“Nature Bats Last”: A Day Learning Regeneration with Will Harris at White Oak Pastures
Will Harris shows how symbiosis beats spray-and-pray ag. From dung beetles to daily moves—here’s what I learned at White Oak Pastures.
Rebels,
White Oak Pastures doesn’t whisper; it hums. Oak and pine framing pastures, cattle moving like a tide, and (in spring to fall) flocks of non-native, self-invited birds working the herd for grasshoppers and flies. Will Harris grinned as we watched them: “It’s symbiosis.” That word would become the day’s thesis.
Teeming with Life (Not “Managing Death”)
What struck me first: abundance that isn’t engineered, it’s invited. Will doesn’t spray, so the birds come each April and leave in November. They eat grasshoppers (which eat grass) and flies (which sip blood). The cows approve. So does the grass.
Twenty-five years ago, much of this was cotton, corn, peanuts, and monoculture pine. Will thinned the pines, opened space for hardwoods, and refused to plant monocultures again.
“Nature is many species—plants, animals, microbes—living in symbiosis,” he told me. “Modern farming loses balance, then tries to kill the problem: pesticide, insecticide, fungicide.”
He said it plainly: he was trained to wake up and “look for something to kill.” Today, he wakes up to look for relationships to steward.
How We Got Hooked on Killing
Will’s take: wartime chemistry bled into peacetime acres. Early pesticides delivered fast, visible benefits; harms arrived on delay. He doesn’t paint early adopters as malicious, just unaware of time-lagged costs.
But he’s clear about today’s incentives: “Sell one chemical that breaks a system, then sell the next one to patch the break.”
I’ve heard the same story across my travels: neighbors whose shrubs, gardens, even the line of application rows stay “off” years later. Will used to spray Graze-On P+D annually, then watched prized hardwoods mysteriously decline. Not all at once, just enough, over time.
Takeaway: Short-term yield can be long-term loss—of soil, species, and the self-healing cycles farms depend on.
“Nature Bats Last”
When I asked Will to unpack that line, he didn’t hesitate: our harms are short-term in nature’s timescale. We can do terrible damage over a lifetime, but nature rebalances—eventually.
The tragedy? That rebalancing can take decades to millennia, on the backs of our kids and grandkids. Will can’t control the world, but he can steward Bluffton, Georgia and insist his family continues the work when he’s gone.
Extraction vs. Cycles
Industrial ag worships maximum yield. But yield isn’t the same as abundance. Abundance arises from cycles: sun energy, rainwater, minerals, microbes, and living roots braiding into a system that compounds rather than exhausts. Fossil fuels were the ancient surplus of another era. Today, the industrial system boosts outputs while liquidating soil organic matter, biodiversity, and resilience. Someone will pay the tab.
White Oak Pastures thinks in loops: grass converts sunlight and CO₂ to plant tissue; cows harvest that energy; dung beetles carry nutrients 18 inches down; roots follow, pry open hardpan, and lift minerals back up; the cycle repeats.
Linear thinking—spray, strip, ship—can’t touch that elegance.
The Dung Beetle is a Systems Engineer
We pulled up on a fresh patty. Will walked me through the choreography:
Dung beetles arrive the day of deposit, dive in, and pack eggs at the bottom of vertical shafts.
That aeration collapses fly habitat (farewell, horn and face flies).
Nutrients don’t stratify on the surface—they’re driven deep, feeding roots and soil life.
On these acres, ~5.5% soil organic matter cycles, volatilizes, returns, and builds again.
Cows move daily, so pressure is short and recovery is long. The herd knows the rhythm—and waits for the morning move.
Regeneration isn’t a slogan. It’s logistics: grazing duration, rest periods, living roots, and a thousand small organisms turning waste into wealth.
Ground Beef, Blends, and the “Cheap” Illusion
We also talked beef taste. If you’ve ever wondered why some ground beef feels “flat,” consider how industrial blends work: 50/50 fat trim from massive feedlot carcasses blended with imported super-lean (Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand).
Neither component is great alone, together they’re “marketable.” Cheap inputs, sold at a price that beats real beef raised on real grass.
Will’s point wasn’t smug. He wants people fed. He knows his costs are higher and his beef is priced accordingly. But he refuses to pretend the cheap blend is the same thing, or that the profits land with farmers. That margin accrues to big packers, often the same firms shredding ecosystems abroad and reputations at home.
Consumers then assume cattle = planetary harm, when it’s actually the feedlot model—not well-managed grasslands—that deserves the blame.
Time, Not Just Taste: Grass-Fed and Finished
The internet wants grass-fed tallow today and 20 million more head of truly grass-finished cattle tomorrow.
Reality: finishing on grass takes time, skill, and plenty of forage. Will finishes to weight (around 1,200 lb), not age, because biology sets the pace, not demand. If you want food that heals land, you have to let time do its work.
The Short List I’m Taking Home
Spraying solves quickly, breaks quietly. The hidden costs arrive later.
Symbiosis scales. Birds, beetles, cows, fungi—if you make space, they’ll do the work.
Move the herd, feed the soil. Short graze, long rest, living roots year-round.
Cheap often costs. Blends and imports hide externalities; stewardship doesn’t.
Learn where the learning happens. Internships and pastures teach what labs can’t.
Nature bats last. We can hurry harm; only patience grows abundance.
If You’re New to Regenerative Beef
Look for “grass-fed and finished” from farms you can visit or at least talk to.
Ask about daily moves/rotation, rest periods, and what they’re doing for soil life.
Let taste be a teacher—but don’t forget time and forage are part of the flavor.
Thanks for reading, Viva La Regenaissance!
-Ryan Griggs
🎥 Watch the Farm Tour
See White Oak Pastures come alive — cattle moving at dawn, birds working the herd, and Will Harris sharing decades of wisdom on soil, cycles, and stewardship.