Partnership Spotlight: Silvopasture
Building successful silvopasture pairings to support farmer education in North Carolina
Raising Roots Farm- Hickory NC
Project size: 8 acres on a 40 acre farm
Catawba County, NC
Type of operation: Pasture Swine Operation
Objective 1: Establishing silvopasture in a mature mixed forested area.
Step by step for Raising Roots Farm:
- July 2019: Site visit to evaluate the property
- August 2019: Technical assistance support and pasture pork management resources and paddock design for silvopasture systems shared (scroll below for resources).
- July 2021: Areas at farm fenced and utilized for pasturing pigs. Natural forages utilized for initial use.
Brandon Berry owns and operates Raising Roots Farm in Hickory, NC which raises Gloucester Old Spot hogs on pasture. Having maxed out his production pastures on his home farm, Brandon was able to lease an additional 40 acres of pasture to expand his beef and swine production. The new pasture contained approximately 32 acres of open pasture and 8 acres of wooded area. In the initial plan, cattle would utilize the open pasture and the wooded areas would be utilized for hog production. The hogs would be used to clear the understory vegetation and cool season grasses could eventually be established which would prevent erosion and allow cattle to be utilized to occasionally graze the forages and help with preventing nutrients from building up.
As the BFRD project progressed, Brandon was in a multi-faceted expansion of his farm which included building a butcher shop on the farm to gain control of his meat processing and to become the centerpiece for agritourism. Unfortunately in 2020 the pandemic disrupted the expansion and delayed the butchershop opening until later in 2021. This delay and the covid based uncertainty put a strain on the farm which in turn delayed the implementation of the silvopasture development for this program. Brandon was, however, able to utilize the information provided from NC Choices and NCSU to develop some smaller silvopasture systems at his home farm until he will be able to develop the plan on the leased land in the near future.
Site, forage, and planning
Resource links applied to Brandon Berry/Raising Roots Farm