Pescadero, California

Dakota Glueck communicates what regenerative agriculture looks like when it leaves the realm of mission statements and enters the day. He is the Cattle Coordinator at TomKat Ranch, and he coordinates where the cattle go. But what sounds straightforward becomes, in his hands, a far more nuanced practice of reading animals, forage, and land together.

His day begins with observation. Dakota checks the cattle, studies the feed in front of them, looks at how the previous day’s graze went, and then decides where the herd should move next and what kind of nutrition needs to be built out of the landscape available. What emerges is a portrait of management based not on fixed routine but on close attention. The best part of his day, he says, is moving cows.

Dakota sharpens the conversation around what regenerative cattle actually are. He describes them as more athletic than any cattle he has seen before, because in a region where some cattle can run to seventeen hundred pounds, TomKat’s target is much closer to eleven hundred. The goal is function. A more moderately framed cow is more agile on steep slopes, gentler on wet winter soils, and less likely to drive all its energy intake into maintaining body mass instead of moving effectively through the system.