Cows on grass (intensely) answer the perennials question: How to get more food, sustainably?

Carbon sequestration is important not only in our age of a changing climate, but in renewing and fertilizing soil. We grapple with how best to manage these carbon issues, debating which type of meat production has the lowest carbon footprint, what form of agriculture sequesters the most carbon, how to maintain an ecological balance and still be efficient producers.

When we talk about storing more carbon in soil with perennial-based agriculture, perhaps the most realistic answer to this is grass-fed livestock. It makes great sense to feed animals a diverse mixture of perennial grass and forage species – yielding meat higher in omega-3 fats and conjugated linoleic acid, rather than the annual grain crops favored by conventional meat and dairy producers.

We can save our soils from erosion in the process and nurture a vast tangle of subsoil root biomass, capable of breaking up soil compaction. Deeper roots scavenge micronutrients from soil depths, restoring elements to the surface that have been depleted by annual crops. Once perennial forage crops delve this deep, they leave everything they suck up readily available to the rest of the food chain.

Richard Manning casts his vote for pastured livestock in his spring 2009 contribution to onearth magazine (a publication of the Natural Resources Defense Council), “Graze Anatomy: The blueprint for an agricultural revolution (and a better burger).” He points out that we have in cattle and other ruminants an amazing biochemical factory that can transform cellulose, unpalatable for humans but ideal for fermentation in the cow stomach, into meat.

Externalities are pretty hard to see in the thick of the vast, subsidized grain-based meat economy. Let’s rope them back into the accounting process, he suggests, recognizing the subtle ways they leach vitality from our food chain and our health, and bringing into sharp focus the ways in which pastured livestock may actually be a doubly efficient answer to our meat addiction.

Better for the land, and the farmer.  For example, consider this statistic he cites: under good conditions, a farmer can raise two steers on one acre of land. It would take twice that amount of land to raise the 6,000 lbs of grain needed to finish these two steers. Minus the subsidies, this actually allows the grass-based farmer to make more money per acre than the conventional farmer.

Just as Rodale Institute’s core philosophy has always held that the health of soil, plants and people are intricately connected, Manning echoes this view when he links the internal environment of a cow’s stomach to environmental health:

 Perennial grassland restores biodiversity and native habitats to productive land, while reaching a level of carbon sequestration that has the capacity to be on par with forests. The land isn’t tilled, so greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are never released. As Manning puts it, this land can be a carbon sink, where conventional corn and soybean farms are more likely a carbon source.

Joel Salatin, the Virginia pastured livestock farmer of gathering fame, has, over the years, come to believe in an intensive technique called mob grazing. This means concentrating more cattle on less land, leading them to graze non-selectively, and allowing the forage to completely regenerate before getting grazed again. 

He also believes in allowing the forage to grow taller before it’s grazed, wondering why we leave a corn crop in the ground long enough to reach maturity and produce the starch needed for fermentation before harvesting it for silage, but fail to recognize this same need for carbohydrates and lignin (aka carbon-based materials) in the cow’s personal fermentation tank – its rumen. The cow’s stomach requires feed higher in starch and fiber than protein, pretty much the opposite of what it gets when we put it on young pasture.

Additionally in the crops v. pasture decision, consider the benefits to land that doesn’t lean on spoon-fed, plowed-in nutrients, but must instead rely on replenishment as nature intended –
matter that decomposes slowly at the surface. “Nature fertilizes the soil with lignified carbon, not green vegetable matter,” maintains Salatin.

Violent impact, in a good way. In a ACRES USA article, Salatin outlines his philosophy: 

The idea behind the all-at-once grazing:

Mature grass feeds the soil the most organic matter in the form of high-powered root growth. Plus, when animals graze less selectively, they reduce numbers of normally ungrazed species, giving the “good” species a little more room to shine. The heavy grazing of the mob “shocks” the plants into channeling their energy reserves into sending out new shoots and root growth.

Don’t forget that it also makes good sense to take advantage of economies of scale. Not only can more condensed cattle populations manage the forage ecosystem more efficiently, but it’s also more cost-effective. As Salatin puts it, “Amalgamation creates significant efficiencies because every herd needs a front fence, a back fence, a water trough and mineral box whether it’s 20 head or 500.”

Factoring carbon into the equation surely makes pastured livestock come out on top, and its side benefits are myriad – better environmental stewardship, increased biodiversity, cleaner water and air, reduced erosion, happier animals and better meat, to name just a few.

While we could be supporting a system that celebrates and capitalizes on the natural growth habits of perennials and their eaters, we instead uphold a system that is gradually, invisibly self-destructing, digesting itself from the inside by leaving decay in its own path. The best way to start rethinking the value of perennials is in the context of well-managed, thriving, nutrient-dense pasture. ~ Genevieve Slocum, policy intern at the Rodale Institute.