Finding Greener Pastures: A Look Back on LiKEN’s Appalachian Silvopasture Field Day

On June 24th, 2026, LiKEN Knowledge hosted its first silvopasture field day in partnership with Breathitt County’s Cooperative Extension office and Understanding Ag LLC, a farmer-run consulting company that helps make farms more efficient and productive using regenerative techniques. The idea for this began when LiKEN met with Reed Graham, Breathitt County's cooperative extension agent, to ask about partnering on a training about one of the practices we support through our Community Wealth: From Health Rivers and Forests Project. Silvopasture rose to the top of the list due to beef production being one of the most common agricultural practices.

Adam Taylor presenting while Dr. George Halich, sat next to Jim Mullins, answers Reed Graham's question. Photo by Jacob Johnson.

While we spent the first half of the day learning all about silvopasture and regenerative agriculture practices with Adam Taylor, a Consultant for Understanding Ag, and Dr. Greg Halich from the University of Kentucky, the second half was spent on an actual farm observing how these practices could work for a farm not currently using it. The silvopasture field day made for an unforgettable educational experience, one that many more farmers can still benefit from.

Something Old, Something New: Defining Silvopasture in an Appalachian Context

The simple definition for silvopasture is the intentional integration of trees and livestock. Livestock benefit from having shade and shelter from the elements, and the trees can provide multiple benefits for farmers. These include ecological benefits like conserving soil, slowing runoff, and providing wildlife habitat, and the useful and marketable products produced by trees like fruits, nuts, and timber.

Jim's cattle emerging from the shady river bank. All of his cows are a cross between Angus and Herefords. Photo by Jacob Johnson.

Silvopasture can be broken into two camps: additive or subtractive. As the names imply, it's a pretty simple split between whether you are adding trees to a pasture or taking undesirable trees out of a woodlot to allow more light to reach the grass. This flexibility allows farmers to best suit the farming method to their farm itself. Do you have a large pasture field with no trees? Maybe plant nitrogen–fixing trees to increase the productivity of your grasses, or you might want to do nut or fruit–bearing trees to add another food source for animals or a product you can sell. If you have mostly woods and maybe animals already in them, you can selectively remove trees that improve the health of the forest and create enough light for grass to grow with a little help from a forester.

For anyone familiar with the history of farming in eastern Kentucky, there is a certain irony to teaching this today—because it is something many farmers did. Before treated posts were available farmers let rot–resistant black locusts grow in pastures, and leaving a few shade trees for cattle or sheep was common. It was also common to run hogs in the woods where they got fat on acorns and chestnuts. Though to be clear, those earlier traditions rarely reflected the intentionality of the modern practice. Today, this practice requires you to intentionally manage both the animals and the pasture, and in the case of subtractive silvopasture, consider the potential impact on forests. For farmers in the Appalachian mountains today though, where the flat, clear land required for additive silvopasture can be rare, subtractive silvopasture is a more appealing way to expand or improve your pastures with the land you have already got, so we decided to focus on that for LiKEN’s part of the training.

A Day on the Farm: Visiting Jim Mullins’s Demonstration Farm

Jim speaking to the audience in a woodlot on his property being used to demonstrate how to select trees for subtractive silvopasture. Photo by Jacob Johnson.

Although silvopasture can sound easy to implement, the reality is that it is a series of risks and rewards that need to be carefully considered. In the case of Jim’s farm, he was interested more in subtractive silvopasture to get more pasture out of his mostly forested land, some of which his cows were already grazing in. This requires you to weigh several choices, such as what trees to leave behind, how much sun versus shade you want, or simply how much work it will take for you to get it into the shape you want. Adam recommended removing invasive species, trees with poor form, and clearing alleyways large enough to allow equipment. Bale grazing and some additional seeding could help establish desirable grasses. 

Critics of subtractive silvopasture often argue that the potential damage to the forest’s understory does not justify the quality of pasture it produces, if done incorrectly. LiKEN’s Forest Livelihoods Director Steve Kruger explained, “It might not be a good idea to turn animals into a pristine old growth forest or a rare plant community. But in forest that has already been poorly managed, taken over by invasive species, or already has livestock in it, a carefully planned and executed subtractive silvopasture heals the land, especially if combined with tools like AMP or Bale Grazing.”

In fact, according to Steve, these considerations are no less of a challenge for additive silvopasture. “There’s not really a conservation downside in the field,” said Steve, “but from the landowner’s perspective, sometimes it just makes things more complicated. Because you have to protect the trees, and you may have to mow around them, and you have to keep the animals off the trees. It can just make your system a little more complicated.” However, that does not mean that there is no value in implementing silvopasture, whether additive or subtractive.

The key to finding that value is in knowing what you want and why you want it before you start. For those who want to diversify their income, or decrease their inputs, embracing a little more complexity may result in happier animals, healthier soil, and higher yields from the land. Whether you want more shade for livestock, or you want to introduce a new product, or you want nitrogen fixing trees to improve the quality of grass, or you want mast or pod producing trees to give your livestock more food, it all comes down to one word: intentionality. According to Steve, farmers—especially in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia—can find success with silvopasture, “If you do it intentionally, and you are actually managing the trees and the pasture underneath.”

If you are interested in either form of silvopasture there are resources out there provided by groups such as Appalachian Sustainable Development in Virginia and Grow Appalachia in Kentucky. LiKEN can also help in planning and executing silvopasture, or other forestry projects for landowners or producers in Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. We are here to help you do what you want to with your forested land!