holistic management

Holistic Management is a proven management and decision making process that enables producers to maximize their livestock operations while simultaneously minimizing costs, improving land and animal health, and increasing wildlife and ecosystem services. 

Benefits and impact of holistic management

Land Stewards/Producers:

  • Enhance your grazing program to improve forage, livestock health, and soil  fertility

  • Sequester carbon through enhancement of perennial grass and other desired species on rangeland

  • Build profit into your annual fiscal planning

  • Maximize stocking rates for optimal ecological system functions

  • Reduce inputs and improve overall ecosystem functions

Community Organizations, Land Trusts, Government Agencies, Tribal Nations:

  • Build a system-based approach to land management that takes all beings into consideration

  • Develop long-term conservation and ecological restoration planning strategies

  • Improve soil health through livestock integration

  • Build resilience in your community and uplift stewards managing land

  • Create management and facilitation strategies to drive change

Individuals + Community Members

  • Understand your role in repairing and regenerating the ecosystem

  • Develop tools to understand your role in  global and regional food systems 

  • Enhancing your quality of life and well being through holistic decision-making 

  • Build your expertise and become an accredited professional through the Savory Institute 

Holistic Management™ is a systems-thinking approach to regenerate the world’s soils, minimize the damaging effects of climate change, and create flourishing livelihoods through the integration of livestock on grasslands. Developed by Allan Savory and Jody Butterfield  in the early 1960s, Holistic Management looks at the relationship between grazing, animal impact (trampling), and periods of rest to develop a nutrient and ecological cycle that improves ecosystem processes, increases livestock production, reduces need for off-site inputs, and builds economic prosperity.

Whether you are a small family farm, large acreage livestock producer, land steward, government agency, land trust/conservation organization, or community member looking to influence your regional food system, Holistic Management builds a robust framework for understanding and impacting land through decision making processes that look at people, profit, and place to build true wealth and ecological uplift. 

As a comprehensive framework that looks at personal, financial, land, and grazing factors, Holistic Management gives confidence that the decisions and actions taken on land are ecologically, socially, and economically sound, and based on the context described by the people involved. Our focus is on empowering decisions at the soil surface. We are not prescriptive, auditing, judging, best practice evangelists, but rather your trusted guide through the process of defining your own goals and objectives. 

Holistic Management framework can be adapted to any situation, culture, landscape, or climate because it isn’t a checklist or one size fits all approach. It is a dynamic and adaptive decision-making framework that can bring clarity to tough decisions and build a framework for managing complex systems for lasting prosperity and impact.