Andrew McClelland
The Advocate
“I’m not a scientist. I’m just a cowboy who makes some observations,” said Devin Robertson. “My goal is to find a better way to feed the cattle.”
Feeding cattle is what Robertson does best on his ranch in Last Mountain Lake, Sask. Robertson Ranch, located 70 kilometres northwest of Regina, was operated by Devin’s grandfather until he died in 1995. Robertson recalls the tillage used on the farm from working it day-in, day-out as a teenager.
“Oh, I remember it,” Robertson said. “That was the way things were done. But out here, it’s short-grass prairie. You can look at the species growing along the edge of Last Mountain Lake and not be able to count how many species there are. And it’s been here since the buffalo.”
That native soil fertility made Robertson reflect on how to best retain the richness of his soil and get away from tillage. But in the late 1990s, finding practical information on rotational grazing and regenerative agriculture wasn’t as easy as it is now.
“This is all before YouTube, when you couldn’t sit down and learn this stuff from a computer,” Robertson said.
“But I had rented some land from a local landlord we’ll call ‘Cowboy Bill.’ He owned 300 housing units but had somehow read a book by Allen Savory and wanted to try his theories out on his pastureland. I was the only guy crazy enough to bring my cows to him.”
Savory was a Zimbabwean livestock farmer and ecologist.
Inspiration can come from surprising places.
While Robertson found that Cowboy Bill wasn’t overly concerned with the health of Robertson’s cattle, he was keen on the pasture health brought about by rotational grazing.
What’s more, Cowboy Bill’s hair-brained foray into agriculture had somehow put him in touch with a real luminary of livestock farming: mob grazing and stocking density pioneer Neil Dennis, now well-known from the documentary Soil Carbon Cowboy.
“He was running steers in high-density and he had grass like nothing you’d ever seen,” Robertson said, referring to Dennis’ method of moving cattle daily and having nearly constant availability of hay as supplemental forage or as fertilizer.
Robertson told his story during a videoconference Jan. 15 hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association. After being inspired by Dennis’s practices, he began experimenting with cover crops, purchasing multi-species green feed from Covers & Co. that combined warm- and cold-season grasses, legumes, sunflowers and more to provide his herd with a healthy, balanced feed and improve soil health.
“I’m not a rep or a salesman for any company, but you can just tell that the cows are healthier,” Robertson explained. “The runtier calves did well. The bigger calves got bigger, they’re hair was shiny, they’d walk by the lick tanks not craving anything. It was a complete ration and the feed was doing all the work.”
Robertson estimates his cost per head per day feeding corn is at $1.60. While his costs grazing cover crops are up to $2.70 a day, he feels the added cost is well worth the health benefits it brings out in his cattle.
“But it does more for your soil underneath, and your animals do better on a diverse species,” he explained. “I have no scientific fact for that other than my eyeballs and watching my animals grow for 20 or 30 years.”
For Robertson, the justification for better grazing through cover crops and rotational pasturing comes from common sense. Fertility is in the soil, and the producers’ job is to preserve it and pass it along to the herd — and have the herd return the fertility to the soil.
“If you can keep moisture in the soil, you grow a better crop. It’s not rocket science. It’s just life. It just works. So why wouldn’t you have a bigger diversity of species working for you?”