Our resident writer, Jonnah, caught up with Land to Market member and Savory Institute Hub leader, Eric Perner, from his ranch in northeast Oklahoma. Eric is the owner and farmer of Double P Ranch and the direct-to-consumer brand, REP Provisions. Eric and Jonnah talked about his transition from the oil and gas industry into ranching, why the Cross Timbers ecosystem needs grazing ruminants, and how Eric’s lifelong passion for wildlife conservation has shaped the way he farms.
Jonnah:
Thank you for taking the time to share your story. I’d love to learn about your path into ranching and what drew you to Holistic Management for your operation?
Eric:
It's been a long journey for me. I grew up on a farm. We had beef, we had hogs, we had every kind of species of wild animal you could think of. But from an early age it was drilled into me how important it is to work with nature, not against it. My father was a holistic-minded thinker and he instilled that in me when I'm young. I was also really passionate about conservation work. I was a hunter as a kid, so I loved wildlife. In fact, I would go deer hunting just because I enjoyed being in the stand.
From a young age I’ve had this passion for restoring habitat for the wildlife around our ecosystem. I watched things be wiped out in this really extractive type of agriculture. What I saw had no real benefits to our native perennial grasses.
I took a different path as I grew up and I went to college and got an engineering degree. And then ended up in an even more extractive industry in oil and gas. Actually pulling carbon out of the ground and using it. That was my job for a very long time.
Throughout my engineering career I was always being pulled back to the land. In 2006, I was at a place in my life where I could purchase a pretty large tract of land with my father. We bought land with the goal of restoring this ecosystem that we're in, the Cross Timbers ecosystem, which is this incredibly bio-diverse area in northeast Oklahoma that's right in the middle of the country. It's very unique because you get all these species from the north, south, east and west converging here.
Around 2015, I discovered the Savory Institute, and it really summed up all these ideas that I thought agriculture should be. Allan was able to express in words what I was never able to and it really drew me into the Savory Institute. Then I began studying Holistic Management and went through the training with Savory and it all really resonated with me. It tugged at my heartstrings because it encompassed all of these aspects I was passionate about. It made sense. I felt that, hey, animals are a part of this unique ecological structure that we have and if we break that, we break everything.
Also in the back of my mind I felt that while I can practice Holistic Management, I was still stuck in this conventional agriculture system. I asked myself, If I did things right on my land, was I actually rewarded for it when I had to sell into the conventional livestock yard system and the feedlot system? And that didn't feel in alignment for me. I decided to start our own direct-to-consumer brand where we could tell our own story and we could talk about our management practices in a way that would resonate with customers. We achieved that with the direct-to-consumer brand REP Provisions. And then Land To Market fit into this piece as well, helping tell that story.
We started out with a really small herd of beef cattle, and then that grew to multi-species. We run beef, pastured hogs, goats, and sheep on this land. We went from a really, what I would consider, uneconomic ranch to one that now is generating more revenue than it ever has, just because I've integrated all these different species. And the land, as far as measurements as we've taken, is improving every year. To me, that's super exciting. I'm trying to show this path of how it is possible, number one, to make a ranch successful, but also restore all these wonderful little things for wildlife conservation work that I'm also passionate about.
Jonnah:
I'm really curious about the Cross Timbesr ecosystem. Can you tell me what that looks like for someone who isn't familiar with your landscape?
Eric:
Where we are in Oklahoma, the Cross Timbers ecosystem is a place in the country where we're transitioning from the more heavily wooded eastern part of the country into the Tallgrass Prairie. The Tallgrass is one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. The Tallgrass once encompassed 170 million acres from Canada to Mexico. It's been reduced down to less than 1% of that. This is a highly critical ecosystem. The Cross Timbers is the transition into the Tallgrass Prairie and grazing is crucial to ecoystem restoration.
On our land we still have a lot of wooded areas and the majority of it being native pecan trees, at least on my property. But we've got lots of different kinds of oak, elm, hackberry, and this one really amazing tree called honey locust, that has these vicious thorns on it, which is a leftover from the Pleistocene, when these large animals used to graze through this area of the country. In one acre of my pasture I can find over 70 different species of grasses. It's really diverse along with the animals as well.
This region has been highly disrupted because humans have altered the ecosystem. It's losing a lot of biodiversity, and that's super scary to me. We've disrupted a lot of these natural cycles of grazing animals and eliminated any fire. What used to be a really Savanna-like ecosystem has become choked out with pockets of trees with very sparse grassland and overgrazed grassland. We're seeing this land surrounding us used in ways that are really damaging to it.
Jonnah:
When you first started implementing Holistic Management, what were some of the observable visual signs that you could see that your management style was regenerating the land? Just with your naked eye, without EOV (ecological outcome verification), what were some of the a-ha moments where you felt like this is really working?
Eric:
When we purchased the land we found the native grass grazed out to the nub and there was bare soil everywhere. That allowed a lot of other encroachment of more undesirable plant species. We've fought that over the years. The main difference now is that I have excellent ground cover everywhere. Not only have I increased the number of animals on the land, but it is managed in such a way that ground cover just stays there year round. We see a lot of different species of forbs, which are great pollinator plants, that I didn't used to see. We're working on our forested areas to make those into more savanna to help open up that canopy where I'm seeing grasses grow underneath the forest, which used to be really bare soil. We're starting to see some plants growing there.
It's a slow process though. It's not something that happens overnight, but you can see positive changes a little bit each year. And I think that's the main takeaway when we talk about Holistic Management. You're not going to change things immediately, and you're going to have disruptions, and you're going to have droughts, but minute changes happening across multiple farms managing holistically, makes huge differences. And it's not always perfect. I'm not perfect. Things happen, things get in the way, but we've got to be forgiving of ourselves and know that we can't do everything perfectly every time. But if we're making incremental changes year after year. What was here before was constant degradation.
Jonnah:
In your region, with the farmers that are in your community, what are the other agricultural activities that you're surrounded by?
Eric:
It's cattle production, predominantly. There is some soybean production, some corn, but mostly it's cattle. I’ve seen guys who raise cattle with no management and we can see the negative outcomes. But we also have land that is just not used at all. I can walk across the street to a parcel of land, a hundred acres or so, that hasn't been touched in 20 years and has completely converted to sparse grass, choked forests and a lot of bare soil. Most people would think this land has been resting for so many years, why is it not flourishing? Conversely, you can go across the road, and see a land completely grazed out with bare soil. As Allan always says, it all comes back to management. I can tell that properly managed animals are a critical part of this ecosystem.
Jonnah:
Giving the consumer the option to source from you and to feel directly connected to your farm is so valuable and important. I'd love to hear about the Beef, Love, Joy box and how you chose these cuts, and why this box is special.
Eric:
We wanted to offer something around the holiday with recipes that could be really simple. They're not complicated cuts. For example, a roast, anyone can put in a nice roast in a crock-pot and serve it that day. And of course, ground beef, that's a simple one as well. And then a new product in the box is short ribs, but we sliced them in Korean short ribs style. We even have a line of our own sauces that pair great with these regenerative meats. We provide most of the ingredients list for folks if that's what they desire. These are super comfort foods around the holidays. The name, Beef, Love, Joy encompasses everything that we believe in. This is another great way to convey our message.
Jonnah:
We often celebrate grasslands in the high summer when it's really green and lush. I'd love to hear you talk about what winter looks like on your farm. I know you just got some snow. What is your day-to-day in the winter and what wildlife do you see?
Eric:
Our native perennial grasses are dormant now. I think it's important to note that we do almost no mowing. A lot of other farmers, for whatever reason, just wipe out their fields. This leaves everything bare until spring comes back and then they get some fresh growth. What we try to do is mow a limited amount of hay, only what we're going to use. We stockpile as much grass as we can so we can graze through the winter and leave lots of ground cover. I think there's some really strategic times when you can mow and clear dead mass and let it come back in the spring, but it's probably not the best time in the winter just to wipe out your entire field by mowing it or haying it just because you can get an extra little bit of hay. I would much rather stockpile that grass and graze it and then leave cover. We leave cover for our grassland bird species and cover for other animals.
When I look around at other farms, a lot of it looks like a golf course. I don't know why our culture has it in our head that this is attractive. To me it's the most unattractive thing because I realize that it is literally a barren desert for any life and you leave no cover in the winter. If we do need to mow or burn, it's going to be very strategic. It's going to have a really good context around what we're trying to accomplish here.
I was just watching white-tailed deer running through our forested areas, eating pecans and chasing does. Then I saw wood ducks come in on the ponds. We have a lot of wildlife, even in the wintertime. We promote a lot of habitat for birds so we still see lots of different species come down here through the winter. It's a beautiful time of year.
Jonnah:
How do you choose your species to be adapted to your particular region, whether that's over wintering outdoors or mothering. How does that tie in with the four seasons that you have on your ranch?
Eric:
We've been using a cross between a Santa Getrudis and an Angus. Santa Getrudis do really well in hot environments, Angus not so much. Then in the winter time, the Angus do really well in cold weather, where Santa Getrudis not so well. We get this mix of breed that does well in hot and cold, which is hardy for the mix of conditions we get here. We also raise Kiko goats, which are really good at getting in our forested areas and tearing up and eating brush and green briar that we're trying to mitigate. We've been running a Berkshire hog through some of the forested areas as well. They're great at eating up all the pecans and the walnuts that fall from the trees that we have.
They all have their own little impact they make that I think is beneficial in the long run. We've chosen them to fit our environment. It's important for farmers to find something that fits their ecosystem that could be bred over time. So this means either thinning or culling what doesn't work, and really getting that animal imprinted to your ecosystem. It doesn’t only depend on what breed you pick, but how you cull, how do you thin the herd as time goes by to really fit your ecosystem.
Jonnah:
And that also takes pressure off of you.
Eric:
Exactly, you're selecting for those animals that are doing well. As long as you're pretty good at that, if you can pick those right animals that flourish.
Jonnah:
I think that's so beautiful to be letting these natural systems teach you instead of slamming an idea that is out of context into your operation. You're being informed by your ecosystem.
Eric:
Absolutely. On the beef and goats, everything is only grass fed. On that note, almost all cattle breeds are not developed or gauged on how well they do on grass. They're always gauged on how well they do in the feedlot. When the food industry says, grass fed beef could not feed the world. Well, we've never even tried to go down this path to pick the breed that does best on grass. All of our genetics have been geared towards how well they do on grain. If we can start to change that, I think those breeds will get better and better over time at converting grass to meat.
Jonnah:
What's so special about what you're doing is you're rewriting the gene pool for your micro-region. And then you get to stand back and watch and just see how productive it can be, and it's working.
Find the Beef, Love, Joy box and other REP Provision Meats at REPRPOVISIONS.COM
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