What if animals don’t just eat—they learn how to nourish themselves? Drawing on insights from Fred Provenza, this piece explores how livestock use experience, social learning, and plant diversity to manage their own nutrition—and what that means for the future of ranching and land management. Drought management depends on early action, flexibility, and protecting soil and resources rather than waiting for rain.

“I saw cattle bring the desert back,” Ray says, “and transform it back into native rangeland. It changed the local climate. He’s getting more rain now.”

Heath Bullington (Van’s nephew), who runs the farm with Van Mansheim, Lealand Schoon, Van’s soil Health Mentor, and Van in one of his pastures, October 2020. I first visited Van Mansheim about 5 miles north of Colome, in Tripp County, SD, on his farm in October 2020. When I recently sat down again for a podcast interview with him, the conversation quickly grew beyond a podcast. Van is the whole package: no-till, long rotations, cover crops, bale grazing, livestock integration

On the South Dakota Coteau, the Michalski family transformed marginal cropland into a thriving, diverse pasture. Discover their grazing strategies, land ethic, and how diversity drives both resilience and profit. It was July 2021 when Joe Dickie and I rolled up to the Michalski spread on the Coteau. Waiting to greet us were Darin, his wife Jessica, and their son Cutler. Darin cut a dashing figure — blue sleeveless button-up, well-worn jeans, cowboy boots planted in the ground