A conversation with Austin Unruh, founder of Trees for Graziers, about the investment case for silvopasture. What if we could plant hundreds of millions of trees on degraded, low-value pasture land and make money from it? What if we planted trees that are beneficial for livestock—ruminants, pigs, and poultry? The market for meat and animal products is fairly stable (unless we get a massive breakthrough in precision fermentation soon, but that’s hard to predict). Trees can dramatically lower costs and increase production.
Austin argues that this is the best entry point to get many more trees into the landscape. When chosen well, these trees provide shade (a basic need), but more importantly, they offer feed during the most difficult periods of the year—like high summer, or specific fruits that drop in the autumn, full of sugar and energy, just as cows prepare for the colder winter months. Especially with pasture-raised pigs and poultry, you can save massively on expensive (organic) feed, which is mostly grain. And as a bonus, pastures grow better with partial shade.
So, when in doubt, plant more trees on pasture. Of course, this isn’t always easy. You need to make sure pigs—who are notorious diggers— don’t destroy the young trees. You need to ensure the trees survive the first few years. You’ll need financing to bridge those early, non-fruit-bearing years. But all of that is fixable. And you’ll need a massive tree nursery to supply quality trees—preferably large ones—at scale and at an affordable price. Finally, we discuss why the beauty of a savannah-like landscape is so important.

WHY SILVOPASTURE IS SO INTERESTING

Silvopasture is a way to boost farm productivity, profitability, and ecological health by integrating trees into agricultural systems.

“That’s been the key for me is how can we make farmers more productive, more profitable, and increase our ecological productivity on the landscape by this integration of trees onto farms. […] The scale of application is literally millions of acres. […] We can actually gain more productivity and get ecological benefits out of it.” Austin Unruh

WHY TREES PROVIDE SHADE FOR PASTURE AND ANIMALS

Trees reduce heat stress for livestock and improve pasture resilience during summer months.

“Shade is going to help livestock by reducing their heat stress. […] By having the right amount of shade, we can actually increase the amount of [pasture] growth over the summer months. […] We want tall trees so that the shade moves throughout the course of the day, and the livestock move along with it.” Austin Unruh

WHY TREE FODDER IS GREAT FOR RUMINANTS

Austin explains how tree fodder supplements feed shortages for ruminants, smoothing seasonal gaps in forage availability.

“We want to focus on tree crops that are going to be made available during times of year when livestock don’t have enough feed. […] Smooth out those curves of having a lot of feed at one time but not enough at others. […] Honey locust pods or persimmon fruits, especially high-energy, uh, feeds that are going to provide those livestock with the, the energy, the, the warmth that they need, um, to get through the winter or actually to put on additional pounds and to increase their yield during those fall months, fall and winter months.’’ Austin Unruh

HOW SILVOPASTURE INCREASES FARMER PROFITABILITY

Silvopasture reduces input costs and boosts margins by enhancing land productivity.

“With a silvopasture system, you can take a piece of land, and now it’s low or medium input, and its medium to high output is what it’s able to produce for you. So, you’re able to capture a larger margin on that. The only difference is that those people who are running those 10 million acres are now going to be able to produce more of that piece of land with a lower cost of input. So very simple. I think no one’s going to get crazy rich with it, but it’s going to be able to provide much more resilience to a lot more farmers and the stability that they know that this is going to work for them. ” Austin Unruh

OTHER POINTS DISCUSSED

Koen and Austin also talked about:

• Many fruit trees are perfect for mono gastrics animals (pigs and poultry)
• Trees can make degraded and low value into more productive land and decrease the costs of production of the animals
• Why the entry point for Austin was organic pasture based dairy
• A major barrier is cheap and high quality seedlings and growing material
• Why they are experimenting with trans planting much larger seedlings
• Why silvopasture is so scalable, there are tens of millions of acres of degraded pasture land
• Why the estetics of silvopasture (it’s beautiful to look at a savanna) is so important

LINKS:

• Trees For Graziers
• The sound of an agroforestry field
• Learning Resources
• Mark Shepard’s book
• Land, Livestock, & Life: A Grazier’s Guide to Finance book

LINKED INTERVIEWS:

• Philip Kauders – From Goldman Sachs to investing hundreds of millions in agroforestry in Brazil
• Brett Hundley – From Tyson Foods equity analyst to financing millions of trees
• Paul McMahon – Why regen forestry is natural capital’s Trojan horse for institutional investors
• Marcelo Salazar and Zé Porto – A forest super shake to preserve and regenerate the Amazon, the world’s largest agroforestry system
• Kevin Wolz – Starting an agroforestry industry in the belly of the beast, the soy and corn monoculture heartland of the US Midwest
• Jonas Steinfeld – The many shades of green of agroforestry systems

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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.