Our project based learning teacher has told us how farmers today only make one cent of every food dollar spent, and in 1910 they used to make 40-60 cents of every food dollar spent. We also watched two films, "The Need to Grow" and "The Biggest Little Farm," and from those we learned that top soil is being depleted rapidly, and that by practicing the five principles of soil health, including integrating livestock, that we could regenerate and build soil. A few of us in the class want to be farmers and ranchers when we grow up, but we want to produce food in a way that improves our community's health, increases our profits, and heals the earth. We hope to show some of the food producers in our area how they can raise pasture raised, grass fed beef, chicken, eggs, goats, and fruit for a much higher profit than their mono-cropped operations. Our system of production has five streams of revenue, more bio diversity, no costly chemical or synthetic inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, herbacides, fungicides, or hormones, and that makes this type of operation more resilient to climate change and economic forces.

This is important to us because in our community only one in three people are a healthy weight - 33% are overweight & 33% are obese. The rates of diabetes in the county is 15% and climbing, and our neighbors on the Reservation have the highest rate of diabetes in America. On the outskirts of our town are many dairies and feed lots, and they stink. The air is foul somedays. Crop dusters routinely fly over the fields of alfalfa spraying insecticides, and then the fields are flooded with chemical fertilizers. These practices collapse the soil food web, pollute our water, and make us sick. We want to show people that there is a better and more profitable way to raise livestock.

Our idea is to build a 120 foot diameter circle of pasture on our school campus and divide the circle into fifteen paddocks (sectioned off pasture) with gates leading to each pasture. We would have two miniature cows that could graze on a single paddock for two days, then we would bring the chicken and goats in for two days. Then the pasture would rest and regrow for 26 days before being grazed again. The best part is that the cows would eat the choice pasture and fertilize the ground with their feces and urine, and then the chickens would come in next and spread their feces, while eating the fly larvae, and they would further graze the area. The goats would eat anything the cows don't prefer and fertilize the land. Every eight weeks, we would slaughter and start a new flock of chickens. The cows would be processed once per year, and the goats would be used as milking goats to make cheese, butter, and soap. We plan on planting mulberry and mesquite trees on the east, north, and west sides to protect the animals and our pasture from the hot Arizona sun. We can harvest the mulberry to make jams, jellies, and syrups, or host U-Pick events. The mesquite will add nitrogen to our soil, and we can use their seeds to make mesquite flour. In the pastures we would plant diverse mixtures of cool and hot season cover crops with the goal of having hundreds of varieties of grasses, legumes, and various cover crops.

First, we did a lot of research and read articles from Acres Magazine, watched videos by Joel Salatin and Gabe Brown, experts in intensive grazing techniques. Then, we have designed our cow, chicken, goat food forest and made scale drawings. We are currently getting prices on materials, thinking about different materials like portable electric fencing, watering troughs, materials for a chicken coop, gates, irrigation supplies, etc. We have met with our school district's maintenance department to see if we could add irrigation to the planned area, and we worked with them to get an estimate on the cost of irrigation materials. We also consulted a local rancher to see if he thought the project would work.

Once we secure funding, we will start by installing our irrigation lines and perimeter fencing. Then we will put a three inch layer of compost down, followed by seeding the area with cover crop seeds. Next, we will plant our trees along the eastern, northern, and western perimeter. While the pasture grows, we will install our other fencing and build our chicken coop in the center. When the pasture is ready, we will bring in one cow at first and ten chickens. As the system matures, we will add a second cow and two milking goats. Finally, as the chickens mature, we will construct an outdoor processing area for our chickens.

There are three core team members; Trey, a future rancher; Lilye, a 4H member; and Austin, a future goat farmer and welder. We also have the University of Arizona extension office advising and helping us with technical information, a rancher, our maintenance department, and other students who help us with the labor of building and installing our Cow, Chicken, Goat Food Forest. Throughout the year, our school hosts at least four community events, but as our school/community regenerative farm grows, we plan on having monthly events to demonstrate and show people what we do, how we grow, and how to cook the food we produce. We will write papers and develop presentions, along with educational signs that explain our project to visitors and community members. In our area we have 60,000 residents, and our goal is that over the next five years, we will show 20,000 people our production method. We want to get at least three local producers to try this method on their operations by 2030. We also have a good relationship with our local paper, and we will use that to get the word out about what we are doing, along with making videos for social media.