Terra Grande Farms is a ten-hectare regenerative Anglo-Nubian goat farm in San Carlos, Negros Occidental. They believe that they are the first and only regenerative goat farm in the Philippines, and they achieved this by practicing a wide variety of sustainable and regenerative farm methods.
The farm is owned and managed by civil engineers Ruel Silvano and Joy Tingson. They are both advocates of regenerative farming methods and their farm currently practices rapid rotational grazing systems, silvopasture, keyline design principles, permaculture, agroforestry, and regenerative agriculture.
READ: Negros Occidental farm raises purebred Anglo-Nubian goats through regenerative goat farming
The whole pasture area of Terra Grande Farms with the goat house on the far left. (Ruel Silvano)
Terra Grande Farms employs all of the principles of regenerative agriculture and agroforestry on a large scale. They believe that they are the only regenerative goat farm in the country because as they embarked on their journey, they had no resources to refer to. The practices they wanted to use were applied in other countries, but haven’t been applied to the Philippines.
They’ve gone through a lot of trial and error, which is how they’ve learned and discovered ten principles of regenerative agriculture needed for a farm like theirs. Here they are:
Limited Soil Disturbance. Terra Grande Farms is located on a steep mountainside with slopes typically ranging from 35-60 degrees. Since there is a risk of erosion, they practice no-till farming to reduce this risk and avoid damaging their soil ecology.
Instead of planting high-maintenance crops, they planted improved grasses like Mulato II and Mombasa. Improved grasses are low-maintenance and can thrive by themselves after four to eight months.
Mulato II is grazing-resistant, drought-tolerant, shade-tolerant and low-maintenance, while Mombasa may not be as grazing-resistant it is still just as useful and beneficial.
Mombasa Grass, a fast-growing, shade-tolerant and drought-tolerant grass. (Ruel Silvano)
Maximized Soil Cover. Before planting the improved grasses, cut weeds were evenly distributed on the pasture to suppress the growth of non-palatable weeds. Additionally, native cover crops like Centrosema and pueraria were sown in their pasture to aid in nitrogen-fixing.
Centrosema and pueraria are legumes and help the soil increase in fertility over time. Other native vegetation and herbaceous plants are left alone to thrive in the pasture.
Diversity. Terra Grande Farms mimic a natural forest with seven layers of vegetation. Four hectares of the farm is used as their pasture area. It is then divided into nine paddocks that are 2500-4000 sqm each. Each paddock has a capacity of 200 goats for three days, and has a one month rotation period.
Instead of clearing all the pasture areas to achieve full sunlight, they planted shade-tolerant grasses in order to utilize areas that are partially to fully-shaded and could not support native grasses and vegetation.
Instead of clearing the entire pasture area, they planted shade-tolerant grasses called Mombasa and Mulato II. (Ruel Silvano)
They have primary and secondary canopy layers that include mango trees, coconut trees, Gmelina (Gmelina arborea), narra, buri palm, and other native trees.
Shrub layers include madre de cacao, bagalnga (Melia dubia), lagnob (Ficus septica), alingala, alagasi, niyog-niyogan, and other forages for our goats. While they still have space to add more shrubs like oranges, lemons, or berries, they hold off on it because the goats will inevitably eat and mow down edible vegetation.
Living Roots. Continuous living roots are essential in regenerative farming. Aside from temporal consideration, roots should occupy different strata in order to maximize soil capacity. Goats and pastures should be designed, controlled, and managed correctly to avoid overgrazing.
Livestock Integration. The last piece needed for a regenerative farm is the integration of livestock. Terra Grade has their goats.
Goats may have a bad reputation of eating and destroying everything on their path, but if planned and managed correctly, like by using the rapid rotational grazing system, they help fertilize the soil by scattering their manure and urine in the field. This is also a proven method to lessen parasite load to the goats since the parasite life cycle is broken when the goats are transferred to another paddock after three days.
The following are not part of the main principles of regenerative agriculture, however they are five additional practices applied by Terra Grande Farms.
Maximize Sunlight Utilization. This is borrowed from agroforestry principles. Having seven layers of a natural forest ensures that every ray of sunlight is utilized by plants for photosynthesis which in turn provides food for the goats.
Excess sunlight can usually pose a problem as it can cause quick evaporation of moisture in the soil, thus stunting or drying the grass in the pasture. But in their case, sunlight is even deficient due to maximized sunlight utilization.
Water Resources Management. This is where keyline design principles and permaculture practices are utilized. In these practices, a system is created for water to be captured and used when needed.
As a civil engineer, Silvano used his knowledge and understanding of water resources management and applied it in the farm to maximize water resources.
Balance. Balance should be achieved during planning and design. Data collection, experiments, and refinement must be done throughout execution in order to discover the balance needed to achieve the goals of the farm.
The buildings, nursery, and pasture areas of Terra Grande Farms are well-designed for the number and breed of goats they intend to raise. If they did not seek balance, then they would have had to address problems such as overgrazing or undergrazing at the pasture, as well as overstocking at the goat house where problems including abortion, fast spread of a disease, and other management problems may occur.
F1 does and F2 Anglo-Nubian kids (25% Philippine native, 75% Anglo-Nubian blood) happily eating native and cultivated forages inside the goat house during the rainy season. (Ruel Silvano)
Harmony. Terra Grande Farms believe that harmony is very important. One cannot just simply put plants and animals together and expect the farm to be harmonious and self-sustaining.
They conducted plenty of trials and scientific experiments to learn how to harmonize the goats with the plants on the farm. and determine how to continuously scale up.
Biomimicry. All the principles of regenerative agriculture are part of the larger field of the science of biomimicry. Since life evolved and sustained itself on the planet for billions of years, they believe it is wise to look at how nature works in solving several problems, from basic to more complex ones. They encourage farmers to seek knowledge and understand in depth how nature works and to somehow mimic it in order to truly attain the goal of a regenerative farm.
It’s not often that you can find a goat farm that brands itself as a regenerative farm, however Terra Grande Farms has gone through many trials to learn how to employ regenerative goat raising in the Philippine setting.
They’ve learned and proven what is effective and not. The ten principles they use on the farm can be a great reference for Filipino farmers who want to try the same livestock farming methods while also wanting to keep to sustainable or regenerative agriculture.
Photos courtesy of Ruel Silvano