Glenda Pereira: 00:07
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Dr. Glenda Pereira, an Associate Professor of Animal Science and the Dairy Specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. And folks, today we have somebody who I’m very excited to talk to.
Glenda Pereira: 00:25
We have Dr. Owen Cortner. Did I say that correctly?
Owen Cortner: 00:28
You did.
Glenda Pereira: 00:29
Who is the livestock specialist for the Maine Department of Ag, Conservation and Forestry. So, Owen, welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I’m kind of excited to learn from you today.
Owen Cortner: 00:45
Thank you, Glenda. I’m really pumped to be here.
Glenda Pereira: 00:47
And so, briefly, we were just talking about your expertise and some of the training that you did prior to this role here at the Maine Department of Ag. Yeah. So first, let’s start because folks might still be interacting and getting to know you. You’re new in this role at the Department of Ag.
Owen Cortner: 01:05
I started at the beginning of March.
Glenda Pereira: 01:08
Yeah. So what does that role look like as the livestock specialist?
Owen Cortner: 01:13
Yeah. One note on all my comments today is that I’m speaking as an individual and that what I say today does not necessarily represent the policies or stances of the Animal Health Program, the Department of Ag, Conservation and Forestry, or the state of Maine. It’s a pretty interesting role and different than things I’ve done before. From what I’ve learned in my few months here, the different people who’ve done this role have done it differently, essentially playing to their strengths each time. It’s based in the Animal Health Office in the Department of Ag, Conservation and Forestry.
Owen Cortner: 01:48
And our main job is promoting the general animal health of Maine’s livestock industry. And our office specifically thinks a lot about how to prevent disease, how to respond if disease hits. And then my role in particular, our office is composed of the state veterinarian, three assistant state veterinarians, an animal disease traceability technician, an office assistant, and my role. And my role is to kind of be the bridge between the veterinarians and what the state does in terms of animal health regulations. There’s a word that I encountered early in this job called regucator, kind of combining the words regulator and educator.
Glenda Pereira: 02:28
Shout out to Mark King. You know Mark, he’s amazing. He’s awesome. But, yeah, he’s used that word before. And I’m like, oh, yes.
Glenda Pereira: 02:36
And the reason why he uses it is because in the regulator role, it can be sort of, this is what you can do. This is what you can’t do. But if you’re kind of adapting it to, here’s one way to not necessarily, like, bend the rules, but if you can do it in this manner and you’re teaching people in that way, they’ll be able to meet their regulatory guidelines.
Owen Cortner: 02:58
I’m glad you gave the shout out to Mark King, an amazing guy. I had the pleasure of spending a week with Mark recently.
Glenda Pereira: 03:05
For the compost school?
Owen Cortner: 03:06
For compost school.
Glenda Pereira: 03:07
I did the compost school last year. It was so cool.
Owen Cortner: 03:09
It’s amazing. I was thrilled. That’s definitely one of the perks of this job, the ability to do that and think about how it ties into the things that we have to be responsible for in our office. But the course with Mark King is excellent. This is its twenty-ninth year running, and they’ve trained hundreds, maybe thousands, of people from around the world and the country in compost.
Glenda Pereira: 03:32
Plug for the Compost School for folks wanting to take it. It’s every June, July, sometime in that time frame.
Owen Cortner: 03:39
There are two courses a year. One in June, and there’s one coming up in the fall.
Glenda Pereira: 03:43
Oh, that might be the Livestock one. Yeah. But anyways, plug in for Nick Rowley. You can email Nick here. I think it’s nicholas.rowley@extensionmain.edu.
Glenda Pereira: 03:55
I’m sorry. Or you can email Colt and me, and we’ll get you connected with Nick because he puts that course on with the two Marks. So anyways, yeah, that compost school is an amazing thing. And so kind of what you’re saying is that some of what you’re doing right now is still learning about Maine, about the needs within the livestock industries, more from a regulatory role versus, like, Extension for us. We’re really trying to understand the needs to then create programs to serve our clients.
Glenda Pereira: 04:26
Your role is a little bit different in that it’s from a regulatory standpoint. Sorry, I interrupted some of that flow of what you were talking about. Still learning, still getting out there, kind of getting a feel for what’s going on in the state.
Owen Cortner: 04:38
Totally. You know, no, you didn’t interrupt. I see it as pretty complementary to Extension. Particularly, my role within our office is trying to, like you said with Mark King, explain why things might be set up a certain way and trying to work with people with the particular constraints that their operation or farm faces and how they can have a good business, have a good quality of life, have healthy animals within that scenario. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find out what’s going on in Maine. I acknowledge being from away, but I’ve been really appreciative of the welcome I’ve gotten here in Maine from colleagues, but also farmers and people in everyday life.
Owen Cortner: 05:22
Some of the things I’ve gotten to do so far: I attended the annual Maine Dairy Industry Association meeting in March. I’ve been to the County twice now. I helped with a workshop up there for small ruminants. I’ve visited a decent number of farms and gotten to meet a lot of people in different settings so far, really kicking it off.
Glenda Pereira: 05:43
And I’m sure over the next… So we’re in fair season when we’re recording this right now. Owen’s been getting out to a lot of the fairs, and so you’ll continue to learn from folks. One of the things that I wanted to back up to was some of the training previous to this because you were telling me all the countries that you have been to. When I think about the main ways we manage our animals in Maine, there’s no one single way.
Glenda Pereira: 06:08
I think in Maine, there’s a lot of creativity with our farmers. There’s a lot of market opportunity as well. Like, I was talking to a farmer the other day, and they were exploring this one type of dairy product. And I was like, I don’t know that that exists yet here. So I just think Mainers have a lot of opportunity for market exploration because we have this sort of, like, period where a lot of folks come and visit and they’re really invested in Maine food.
Glenda Pereira: 06:36
And I think you bring some of that to the table in your regucator… I’m getting it wrong. Am I not?
Owen Cortner: 06:44
No. I think you got it.
Glenda Pereira: 06:44
Regucator role, because folks might benefit from your perspective and the things that you’ve learned in working in these different countries and environments. So walk us back to your undergraduate studies or even how you wanted to explore a career in the animal or agricultural field.
Owen Cortner: 07:02
Yeah. That’s a great place to start. And it may even inform why I did what I did in undergrad. So my undergraduate degree is in environmental science, which, those are words often received kind of in a skeptical or maybe scared way by farmers because I would agree. There’s been animosity between these camps.
Owen Cortner: 07:23
My environmental science degree was based in the Department of Plant Science in the Ag College at New Mexico State University. And shout out to Dr. Knight, who couldn’t be with us here today, but he did his postdoc at New Mexico State University. So we have that in common. The environmental science degree for me was motivated by my background growing up on farms and ranches in the Southwestern United States.
Owen Cortner: 07:47
We had small cattle ranches in West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico and lived in Colorado for a while as well, raising all sorts of different animals primarily for meat, usually beef, pork, or lamb. I think my dad really influenced the way that I thought about agriculture and thought about the environment and the culture around the places where we live. And so there was that strong ethic in it from the beginning. And I saw the environmental science degree as a way to learn essentially the bedrocks of living communities. So it was a lot.
Owen Cortner: 08:26
It was a chemistry, biology, soil science, and water management-heavy degree. I spent three summers working in a soil microbiology laboratory there, taking samples from commercial chili pepper fields. New Mexico is famous for its chili peppers, and it’s a big part of our food and culture there. I tried to balance learning about all these different natural systems with learning how to support commercial agriculture with research and data and Extension.
Glenda Pereira: 08:56
As a part of your undergrad too, I always think about the animal side. I think hands-on really is the way you can learn about the animal side. And I advocate always for animal science classes, but that’s not necessarily always the road people need to take to be in this position, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. I have a really good colleague. She was in environmental science as well in undergrad, and now she does dairy research specifically.
Glenda Pereira: 09:22
I just think it adds to the sort of knowledge base that we have. And I’m sure you’re gonna tell us a little bit more about how it helped shape your career and where you are today. But I do think it’s one cycle and system, really. And even though it’s like, for me, it’s like dairy production for cows, everything is connected. Cows produce manure, which we have to put somewhere, and it fertilizes the fields. Yep.
Glenda Pereira: 09:48
Which then produces food that they need to consume again. And so everything’s really intertwined. And I feel like sometimes it’s in a vacuum or silo. But if we really step back and sort of have that lens on it, everything’s connected. Water quality, which you talked about with some of what you learned, is critical.
Glenda Pereira: 10:06
In the state of Maine, we’re lucky to have some of the best water in the world, I think. I’m spoiled with my family. They all say, like, you’re spoiled with your well water. Yes, I am.
Owen Cortner: 10:17
Oh, I mean, being from New Mexico, both the quantity and quality of water here stunned me. I will say, just to emphasize your point there, in our environmental science program, that was one of my earlier visits to a large-scale commercial dairy farm. At that time, Southern New Mexico, around the area where New Mexico State is, as well as Southeastern New Mexico, where I lived for a time, had a very large dairy industry, intensive confined operations with lots of hay growing and so forth. So yeah, you get exposure to that even through a degree that you wouldn’t expect it to be the focus. After I finished up there, I spent almost two years out of the country in Malaysia.
Owen Cortner: 10:58
I lived on a farm there, even though I was working more as an English educator. And I already knew, though, that I wanted to work with livestock and agriculture and was particularly thinking about economic development.
Glenda Pereira: 11:12
What farm in Malaysia? So what was the farm? What did you guys… Yeah.
Owen Cortner: 11:17
That was a somewhat unique position. So it was through the Fulbright program. And I was lucky and got a spot in the Malaysia program. And they sent out an email some months before we were set to arrive in-country. And they’re like, we have a rural primary school that was a bit more isolated than some of the other posts.
Owen Cortner: 11:37
And we wondered who would be interested in that. I jumped on it. I essentially lived in a small house on a farm owned by a government official there and taught at a small primary school, 150 kids, K through six. The farm had everything from porcupines to tilapia to water buffalo to deer. It was quite… I would say the main commercial component of the farm was fattening cattle for major Malaysian holidays.
Owen Cortner: 12:08
Yeah. So it was really neat to me to be able to go halfway around the world, yet still end up in kind of a familiar environment, farm setting, and then also be able to use that as an educational tool, something that kids were familiar with, but then they could learn an unfamiliar language, English, by describing a farm and like the things that happen there.
Glenda Pereira: 12:31
And I’m not aware. So what’s the main agricultural product that Malaysia produces or exports? Or…
Owen Cortner: 12:36
Even palm oil.
Glenda Pereira: 12:37
Palm oil. Okay. Is that part of the… and I’m very ignorant about what types of diets those ruminants consume. But did they consume? What was their diet?
Glenda Pereira: 12:49
Did they have palm oil in it? Or where did they get their fat source from? It’s a good point. And maybe we don’t know.
Owen Cortner: 12:56
But unfortunately, I wish I could say with some more assurance. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking too much about what the total mixed ration for those animals was. They did feed a lot of, from what I could tell, basically some sort of palm fodder. I don’t know if that was coming off the oil palm plantations or if they used any of the waste fruit bunches for cattle. We saw it commonly.
Owen Cortner: 13:17
Likely. Very likely. I think so. Because people tend to use less at…
Glenda Pereira: 13:22
They’re great at using byproducts.
Owen Cortner: 13:24
And a few times… So I joined a running group while I was there in Malaysia as a way to kind of connect with people. And we would often run through some of the oil palm plantations. And it was not infrequent that we would encounter cattle grazing in those as well. Yep. Which I thought was pretty cool and was probably one of the first times I saw a silvopasture or integrated crop-livestock system.
Glenda Pereira: 13:46
We’re gonna come back to pasture. That’s great. And I just didn’t know. And I was kind of curious what those ruminants were consuming.
Glenda Pereira: 13:52
And I just imagine that there are so many byproducts from palm oil that they’re probably consuming some palm oil to get their fat requirement, but then potentially even using the other as their fiber.
Owen Cortner: 14:03
Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of green chop from different plant material there.
Glenda Pereira: 14:07
So, yeah. That’s super cool.
Owen Cortner: 14:08
Yeah. It was a lot of fun. And I reluctantly came back after almost two years there in Malaysia, but was quickly enthusiastic about the next stage at UC Davis.
Glenda Pereira: 14:20
Similar climate? And I guess you were always in the Southwest. So, to you, does Malaysia have a similar climate?
Owen Cortner: 14:27
No. Malaysia was basically tropical. It was two degrees north of the equator. Okay. And it was a hot, humid rainforest.
Owen Cortner: 14:36
Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 14:37
So maybe a little bit cooler. And then you came to California. Yep. And remind me, UC Davis is based in?
Owen Cortner: 14:44
Davis.
Glenda Pereira: 14:45
Davis. That’s right.
Owen Cortner: 14:45
It’s, like, sort of Northern California. It’s about thirty minutes, twenty minutes, from Sacramento, the capital, and it’s 70 miles to San Francisco. Yeah. But it is farm country for sure.
Glenda Pereira: 14:59
Yeah. And you did it in international.
Owen Cortner: 15:02
Yeah. It’s a mouthful that we would always shorten to IAD, International Agricultural Development. Essentially, it was meant to be kind of a training program for USAID and other organizations that were doing agricultural projects in what was called developing countries at that time. And then within that program, I took a challenging core of coursework in economics, general crop and livestock management, and then everybody pursued a specialty. I selected livestock because that’s what I grew up with, and it’s what I was interested in.
Owen Cortner: 15:33
And it’s where I thought that there was a lot of potential for essentially cash flow for small farms in poor regions.
Glenda Pereira: 15:40
You already had soil science, which I love soil, by the way. And I don’t know if people know this, but there’s a big difference between soil and dirt. Dirt is misplaced soil. It’s a definition. Misplaced.
Glenda Pereira: 15:52
You know, it’s not just
Owen Cortner: 15:54
It’s not just clay, sand, and silt. It’s how those are arranged in a specific structure and a biological community.
Glenda Pereira: 16:01
Yes. Exactly. That’s what soil is.
Owen Cortner: 16:03
Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 16:03
But dirt. Dirt is just dirt.
Owen Cortner: 16:06
Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 16:06
And I think I feel, like, well-rounded.
Owen Cortner: 16:09
I’ve always been worried about maybe being too well-rounded. Yeah. Where people are like, so what are you gonna do? What do you do? And I think the answer to that has varied at different times.
Owen Cortner: 16:19
And I’ve tried to develop a pretty expansive toolkit. And then based on where I am and the problems or opportunities that present themselves, I’ve tried to, I guess, specialize in that particular challenge or task.
Glenda Pereira: 16:36
But, so, it’s funny. Sometimes people are like, as the dairy specialist, what are you an expert in? And I said everything.
Owen Cortner: 16:43
You’re… Literally. Lactation, nutrition…
Glenda Pereira: 16:45
But you have to know a little bit about everything. You can’t really be an expert in one thing. Even though I did my PhD and master’s in pasture-based systems, pasture-based dairy systems, technology, and crossbreeding, that’s such a small portion of kind of what I do day to day. Right. You have to be really well-rounded.
Glenda Pereira: 17:07
And I think in the way that we help our clients today, you really have to be creative with how you’re providing recommendations and suggestions. Because there’s not enough money to go around to implement the gold star packet solution.
Owen Cortner: 17:23
Right.
Glenda Pereira: 17:23
And farmers really appreciate somebody who can think outside of the box because farmers are thinking outside of the box every single minute of their day. So being well-rounded, in my opinion, pays off.
Owen Cortner: 17:34
What’s an example from your work where that’s come in handy? Like, where you’ve had to draw on that broad knowledge base to solve an issue?
Glenda Pereira: 17:43
Good question.
Owen Cortner: 17:45
Turning the tables.
Glenda Pereira: 17:46
Yeah. This is good. I’m being interviewed. Let me think. I wasn’t prepared with this.
Glenda Pereira: 17:52
Maybe we were talking earlier today about how, especially in Maine right now and in the past couple of years, I think we’ve seen growth of new and beginning farmers.
Owen Cortner: 18:03
Yes.
Glenda Pereira: 18:04
And they don’t have all the money in the world. So they can maybe take baby steps to their dream facility or operation.
Owen Cortner: 18:13
Right.
Glenda Pereira: 18:14
But they might have to implement, like, the one thing that’s a priority and then, okay, we’re gonna do that next. And we were talking earlier about a farm who might potentially wanna purchase in milk. Right. To then get to where they wanna go eventually, but not meet the licensing requirements for processing milk right away because you have to have specific licensing requirements for the use and product of milk in the state of Maine. Right. So that’s one example that I can remember, but I’m kind of drawing a blank on something else.
Owen Cortner: 18:50
No. I think you’ve… I mean, you did tell me several examples, and I didn’t mean to jazz this up. It’s part of what we’re talking about here. And to go back to sort of the well-roundedness piece of that, what I would say today is that you can’t just say, well, here’s what I recommend as a dairy specialist. Here’s, like, the best management practices that a 400-head operation or a thousand-head operation would do.
Owen Cortner: 19:11
And that’s not gonna take someone very far. You have to think out of the box
Glenda Pereira: 19:15
And, yeah.
Owen Cortner: 19:16
And ask them questions about what they wanna do. Yes. And try to fit the pieces together.
Glenda Pereira: 19:20
Which is good. You bring this up. Because sometimes I get that it’s frustrating for our clients when you’re like, I don’t know. I wanna get back to you. But I think there’s merit in that because every client is different.
Glenda Pereira: 19:31
Every operation is different. And I need to do a little bit of homework. Yep. To make sure that I’m providing you with the resources for your next step. And that can be frustrating. As you said, we ask questions.
Glenda Pereira: 19:43
We kind of wanna brainstorm. And that’s because I wanna make sure what I’m recommending is tailored to you and not just a blanket for everybody.
Owen Cortner: 19:54
Totally. I think one thing I should mention from my time at Davis, since I am in the Animal Health Program at DACF, and one of the major things with this role that I’ve encountered and am responsible for is biosecurity. So we’re talking about primarily trying to prevent disease from coming onto a farm or from leaving a farm. UC Davis was a lucky stop on my journey for that because they have an excellent One Health Institute. And so while I was there, I got to be involved with the One Health Institute and did two projects with them where I got to work with students in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Owen Cortner: 20:31
One project I did was a bit more of desk research, looking at tick-borne disease in cattle in pastoral settings in Tanzania and thinking about how to address and control tick-borne diseases there. And then the other project, which I got to spend time on the ground in Northern Nicaragua, was… basically, what we did is I got in touch with this group of vet students who were trying to learn about One Health through implementing actual real-world projects. And I was like, well, I got a whole bunch of people in my master’s program who have different agricultural specialties. And if there’s a commonality in our training, it was how to think creatively in places that don’t necessarily have the
Glenda Pereira: 21:12
All the tools.
Owen Cortner: 21:12
The tools, the large amounts of money that are around in the U.S., the widespread extension services, etc., and how to do stuff in those kinds of settings. So I recruited a couple other students, and we made a really cool kind of mixed veterinary and ag scientist team to try to work on primarily dairy nutrition in Northern Nicaragua for small dairy farmers, among other things. Yeah. And that was some of my early exposure to concepts that are now really critical to the job that I’m doing. Thinking about how vectors can move between wild animal hosts, between domesticated livestock species, and unfortunately sometimes into human populations, and the ways that we can try to respond efficiently, hopefully at the lowest cost. Yeah.
Owen Cortner: 22:00
If something does break through.
Glenda Pereira: 22:02
So you did your PhD then back with some environmental integration.
Owen Cortner: 22:08
Yeah. So then, the story for the listeners out there is a little messy, but basically New Mexico undergrad, then Malaysia, then Davis for a master’s. I thought I was done with school for a while. And I jumped to the other coast of the United States, and I moved to Durham, North Carolina. And I worked for a small consulting firm.
Owen Cortner: 22:28
And that was a lot of fun too, because then I got to see, okay, how are people actually trying to implement some of these things at scale? And it was primarily in the U.S. Our firm worked with large foundations like the Walton Foundation, as well as organizations like National Wildlife Federation, the Soil Health Institute, which is down in Raleigh. A couple of the projects I worked on were thinking about the adoption of cover crops in the U.S. Midwest, how to scale up projects that were working, how to think about who farmers deal with and who they listen to, and how to speak to agricultural input vendors about emerging research in terms of cover crops and stuff and get them involved in the conversation, involved in building data, involved in trialing things to then help farmers actually make use of this in a way that was good for soil, good for animals, good for profitability. Yeah.
Owen Cortner: 23:21
So that was a blast. And then I kind of ended that a little bit earlier than I wish I had, but I wanted to work on some family stuff. And then a professor that I’d been working with actually from the time of my master’s degree, I had done some projects down in Brazil, and that was how I met this professor. And she invited me to help with a workshop down there.
Owen Cortner: 23:45
Essentially, silvopasture. The Brazilians are probably some of the best in the world at these integrated agricultural systems. So I went down there, and while we were there, she asked if I wanted to do a PhD. And I think that’s an important part of this story because that professor, at the time, was at Boston University. And so that is what brought me to the Northeast to begin that program. So I moved to Boston in March 2018 to start shoveling three feet of snow.
Owen Cortner: 24:15
And I was like, ah, welcome to the Northeast. During that first year of the PhD, I was dating and I met the person who’s now my wife, which ended up kind of anchoring me here in the Northeast. And the professor got a job at a university in Switzerland. I was invited to follow. So I spent about four years completing that PhD in Switzerland, doing some shuttling back and forth to see my wife, and came back here and then was looking for jobs.
Owen Cortner: 24:45
I did a postdoc for the first year and a half while I was back and just wasn’t finding a lot that kind of excited me in terms of agriculture and kind of combining these different interests in agriculture, the environment, and economic development within Massachusetts. And we both liked Maine and had been here several times. And so when this job opened up with the department, I applied and basically eagerly embraced it when it came to me.
Glenda Pereira: 25:12
Yeah. That path paid off in a sense. I wanted to touch base on the silvopasture because I think folks are implementing it a lot more here in the state of Maine. Maine is the most forested state in the United States. And there’s opportunity there for our farmers to utilize trees and other resources to their advantage.
Glenda Pereira: 25:35
And specifically here in Maine, because we have such a short growing season where animals can be on pasture, it’s nice that there’s an opportunity for them to take advantage of land that doesn’t have to be their predominant pasture that they’re using all the time for rotation. So you learned in Brazil, and, again, they really have to be creative with their resources. And so the silvopasture thing totally makes sense that they’re kind of some of the best at it. And I haven’t been to Brazil, but it sounds like during that time, you learned a ton from what they were implementing and how they were doing it to benefit their animals.
Owen Cortner: 26:11
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we might have to do additional episodes to really cover the depth that’s there on these integrated systems. And I’ll be frank in not knowing much about how they could be applied here in the Northeast or in Maine specifically. Like you said, I think there’s 18,000,000 acres of timber here in Maine.
Owen Cortner: 26:34
So it does seem like an opportunity. Like, I think it’d be interesting to see what research is going on and whether there’s scope for either timber companies to dabble in it or for there to be some sort of business partnerships where you maybe do contract grazing within these things. And there is a difference between silvopasture and just woodland grazing. And woodland grazing is kind of where you’re not doing intentional management of the forest to promote a grazing program. But silvopasture, you’re thinking about what species there are.
Owen Cortner: 27:05
And there’s sort of two primary ways to do it. You can do silvopasture by addition, where you’re planting the desired tree species, or by removal and sort of you’re curating, pruning, logging an existing forest to get species that are more favorable to your grazing system.
Glenda Pereira: 27:23
And I think the couple of farms that are doing it that I’ve seen, they have a really nice setup and they’re still figuring it out. Yep. There’s a lot that I think we still have to learn here. And I think Vermont’s doing some of this work, but especially, like, the species thing. And when we talk about dairy, which is not all livestock that are using forested areas, but they still have these, like, energy requirements.
Glenda Pereira: 27:45
So the species selection becomes even more important. Yeah. So there’s so much to still learn there, but the folks that are doing it, they’re doing it well. And then did you wanna add a couple of other things about the benefits of utilizing a forested area?
Owen Cortner: 28:00
Yeah. I mean, in terms of kind of what people think about as the benefits of silvopasture systems, I think one of the big ones is your soil health because you’re putting animals, trees, and grasses back into a mix, into temporal and spatial proximity. They’re together at least some of the time in the same space. So you get better nutrient cycling. They’ve noted that there’s increased soil organic matter, improved nutrient cycling, better water retention and holding capacity, these types of things.
Owen Cortner: 28:30
For the livestock producer, I think some of the key benefits that they’re looking for are reducing heat stress in animals, particularly in the summer, because they have shade access. Depending on what type of species you put in there, you might also be getting some nutritional benefits from different sources to supplement your grass forages. Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 28:52
No, absolutely. And like Owen was mentioning, I think a big part too is, in Maine, for us to get access to more land, you gotta clear it. So one of the ways that you can get around that is by introducing or planting species that you can then have on a perennial basis. And then those areas can provide, like, that rest from their permanent pastures and access to shade. And so I think farmers are getting really creative about how they use those spaces because you don’t always have to use it.
Glenda Pereira: 29:24
But we have this heat stress period that’s coming up. If the silvopasture is ready, we’re gonna access it during this time. It really is, like, a really good beneficial relationship between the animal and then all the other benefits that you provide to the environment. So that was kind of cool. And then I just wanted to mention, we’re not gonna expand on everything related to silvopasture.
Glenda Pereira: 29:46
We’ll come back at another time. But it’s kind of a really good opportunity for folks, and we’ll attach some show notes about things folks can read so they can learn a little bit more. But with a lot of design, water access, for example, is one of the things. When we put animals, we have to think about how those animals are gonna access water because sometimes there’s not a water line already there. So I just think it’s exciting. And I don’t know if you wanna add anything that we haven’t really touched on about silvopasture.
Owen Cortner: 30:14
That is something that any farmer needs to consider, that it’s gonna be a more complex system, which is gonna require more intensive management. And most people are trying to simplify management. So enter thoughtfully. There’s gonna be more management requirements, but probably also some more opportunities to do interesting things, or even maybe to kind of hedge your farm a little bit because you have these different components so that you’re not just depending on a single pasture resource. A simpler system is easier to manage, but it’s also a bit easier for it to fail. Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 30:47
Well, I think we’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot, which is why I love doing these podcasts. I think we should wrap it up. What do you think?
Owen Cortner: 30:56
Good, Glenda. Yeah. But it’s been such a fun time talking with you. And, yeah, I hope we can explore more in the future.
Glenda Pereira: 31:02
Yeah. And I was gonna say, so for folks, if you see Owen out in the field, we’re gonna drop his email and we’ll share contact information and all that good stuff. But ask him: Do you speak Spanish? Do you speak Brazilian Portuguese?
Owen Cortner: 31:16
Portuguese. The Brazilian, yeah. I don’t have the Portuguese accent probably, but yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 31:24
That’s okay. I don’t know. I have the Portuguese from Portugal accent. Yeah. And then, of course, ask more, pick your brain about different ways to produce livestock here in the Northeast, and some of the things that you’ve mentioned are definitely adaptable here.
Glenda Pereira: 31:43
So that’s kinda cool. Are there any current or upcoming programs that you wanted to mention to folks too?
Owen Cortner: 31:49
Not at this time. I do plan to start offering more programming in the future. I’ve been trying to figure out what is kind of already being offered by Cooperative Extension or by other people in the state. MOFGA has a lot of programs. Yeah.
Owen Cortner: 32:04
But basically, I’ll kind of be focusing on three key areas going forward: doing direct animal health and technical assistance on disease prevention and response, kind of general livestock production improvement if it falls within kind of the broad health umbrella. And that’s where I’ll coordinate with the Cooperative Extension folks quite a bit to make sure that we’re not duplicating efforts. And then I’ll be doing some educational and promotional programs through different organizations, maybe through the university, through ag associations, etc. And we’ll offer things that hopefully meet the needs of folks.
Glenda Pereira: 32:36
Well, thank you so much, Owen. It was great to have you on the Farmcast.
Owen Cortner: 32:39
Thank you.
Glenda Pereira: 32:41
If you have questions, comments, or future topic suggestions, be sure to email us at extension.farmcast@maine.edu.