#66 – Eric Czaja (US Army) – Regenerative Grazing Open Air Lab (R-GOAL)

“The only person who’s surprised is the guy who’s been here 31 years.”

This quote from our guest this week was just one of the many times during the interview he mentioned an instance where things that just seemed normal to him in his everyday job of managing cattle using adaptive grazing methods was producing results that were shocking to his colleagues and producers who have seen cattle graze this same land for decades before.

That guest is Eric Czaja. Eric is an active-duty US Army Special Forces Major serving as a full-time faculty member with the Naval Post Graduate School. Based in Camp San Louis Obispo, California, Eric is leading a ground-breaking proof of concept program with the US Army specializing in the implementation of regenerative agricultural and grazing practices aboard a military installation. The program is called Regenerative Grazing Open Air Lab, or R-GOAL for short. This proof of concept is designed to enhance soil health, improve land management, restore ecosystem functions, and increase DoD installation resiliency.

In this episode, we dive immediately into the details of this proof-of-concept program, how they’ve trained the animals, why the DoD is interested in these practices, the near-immediate benefits they’ve seen in the cattle’s grazing and behavior habits, and Eric’s plan for this program to expand and outlive him.

Enjoy!