Sustainable agricultural practices come in many shapes and sizes. Through monitoring, we can discover if the results of our decision making are really getting us toward where we say we want to be headed. The early warning monitoring that is fostered by assuming that we may not, in fact, have made a right decision, attunes us to looking for indicators that will keep us on course. We monitor with respect to whatever goal setting we have done. This may be related to the quality of our lives, crop or livestock health, financial condition, or how effectively ecosystem processes are functioning as a result of our management.
Monitoring requires developing observation skills and discipline.
T he Chippewa Whole Farm Planning and Monitoring Team has been monitoring a pasture that Don and Dan Struxness have rented at the Easy Bean Farm for the last four years. The data support our observations of progress toward the part of the goal that strives for dense plant spacing, lush vegetation, and diversity of plant species. Although the data have been informative, the process has not really engaged other team members to do this kind of data collection in their own pastures. It is my understanding that golf emerged from those Scottish pastures that were kept close cropped enough by roving flocks that one's golf ball was easily retrieved. Similarly, the early May landscape in the Struxness pasture was a perfectly inviting golf opportunity.