The nuts and bolts of Holistic Management
The Kroon family has always been environmentally conscious, with brothers Malcolm and Norman Kroon erecting fencing in the 1950s to reduce the size of the camps and rotate their Merino sheep and Angora goats across their farm, Klipdrift, near Graaff-Reinet.
When their Namibian farm was expropriated in the 1960s, the family sought the help of an independent ecologist to provide proof in court that the land was worth more than what the government was offering. That ecologist was Allan Savory, the pioneer of Holistic Management (HM).
Inspired by Savory, Malcolm fenced Klipdrift into 50 paddocks in the shape of wagon wheels, with the cells of the ‘wheels’ opening out into central areas where the animals could be managed, and where they could drink and receive additional feed.
The sheep and goats were then divided into mixed flocks that were rotated from one cell of the wheel to the next every five to seven days. Cells were given 60 to 70 days to recover before being grazed again.
While this system works well, Sholto Kroon and his brother Roland, who is also an accredited Field Professional with the Savory Institute, have realised, since taking over the farm from their father Malcolm and uncle Norman in the 1990s, that HM entails much more than high-density grazing and the strategic use of fencing. They now view these methods as just some of those available to achieve specific production outcomes.
Roland says that when HM is described to
