This week’s TIME magazine features an article titled, “Save the Planet: Eat More Beef” by Lisa Abend. The article discusses the environmental soundness of cattle grazing unproductive land and the benefits of rotational grazing:
It works like this: grass is a perennial. Rotate cattle and other ruminants across pastures full of it, and the animals’ grazing will cut the blades — which spurs new growth — while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. The plant’s roots also help maintain soil health by retaining water and microbes. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.
Abend makes the argument that grass-fed cattle are actually beneficial to the environment:
From Vermont, where veal and dairy farmer Abe Collins is developing software designed to help farmers foster carbon-rich topsoil quickly, to Denmark, where Thomas Harttung's Aarstiderne farm grazes 150 head of cattle, a vanguard of small farmers are trying to get the word out about how much more eco-friendly they are than factory farming. "If you suspend a cow in the air with buckets of grain, then it's a bad guy," Harttung explains. "But if you put it where it belongs — on grass — that cow becomes not just carbon-neutral but carbon-negative." Collins goes even further. "With proper management, pastoralists, ranchers and farmers could achieve a 2% increase in soil-carbon levels on existing agricultural, grazing and desert lands over the next two decades," he estimates. Some researchers hypothesize that just a 1% increase (over, admittedly, vast acreages) could be enough to capture the total equivalent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions.
And this quote:
To Allan Savory, the economies-of-scale mentality ignores the role that grass-fed herbivores can play in fighting climate change. A former wildlife conservationist in Zimbabwe, Savory once blamed overgrazing for desertification. "I was prepared to shoot every bloody rancher in the country," he recalls. But through rotational grazing of large herds of ruminants, he found he could reverse land degradation, turning dead soil into thriving grassland.
Abend’s article centers on Eliot Coleman, author of The New Organic Grower and Barbara Damrosch, the Washington Post’s gardening columnist. In addition to their year-round vegetable farming, they have begun raising a few head of cows and sheep. When asked why they are raising livestock for meat, Coleman’s response was: ”Because I care about the fate of the planet.“
My favorite quote from the article:
Like him, Coleman now scoffs at the environmentalist vogue for vilifying meat eating. "The idea that giving up meat is the solution for the world's ills is ridiculous," he says at his Maine farm. "A vegetarian eating tofu made in a factory from soybeans grown in Brazil is responsible for a lot more CO2 than I am."
Although my husband and I don’t agree with everything in the article, we do firmly agree that a scientifically based grazing system is beneficial for our environment. Cattle are able to utilize grasses and undesirable forage, including weeds, turning them into the premiere protein for human consumption: Beef! Other benefits to grazing include weed control and fire suppression.
My husband’s family and my family have been running cattle on their respective ranches for many generations. We are fortunate that the generations before us made sound business decisions and good environmental decisions for the land and livestock in their care. We intend to continue this tradition by making the best possible decisions for our land, our livestock, our environment.
After all, these little buckaroos deserve the same excellent start in ranching that our parents gave us.
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