Permaculture & Pasture Principals

Twelve principles have been identified as the rules governing a healthy, ongoing human impact on an ecosystem. They are the same rules that govern regenerative grazing. With these principles informing your plans, you can be sure your homestead is going to start out on a good footing with the local biological communities.

1. Observe and interact; watch and manage your animals. 2. Catch and store energy; grass is the largest terrestrial solar collector.

3. Obtain a yield — grazing turns solar energy into milk, meat and manure — and more animals.

4. Apply self-regulation and feedback; let the farm teach you how to graze.

5. Use and value renewables such as sunlight, grass, rainfall and manure.

6. Produce no waste; in a pasture setting, everything goes back into the soil.

7. Design from pattern to details; all decisions must imitate nature. 8. Integrate, don’t segregate, like mixed herds and native perennial pastures.

9. Use small, slow solutions; grazing happens one bite at time!

10. Use and value diversity; more species means more natural services.

11. Use edges and value the marginal; graze banks, understories and verges. Everything has value.

12. Creatively use and respond to change; good grazing lets nature, not human plans, take the lead.