Tony McQuail is a trained Holistic Resource Management Educator who has been farming for 50 years. He began utilizing intensive rotational grazing methods in 1994. He will discuss the system that allows him to develop a grazing plan while tracking how the plan actually unfolds over the season, and how he utilizes this information to make better management decisions for more productive pastures. Tony will speak about what to do in an over or under grazing situation, share his extensive experience in trying different animal unit intensities, and the differences he’s seen with different livestock.

Ken Laing has been farming near St.Thomas since 1979 with his wife Martha. Their strategy for semi-retirement from growing vegetables involved putting the whole farm in grass and transitioning to custom grazing beef yearlings. Very quickly they observed fields that had been in their vegetable rotations were growing much more productive pasture and the alfalfa was persisting much longer. They devised a renovation strategy that involved some tillage, cover crops, added fertility, and reseeding to improve the production in their other fields.

Ruth Knight is an organic consultant with years of experience as a farmer, researcher, and educator. She will be discussing how farmers can learn to be citizen scientists, or pair with citizen scientists, to complete soil health monitoring and better understand soil health. She will also speak about cover cropping and how farmers can choose the best cover crop mix for their specific soil health and land use needs, and agriculture’s role in mitigating climate change.

Tim Prior is a farmer and the owner of Brussels Agri Services. He has decades of experience rotationally grazing and specializes in helping farmers plan fencing for rotational grazing. Tim will speak to what farmers should consider when setting up rotational grazing paddocks, and what tools can make the rotational grazing transition easier and accessible for a variety of herd sizes. He will also speak from a vendor standpoint about e-collars in conjunction with Sarah Martin-Mills.

Sarah Martin-Mills is the owner and operator at Five Winds Farm in Creemore and has previous experience rotationally grazing cattle on several different operations. Sarah has adopted e-collars for her cattle, a new technology that can help streamline rotational grazing systems. She will share her experience in different rotational grazing systems and how the e-collars have impacted her operation.

Katrina McQuail is a farmer with 10 years of farm ownership and operation at Meeting Place Organic Farm. She will speak about her experiences working with OSCIA and its various programs, such as SARFIP and SARPAL. These programs have assisted Katrina in intensifying their rotational grazing system while supporting species at risk and establishing windrows and wildlife corridors.

Erika Inglis will MC the event. She is a Master’s student in Rural Planning and Development at the University of Guelph and has a Bachelor’s degree in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. She grew up on a farm and has spent much of her life working and living on diverse farms across Ontario and BC.