by Emily Rose Johnson, Communications Coordinator for The Livestock Conservancy | Monday, November 28, 2022 —
Pineywoods Bull, courtesy of Bruce and Marge Petesch / Chatco Cattle Company

Several speckled brown and white cows graze in a pasture at Bruce and Marge Petesch’s Tangled Oaks Farm in Siler City, NC. These are Pineywoods cattle, one of several endangered heritage breeds in the Southeast.

“We chose Pineywoods because they were the right size, capable of defending themselves from predators, known for easy calving, and a perfect fit for the silvopasture land management strategy we envisioned,” said Bruce and Marge.

Read on to discover the long histories of Pineywoods cattle and a few more endangered heritage livestock and poultry breeds of the Southeast.

(more…)

by Emily Lancaster, Animal Welfare Approved (more…)

by CFSA | Monday, Oct. 21, 2019 – 

Mbarara visit to Parental Care Ministires school and farm. Photo via Rhyne Cureton

When swine specialist Rhyne Cureton first worked with pigs he found them frustrating. No matter what he tried, the pigs kept breaking out of their enclosures. It took a dramatic escape by a 500-pound sow named Louise to eventually shift Cureton’s perspective and help him develop his “farmer’s eye.”

Since that experience, Cureton (also known as “Pork” Rhyne) has become a small farms swine specialist and advocate in the United States and abroad. For the last three years, Cureton has traveled to East Africa to train rural pig farmers on how proper livestock husbandry and health correlate to farm profitability.

We recently caught up with Cureton to talk about his interest in agriculture, his experience in East Africa, and his future goals.

(more…)

by CFSA | Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019 –

An Interview with 2019 SAC Keynote, Dr. Allen Williams

Dr. Allen Williams is a sixth-generation family farmer and expert on regenerative agriculture and grazing, soil health, adaptive foraging, pasture-based meat production, the grass-fed market, and alternative marketing systems, among other subjects. He personally pioneered many of the first grass-fed protocols and forage finishing techniques. For these reasons and more, we are thrilled to bring Dr. Williams as the keynote speaker of our 2019 Sustainable Agriculture Conference.

Though he currently lives in Mississippi, where he owns a grass-fed beef operation, Dr. Williams has deep roots in the Carolinas. His ancestors first started their family farm in South Carolina in the year 1842. He began his education at Clemson, where he earned his BS and MS in Animal Science. He later went on to earn his Ph.D. in Livestock Genetics from LSU. He is also a longtime partner and Chief Ranching Officer of Joyce Farms in Winston-Salem. A respected researcher, (self-described) “recovering” academic, and writer, Dr. Williams has published over 400 articles and the book Before You Have a Cow. We recently sat down for an in-depth conversation with Dr. Williams about all things regenerative and adaptive in the Carolinas and beyond.

(more…)