Practice

Restoration agriculture

Also known as: Mark Shepard's restoration agriculture

A perennial-polyculture farming practice articulated by Mark Shepard at New Forest Farm in Wisconsin and his book Restoration Agriculture (2013). Shepard's framework: model agricultural systems on the original native ecosystem (oak savanna in his case), populate them with productive perennial analogs (chestnut for the dominant tree, hazelnut for understory, raspberries for shrub layer, livestock for the herbivore guild), and design at watershed scale using keyline principles. Restoration agriculture is the most-developed practitioner system for productive temperate-perennial-polyculture farming at commercial scale.

The framework

[[mark-shepard|Mark Shepard]]‘s framework, articulated through 25+ years of work on his New Forest Farm in southwestern Wisconsin and the book Restoration Agriculture (2013):

Model agriculture on the native ecosystem. [[viroqua|Wisconsin]]‘s pre-European-contact landscape was oak savanna (oak, [[hickory|hickory]], hazel, with grass-and-forb understory and bison/elk grazing). Shepard’s farm models this:

[[chestnut|Chestnut]] as productive analog of oak (food crop, hardwood timber)
[[hazelnut|Hazelnut]] as understory analog of hazel (food crop)
Apple, pear, plum integrated with the chestnuts and hazels
Raspberries, blackcurrants as shrub layer
Squash, beans, [[asparagus|asparagus]] in herbaceous layer
Cattle, sheep, hogs, chickens rotationally grazed through

Design at watershed scale using keyline. Water-management earthworks (keyline ploughing, swales, ponds) shape the whole landscape; tree alleys follow keyline geometry.

STUN — Sheer Total Utter Neglect. Plant overwhelming numbers; let the strongest survive without irrigation, fertilization, or coddling. The trees that thrive are locally-adapted; their genetics carry forward.

Polyculture and stacking. Every layer occupied; many species per acre; the system mimics ecosystem diversity at agricultural scale.

What it produces

[[new-forest-farm|New Forest Farm]] produces (annually, on ~106 acres):

Tens of thousands of pounds of chestnuts and hazelnuts
Apples, pears, plums, raspberries, currants, [[asparagus|asparagus]]
Pastured pork, beef, lamb, chicken, eggs
Hardwood timber on long cycles
Acorns and oak mast for hogs

Total revenue rivals conventional Midwest commodity farms while building soil, restoring habitat, sequestering carbon, and producing far more diverse food.

Spread and influence

[[mark-shepard|Mark Shepard]]‘s Restoration Agriculture (2013) and his teaching at New Forest Farm have produced a widening community of restoration-agriculture practitioners across North America. The framework influences:

Savanna-belt farms across the Midwest
Mountain-region farms in Appalachia and the Northwest
Educational programs (Restoration Agriculture Development LLC, Forest Agriculture Enterprises)
Permaculture and agroforestry communities broadly

Sources

Restoration Agriculture, [[mark-shepard|Mark Shepard]] (Acres USA, 2013)
Water for Any Farm, [[mark-shepard|Mark Shepard]] (Acres USA, 2019)
[[new-forest-farm|New Forest Farm]] published materials
Restoration Agriculture Development LLC training materials

Rooted in life.

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Practical

voiced by

Mark Shepard Shepard coined and developed the term *restoration agriculture* at New Forest Farm and in his 2013 book

practice of

New Forest Farm the farm is the principal working example of Shepard's restoration-agriculture framework

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