During last week’s Voices of the Valley speaker series, Dr. Fred Provenza, Utah State University Professor in the Department of Wildland Resources, told the audience the only thing that remains constant in life is change.

Provenza said humans and animals, both domesticated and wild, live in ever-changing environments, therefore are in “an ongoing state of adaptation.”

“We view change as a transitory disruption of a normal world,” Provenza said, “when actually change is the norm.”

“But humans are here for such a brief amount of time – two blinks of an eye – we never really see the tens of thousands of plants and animals coming and going through this world.”

While Provenza said, “genes are not destiny”, animals seem to have an inborn “origin of preference” which along with the cultural and biophysical environment, affect the individual’s behavior throughout its lifetime.

Within these preferences, Provenza said food selection is a “wisdom of the body” which allows animals to forage the food needed for maintenance and reproduction.

With this wisdom, Provenza explained that ranches could be better utilizing all available forages resources by using “the rest with the best” (weeds and plants with more desirable, sought out forage). Provenza went on to say that the “sagebrush steppe”, a major ecosystem in Wyoming and the Platte Valley, could be a better utilized forage resource.

Thus, Provenza said ranchers and farmers could stop spending thousands trying to fight an invasive species by simply using corrective grazing and foraging techniques.

“Additionally, grazing has been shown to increase soil organic matter and well as soil holding capacity,” Provenza added.

“Not to mention, grazing increases soil fertility and decomposition rates.”

Provenza finalized by telling the attentive group that the agriculture industry has the ability to fix carbon in soil, and should be “leading the charge.”

“The quality of food humans consume has a direct link to soil health,” Provenza said.

The next Voices of the Valley program will be “Our Forests: Beetle Kill, Wildfire and Recovery Efforts will be held March 10 at 7 p.m. at the Platte Valley Community Center.