When Shana Hanson’s housemate brought home baby goats two decades ago, Hanson stayed in the barn on their first night in case they were frightened. She made a bed of fir branches — and the animals started to eat it.
As years went by and the goats became her own, she noticed them leading her toward certain trees on walks. Her nine goats and one beef steer now eat from the forest every day, and she saves tree fodder from her Belfast land for the winter.
Agroforestry — using trees in agricultural production — and its subcategory silvopasture, or combining trees with livestock grazing land, involves soil science and forestry. But so far, it is largely an intuitive practice for those using it in the most forested state in the country.
By definition, silvopasture is putting trees into pastures with the goal of sequestering carbon, according to state soil scientist Matt Boucher. People in Maine also graze in existing forests and sometimes thin their trees to allow grazing.
“I don’t think it’s rocket science,” said Lisa Reilich, who grazes her 50-plus Nigerian goats using movable fencing in the woods at Painted Pepper Farm in Steuben. “I don’t think I’m doing anything that anyone with a piece of land like I have wouldn’t be doing.”
Maine farms in every county used agroforestry practices in 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s census. With 4.8 percent of all farms involved in agroforestry, Maine had the second-highest percentage in the country after Vermont.
Eighty-nine percent of Maine land was forested in 2021, according to the U.S. Forest Service. More than 91 percent of it is in private ownership.
The United States Department of Agriculture advocates for agroforestry through its National Agroforestry Center. In Maine, the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry hopes to offer training sessions in the next few years, Boucher said. Currently, there are few official resources specific to the state.
Yet the Maine Ecological Design School in Rockland sees “a great deal of interest” in agroforestry, according to landscape designer Jesse Watson.
The school is organizing the first Maine Permaculture and Agroforestry Convergence in Unity on July 20 and 21 this year.
Though principles overlap, a farmer doesn’t need a permaculture system to use agroforestry, and many don’t.
Reilich simply watches her woods and her livestock, considering how an area will look several years out as she makes decisions. She also has a forest management plan.
Painted Pepper has cut down feed purchases by 30 to 40 percent, and Reilich said forest materials have more protein than the hay available from Maine and Canada. She composts manure to create grassy areas and is sowing rye as another protein source.
The open environment is better for the animals, she said. Livestock confined to barns or small pasture spaces are more prone to parasites and other health issues. Another benefit is that the quality of the forage produces milk with more butterfat, benefitting her commercial dairy, she said.
“It costs a lot more to bring a goat back into health than to keep it there,” she said. “The best way to make money is to not spend it.”
Forest feed can be more reliable than hay, though trees are stressed by extreme weather too. But last spring, when many hay farmers got one cut of hay instead of two or three, Hanson was busy harvesting tree branches.
She practices pollarding, an ancient practice of pruning trees for animal fodder. She also creates fermented leaf silage in barrels and dries entire branches to feed the animals throughout the winter.
Hanson is studying the protein in leaf silage and related milk production through a farmer research and education grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture. So far, she has seen enthusiastic responses in cattle, sheep and goats — and more milk.
The project also includes trials of a novel leaf separator machine to prepare leaves for packing.
Hanson was once a vegetable gardener who watched her seed supply dwindle through two wet seasons.
“I thought, well, if I’m going to be studying my lifelong thing of how to live on the soil you’re on without other systems outside of the area, that it made sense to follow the goats and the geese a little closer, and they took me into the woods,” she said.
Other farmers clear some of their land, like Abby Sadauckas and Jake Galle, who opened more than 30 acres into a savanna-like setting at Apple Creek Farm in Bowdoinham for their cattle, sheep, chicken and goat operation.
When they were looking for a farm 15 years ago, everything they could afford was wooded.
“Most farmers in the state are buying a woodlot when they’re buying a farm,” Sadauckas said.
They cleared some of the land and sold the wood to pay for that process. The two plan to plant more trees to provide fruit and seeds.
The animals are moved every few days between permanent fencing, ahead of the parasite cycle, allowing the land to rest between grazing and keeping the herd healthier. The trees provide shade in hot weather and mitigate flooding.
“I think it’s a good thing to explore,” Sadauckas said. “I also think it’s definitely an easy thing to do poorly.”
Animals are rotated so that they don’t kill trees (Reilich wraps some in chicken wire). If they aren’t managed carefully, they may also compact soil, cause erosion or overgraze.
Some plants are deadly, too. Reilich’s goats have learned the hard way to avoid sheep laurel, also known as lambskill, along with wild azalea and bunchberry.
Technical assistance for agroforesters on subjects like these isn’t widely available in Maine or across the country, according to Boucher, who hopes it will expand soon as organizations elsewhere in the Northeast train providers.
The National Resources Conservation Service and United States Department of Agriculture offer cost-sharing programs, and some soil and water conservation districts hold trainings.
There is “one hundred percent” a future for agroforestry in Maine, Boucher said, and he sees momentum building. The wide range of practices involved, from windbreaks to actually growing food in the forest, are varied enough for Maine’s variety of farmers.
Alley cropping, for one — planting layers of crops in one area — can diversify farm income through the year. He’s seen an apple orchard interplant asparagus and bring in turkeys for pest control and feed, for example. Relying on more than one crop can provide better financial stability.
For the time being, he recommends starting slowly, and testing different methods on a small piece of land over several seasons.
“These practices are ancient, intuitive and even instinctual. They have been in practice by traditional and native peoples on all continents throughout history and have unbroken traditions of practice to this day,” said Watson, of the ecological design school. “After all, people have always stewarded relationships with trees, shrubs and perennials.”
