Tallgrass Network
The Tallgrass Network serves a region once dominated by the Tallgrass, mixed grass and Shortgrass prairies of North America. We provide education, training and support in Holistic Management, and seek to build connections in a network of Holistic Managers that will span the region and transform how this magnificent grassland biome is managed.
Led by the Mettenburg-Martin-Burns families, with 7 generations of heritage on the prairies of Kansas, we are a growing network of family, friends, farmers and ranchers who are committed to transitioning our stewardship of the land and its resources to Holistic Management.
Our mission
We aspire to model Holistic Management as a mission-based, economically viable, ecologically restorative way to practice agriculture. We seek to:
Practice Holistic Management in operation of our resources, modeling an example that is desirable, aspirational and accessible, and sharing it through training and demonstration
Provide consulting, monitoring and auditing, and serve as an entrepreneurial incubator
Provide opportunities to connect with the Savory Institute here in our eco-region
Are a social enterprise that enables others to participate in the movement.
Savory Network
Tallgrass Network leaders Julie Mettenburg and Chloe Burns, center back row, at Savory Hub training at Dimbangombe Ranch, Zimbabwe, August 2014.
The Tallgrass Network began in 2014 and progressed to become one of the first 20 accredited Hub sites of the global Savory Network. In 2018, we stepped back from Hub status to focus on family stewardship transition, while the Network continues as a private consultancy led by Julie Mettenburg, a Savory Institute field professional, delivering Savory Holistic Management trainings and support. We are entrepreneurial leaders committed to serving our regions' farmers, ranchers, pastoralists and resource managers.
We are proud of our achievements as an early Savory Hub, and our continued relationship with Savory Global and its growing global network. By 2025, the Savory Institute aims to establish 100 Savory Hubs around the world, providing local capacity and infrastructure to train and support thousands of practitioners. This will influence the management of 1 billion hectares of land; that's ⅕ of the grasslands of the world.
Nearly 30 Hubs are currently accredited and in development worldwide. For a complete map, please see Savory.global.
About The Savory Institute
In the 1960s, Zimbabwean wildlife biologist-farmer Allan Savory made a significant breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation and desertification of the world’s grassland ecosystems and developed a way to restore the land to health using livestock as his primary tool.
Staff practicing social media skills at Hub leader training, August 2014, Africa Centre for Holistic Management, Zimbabwe.
For centuries we believed livestock were a major cause of desertification, but Savory’s research showed that the cause lay in how those livestock were managed. His solution involved mimicking the behavior of the formerly vast herds of wild grazing animals he had witnessed as a young biologist.
He devised a simple method any pastoralist can use to move massive amounts of carbon and water from the atmosphere back to the soil and begin reversing thousands of years of human-caused desertification – on the scale required, which no technology imaginable can accomplish. In the process, we can feed more people and enhance societal well-being.
Today, the Savory Institute is the heart of a global organization of land stewards, educators, advocates and more who are advancing Holistic Management worldwide. SI develops innovative tools and enhanced curricula, inform policy, establish market incentives, increase public awareness, and coordinate relevant research, cultivating relationships with aligned partners.
