Silvopasture Field Day

Thursday, July 10, 2025, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Silvopasture, the integration of livestock with trees or other perennials, has been identified as a key strategy for climate resilience in the agriculture sector.

Join Cornell Cooperative Extension, Scenic Hudson, Eli Roberts of Sunfleck Consulting, and Jennifer Phillips of Gansvoort Farm for a Silvopasture Field Day. Tour Gansvoort’s farm, including the planting of fodder and nut trees, where they will begin grazing sheep this year. Learn how silvopasture can help address your farm’s resource concerns, including providing shade and fodder for livestock, carbon sequestration potential, and other ecosystem services, and the resources and potential funding sources for implementing these practices.

Learn more about silvopasture, including:

Goals of introducing trees to a farm
Considerations for location, design layout, and species selection
Challenges in establishment and lessons learned at Gansvoort
Benefits of fodder trees, including variations around the world, nutrition, and productivity
Trade-offs between benefits depending on management choices

About Gansvoort Farm:

Jennifer has been raising grass-fed livestock for over 20 years with a focus on sheep. She has been at her current farm since 2009, adding trees in a number of different configurations to support animal health, biodiversity, and forage productivity. In 2023, she planted a two-acre pilot project of fodder and nut trees with the help of Eli and Interlace Commons. Sheep will be grazing the fodder trees for the first time this summer. In addition to running the farm, Jennifer teaches courses on climate change and agroecology for graduate students at Bard College.