* With every ticket purchase for the 2024 Homestead Festival, you'll get access to watch all the speakers and talks in all the different tents as soon as they come available. Get your tickets today at thehomesteadfestival.com/
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Many folks are keen to add a family milk cow to their farmstead, but what makes them indispensable? Together, Shawn & Beth Dougherty have over four decades of experience farming and perfecting the art of grass conversion through dairy ruminants and how the dairy cow contributes to a full farm ecosystem.
This talk was filmed live at the 2023 Homestead Festival. (Day 1 / Tent C)
About Shawn & Beth Dougherty from One Cow Revolution and authors of The Independent Farmstead, Chelsea Green Press:
Shawn and Beth Dougherty, partners in farming since the 1980s, have spent the last two decades managing 90 acres in eastern Ohio, much of it deemed 'not suitable for agriculture.' Using intensive grazing, they raise dairy and beef cows, sheep, farm-fed hogs, and poultry, producing the majority of food, feed, and fertility on the farm. Concerned about farming's reliance on external resources, their ongoing project explores traditional, low-input farming methods, emphasizing grass conversion, especially the daily transformation of grass into milk by dairy ruminants, as key to whole-farm sustainability. Authors of "The Independent Farmstead," they share their knowledge through writing and travel, promoting self-sufficiency in farming communities. Learn more at one-cow-revolution.com/about/