After 10 years GrassWorks has reopened their grazing school. Laura Paine with GrassWorks says that the school is intended to give people a hands-on experience in livestock grazing. Paine says that this school is for both beginners and seasoned farmers.
“The school gives the participants networking opportunities to meet with other farmers and allows them to set up a grazing rotation and learn how to work with their own soil types to see how much pasture they can produce and see how many animals it can sustain through the course of a year,” explains Paine. “We also talk about setting up a watering system and how you divide up a paddock and how you set up electric fences in order to do that.”
She also says that the participants have a chance to talk with their professionals to help set up systems for their own farms, so they can hit the ground running.
After the 10-year hiatus, Paine says that with the recent increase in funding, GrassWorks felt that it was important to offer this program to help farmers gain tools to better their operation.
Paine says that in order to give the participants a more hands-on experience they cap each course at 20 people. This allows each participant to get the amount of practice they need. She also says that there are still spots available to each of the two events. The first is on August 9th and 10th in Marshfield, and the second being on September 27th and 28th at Lancaster.
To go along with the grazing school, GrassWorks also has a mentor program where participants can learn from experienced cattle farmers firsthand. The third event offered with these two programs is an annual conference that has something for all farmers, beginning and experienced.
