soil, plants, and
animals, as well as profit for farmers while honoring the
ecosystem of which we are all part.
Hubert J. Karreman, VMD
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
January, 2016

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