Tracking environmental gains on farms

Years of researching how to get the most out of the pastures on his Cayuga-area beef farm eventually left Cory Van Groningen frustrated. 

“One book says only take the top sward and leave the rest to regrow; another book says use high-intensity grazing and trample it down; another book says take a third of the pasture.”

Theories tend to suggest they’ll apply on any farm anywhere, “and often they’re not compatible with each other,” says Van Groningen, the on-farm manager and one of four brothers who form the leadership team at VG Meats.

That frustration eased when he discovered Ecological Outcome Verification.

Developed by Zimbabwean grassland farmer Allan Savory and promoted by his international organization the Savory Institute, EOV aims to train farmers to identify and monitor parameters set to make their farms more ecologically sustainable.

Why it matters: Ecological outcomes put the onus on the end results of practices to improve soil health and environmental health rather than codifying the process to get there. 

The parameters Van Groningen learned about through EOV are visible and quantifiable. And the program’s structure allows for regional variation on how it’s delivered.

“As a land manager, (the EOV concept) provided a deeper understanding of what it is we’re doing on a day-to-day basis, which really boils down to capturing sunlight so it can be converted into food for people to eat.”

Three years after becoming aware of the program, Van Groningen, who raises beef and chickens with his wife and three children, completed the training in early 2021 to become the EOV “Hub Verifier” for eastern Canada. 

Joining him for the training sessions was Manitoba’s Dana Penrice, making them the first two Canadians accredited for the role.

On Sept. 10, Van Groningen led an afternoon workshop at Meeting Place Farm near Lucknow, co-hosted by the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario. Meeting Place, operated by the McQuail family, has pioneered the adoption in Canada of holistic management. Fran and Tony McQuail are certified holistic management educators and have also embarked on EOV certification.

Van Groningen describes EOV as a “feedback loop” of planning, monitoring and replanning if necessary to achieve the desired results. The goal of management decisions prescribed by the program “is to make the ecological processes on the farm more effective — improving every day, if possible, but certainly improving season by season.”

He and Penrice intend to build awareness about EOV in Canada and train interested farmers to monitor the short-term parameters identified by the program. These include live canopy abundance, living organisms, desirable/undesirable species, plant litter, litter incorporation, manure decomposition, bare soil and soil capping, wind and water erosion and forage quantity and quality.

They want EOV hubs in Canada to mature into the models already active in the U.S., Australia and Europe. Participating farms receive annual visits from verifiers to assist in short-term monitoring and visits every five years to assess long-term ecological improvements. 

Long-term parameters include bare ground and litter cover, canopy cover percentage, water infiltration, soil carbon, soil equivalent fixed mass, soil biology and organic matter, and species richness.

The relationships between short- and long-term parameters were identified following the Savory Institute’s creation in 2014 of an academic consortium with The Nature Conservancy, Texas A&M University, Michigan State University, and the University of Sydney in Australia. 

“All the (short-term) indicators have been shown by science to have a continuing effect on the long-term parameters,” Van Groningen said.

He likes the program because it “distributes the workload” of monitoring and verification by training the farmer to do some of the work. The verification visits and payment schedules can also be altered by the regional hub coordinator if necessary.

Cost could be a deterrent for some farmers. A training program delivered by Van Groningen and Penrice earlier this year cost $395 per person, with about 25 participants. 

A feasibility study about newly introduced “regenerative programs and incentives,” published in March 2021 by the Organic Council of Ontario, identified cost as a possible drawback.

The Savory Institute is developing a “Land to Market Verified” label to promote food produced on EOV farms to consumers, but that is in its infancy. Until that happens, a price premium is not on the horizon, especially in Canada.

Van Groningen argues a premium shouldn’t be necessary. 

“Certainly (EOV) does check the box for a lot of consumers,” he said. But asking consumers to pay more or retailers to pass any premium to consumers is “a zero-sum game.”

Financial benefit to the farmer accrues through ecological improvements on the farm, Van Groningen says.

As more sunlight is captured and converted to food on the same land base, the farmer can gradually build supply and a customer base without added production costs.

The other drawback to EOV cited in the OCO feasibility study is that it’s designed for pasture-based systems only. However, Van Groningen believes it can be applied to cropping systems in Ontario. 

A landscape that mimics a natural savannah or grassland would score highest and require the fewest management changes to achieve ecosystem goals. But another strength of EOV, he said, is its acknowledgment of cultural realities.

In the Lake Erie or Lake Simcoe/Rideau ecoregions, which cover southern and eastern Ontario, one of the most prominent cultural realities is that “there are a lot of people that need food.”

“That’s not to say, though, that it’s not going to be a tough conversation (with a crops-only farmer),” he said. 

“Some people might have to get over the realization that their field probably isn’t at the highest level possible for ecological sustainability.”

The OCO feasibility study identifies potential benefits of the program, noting “interested Ontario farmers might benefit from the potential for this program to help producers, small and large, measure and communicate their ecologically beneficial land management practices to their customers.”

For more information about EOV in Canada, visit the Holistic Management Canada website at holisticmanagement.ca.