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Mexican rancher finds success with regenerative grazing

A rancher in Mexico is using regenerative agriculture practices to transform his pastureland.  

Alejandro Carillo’s 30,000-acre ranch is nested in the Chihuahuan Desert in northern Mexico.  He says about 12 years ago a soil health practitioner gave him a new outlook on his pastures.

“He looked at my land, he looked at my hills and mountain range, and I just pretty much have a lot of bare ground and rocks. And he told me the more degraded fields (and) parts of the ranch, that’s where the best grasses were.”

He tells Brownfield that began a journey to make the ranch more resilient.

“And that really (begins) through observation what you need to work toward, because unfortunately we’re always trying to fight and kill something. You’re fighting the cactus, you’re fighting the wooded plants (and) fighting the encroachment of those plants.”

Instead, he focused on diversifying grasses and different grazing techniques.

“We need to work toward having more living roots around the year.”

Carillo went from 50 pastures to 350 paddocks and says the even grazing and longer rest periods provided the best results.

Carillo was a guest speaker earlier this year for several Land Stewardship Project winter soil health workshops in Minnesota.