NY Times Features Grazing Program at Pescadero’s TomKat Ranch

A recent NY Times article spotlights a conservation project in Pescadero that has become a model for sustainable agriculture.

In "An Accidental Cattle Ranch Points the Way in Sustainable Farming," Kat Taylor and husband Tom Steyer of TomKat Ranch in Pescadero are featured as successful business owners who — by demonstrating ways to improve soil health — discovered a successful venture in raising prime grass-fed beef.

The ranch's goal is to help reverse the trend of lower levels of carbon in soil. Begun as a way to improve the soil quality and foster conservation, the ranch now produces beef under the brand name Leftcoast Grassfed.

TomKat, sprawling 1,800 acres, is also aiming to copy the migratory patterns that developed the world’s great plains on a small scale by rotating cows, birds and pigs around the ranch, according to the NY Times feature.

The article also explains the ranch's history, starting in the mid-1800s, when homesteaders named Honsiger put up barns and houses, orchards and stock ponds. Kat Taylor bought the property in 2002, according to the NY Times report. The herd, which started with 30 heifers in 2006, now numbers 120 with about half of which are breeding stock.

Neighbors Bill Laven of Portrero Nuevo Farm in Half Moon Bay leases part of their land to TomKat and runs cattle using similar grazing methods as TomKat. 

"Since July, we've provided a home to 20 or more cattle from TomKat, and as we build our water infrastructure [they] will bring more cattle here, perhaps approaching 50 seasonally as conditions here are improved by their grazing," said Laven.

Like TomKat, the folks at Portrero are also interested in seeing how grazing can help the soil and protect and build habitat for other species on the Coast, particularly native and migratory birds.

"In the first field they grazed, new perennial grasses have appeared that we've not seen since we moved here six years ago," said Laven. "The cows ate old dry material and stomped through thick thatch there to expose grasses that now literally see the light of day and are flourishing again. As the cows are moved every few days onto new grazing blocks it's immediately apparent how the "mob grazing," when carefully managed and monitored, provides multiple benefits to the land."

“Think of the ranch as a huge science experiment,” Steyer says in the NY Times article. “Can you raise animals sustainably? Can the land become the carbon sink that it once was? Can you demonstrate a way of doing agriculture, raising food, that doesn’t damage the environment?"

Read the full report in the NY Times article here.