The Noble Research Institute has been a trusted resource for farmers and ranchers since 1945, and Oklahoma Farm Report’s Ron Hays caught up with Hugh Aljoe, Director of Ranches, Outreach & Partnerships at The Noble Research Institute, to discuss regenerative ranching. Yesterday’s BeefBuzz featured Hays and Aljoe talking about the partnership between Certified Angus Beef and the Noble Research Institute to produce land stewardship courses for producers.
The Noble Research Institute converted all of its ranches to regenerative agriculture practices in 2021 and then began to focus on an educational curriculum to teach the practices to others.
“Right now, we have our Noble Land Essentials, which really focuses on soil health,” Aljoe described. “We have our Grazing Essentials, which is the application of adaptive grazing, and the Business of Grazing which along with Grazing Essentials, was developed with the help of Dr. Jim Gerrish, who most people would know his management intensive grazing approach that has been available to us for a number of years.”
Producers must ask themselves how they can apply the learned principles to garner increased profitability which brings about the Profitability Essentials course examining enterprise analysis and ranch profitability.
“We want the curriculum to be something that will be meaningful to our rancher network,” Aljoe commented. “The next courses will be based on the feedback that our peers provide us about what else they need to continue down this regenerative journey.”
Aljoe was proud to say that despite persistent drought, the Noble Research Institute’s ranches have turned profits every year.
He said that essentially, producers must be able to proactively manage the grazing on their land as well as their profit. “Begin to look at those areas where you have the potential for the biggest change, and financially, you look at the areas where you have the biggest dollar amounts in your expense accounts. Then determine what you can do to change your management in order to reduce your inputs.”
Land management is all about proactively building resiliency through good stewardship practices through changes in rainfall, stocking rates, forage supplies, and other challenges.
Aljoe listed two key points to good management: “Always manage for really good residual and always allow your pastures to be fully recovered before you go back in there,” he said.
He said that one of the biggest challenges of convincing producers to emulate regenerative practices is the fear of wearing a label whether it be sustainable or regenerative.
“For us, it is really a journey,” he added. “We want to build resiliency, soil health, and profitability. To us, that is what regenerative is. It goes back to our founders’ original intent to rebuild, regenerate, and rejuvenate soils and keep people on the land. That is what we are trying to do at Noble.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
