A self-deemed ‘modern-day, urban shepherdess’, Brittany Cole Bush is a young professional working in the fields of land stewardship, restoration, animal husbandry, consulting and education. When it comes to being sustainable and accessible, the farming industry in the US faces a lot of challenges. But Brittany knows that bringing the next generation of farmers and land stewards together for food and fun is a big part of the solution.
Announcing: Shepherding School of the Midwest
In order for beginning farmers, ranchers, graziers, or land-base entrepreneurs to even get started there needs to be access to land and capital. The limiting factors I’ve struggled with tremendously are the realities of student debt, the cost of living, health care, and land access in a place where the value of land is so high that development will always win over small or mid-scale agriculture. My journey to starting this business has taken me over a decade as so many pieces needed to be created or acquired.
Brittany Cole Bush, Shepardess: Grazing For Change Consumer Revolution Mc And Speaker
Be sure to check out all of our previous episodes for more small business tips, resources and insights. I think we need to kind of take a step back and look at the history of where we come from and how food is a part of it.
With over a decade of experience, Cole has successfully treating thousands of acres on private and public lands throughout California for ecological enhancement and fire hazard reduction. Her experience derives from managing upwards of 2,500 head of sheep and goats in the Bay Area of California to perform stewardship and fire hazard abatement projects. Agrarian Trust’s mission is to support land access for the next generation of farmers. For many years friends and colleagues in the fields of regenerative agriculture and land stewardship have deemed EcoFarm as one of the most impactful and inspiring events of the year. No matter their size nor species, animals need you 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. As a first-generation (more like ‘skipped’) agrarian with over fifteen years of experience in caring for flerds of several hundred sheep and goats and teams of dogs and shepherds, I have learned from this work that we all want to find meaning and belonging.
A healthy ecology is one that has functioning biological processes and symbiotic relationships to the animals that rely on productive cycles and feedback loops in nature. As land stewards we can usher in practices that help restore the momentum of the Earth’s powerful ability to recover and adapt but it takes proactive tending to do so. In short, well-managed grazing can support the transition back to a healthy, functioning ecology that is fire safe and fire ready. Food production that really focuses on making our landscapes, our natural landscapes better and improving things that have been degraded on our natural landscapes. And there’s more and more faces like me who folks who haven’t come from agriculture who are pivoting and shifting.
The School works to answer to the tremendous demand for labor in the reblooming industry of prescribed grazing, developing curriculum to cultivate an expanded grazier workforce and supporting entrepreneurs in food and fiber, and ecological monitoring. And this can be all over the world and I think that meet brittany cole bush that as a consumer somebody who chooses not to be a shepherdess for example. I think that just becoming aware and conscious is creating power and support of those who were trying to create a conscious product. So it is amazing to see that people like you and other folks that are forefront of this sustainable agriculture movement in the US and beyond are implementing and innovating these practises that will help not only the environment also public health without having a regulatory mandate.
California Fire Safe Council
Based in Eastern Kansas, the site features both native Tallgrass prairie lands plus forested and cropland, for examination of sheep-goat management in a variety of environments. She has led transition of her family farm to Holistic Management and earned its accreditation as the official demonstration site for the Tallgrass Network. She is also an accredited Savory Professional Educator and is excited to offer education and support in Holistic Management throughout the region.
- And I don’t think that people are purposely being separated or they don’t know where their food and their products come from.
- During the heat of the day, we will have in-class time for Holistic Financial Planning and business plan development.
- And there’s more and more faces like me who folks who haven’t come from agriculture who are pivoting and shifting.
- Prescription grazing with sheep and goats as as land management tool.
- These animals not only produced these beautiful sheepskins or goathides, they were part of our original food system and again, that is an added value product of producing good food.
Shepherdess Land & Livestock Grazing School of the West Shepherdess Holistic Hides
Land Stewards began while I was working on a Bachelorsdegree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, developing an Independent Majortitled Sustainable Design and Community Development. After a decade of diligent grazing practices,experimenting from year to year, the efforts truly have proven to be a success and I wasthe gal documenting years of transformation. It didnʼt take me long to become abeliever in how we, as stewards of the land and animals can work with their systems totransform landscapes into vibrant, healthy, bio diverse and rich ones while raising ahealthy herd of animals. I oftenwondered how this rapid development could also foster rich culture, like the vibrant andcolorful culture I experienced visiting below the border into Mexico. I later came torealize that sustainable development neednʼt solely be in the hands of Urban Planners,Architects and Public Agents but also those who steward the wild on the periphery ofour urban and suburban corridors. Telling the story of these wild and managed landsthrough the work the animals as land management tools as well as a healthy andsustaining source of food I believe is the way I am able to contribute to the NewAgrarian movement, new economies and the encouragement of healthy people, animalsand lands.
They value sourcing from producers with humane, ethical & ecologically-sound practices and are driven by their mission to connect conscious consumers to thoughtfully-sourced and tanned hides, diverting waste streams from animal agriculture into the creations of beautiful heirloom additions to peoples lives. Together we are offering business planning utilizing Holistic Management, in a Field School designed to help you get started or advance a profitable contract grazing business with a flock of up to 200 sheep and/or goats. I’m remembering that to truly care is to love those around me, those whom I will never meet, the natural world, and myself. From there, the decisions I make can come from a place of compassion, a place necessary to truly be a part of resilient living systems. Being with animals reminds me of what it means to be human, intimately connected and a part of the natural world.
Tallgrass Network
Transhumance is a practice, a traditional way of life recognizing the relationship between an animal’s life cycle with the seasonal shifts on the landscape. Pastoral stewards of the land and domestic grazers work to mimic the rhythms of wild grazing herds. Those in the Northern Hemisphere, for instance, traverse up into high grounds for spring and summer to graze the bounty of growth after seasonal rains and then seasonally migrate back down to valleys and flats to have their offspring. Cole is the owner/operator of a commercial-scale prescribed grazing outfit, Shepherdess Land and Livestock Co., providing prescribed grazing services in some of the most densely populated areas in Southern California. She is also the founder/owner of Shepherdess Holistic Hides, purveying tanned sheep and goat hides mindfully sourced from livestock “raised and grazed” in the west, placing an additional value on a normally forgotten waste product.
Cost
- At the root of finding a sense of ‘meaning’ and ‘belonging’ is learning to care — for oneself, for the land we live on, and for one another — because “caring” is love in action. And love in action is what liberates us all.
- Cole has appeared in numerous media outlets as an expert on the subjects of fire mitigation, prescribed grazing, climate-beneficial agriculture, land stewardship, sustainable fiber production, and identity and inclusion.
- The San Diego Foundation is providing lunch for the event, so please RSVP to to ensure we have enough food and seats.
- Based in Eastern Kansas, the site features both native Tallgrass prairie lands plus forested and cropland, for examination of sheep-goat management in a variety of environments.
- I would love to hear an interview with a herding dog trainer.
Listen to Brittany’s stories about why goats love poison oak so much, all the way through to working with organic cow hides in the fashion industry. At the root of finding a sense of ‘meaning’ and ‘belonging’ is learning to care — for oneself, for the land we live on, and for one another — because “caring” is love in action. And love in action is what liberates us all. To be caring for the animals while experiencing their interaction with the environs that I grew up in, the familiar smells, the colors, the sounds, affirmed that I am doing the work that I am called to do. Transhumance uses all of the skills I’ve built working throughout California, while grounding the knowledge I’d gained by studying pastoralism and the art and science of shepherding in Spain and France.
The programming, beautiful setting, and the community of EcoFarm was exhilarating to experience that recharged my own enthusiasm about my personal work in the field of land stewardship and livestock. The San Diego Foundation is providing lunch for the event, so please RSVP to to ensure we have enough food and seats. I have interests in designing and managing the development of technologies to help streamline operations, monitor biological metrics on the ranch, and create better communications internally and with clients in the contract grazing world. So again, that’s all really localised or regionalized if you think about it. These animals not only produced these beautiful sheepskins or goathides, they were part of our original food system and again, that is an added value product of producing good food. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen over the years is that these inputs have depleted our soils and have depleted the resiliency of our landscapes.
And what that looks like is operating sheep and goats for contract grazing. Maybe herding dogs running across a hillside, maybe their human companion watching calmly from a distance. Beyond that details might get kind of hazy—and outdated. In recent years, the world of shepherding has advanced lightyears beyond that old fashioned bent-wood hook you might be imagining. However, they’re still guided by core tenants that shaped shepherding centuries ago. Twenty-first century shepherding practices employ targeted grazing techniques that can help mitigate invasive species, promote soil health, improve watershed function, and even help control wildfires, all while providing consumers with wool and meat they can be proud to support.
Through her own journey to create a viable career and livelihood in regenerative agriculture and land management, Cole will share how prescribed grazing sheep and goats in the west is opening pathways for next-generation agrarians seeking impactful work that addresses climate, public safety, vital food and fibersheds, and social change. My biggest joy, on the other hand, is meeting and beating the limiting factors and challenges I’ve faced. We grazed hundreds of acres as contracted land stewards with hundreds of animals together working to build a more fire safe and resilient community in the Ojai Valley. We have begun to create our own culture of being SoCal shepherds. We care for one another, have pride in what we do, and are part of a regional guild of folks who are practitioners, entrepreneurs, educators, and the like who are running beside us with the shared mission of making our region a better place. All the while having a quality of life that is fulfilling, rewarding, full of friendship and camaraderie and it’s worth every square inch of sunburn, hours of thirst, chasing goats or guard dogs, or getting tangled up in electric fence netting.
Leave a Reply