S5 Ep25: Holistic Resource Management— The Key to Completing the Regenerative Puzzle with Tyler Dawley
“The more small steps you take, the more impact you have on the future because you choose the future you want to live in three times a day every time you eat.” — Tyler Dawley
Renewable resources are finite and need to be managed carefully in order to ensure their long-term sustainability. Therefore, we need something that is beyond sustainable— we need something regenerative.
Holistic resource management is the key to unlocking the many potential benefits of regenerative agriculture— a farming system that uses natural processes to restore disturbed land and improve the environment. It also helps farmers and landowners take control of their land organically while providing food security for generations to come.
Big Bluff is a family-owned ranch that implements regenerative agriculture techniques. Led by Tyler Dawley, a 4th generation rancher, Big Bluff Ranch is one of the largest producers of pasture-raised chicken on the West Coast. They pride themselves on producing “good chicken” that brings health not only to the land but also to their customers. Their chickens are organic, free-range, and are not treated with antibiotics.
In this episode, Tyler takes us back to how Big Bluff Ranch started, the challenges they faced, and how they are actively living the vision they had for the ranch since it was bought over 6 decades ago. Justine and Tyler also talk about what holistic resource management is and why it is considered a key component of regenerative agriculture, why it is important to not get tied too much on labels, recreating the farmer-consumer relationship through digital media, and how our food choices define our future.
Connect with Tyler:
Tyler Dawley is the CEO of Big Bluff Ranch, a family-owned regenerative ranch that specializes in pasture poultry. Tyler belongs to the 4th generation of ranchers since his Grampa bought the ranch in 1960. The Dawley family has kept a conscious commitment to sustainability and that is the legacy they want to leave to future family members and to the world. Today, Big Bluff Ranch has grown to be one of the largest producers of pasture-raised chicken on the West Coast.
Episode Highlights:
01:34 Holistic Resource Management
08:52 Regenerative Helps Build Sustainable Business
14:26 Learning About the Market Game
18:20 Recreating the Farmer-Consumer Relationship
21:01 Regenerative and Land Stewardship
25:36 We Choose the Future
Tweets:
Regenerative agriculture is the future. Yet, there is still a lot that we need to learn about it. Discover the key to unlocking the mystery of regenerative agriculture with @jreichman and @BluffRanch CEO and 4th generation rancher, Tyler Dawley. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #bigbluffranch #organicchicken #pastureraised poultry #regenerativefarming #holisticresourcemanagement #lamdscapemanagement
Inspirational Quotes:
08:20 “A sustainable business that goes out of business is not sustainable." —Tyler Dawley
12:16 “The longer I was away from the ranch, the more I wanted to come back." —Tyler Dawley
12:29 “Ranching and agriculture is not a slam dunk. It is tough to be a producer." —Tyler Dawley
17:36 “As an entrepreneur, as a farmer, as a rancher, you got to try all these different things. Many times, people go out there in the world and they think they're going to get it on the first try. And that just doesn't happen." —Justine Reichman
21:15 “Regenerative is increasing the totality of the landscape that I am stewarding." —Tyler Dawley
22:07 “This whole regenerative movement means you take care of the land and you're going to have healthy animals. Healthy animals are going to make healthy meat, healthy food. If you eat healthy food, you will be healthy. So if you really focus on making your land better, that reflects back on us as well." —Tyler Dawley
26:03 “Don't get hung up on the perfect label or the perfect product. Just do the best you can." —Tyler Dawley
26:39 “The more small steps you take, the more impact you have on the future because you choose the future you want to live in three times a day every time you eat." —Tyler Dawley
27:07 “There's no one right answer. You got to do what's right for yourself." —Justine Reichman
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. Today with me is Tyler from Big Bluff Ranch.
Welcome, Tyler
Tyler Dawley: Hey, how are you doing?
Justine Reichman: I'm great. I'm excited to get to know you. I feel like we spent a couple minutes, really, just focused on me. And while I do like to focus on me, these podcasts really are an opportunity to share your story and get to know you. So you reached out to us and I was so honored. I'm looking forward to just learning more about you. Let's start, Tyler. What is Big Bluff Ranch?
Tyler Dawley: Big Bluff Ranch, we are a fourth generation ranch in Northern California. We're about two hours north of Sacramento on I5. So we're in the Sacramento Valley if you know California geography. And over the years, Grandpa bought the ranch in 1960. Parents moved up here permanently in the late 70's. In the 80's, we started doing holistic resource management with Allan Savory back before he became world famous.
Justine Reichman: Wait Tyler, before you go on though, for those people not familiar with holistic resource management, for those listening, those watching, can you just talk to me a little bit about what a holistic ranch resource is?
Tyler Dawley: Yeah, so it is a bit of a mouthful. I never quite know who knows and who doesn't know. Allan Savory, recently in the past couple years did a TED talk about his philosophy that's had millions of views at this point. And Allan Savory grew up in Rhodesia when it was still Rhodesia. He was a wildlife tracker. He loved being out in the bush, learning about his natural environment. And he was really sad when he started to see the integration happening from conventional agriculture in his part of Rhodesia. He brought together many different philosophies, but ultimately at the core for the branch management side of it. His central observation is that nature is a short duration high intensity grazing program.
So think about it this way that in your mind, you're watching my wild America or wild Africa, and that you see these huge birds. Let's say a wild beast, a zebra. They're like thousands, ten of thousands in one spot and they're all clumped together because there's lions around them. So they got to hobble together for safety. So that means that they're going to eat where they're at, they're going to eat out all of that grass, and they're going to manure, or they're going to urinate, and they're gonna fertilize. They're like, I don't want to eat this anymore. And then they're all going to move in once in one big hurt. So they were there for a short duration, and they were packed in really tight. So it was high density. And so this is super simplistic of all of his philosophy. But that is the way Mother Nature has sort of designed the relationship between plants, for animals and predator animals where it booms, and they move on. So when you take that observation and you try and apply it to cows, and cattle, and range management and fences for us, what we start doing is using fences instead of wolves.
So when my dad went to a seminar by Allan Savory back before he was world famous, small world famous, he came back and started building fences. And so we were able to double the carrying capacity of the ranch in about three growing seasons. So we went from, well, it was small at the time. We went from 60 head of cattle to 100, 240, 200, something like that. And well, rabbit trail. I love these. So the cool thing, California is a Mediterranean climate which means that we have cool wet winters and hot dry summers. So that means that we have a pretty short growing season of the say early March through late May, depending on the year, that's when we're growing grass. And the rest of the year, we are actually essentially metering out already grown forage. And so our job as land stewards is to have as much green leaf for as long as possible. That is ultimately the only free energy that we have on this little green or pale blue solar energy.
The energy coming from the Sun is ultimately the only energy we have. If it hits bare dirt, it bounces off. We don't get any utility out of it. Basically no utility out of it. If it hits a piece of old dead grass and bounces off, we get very little utility out of it. But if it hits a green grass, chlorophyll, that chlorophyll is going to do its magic, and it's going to make simple sugars and the sciency stuff. I'm not super, super smart about it, but it's gonna make good stuff. Good stuff is going to happen. It's going to become food in itself. It's going to be a plant for food for us humans, it's going to bring down and store energy in the soil. So it's going to become food for all the soil microbes, which is hugely fascinating and hugely important. Or it's going to be food for an animal that we're managing, which will then become food for us. So Holistic Management, you take that concept of hurted animals trying to grow green leaves and you put it into a kind of a Western system with fences and human management. We become the wolves, and we're moving them based on various factors. We actually take mother nature's operating system that works passively, and then we actively manage her system.
Justine Reichman: How popular is this?
Tyler Dawley: I couldn't give you a percentage, but it is absolutely increasing that there's millions of hectares under this sort of management. So Allan Savory, over many years, he now has the Savory Institute. They have a worldwide presence, they have educators all over six continents. It's just amazing what they do. I can't give you a percentage, but it is definitely a growing percentage of land managers, animal type people, extensive landscapes, and it just keeps growing. The term regenerative is being thrown around, right? It's very, very popular. If you wanted to take that regenerative term and figure out how to raise animals on an extensive landscape and truly call it regenerative, you're very likely going to be using a holistic management base.
Justine Reichman: Are we saying that regenerative goes hand in hand with this landscape you're talking about?
Tyler Dawley: Yeah, yeah.
Justine Reichman: Okay. So something is rigid. If they're doing it in a regenerative way, likely, they're doing it this way.
“A sustainable business that goes out of business is not sustainable." —Tyler Dawley
Tyler Dawley: Very, very likely. I'm sure there's an example, but I can't think of one where, if you are a truly regenerative animal manager, you are not using a lot of these holistic management principles. So holistic management, I've focused probably on what they would consider the least important aspect of holistic management, which is moving cows or moving livestock. Holistic management, it really has all sorts of amazing concepts. So think about your triple bottom line. So it's very much worried about the humans involved in this. They call it the context. Humans are involved in this environment. I'm really worried about the finances. It goes through and really helps you plan your finances to make sure that you're still in business. Because at the end of the day, sustainable business that goes out of business is not sustainable. So it's not sustainable. So you talk about the animals, you talk about the money, and you talk about the people. It's really that three legged triangle where it is trying to set up a framework of questions that leads you to a management decision that makes sure your stool is balanced so you don't fall over.
Justine Reichman: Do you feel like running your business this way? Was integral to your success sustainably and financially?
Tyler Dawley: Oh, yeah. I don't think we would be here if my dad had not crossed paths with Allan Savory. I think that our ranch is gonna sound like a lot. But in the ranching acreage, we're pretty small. Our ranch is about 4,000 acres, which basically means that it is a full time job, but it is a half time income. We can't run enough cows here to support one family, let alone two. So right now, this is actually my sister's childhood bedroom that has become my office. My parents are out there starting on dinner. I live with my wife and kids over in the original ranch homestead on the ranch. So this ranch that I just said only can produce kind of sort of the half an income is supporting two families now because of decisions that we've worked through the holistic management process and made decisions to increase our income, increase the vitality of our range land, and keep people happy and fun. I mean, it's fun stuff.
Justine Reichman: I was curious, I know that this has been a family tradition, so to speak, a family affair. Had you always planned on going into ranching?
Tyler Dawley: There's a good story. No, I was a huge bookworm as a kid. If you asked me what I did as a child, I would say, I hid in my room and read books. That's not really true. Because obviously, I am still here. But that's kind of my overall memory of being a kid. I went through high school as like, oh, I'm going to be a computer scientist, which is really funny when I look back. I am not any sort of engineer. But that was kind of my thought at the time. I ended up going to a college in LA that kind of specializes in economics and government, and I got my degree in literature. So not farming or ranching at all. But what happened is I went to college, and the very first break we had, which was probably late September is like all my other buddies at college were, I don't know what they're doing, but they weren't going home. And I'm like, well, okay, I'm going home. There's something about the ranch that this is my, not to put it to woo, but this is my spiritual home. This is my center. I didn't know that until I left, I only was able to discover that by leaving. But as soon as I left, I came back for every single break more and more and more.
“The longer I was away from the ranch, the more I wanted to come back." —Tyler Dawley
And by the time I got around to my senior year of college, there was really no question that I was coming back. I was able to apply for an internship through my college and was able to spend six weeks in Australia. In my junior summer, I was working on ranches in Australia for a while and other holistic management producers. My college required a senior thesis for graduation and I wrote my senior thesis about holistic management on the ranch and how we were using it. And then the way I tell this story, because it's a good story even though it's not technically true is that I graduated on a Friday, and I was at a Farmers Market with our grass fed beef on a Sunday. It was probably a month later. But still, why let the truth get in the way of a good story.
So anyways, the longer I was away from the ranch, the more I wanted to come back. And it was pretty much over the realistic objections of my parents that even though the ranch was puttering along, ranching and agriculture is not a slam dunk. It is tough to be a producer. Because at the time, we were still a cow calf commodity producer. We're inching into this grass fed beef. But basically, we're a cow calf operation, which meant we just raised calves up until weaning, and then we would sell them and that was the yearly paycheck. We got paid once a year. And because, like I said, we're a relatively small ranch, that paycheck was pretty darn small. And my parents mom, especially, were rightfully saying, why are you coming back? How can we possibly expand this business? And what we did was we went into direct to consumer.
“Ranching and agriculture is not a slam dunk. It is tough to be a producer." —Tyler Dawley
So like I said, Farmers Markets with our grass fed beef. So we started selling Big Bluff Ranch grass fed beef in 2000. Michael Pollan had just written an article called Power Steer, like 99, maybe 2000, somewhere right in there. And that article in The New York Times was basically the starting gun for the grass fed beef movement. People knew about it, but he popularized it. He just lit the fuse on that piece of dynamite. And so you can really trace the entire grass fed beef industry back to that one article. Anyways, so that's what we did. We started doing direct marketing at Farmers Markets. We were at markets, we started bringing other proteins. We realized that on the ant land side that we had an environment that was really good for goats and sheep. So we tried goats and sheep. We tried selling it. It's absolutely delicious, but there is a bit of a cultural goat lamb, I don't like that. Well, have you tried it?
Justine Reichman: No.
Tyler Dawley: Try it.
Justine Reichman: Depends where you are. I mean, I used to have a pair when I was little, that loved goats. She's made curried goat all the time.
Tyler Dawley: The goat is delicious. But for us, the Farmers Market demographic that we were serving at the time, the expectation was that they don't eat goat or lamb. So it didn't really ever take off for us. Well, you guys don't know the end result yet. You don't know what we actually do, but I'll lead you up to it one small step at a time. So we were trying to find other proteins to offer our customers and we're like, well, what's the most popular protein? It's chicken. Let's try some chickens in the pasture, which we tried and it was successful for the animals, it was not successful for the humans. We did not enjoy that process. It was stinky, and we hand processed them in the kitchen and it was not fun. So we came up with the rule, four legs only. We're only gonna raise animals that have four legs. And so we're like, well, the only animal left is pork. So we started doing some pastured pork, and that quickly turned into a worse debacle than our chicken experiment where we had a pretty large population of wild pigs. So there is no way to keep a wild boar separate from a domestic sow.
So we had crazy crossbreeding. We had farrowing out of season, the genetics, the wild boars or just those animals that are meant to survive. They're junky, they're not good. When we kind of finally wrapped up the pork experiment really well, we're like, okay, now what do we do? So we went back into poultry, because other people had shown up with pork or beef, no one was still eating lamb or goat. The only thing is chicken. So we went back to chicken, we did a much better job. We kept growing, we got up to about 1800 head a year processing on farm, and we reached a fork in the road where we couldn't process anymore with friends and family so we had to make a choice. We didn't really know what we were going to do, but we knew we couldn't continue down that path anymore. I went to a conference and met a guy who said that he could sell more than he could raise, and I could raise more than we could then I could sell. I was like, hey, this is actually a kind of good deal. Let me concentrate on what I'm good at, raising chickens at this point, and let you concentrate on what you're good at marketing meat. And so that's what we did. So we started winding down our direct to consumer and started ramping up contract growing of pastured poultry. So we started that in 2009, and various twists and turns up to 2022. We've gotten from 1800 head a year to now we're up processing up to 70,000 birds a year.
Justine Reichman: I'm gonna hit pause for one second. Oh, yeah. So thank you so much for sharing that story. It was so inspiring, and it was really interesting to hear how things took a turn and all the different twists. Because I think as an entrepreneur, as a farmer, as a rancher, you got to try all these different things. And I think that many times, people go out there in the world and they think they're gonna get it on the first try. And that just doesn't happen. So I think you've shared with us how all these years later, things change. You gotta roll with them, and you're here and it's successful.
“As an entrepreneur, as a farmer, as a rancher, you got to try all these different things. Many times, people go out there in the world and they think they're going to get it on the first try. And that just doesn't happen." —Justine Reichman
Tyler Dawley: Yeah, we're still here. That is the success. We are still here.
Justine Reichman: So I'm curious, how did you make the decision now to do what you're doing? You went through all these different choices, right? You and your family had to make a decision to take one path or another. What path are you on today?
Tyler Dawley: We are on a direct to consumer path where we are selling our chicken, and to direct to consumer and shipping it to their door. We're trying to recreate the farmer-market relationship online when it comes down to.
Justine Reichman: And can you tell me a little bit about how you started out and some of the challenges that you're experiencing with that?
Tyler Dawley: Yeah. We just kind of started it really. The COVID really upset our wholesale market place. We've always believed in direct marketing, but we were pretty kicked off the end of the deep end of like, well, it's time to figure it out again. So just been noodling my way through trying to figure out how to do it. Well, we grew an awesome chicken. There's no doubt that we grow the best chicken you're gonna find. We spent 12 years figuring that out. So the chickens are not a problem. So now, I need to figure out how to sell it as well as we can grow it. So that is what I am doing now, figuring out how to market and sell our chicken.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. So you were at Farmers Markets. Are you still at the Farmers Market?
Tyler Dawley: We haven't done it for years.
Justine Reichman: You haven't done it for years. So what's new, and what's next for you now that you're doing it this way?
Tyler Dawley: Well, what's new is trying to create a California meat box. So if you look outside our window, we grill a specific rainfall, specific forage path, and that it's different here than it is in like New York State or Florida. Why are our meat cases, why do they look the exact same? So what we are doing is creating a California specific meat box. Right now, we figured out the chicken part of it. We're really good at chicken. We know how to do lamb and goat. So that's the next thing we're going to move into. And we have some cows leftover. So by next spring, you're going to be able to buy a box from Big Bluff Ranch that has grown here on Big Bluff Ranch, and you will open it up, and you will see exactly what California should be growing.
Justine Reichman: So just to get back to our original conversation about regenerative and holistic farming or practices. So your chickens, your lamb, your goat, they are regenerative. And so what does that mean from your perspective? I asked because I've learned that everybody's got their own definition. I'd like to hear from you, what your definition is for your farm?
“Regenerative is increasing the totality of the landscape that I am stewarding." —Tyler Dawley
Tyler Dawley: It is an undefined term now. So I agree. So for us, what I feel is regenerative is increasing the totality of the landscape that I am stewarding. And then I am going to know if I'm directionally correct by the quality of the grassland regrowing? Are we increasing our native perennials? Are we increasing our effective rainfall? Are we capturing more rain that hits the ground? Is our growing season extending? Are we able to run more animals per acre for the year? So if I can go out there and I can, both on a spiritual level feel like things are better, which you can, I can also go out there on a kind of nuts and bolts level and also be like, hey, X, Y and Z, we've been monitoring this transect for the past 40 years, which we have and we can say, our native perennials is increased by, I don't know, pick a number, 35%. We're probably better than that. That's how I would define regenerative landscape management. And that this whole regenerative movement, you take care of the land, that means you're going to have healthy animals. Healthy animals are going to make healthy meat, healthy food. If you eat healthy food, almost by default, you have to be healthy. So if you really focus on making your land better, as we are humans and we are part of this landscape that reflects back on us as well. So you get tasty food, healthy landscapes, healthy happy animals, it's kind of tough to see where you can go wrong with it.
“This whole regenerative movement means you take care of the land and you're going to have healthy animals. Healthy animals are going to make healthy meat, healthy food. If you eat healthy food, you will be healthy. So if you really focus on making your land better, that reflects back on us as well." —Tyler Dawley
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I am with you. I support regenerative agriculture. I try to learn as much about it as I can, and I know that many people do have questions about the intersection of regenerative agriculture, organic, grass fed, and how these things all play together. Could you talk to that a little bit?
Tyler Dawley: Organic? You're right, they all are in roughly the same constellation of concepts, but they are all different. And they don't necessarily are not all exclusive, and they're all not mutually inclusive. So grass fed beef, you could conceivably do grass fed beef. That is not regenerative. That is a possibility. But in general, grass fed beef will be regenerative because grass is a resource that you need, and you want to take care of your grass. If you take care of your grass, you're pretty much regenerative. So grass fed, while not directly regenerative probably is. Organic? There are so many requirements on what to be as far as organic. You're not using herbicides, you're not using pesticides. If you're on the animal side, there are some welfare considerations. But nowhere in the organic standards are they actually asking you to prove that your landscape is improving, it is actually regenerating. That being said, if you're a regenerative farmer, almost by default, you have to be organic because you can't really use herbicides and pesticides while trying to improve your landscape. They are a tool you might use them sporadically in very specific use cases, but you're not just going to go out and spray everything. You're not going to grow food through chemistry. So regenerative really is an overarching concept right now. There are some standards out there. Probably the most notable is something called land to market, which is actually something designed and stewarded by the Savory Institute that is very, very good about regenerative. There are some other standards coming up, so there's not like a boom, boom, boom answer to that.
Justine Reichman: And it's very challenging, and it's very complex, and I think there's a lot of different answers. My goal is really to break it down as simply as possible so that we can at least give people an opportunity or a chance to try to understand it as best we can. And that's all we can do. I appreciate you taking the time to break it down as simply as possible. I know that these things do intersect, but not always. They're not mutually exclusive, but they do interconnect at times. So thank you for breaking that down for the people listening and watching.
Tyler Dawley: I would say that to not get tied up too much into labels, specific labels that, for me, as a small scale chicken producer, as a small scale beef producer, that one person buying from me is significant that it keeps us in business. We are doing good by the land, and that your purchase maybe feeling insignificant to you is very significant to me. So don't get hung up on the perfect label or the perfect product. Just do the best you can. If you can only buy organics every now and then, great. You've kept some one organic farmer in business. If you're worried that organic is coming from China? Yeah, you're probably right to have some concerns, maybe. But it's probably a lot better than not organic coming from China, right? So you've made a directionally good choice. And I think that is just very important for people to understand that taking one small step, maybe small for you is significant to me. And that the more small steps you take, the more impact you have on the future because you choose the future you want to live in three times a day every time you eat. The food choices you make have a very direct impact on the landscape, which is what we all rely on. So don't get hung up on it, but just do one better thing.
“Don't get hung up on the perfect label or the perfect product. Just do the best you can." —Tyler Dawley
Justine Reichman: I think many times, people, including myself, don't know if it's better to eat locally organic. I mean, there's lots of questions about this. I think there's no one right answer, to be honest. I think you have to do what's right for yourself. You may choose to eat organic, some things may be more important to you to eat organic, and some things may be more important to eat locally. And that's just a choice people make.
Tyler Dawley: I hope I didn't imply that they needed to go organic.
Justine Reichman: No, not at all. I'm just making an additional point, that I think that people just need to do what they need to do for themselves. You are just saying for the planet, or for this, or for that. I'm just saying in general. You're saying that they don't have to do it. They don't have to do everything. We can't all do everything. And I'm just saying further than that. People may not know what is better. They may struggle with that in addition. I've gone to the grocery store saying, do I get this local? Or do I get it organic? If it's organic and it's coming from Mexico, is it better than buying something organic? And then there's that whole struggle between buying what is grown seasonally and locally. And that's a whole nother conversation. Okay, I don't want to go off on a tangent.
“The more small steps you take, the more impact you have on the future because you choose the future you want to live in three times a day every time you eat." —Tyler Dawley
Tyler Dawley: Just do the best you can.
Justine Reichman: Just do the best you can. But before we wrap up, I did want to just ask, selfishly for me, but also for the rest of the people that are listening and for viewing. How can they order a box? Or how do they learn to check in online? Because after all, they've just heard all about your journey, and they've heard all about your chickens. We know you grow really good chicken, so how do we get your chicken?
Tyler Dawley: bigbluffranch.com. Land on our homepage, there's gonna be a Shop Now button in the middle of it. You go to the website, or you go to the shop, and boom, all of our amazing chickens are there and we'll ship them to wherever you're on the West Coast.
Justine Reichman: Okay. So if our viewers and our listeners stayed for the whole podcast and listened to all of our stories and all of our conversations, is there anything special we can offer them?
Tyler Dawley: So yeah, go to bigbluffranch.com, go shop now, we have our products up there on the website. We are a small operation even though there were a big number of chickens. We are micro nano particle size in the chicken world. We can't keep everything in stock on the website. So if you want to see all the yummy random but delicious chicken stuff we have going on our newsletter, I send a newsletter out a couple times a week, and that is where all the people in the know get all the amazing, awesome deals that I come across.
“There's no one right answer. You got to do what's right for yourself." —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me and for participating in this podcast videocast. I want to thank our guests for joining in. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram and on YouTube. If you like what you see, don't forget to leave us a note. If you have any questions, leave them there and share them with your friends.
See you again next week.
