Grazed and Confused? How much can grazing livestock help to mitigate climate change?
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Ruminating on cattle, grazing systems, methane, nitrous oxide, the soil carbon sequestration question - and what it all means for greenhouse gas emissions.
Farm animals, and the consumption of meat and dairy, are a major contributor to the problem of climate change. It is well-established that the livestock sector contributes some 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but there is less agreement on the specific climate impact of different types of animals and production systems. Most controversy surrounds the debate on ‘grass-fed’ beef and how its climate impact compares with other types of meat or meat produced in more intensive systems.
Some have argued that grazing animals can actually stimulate grass to be more productive and put down deeper roots, drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in soils. Others go even further, arguing that this carbon sequestration can, in fact, offset all other emissions from ruminants, and in doing so solve our climate problems.
It is safe to say that this debate has left people either polarised or confused. Is grass-fed better or is it worse for the climate? What’s actually true?
The Grazed and Confused? report from the Food Climate Research Network finds that better management of grass-fed livestock, while worthwhile in and of itself, does not offer a significant solution to climate change as only under very specific conditions can they help sequester carbon. This sequestering of carbon is even then small, time-limited, reversible and substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions these grazing animals generate. The report concludes that although there can be other benefits to grazing livestock - solving climate change isn’t one of them.
Read more about the Grazed and Confused? report here: tabledebates.o...
Download the PDF version here: tabledebates.o...
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Many thanks to Holly Cecil for providing English subtitles and to the Association végétarienne de France (not affiliated with the FCRN) for providing French subtitles. You can also contribute subtitles in another language by clicking the three dots under the video and then "Add translations".
Please add what happens to all the vegetation not consumed by livestock. Decomposition will release CO2, as does wildfire.
Great video, really high quality production and some interesting arguments! I think it would have been interesting to discuss the benefits of planned grazing (holistic livestock management) on repairing damaged soils and slowing desertification processes that are ruining our grasslands. I think it's important to consider net greenhouse gas emissions for livestock but they are crucial for the health of soils ... without which we will soon be unable to feed the Earth's growing population.
Exactly.
Hope Below Our Feet: Peer-Reviewed Publications on Grazing as a Means of Improving Rangeland Ecology, Building Soil Carbon, and Mitigating Global Warming
docs.google.com/document/d/1QR9Xk3aq3soidmob6nS9PMstKcllmRlgpaVDyFzRkwY/edit?usp=sharing
soil4climate.org
Soil4Climate, a U.S.-based nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, advocates soil restoration as a climate solution. Soil4Climate promotes regenerative cropping and grazing practices to boost soil fertility, increase water and food security, restore wildlife habitat, replenish dried-up lakes and rivers, revitalize farming and pastoral communities, improve international relations, and sequester atmospheric carbon.
Join the 21,000+ scientists, farmers, policymakers, journalists, and concerned global citizens of Soil4Climate at facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate
It takes like 16 times more energy to produce meat than it does to make healthy vegetables. The ole 20/80 rule conforms well to this situation: about 20 percent of agricultural land is used for plants yet they provide 80 percent of humans' calories. The reciprocal holds true for meat, about 80 percent of farmland is used to raise animals yet meat provides less than 20 percent.of the world's calories. Think different
livestock is the MAIN cause of desertification, we do NOT need grazing to repair souls. Using grazing to stop desertification is like using fossil fuels to stop climate change.
@@veganevolution Vegans don't eat grass, and nothing comes out of a cow that did not get in it. Carbon going into a cow cones from the air and less than 1% of that goes back. Imagine manure, meat and milk weight more than burbs and farts.
The way carbon dense soil was build was by ruminant animals eating grasses etc.
Humans don’t live by calories alone.
I find it very odd that this study recognises that grasslands are extremely important and that the soils beneath grassland store more carbon than those of forests, but that they do not mention the fact that grasslands have to be grazed (responsibly) in order to maintain them. I also need to check which reference they used for the amount of methane produced by cows since the studies often quoted were conducted on stressed cows standing in tents and not grazing pasture.
The study got it ridiculously wrong
The conclusion was that we need more grasslands and less conversion to crop lands, but we must lower our intake of meat grown on grassland and eat more plant-based diets which inevitably will be grown on grasslands converted to crop lands.
Also, when you feed a cow grains, it has more gas than when they eat their natural diet.
The Era of wild ruminants is a thing of the past. Many people have the false perception that wild ruminants are inherently good, and domesticated ruminants are inherently bad. "Wild" ruminants like the buffalo will equally degrade the environment compared to mismanaged cattle grazing because there so few Apex predators to keep the herd bunched and moving, As well as a deficiency of open unfenced land. The reason America has so many obese people is also not the fault of "domestic" Vs "Wild" ruminants, It is a function of Grazing Management and the nutritional quality of the food supply as a whole. American's can afford lots of food, so they buy and eat lots of food. The problem is most of the food in America today is of very poor quality. This poor quality is what give's most American's a "Hidden hunger" because they eat enough, Calories, Protein, and Fat, but their bodies are still starving for mineral's and micro nutrients that are vital to health. The Spread and education of regenerative and biological farming needs to outpace and replace the industrial input dependent soil degrading yield fantasy, or the spread of poor quality empty food calories will continue to spread to developing countries.
@@j.u.c.o
Exactly the opposite is true. The complex cellulose needs to be broken down in the rumen by bacteria that produce methane. Grain is digested in one of the other stomachs of the cow without generating much gas.
one of the clearest and best made videos i've ever seen on a complex topic. congrats!
Unfortunately, the authors of the G&C report rely on research that conflates variants of Rotational Grazing with Holistic Planned Grazing, aka Adaptive Multi-paddock Grazing, and build their case for soil carbon saturation by denying the rapid topsoil formation (> 2.5 cm per yr) achieved via Holistic Planned Grazing.
See ...
Hope Below Our Feet: Peer-Reviewed Publications on Grazing as a Means of Improving Rangeland Ecology, Building Soil Carbon, and Mitigating Global Warming
docs.google.com/document/d/1QR9Xk3aq3soidmob6nS9PMstKcllmRlgpaVDyFzRkwY/edit?usp=sharing
And ...
[34:35] “We found almost a foot [30 cm]!of new topsoil built directly on top of that gravel and sand layer, in 10 years.” (Minnesota)
Allen Williams, PhD - Restore Soil and Ecosystem Health with Adaptive Grazing (2018, 42 mins.)
ua-cam.com/video/BwH6od6Jaq8/v-deo.html
Note: Adaptive Grazing is short for Adaptive Multi-paddock Grazing, a term used by some academics to describe Allan Savory’s Holistic Planned Grazing.
www.soil4climate.org
@@karlthidemann1817 have you read the report? The conclusion of it is this, I think you misunderstood: "The inescapable conclusion of this report is that while grazing livestock have their place in a sustainable food system, that place is limited. Whichever way one looks at it, and whatever the system in question the anticipated continuing rise in production and consumption of animal products is cause for concern. With their growth, it becomes harder by the day to tackle our climatic and other environmental challenges." - SOURCE: the report from FCRN, Environmental Change Institute and "Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food" "Grazed and confused?"
This was PART OF THE CONCLUSION from that report, read the rest on page 117-125 of the report.
@@karlthidemann1817 shouldn’t we also consider wild mammals and how much land we use? Read „Wild mammals have declined by 85% since the rise of humans, but there is a possible future where they flourish“ from “Our World in Data”.
@@karlthidemann1817 ua-cam.com/video/OSAz-A7S8ow/v-deo.html
pfft, immediately assumes forest clearing, and ignores reduced pesticide, more jobs, nutrient density of meat/dairy, combing with poultry free ranging, increased wildlife with reduced impact as pastures are not a mono culture of soy or maize, water retention, no phosphate run off, and then adds using land for animal feed(however that was interpreted)...talk about cherry picking!!!
Funny how many people in this comment section think they are so much better than an international collaboration of leading expert on the subject. Why don't you go get a chair at Cambridge University if you're so smart ? I'd rather trust a collaboration of expert working for year on the subject than the first wannabe scientist on the Yt comment section
Thank you so much for this, I was quite flabbergasted, looking at these comments
It's funnier how people will ho vegan because 'youtube says so'
@@aherrns1894 there's a difference between activelly denying science, like antivaxx or people here do, and following someone lifestyle from UA-cam. One is irrational, the other is not
Go out and see for yourself. Talk to people that have tried rotational grazing.
In addition to that, you can see huge flaws in their logic. It doesn't take a degree to see when two things don't add up.
The people debating against this article are posting links to peer reviewed research in their favor too. Why is their research invalid when it opposes what you want to be true?
Large institutions have been wrong all the time. Especially when they have political or financial interests.
USDA used recommend feeding cow brains back to cows. American heart association used to recommend trans fats.
Good with communication of science in this heated oversimplified debate. Promoting fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing, multipurpose, fodder-trees is an important and usually neglected aspect. Innovative, improved low-input methods for establishment and management are needed and I developed and documented several in collaboration with leading research institutes and African farmers. They can improve grass growth and reduce emissions per unit of product and a moderate tannin content can reduce CH4 emissions directly from livestock. I can easily me Googled for more info or services.
The emissions caused by growing feed crops for livestock. Regenerative grazers do not feed any supplementary feeds, the animals eat only forage at pasture, so including emissions from feed crop production massively skews the figures.
Great video explaining poor quality research. I guess to fund research from all those institutions would require big coin and big coin tends to come from interested parties.
Perhaps you are refering to beef-farming industry that funds its own research? As we know, the desire for and addiction to animal products is vast, as is the industry that sells those, regardless of under the guise of efficient (factory) or regenerative (holitic grazing) "Dr. Sylvia Fallon of the Natural Resources Defense Council has shown, symbiosis between grazing herds and grasses has historically worked best to sequester carbon when the animals lived the entirety of their lives within the ecosystem, their carcasses rotted and returned their accumulated nutrients into the soil, and human intervention was minimal to none. It is unclear, given that Savory has identified this type of arrangement as his ecological model, how marketing cattle for food would be consistent with these requirements. Cows live up to 20 years of age, but in most grass-fed systems, they are removed when they reach slaughter weight at 15 months. Cheating the nutrient cycle at the heart of land regeneration by removing the manure-makers and grass hedgers when only 10 percent of their ecological “value” has been exploited undermines the entire idea of efficiency that Savory spent his TED talk promoting. "
@@spiral-m No, the beef industry couldn’t be more anti holistic - organic beef production. They want lab meat and controlled confinement. Even though confinement takes just as many acres to support as it does to just put the animals out on that land and integrate them to work with the environment.
@@LtColDaddy71 I meant the grass-fed beef industry, as in - want to sell "normal" beef and all client / industry interdepencies. The grass-fed beef industry is pretty massive
@@LtColDaddy71 just in (one of hundreds): Widespread Adoption of Plant-Based Diets Required for Net Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050
Widespread global adoption of plant-based diets and other changes are needed to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to a report published in the British Medical Journal. Researchers note that behaviors around diet account for 26% of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, reducing consumption of animal products would use less water and land and reduce consumption of saturated fats. Meat consumption in America and Europe would need to drop by 79% and 68%, respectively in order to reach international emission goals. The authors recommend policies that decrease affordability of unhealthful foods like meat by removing subsides on livestock, for example, while increasing affordability of healthful, plant-based foods. References
Marteau TM, Chater N, Garnett EE. Changing behaviour for net zero 2050. BMJ. 2021;375:n2293. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n2293t
It's poor quality because it is funded by meat manufacturers trying to justify their abusive treatment towards animals. This video his clear and unambiguous as to the detrimental effects that livestock raising has on the environment. It's a well-known fact that cattle grazing is the number one cause of rainforest deforestation, rainforests being one of the Earth's most valuable defenses against climate change. It truly is unethical to eat meat if you are informed, even excluding the intrinsic value of these sentient animals that are, ultimately, being killed needlessly. Something that everyone doesn't realize is that the "14.5 percent" was lowered from "18 percent" determined years earlier by the IPCC, before they began receiving funding from international organizations for meat, egg and.milk manufacturers. All of this still doesn't consider the opportunity cost of forests lost. 1/3 of the Earth's terrestrial land is reserved for livestock production, which is about half of the usable land that could be farmed. This makes livestock production the single most damaging human behaviors for our planet. Source: Dr. Sailesh Rao et. al
It is amazing to see so many criticize without putting in any of their own effort. Even coming down on those trying and partially succeeding to do the right thing. It is never enough. My suggestion? If you don’t like modern agricultural methods the first thing you need to do is learn how to feed yourself. Make a plan to grow 75% of your own food. You want to change the world? You don’t do it by voting. Look in the mirror. Change that person.
I'm very pleased to see this. My understanding of soil and atmospheric chemistry led me to think it was *highly* unlikely that ruminants could be involved in any net sequestration, and this study confirms that. The proponents of 'mob grazing will solve climate change' have an agenda, which is to continue farming (and eating!) beef. Savory is not a scientist, and certainly the initial 'reports' he produced were laughable with their lack of scientific rigour. More recently, better studies have been done, showing that in certain circumstances, some types of grazing practices can help soils gain carbon, but as this video explains, these gains would not continue year on year 'for ever', as all (natural) ecological systems get to equilibrium eventually - even forests don't permanently sequester carbon year on year.
The solution, for meat eaters, is to eat less meat and lower carbon meat such as chicken and pig. For those who say they *have* to eat beef or lamb/mutton make it a rare treat (no pun intended) so your annual ruminant emissions are very low. The easiest thing to do is to go veggie - it's not difficult and quality of life is no different from those who continue eating meat.
I suggest you read some actual literature on system analysis on carbon sequestration in soils. There is, and a lot. Even when comparing CO2e. In temperate climates and in tropical climates. Also and again, there is no net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere by ruminants, since it is a closed cyclic system (of course provided no deforestation takes place, which is what happens in 95 of the global herd). This is an ideological debate, not scientific.
@@aniakense What makes you think I haven't read some 'actual literature' on soil carbon sequestration? (we call these 'papers' usually). I'm well aware that soils sequester carbon, after all this is my speciality, converting waste animal and plant materials into a carbon rich and reasonably stable material which can be used to improve soil structure, nutrient content and moisture retention ability.
I'm going to ignore your silly comment about 95% of livestock being on recently deforested land, as although deforestation is a major problem, much of it is for plant-based crops like oil palm and soya - most livestock is on land which has been used for agriculture for decades or longer. But this incorrect 'fact' shows your lack of scientific credibility.
I think you misunderstand the difference between various aspects of the carbon cycle. In a climax community (am I wrong to assume you know what this is?) there is equilibrium between the carbon dioxide drawn into the plants in spring and summer, and what is released in autumn and winter as the vegetation decays. Some ecosystems do have significant methanogen bacteria in them, including marshes, grassland with termites, and landscapes supporting ruminants. These systems release some of the sequestered CO2 as CH4 which has a vastly higher ability to trap heat than CO2. This ranges from about 30x if measured over 100 years, to 86x measured over 20 years, and in the first year after release, the radiative forcing may be in the region of 150x that of CO2. It depends on the half life, which is far less in equilateral regions due to the activity of the OH radical in the atmosphere. However, a small increase in the production of methane from this climax community will drastically alter the overall radiative forcing.
There is a finite amount of solar energy a given area of land can absorb. One square metre in temperate areas might be exposed to 5kwh total sunlight per day in the summer. Whatever vegetation is growing there will be able to use 3 to 6% of this as photosynthesis is not particularly efficient, and that is the total amount of energy/growth/carbon drawdown that square metre can possibly achieve. You cannot drastically change this by mowing, putting down fertiliser, giving extra water, chanting or making wacky claims on UA-cam. You can certainly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide a plant will take up, by underwatering, stressing the plant with a nutrient deficiency, overgrazing, infecting with a pathogen, flooding the soil, and many other insults. What you cannot do is improve on the optimum conditions, should your square metre have those. In optimum conditions, some types of vegetation will add carbon to soils in a number of ways, including what I might like to think of as 'natural composting' (the production of leafmould) and through the actions of roots, some of which may be used to store nutrients, and do funny things like talk to fungi in a system we know as mycorrhizae. But soils are choc full of respiring organisms too, microbes and fungi and invertebrates, all releasing soil carbon, completely naturally, and usually in balance with the carbon input.
So, now we have to look at the ability of soils to sequester carbon (permanently!) versus the total radiative forcing, which will be very much impacted by the amount of methane the system is producing. This is why there's incredulity in the scientific community about claims that farming beef can 'reverse climate change' (an early claim of Savory's) and why there's been a flurry of research papers (sorry, 'actual literature') looking at the issue. The consensus is that if we're to tackle climate change, we *need to eat less meat ESPECIALLY RUMINANTS* and the main opposition to this, as you'd expect, is from the meat industry. I'm not a vegan and have no particular axe to grind (unless it's the wider climate change one!) so I look at these issues fairly impartially, and do note that in certain circumstances, a particular grazing technique may improve soil carbon sequestration temporarily so that this offsets the CO2e from the bovine rumen.
Confirmation bias john, Even that compost you make produces methane. Even leaves rotting on a forest floor produce methane. Even termite farts are methane. Whether its a cow, rotting vegetation or a termite fart, all cycling of biomass produces methane. But in a well managed grassland environment, the methanotrophs in the soil eat more methane than all those sources produce, making the grassland biome taken as a whole including all the plants animals insects and microbes a NET sink for methane, rather than a source.
@@redddbaron That's a very bold claim. We should be clear though- methane is produced when there is insufficient oxygen to decompose material- by anaerobic bacteria generally. So I wouldn't generally expectt leaves rotting on the soil surface to emit it. The last paper I looked at specifically looked at soil methane emissions and found that very modest soil gains and losses were swamped by the few occasions when teh soil was saturated and emissions rose to many times the norm. That was slighly less often on rotaionally grazed pasture than on continuously grazed, but still a net source of CH4.
I guess that on very sandy soil there may even fewer suturation events, but equally, a fair amount of grazing- in higher latitudes and deforested tropical forest land is on wet soil- peatlands and thus has an ongoing high emission rate. Unless somewhat drained, in which case the peat oxidises and becomes a massive net carbon source.
I'd love to be directed to the evidence that supports the 'net sink' claim. Many thanks.
@@wildgentlesky well we can talk details here: www.quora.com/What-reaction-can-you-do-to-remove-methane/answer/Scott-Strough and as for generally....savory.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2015-methane.pdf
Cann anyone provide a source for the study they discuss in the video which found grass-fed couldn't sequester enough?
google Food Climate Action Network Grazed and Confused.
Grazed and Confused as well as this one in the Internation Journal of Biodiversity - www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/
@@ariendb
The paper you cite (Carter et al. 2014) is flawed in the same way as the G&C report. Specifically, its authors rely on research that conflates variants of Rotational Grazing with Holistic Planned Grazing, aka Adaptive Multi-paddock Grazing.
For up-to-date research on the environmental and climate benefits of Holistic Planned Grazing, see ...
Hope Below Our Feet: Peer-Reviewed Publications on Grazing as a Means of Improving Rangeland Ecology, Building Soil Carbon, and Mitigating Global Warming
docs.google.com/document/d/1QR9Xk3aq3soidmob6nS9PMstKcllmRlgpaVDyFzRkwY/edit?usp=sharing
Also ...
Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System
Rowntree et al. 2020
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.544984/full
And ...
Accelerating regenerative grazing to tackle farm, environmental, and societal challenges in the upper Midwest
Spratt et al. 2021
www.jswconline.org/content/jswc/76/1/15A.full.pdf
@@karlthidemann1817 thanks I will take a look at those.
The grass production improvements I've seen from better grazing methods have worked everywhere I've seen them tried. For example, in the western US most government held land is severely degraded and not producing much at all. Every one of the dozen wild life preserves I've been on are just dead rotting plant material with nothing green coming in.
It seems the ones that did this study severely underestimated how much managed grazing can improve the land.
I mean... how did the buffalo not end the world thousands of years ago if ruminants are so hazardous for the environment?
sources? compare extraction rates / overall forest levels and human populations in both these periods. It shows something very different.
@@spiral-m I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Are you saying something like larger forests offset ruminant carbon emissions?
My sources are first hand experience. I don't need a scientific paper to be able to tell the difference between dead government protected land and lush grassland that are properly managed and turning tons of CO2 into soil every year.
@@Fulano5321 I mean that nature does the best job over time, not humans and their human-bred grazers, depending on the situation. What might not suit your or my eyes aesthetically might be nature's way of doing it that turns into something else later. Moorland used to cover much more of central Europe than it does today, is biodiverse but "brown" compasred to overfertilised fields of very low diversity that look lush and deceptively healthy to many people. If you are talking about land that was oringally prairie and the buffalo are gone, there might be some rationale for domesticaled grazers if it is degraded land - temporarily at least. If it is land that was origninally forest, then forest is the climax vegetation (end result) and that always wins as a carbon sink over any grassland. My sources: spiral-m.com/sequestration. The bulk of the environmental research says that sequestration by grazing domesticated animals is limited, much less effective than not having unnatural grazers (on average) and there is a net output of excess methane. Grass-fed beef farmers like to tell meat-lovers otherwise (the studies they commission are done by consultants, not independent research institutions), so myths get easily propagated. That is why it is more objective to look at the independent research. Anyone can claim anything otherwise.
@@spiral-m I've spent an hour trying to summarize enough to fit in a UA-cam comment, but there's too much. But it seems like the most important thing I wanted to respond is you're not going to find "independent research" out there. The only way to get to the truth is to look at every side and take the parts each side haves correct. The several sources I looked at in the PDF you cited on your blog were funded by one side, from the most biased parts of the US. I'd encourage you to look at the other points of view, there is plenty of research out there that disagrees with your sources. Climage a huge project, and we are far from understanding the full picture.
For example with the table on your blog, most forests in the world are not carbon sinks, mostly because of mismanagement. There is also research that grasslands sequester much more carbon than forests. Here's a link to just one example, I only scanned it's contents though. www.researchgate.net/publication/326279957_Grasslands_may_be_more_reliable_carbon_sinks_than_forests_in_California
One thing that is important to understand in environmental management is there are two types of land, some people us the terms "brittle" and "non-brittle". Non brittle land gets evenly spaced rain and doesn't need management to survive. Germany is very much a non-brittle environment. Most of the world is brittle land. Brittle land needs specific systems in place to survive. Humans have been part of that cycle for a long enough that excluding them is unnatural. I find it quite sad that people who claim dead land with no humans is better than lush, bio-diverse land. Especially when it hurts both the environment and people to return it to that state.
As for the methane, again that is a biased perspective. There is research that suggests methane breaks down very quickly in the atmosphere and the big picture needs to include the increased CO2 sequestration that managed grazing provides.
@@Fulano5321 I've seen that study and whilst it may be true in the short term, I don't think the climax vegetation after massive rewilding would be grassland. I am not sure if they took into account the immediate cooling effect of forests. If enough reforesting were implemented effectively in less "brittle" areas, we could see more cooling and less fires--→ more reversal to natural forest. But too many humans are greedy and selfish. Humans have interacted with nature all along but compare populations now and 1000 years ago. I have nothing against grasslands where that is really the best option but that doesn't have to mean using extractive methods with grazers. Could be passive or end of life extraction at the most. People eat way too much in industrialised countries, including animal products. The US is literally the pinnacle of the chronically sick "civilised" society. Animal protein is inflammatory and this helps explain the dietetics associations pointing towards plants for disease prevention. No, truly independent research is impossible but there is a big difference between the biases on average of research that comes directly from industry, e.g. consultants of grass-fed beef-farmers or 10th hand (i.e. from the pooled funding through taxes) for environmental research organisations. Follow the money: the more powerful the industry wanting status quo (or more of the same), the more likely the science will be corrupted by those industries. On the other hand, the greater the potential loss of profit to said large industries because of study-findings, the more likely research institutions will play-down the evidence of damage. Examples include IPCC (some members left because of politicisation and watering down of warnings), FAO and its standardly quoted figure of 14.5% of GHG attributable to animal agriculture - they conveniently removed carbon opportunity loss which other studies didn't, like from Oxford Uni. Note: FAO are funded directly by the meat / fishing industries and animal feed industries. Conflicts of interest everywhere. Can't remember if I mentioned this: Your point about buffalo is highly dubious as carbon sequestering forests were bountiful taking up CO2 and natural microorganisms were able to take up methane to a much larger degree. There were masses of peat swamps - now removed, much of which to grow food to feed animals instead of humans directly. Human populations were tiny compared to today. The environmental interaction was miniscule in comparison. We didn't have grazers all over the place, but in certain biotopes. Forests and some deserts had no or very few large grazers and buffalos were not being forced bred by the billion, even though they were hunted. Today: billions of forced-bred animals that die young being rapidly replaced with genetically selected fast-growing, overly milk-laden young, producing methane that has nowhere to go but up. It's like another planet completely.
Love the editing. Your assertions are extremely narrow buddy. We literally do not have the research to conclude either way.
I would like to see an update on this study. It's quite peculiar.
Buyest at it's best, shining light on the matters in imbalance. I expect higher standard if you want to provide expert message.
TABLE generator, why aren't you responding to valid comments below?
Bait click.
Why is organic matter 4% in a pasture and 1% in your yard?
All animal emissions are within the current carbon cycle.
It is impossible to grow grass or any other crop of food for livestock without first sequestering the carbon from the atmosphere that will later be released as burps etc.
There are no animals that eat fossil fuels.
Nonsense. The crops for feed are mostly transported all over the place, sometimes processed (more CO2), Hay, Maize, Soya, whatever, thereby releasing CO2. We've lost most areas of natural habitats because of clearances for said feed crops AND grazing (which uses even more land than factory-farmed), thus destroying the ability of nature to reabsorb (e.g. peat swamps and methane, forests and CO2).
Looks like video advocating that everyone go on a plant based diet. Totally misleading.
yes, because vegans send their undigested plants to the sewage treatment plant for methanogenesis, methanogenesis starts on the way, under the town.
The amount of land needed to support a cow absorbs 60 or more cows worth of methane, if they are grazed and rested with good management.
Over all this is very incorrect or dishonest video.
yes but no, those soils only do so when converting to a low organic to a high organic soil, which only happens at the beginning then the carbon balance becomes neutral.
So it only compensate cows emission if you convert an arid land to a pasture, when reality is that forests are converted into pastures.
99% of cows raised are not raised on grass...they are fed on feedlots and cafos.
@Klaa2 it is a cycle the methane is being produced and recaptured constantly, as huge herds of wild animals have always done. Again a good example of how this video is dishonest not talking about how huge herds wild or domestic are the norm for nature to be healthy.
@@DemonZest some man made soils where cattle keeping is valued not dis courage like in this video are 4 to 6 feet deep and growing. Example would be eastern Europe and Russia where milk cow forms center of every farm and forage is cut and manure spread on a different spot each day. Again not covered in this video showing how dishonest it is.
@@karinnelson1778 even cattle raised in feedlot spend most of their life on pasture. Also the feed in a feedlot consists mostly of forages with grains added. Then that manure is spread for fertility. So compared to humans eating grains themselves feedlot is still better anyhow...especially when as I say 100% of cattle spend 70 to 90% of life on pasture with mothers of all those cattle 100% on pasture. You should consider getting your info from honest sources.
Excelente explicación.
Thank you. Great video and interesting study.
Vincent Duhamel the trouble is it wasn’t a real study. It was just an agenda driven farce. Look at Holistically planned grazing for some grass fed beef done properly.
6:02 "...grazing-induced removals via soil carbon sequestration do not offer a substantial mitigation opportunity."
Ray Kowalchuk holistically planned grazing does offer substantial carbon sequestration opportunities. But of course the video stopped short of showing that because it would have blown their narrative and agenda.
That's what they claimed, but they are completely wrong. So wrong in fact that it is almost clownish.
@@davedrewett2196 So the scientists who produced the report that this video covers have an agenda (and I don't even know what that would be), but those criticising it, who are not scientists, don't have an agenda?
Gordon Struth the agenda is to put carbon in the soil and reverse desertification, get hydrological water cycles going again. Have a look on UA-cam of soil microbiologist Walter Jehne. He is an expert in the field when it comes to the science. He’s a retired Australian government CSIRO scientist. He’s is concerned about our existence on the planet. That’s his agenda. I’m sure he’d like to be sitting back relaxing in his retirement years but he’s compelled to act.
@@gordon1545 The agenda is they don't want you eating meat, this is vegan propaganda, they are putting their sentimentalities above the lethal threat of climate chaos smh
why isn't this factoring in the CO2 that cows breathe out?
Because it's so negligible, it's not even a rounding error.
Chickens eat grass.
chickens eat grass and grains but they really prefer meat! (bugs, small rodents or reptiles, kitchen waste like shrimp shells...)
They are assuming forest clearing and production of animal feed with conventional methods for cattle ranching. I call BS.
That stood out to me too. As soon as I saw that I knew that they were aiming for a certain result.
I guess clearing forest, or stopping forest from growing to feed animals is a similar result, but you have to make assumptions somewhere
I call bs. I cleared no forest, nor use any produced feeds. This is pure anti human
Of course they’re assuming that, we would need way more land if we put the cattle now cramped up in small places on massive grazing lands!
Read: “OPINION: Is Documentary ‘Kiss The Ground’ Just A Last Ditch Effort To Keep Meat Relevant?” by nutritionist Simon Hill and environmental scientist Nicholas Carter. Especially look at the references in the article marked with some kind of color.
Also read “Holistic Management - a critical review of Allan Savory’s grazing method” and listen to the Podcast “Can holistic grazing reverse climate change? A review of Kiss the Ground”
Please read the article “Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint” from “Our World in Data”.
You can graze livestock without needing to clear land and produce animal feed, which I'm sure is one of the main carbon emissions accounted for. Grasslands make grass without tractors and chainsaws.
Caleb Straus Peretz or input fertiliser, unlike mono cultured , ploughed soil , chemical pesticide sprayed and fossil fuel derived artificially fertilised gmo soy beans to feed vegans lol.
@@davedrewett2196 and livestock...
@@davedrewett2196 6% of Americans are Vegan according to a new report, 20 million americans. There are 9 Billion farm animals in the US, 25 million of them are killed each day. Do you really think that soys being grown to 'feed vegans'?
www.animalmatters.org/facts/farm/
www.reportbuyer.com/product/4959853/top-trends-in-prepared-foods-2017-exploring-trends-in-meat-fish-and-seafood-pasta-noodles-and-rice-prepared-meals-savory-deli-food-soup-and-meat-substitutes.html
The vast majority of livestock is grain finished on a feedlot so required crops to be grown to feed them.
Forests would produce grass too if they hadn't been locked off in fear of forest fires, causing dead plants and trees to build up and end up with these mega forest fires we get these days.
This is so ignorant and misleading. Its a called the carbon cycle, carbon temporarily sequestered by plants is released by ruminants. Runiments are not releasing ancient carbon, and Ruminents are not increasing the total carbon in the atmospheric pool because its sequestered the next growing season. Sequester carbon, store it in soil, and at the higher soil carbon equilibrium mentioned increased Soil biology, water holding capacity and infiltration will help plants increase growth and health without petroleum derived inputs. The increased growth of plants will help produce more animal protein on the same amount of land. The study also did not account for an increase in the plant respiration of healthy pastures, This increase in respiration increases the amount of hydroxal ions produced which are what degrade methane back into Carbon dioxide. An increase in soil Health(soil Carbon) also increases the amount of methane degrading microbes in the soil as well. The Methane degradation potential of healthy pasture is 100 times the amount of methane produced by the ruminant animals supported by and maintaining those healthy pastures.Regenerative Grazing is both a net Carbon and a net Methane sink. ua-cam.com/video/ZGvVli0OTrQ/v-deo.html
@ali turan The Era of wild ruminants is a thing of the past. Many people have the false perception that wild ruminants are inherently good, and domesticated ruminants are inherently bad. "Wild" ruminants like the buffalo will equally degrade the environment compared to mismanaged cattle grazing because there so few Apex predators to keep the herd bunched and moving, As well as a deficiency of open unfenced land. The reason America has so many obese people is also not the fault of "domestic" Vs "Wild" ruminants, It is a function of Grazing Management and the nutritional quality of the food supply as a whole. American's can afford lots of food, so they buy and eat lots of food. The problem is most of the food in America today is of very poor quality. This poor quality is what give's most American's a "Hidden hunger" because they eat enough, Calories, Protein, and Fat, but their bodies are still starving for mineral's and micro nutrients that are vital to health. The Spread and education of regenerative and biological farming needs to outpace and replace the industrial Fossil fuel and Chemical input soil degrading yield fantasy, or the spread of poor quality empty food calories will continue to spread to developing countries.
@ali turan There are modern Grain, and livestock farmers that are healing landscapes and building soil much faster than most scientist ever Imagined possible. Watch this video of a farmer who Raised the level of soil Organic matter on his 3,000 acre farm from 1.4 to 7 %. His farm is Attracting and housing hundreds of wild deer, thousands of birds, and millions of insects. When you farm in natures image as a steward instead of a pillager, wild life and the profits sustaining the farmer and not at odds. ua-cam.com/video/O394wQ_vb3s/v-deo.html
Organic soil carbon storage and methanotrophs only compensate cows emission if you convert new arid land to pasture (a stable soil don't store new CO2), when reality is that forests are converted into pastures.
@@TS-vr9of wild deer are bind to farm lands. They weren't a thing in Québec, they weren't even present, before 1847. They came in from the US when lands were open for farming. Before that we had elk that are bind to mature forest, which were cut down and we don't have any wild elk in Québec.
@ali turan American obesity is from sugar and highly processed carbs, not beef.
What everyone seems to miss is that methane, by far the most influential greenhouse gas produced by livestock, is made by the microbes from plant material that the cows eat. In order to grow, plants have first taken up CO2 from the atmosphere. And because methane in the atmosphere readily breakes down back into CO2 (halflife of 12 years), its a cycle!
Yes, CH4 is way more potent than CO2 but as long as the amount of cattle does not increase world wide and the feed they eat also does not change, the concentration of ruminant methane reaches an equilibrium and does no longer contribute to climate change but is neutral!
In fact, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have been stable in the not so distant past for a couple of years but are now increasing again, mainly because of natural gas leaks which, unlike ruminant derived methane, is not part of the short carbon cycle.
This is what I don't understand, I watch a very well made video that seems to know what it is talking about but then seems to break the laws of physics by suggesting cows produce methane from nothing and completely ignore that grasses are made up significantly of carbon and hydrogen .
I believe cows are carbon neutral however destroying already established ecosystems to stock animals is obliviously not.
@@LittleJohnFish Yes, exactly what I think as well!
It is odd that when the world was full of grazing animals methane levels were low and so was desertification. Now that we've killed most of the grazing animals, CO2 levels and methane levels are high while desertification is a massive problem. It is clear the problem is far more complex than presented and that you haven't really analyzed the processes involved properly. Do not leap to a "solution" that will make the situation worse. It is likely that animals grazing on wild grasses instead of processed corn do not produce the same gases.
Do you have any evidence for your assumption? And why do you ignore that this video is based on a very comprehensive report, linked in the description?
@@LeanAndMean44 Meh, that was four months ago, and I am not sure it even matters anymore. The Siberian tundra is on fire and releasing methane in large quantities that make cow farts look like drops of water in the ocean. The world governments consider their social status more important than survival so we are locked in for that great roller-coaster ride to near-extinction. And, I am still an optimist because I haven't dropped the
"near" yet.
@@LeanAndMean44 Eat meat, don't eat meat; Graze cattle, don't graze cattle. You are too concerned with what is proved, and what is unproven. It is you who must decide whether to survive or go extinct. (apologies to Master Oogway)
@@LeanAndMean44 corn is higher in plant sugars & starch than other grasses, (esp non-domesticated ) n thus higher in carbon^
Its not a good one as evidenced by the MANY comments below the vid^ lots of assumptions and poor logic, looks like it was set up to fail
Better to keep folk arguing over the small stuff and forget about fossil fuels eh
Great observation @kim Welch
ua-cam.com/video/vpTHi7O66pI/v-deo.html
This is what I've found at Ted talk
Why do they include production of feeds in their calculation? The whole point of restorative grazing is that you do not need to grow crops to feed these cows! They eat the grass!
You forget than in many area in the world, animals need to be fed during the winter. That implies growing and harvesting food for them during the summer.
And dairy cows for example, they need to eat grains, otherwise they do not produce enough milk to meet demands (yeah sad but this is how it works)
@@naturallyjuju
Untrue. As one example, Maple Hill Creamery in New York State sources milk year-round, all of it 100% grassfed, from over nearby 100 farms.
@@karlthidemann1817 Yes, but as mentioned above "in many areas of the world". Grass fed dairy only works in certain climates ... Not here in Germany for example. Not a single grass-fed only dairy. Although many very engaged dairies who do their best at regenerative farming and come very far.
This video is lacking a full picture. At points it supports the argument for proper grazing. The production on foods other than animals is not investigated for the damage done to soils and environment. Do we not need every bit of help to solve this problem. This seems awfully narrow and not a holistic view on the subject.
No mention of glomalin and how it stabilises carbon in grasslands and consumes methane as a food source therefore making purely grassfed beef ( not fed inputs as in the study ) methane neutral.
@@mouvementdeliberation-libe4043 so what the methane produced is part of a cyclic system, and there is no carbon emission from fossil fuels, which there is in grass fed. Not to talk about animal welfare issues of feeding grain to cows, provoking liver abscess. The absurdity of IPCC GHG emissions methodology and the stupidity that was born after 2007's FAO 'Livestock's long shadow' report.
Mouvement de Libération-Liberation Movement no cows are in a symbiotic relationship with grasslands and in doing that the grasses respiring moisture into the upper atmosphere that 100 times more methane is broken down than the cattle produce. Herbivores eating grass are methane neutral
Mouvement de Libération-Liberation Movement ua-cam.com/video/rAbAf-GbRHc/v-deo.html look and learn.
@@mouvementdeliberation-libe4043 actually they produce less, but over a longer lifetime till market. Either way though that is an irrelevant stat due to methanotrophs in the grassland soil making a grazing herd a net NEGATIVE methane source.
@@mouvementdeliberation-libe4043 do you have a source for that statement?
Know what else stores carbon in stable forms??? Trees gardamnit!
Biomass carbon is important but the amount of liquid carbon channeled through root exudates, as well as necromass carbon, sequestered in soils is almost threefold. Know what facilitates the fertility of perennial systems prerequisite to exudate sequestration and biomass/necromass homeostasis? Animals god bless it 🪶
Very biased misleading presentation. Make sweeping statements of livestock production being bad for the environment while showing a cow on grass. Feedlots, housed pigs, battery hen's and housed chickens all are being fed grains that require cultivation, fertilizer and fossil fuels and other chemicals to produce. A cow or stear on grass is totally different.
It's not biased, it cites a peer reviewed study on the topic from some of the world's top Universities
The problem is this: Something like 80% of all the corn harvested in the United States is fed to livestock. If we were to convert all 80% of that monoculture acreage into grass farms that raised cattle on a rotational grazing program there will be no need to clear any forest. There would be no need to clear any additional land whatsoever. Not to mention we wouldn’t be feeding corn to ruminants, Which does nothing but make them grow fatter and faster. To completely unnecessary and unnatural food source for them, cattle should not gain more than 1200 pounds in less than a year and a half. All they need is good quality, high-protein grass. The narrative to this short film is blatantly obvious based on biased assumptions and ill-informed research.
What about the land that was originally forest? HG can't scale up to feed the world and is highly flawed: "Dr. Sylvia Fallon of the Natural Resources Defense Council has shown, symbiosis between grazing herds and grasses has historically worked best to sequester carbon when the animals lived the entirety of their lives within the ecosystem, their carcasses rotted and returned their accumulated nutrients into the soil, and human intervention was minimal to none. It is unclear, given that Savory has identified this type of arrangement as his ecological model, how marketing cattle for food would be consistent with these requirements. Cows live up to 20 years of age, but in most grass-fed systems, they are removed when they reach slaughter weight at 15 months. Cheating the nutrient cycle at the heart of land regeneration by removing the manure-makers and grass hedgers when only 10 percent of their ecological “value” has been exploited undermines the entire idea of efficiency that Savory spent his TED talk promoting. "
oh, we should def trust some nobody online over a report conducted by MULTIPLE reputable and serious institutions
The whole methodology fails to consider two very basic item: 1. CO2 emissions and CH4 emissions come from grass, therefore are part of a cyclical system, and do not add in any way net CO2 to the atmosphere. CH4 converts into CO2 after 10 years and sequestered again. 2. N2O emissions are the same with or without cattle, since they are a result of degradation of nitrogen by bacteria, no change whether the plant matter goes or doesn't go through the digestive system of the cow. So, you cannot compare emissions from livestock with emissions from cars for example, which add always CO2 to the atmosphere. Of course deforestation causes increase of CO2, but then let's talk about soy too, ok? Now, the video fails to capture that we talk here about CO2equivalent, NOT CO2. This is misleading, and CO2e is an abstract concept. Fails to also point at consensus in scientific community, that methane is NOT an issue until CO2 emissions increase are reduced to 0. And then it fails to mention also that 70% of atmospheric increase in methane is due to gas and oil industry, and the other majority due to biomass burning and wetland increase emissions in the last 10 years. Also it fails to acknowledge that current livestock emissions levels are similar to those in the Neolithic, before the megafauna extinction. It is a pity to see this prevalence of a totally flawed concept and so much energy dedicated to malign a sector which has no actual impact on climate change, knowing quite well where the actual culprits are. Also, again using a long time debunked total emissions number, thanks to the sloppy job of FAO reports (no amount of articles published afterwards by the authors saying these emissions should be taken with a grain of salt will undo the damage done).
exactly correct
The bit you're not mentioning is that, while the methane is in the atmosphere, it is about 90 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So yes, while the carbon in the methane is part of the closed cycle, it is doing a lot of damage while it is in the atmosphere.
The shorter lifecycle of methane would only be helping us if emissions from livestock were falling, but they're not, so it's irrelevant.
Gordon Struth the bit you’re not mentioning is that most of that methane is oxidised before it can contribute to the greenhouse effect.
lachefnet.wordpress.com/2018/05/04/ruminations-methane-math-and-context/
@@alamargrethejensen9610 that's a blog, not a peer-reviewed paper. Doesn't count. "The Earth is flat" There are blogs on that, too ;)
@@spiral-m sure, but if someone posted a flat earth blog I could show examples of why their arguments were incorrect, one of which might be their lack of citations from peer reviewed science. If you scroll to the end of the blog you will find a list of sources, which lo and behold, include peer reviewed papers. If you have any actual rebuttals of those I'd be happy to hear them, but I suspect that you don't.
Millions of bison grazing for millennia and the climate was fine
Some sloppy logic here. Plants not eaten by animals will of course rot and release the carbon anyway. Worse, grass that is not grazed will degrade the land in dry conditions. The natural cirkulation of carbon is not the problem, the problem is carbon added to the athmosphere from longterm storage i.e. fossil fuels and land degradation. Another and even more important environmental issue for humans is soil health and modes of food production. Here grazing animals are crucial for our ability to produce healthy food while restoring degraded land, even if temperature rises another 2-5 degrees.
Rather a wild, generalist claim that smells a bit of Savory who is not accepted by mainstream ecology. There are plenty of areas in the world which never had large grazers (including some deserts), weren't grassland but forest (far bigger carbon sink). Sloppy logic by the researchers or perhaps you just like eating meat too much? Healthy food: again the message from the bulk of the experts is - eat way more plants. From the biggest dietetics association comprising 1000s of professionals in nutrition:
"It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes. Plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable than diets rich in animal products because they use fewer natural resources and are associated with much less environmental damage. Vegetarians and vegans are at reduced risk of certain health conditions, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity. Low intake of saturated fat and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds (all rich in fiber and phyto-chemicals) are characteristics of vegetarian and vegan diets that produce lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and better serum glucose control. These factors contribute to reduction of chronic disease. Vegans need reliable sources of vitamin B-12, such as fortified foods or supplements.”
www.eatrightpro.org/~/media/eatrightpro%20files/practice/position%20and%20practice%20papers/position%20papers/vegetarian-diet.ashx
@@spiral-m I agree.
I see the OP for this thread had nothing to refute your arguements.
Global temperatures rising 2-5 degrees would be unthinkably catastrophic!
Ignores the fact that soil doesn't necessarily become saturated with carbon but, instead, soil depth increases. That is how the soil in the great plains of North America became about 10 feet deep.
Exactly.
[34:35] “We found almost a foot [30 cm] of new topsoil built directly on top of that gravel and sand layer, in 10 years.” (Minnesota)
Allen Williams, PhD - Restore Soil and Ecosystem Health with Adaptive Grazing (2018, 42 mins.)
ua-cam.com/video/BwH6od6Jaq8/v-deo.html
Note: Adaptive Grazing is short for Adaptive Multi-paddock Grazing, a term used by some academics to describe Allan Savory’s Holistic Planned Grazing.
[2:16] “In the last 3 years, we’ve accumulated about 2, 2 1/2 inches of soil ....” (Wisconsin)
Rapidly Building Soil - See how we’re building soil and biodiversity with managed grazing
Mastodon Valley Farm
(2019, 4 mins.)
ua-cam.com/video/1daaoX2uFqA/v-deo.html
soil4climate.org
Soil4Climate, a U.S.-based nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, advocates soil restoration as a climate solution. Soil4Climate promotes regenerative cropping and grazing practices to boost soil fertility, increase water and food security, restore wildlife habitat, replenish dried-up lakes and rivers, revitalize farming and pastoral communities, improve international relations, and sequester atmospheric carbon.
Join the 21,000+ scientists, farmers, policymakers, journalists, and concerned global citizens of Soil4Climate at facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate
@@karlthidemann1817 what about non-prairie areas that used to be covered in forest or swamps that got cleared for animal feed crops or grazers? Deserts that never ever had large grazers, where the crusts are now being destroyed by grazers?
@@spiral-m
@@spiral-m
All ecosystems must be restored.
With one-third or more of the world’s terrestrial surface comprised of grassland or savanna (grassland with trees), it’s inexcusable to raze rainforests or drain swamps for growing crops, regardless of whether the plants are consumed by humans or livestock.
Silvopasture (managed grazing in forests) is an effective way to increase nutrient cycling, mitigate the risk of wildfires by reducing fuel load, and rehydrate a parched landscape (increasing soil organic matter content boosts its water-holding capacity).
Intact, ecologically healthy forests should be left undisturbed. Afforestation, reforestation, and proforestation are all essential.
Cows, being ruminants, thrive best on an entirely pasture-based diet. When managed in a way that is regenerative, they require no feed from arable crops.
By contrast, pigs, chickens, and farmed fish rely at least in part on feed from arable crops. Cropping, with all of its inherent environmental disruption even when done well, is an inavoidable aspect of these animal protein production systems.
As shown by conservation organizations and ranchers throughout the world, regenerative grazing is fully compatible with wildlife. For example, National Audubon is now partnered with ranchers on 3 million acres to reverse the decline in songbirds.
National Audubon Society Announces Largest Market-Based Regenerative Grasslands Partnership in the U.S.
April 6, 2021
www.audubon.org/news/national-audubon-society-announces-largest-market-based-regenerative-grasslands
True deserts, those receiving several inches of rain per year or less, should be left undisturbed.
Places receiving more rain - sometimes much, much more rain - that resemble deserts are actually highly degraded grasslands, destroyed over millennia by poorly managed cropping and grazing.
Here’s an excellent book on this topic:
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - David R. Montgomery (2012)
Bill Ruddiman’s work discusses the climate impact of early agriculture.
A bold new hypothesis suggests that our ancestors’ farming practices kicked off global warming thousands of years before we started burning coal and driving cars
How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate? William F. Ruddiman, Scientific American, March 2005
www.w2agz.com/Library/Climate%20Change/Ruddiman,%20March%202005,%2016207527.pdf
Two billion hectares of cropland, most of it former grassland - because grasslands, maintained by huge herds of grazers, are where deep, fertile (i.e., carbon-rich) soil was historically found - have been degraded and abandoned.
“The nearly 1.5 billion ha of world cropland now under cultivation for crop production are almost equal in area to the amount of cropland (2 billion ha) that has been abandoned by humans since farming began.”
Soil Erosion Threatens Food Production
Pimentel & Burgess 2013
www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/3/443
Grasslands co-evolved with grazers over tens of millions of year, and require their presence for ecological health.
Global Cooling by Grassland Soils of the Geological Past and Near Future
Retallack 2013
cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/d/3735/files/2013/07/Retallack-2013-grassland-cooling-q8ay9r.pdf
Well-managed grazing not only heals soil quickly, it also improves wildlife habitat and sequesters carbon.
“[Holistic Planned Grazing] is a phenomenal tool to heal and build up worn-out soils.”
Cattle are the best tool to improve soil health
Heather Smith Thomas
July 13, 2019
farmprogress.com/soil-health/cattle-are-best-tool-improve-soil-health
Conservation biologist M. Sanjayan, PhD, CEO of Conservation International and former lead scientist of The Nature Conservancy, calls Allan Savory's Holistic Planned Grazing "Spectacular"
(2015, 2 mins.)
ua-cam.com/video/XfPpC258ZwM/v-deo.html
This regenerative grazing research compendium may be helpful.
Hope Below Our Feet: Peer-Reviewed Publications on Well-Managed Grazing as a Means of Improving Rangeland Ecology, Building Soil Carbon, and Mitigating Global Warming
docs.google.com/document/d/1QR9Xk3aq3soidmob6nS9PMstKcllmRlgpaVDyFzRkwY/edit?usp=sharing
A note of caution: the “damage to soil crust” myth is frequently propagated by anti-livestock advocates who do not accept the science showing that well-managed grazing provides the appropriate ecological disruption necessary for optimal ecosystem function and maximum biological productivity of a grassland. The fact is, the crust must be broken up to allow rainfall to reach the soil below. Hooves of ruminants are pointed to assure good mixing of grass, manure, urine, and soil.
These videos may be of interest.
Herding Academy - How Holistic Planned Grazing breaks up hard-capped ground and tramples grass
(2019, 8 mins.)
vimeo.com/366468952
Demonstration: How Ruminants Improve Water Retention
(2013, 4 mins.)
ua-cam.com/video/Vk3KHrqb7Uc/v-deo.html
If you haven’t yet seen Allan Savory‘s TED Talk, it is highly recommended.
Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
(2013, 20 mins.)
www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change
Savory’s book, Holistic Management, provides a decision-making framework for choosing how best to improve the ecological health of land, whether a farm or backyard, taking into account one’s environmental, social, and financial goals.
Holistic Management, Third Edition: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment - Allan Savory, Jody Butterfield (2017)
To follow this topic, join the Soil4Climate Facebook Group.
P.S. I am glad to see we share an opposition to industrial animal agriculture.
Many thanks to Holly Cecil for providing English subtitles and to the Association végétarienne de France (not affiliated with the FCRN) for providing French subtitles. You can also contribute subtitles in another language by clicking the three dots under the video and then "Add translations".
an anti grazing video giving thanks to a vegetarian association, well that's transparency at🤣 least!!!!!
😂🤣😂🤣😅😅🤣😂🤣😅😂🤣😅
So one of the very first statement in their argument bases the entire analysis on fallacy and of little to no scientific value. Assuming there is any similarity to modern farming practices with clearing land for grazing, assuming that there is still a need for raising crops for feed purposes, assuming that sporadic piles of manure over large areas decomposes and releases methane at the same rate as a feed lot where the manure is feet thick is a huge assumption which is in all probability not even close to the truth. All in all a very poorly designed study which doesn't have a chance of shedding light on the truth but supports an agenda for more damaging agricultural methods to raise crops by conventional unsustainable methods they would just be feeding it to people instead of cattle, doesn't make modern agricultural methods any less damaging just make people think they are doing something by being vegan, not truth!
Hope Below Our Feet: Peer-Reviewed Publications on Grazing as a Means of Improving Rangeland Ecology, Building Soil Carbon, and Mitigating Global Warming
docs.google.com/document/d/1QR9Xk3aq3soidmob6nS9PMstKcllmRlgpaVDyFzRkwY/edit?usp=sharing
soil4climate.org
Soil4Climate, a U.S.-based nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, advocates soil restoration as a climate solution. Soil4Climate promotes regenerative cropping and grazing practices to boost soil fertility, increase water and food security, restore wildlife habitat, replenish dried-up lakes and rivers, revitalize farming and pastoral communities, improve international relations, and sequester atmospheric carbon.
Join the 21,000+ scientists, farmers, policymakers, journalists, and concerned global citizens of Soil4Climate at facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate
Yes Renee, how articulate and with understanding of ecology. I landed here from watching a couple videos by Dr. Tara Garnett which although they tossed around all sorts of studies, terms, analysis, etc. but all cloaking what seems to me to be an obvious vegan agenda. Merely an elaborate dance of "due diligence" to forward the vegan agenda to eliminate animals having any part in food and systems to restore earth's ecology. I interact pretty well daily with various Marine, Wildlife, Plant biologists as well as environmental experts. My own 45 years' experience includes many projects restoring habitat in PNW, designing permaculture farms, sustainable landscapes, greenhouses, eco-communities, etc. and have team of 8 working on these projects. It's no wonder so many younger generation (even though on our team we have several in their 20's/30's and some who are vegan) are believing that all we need do to save planet is eliminate cows, chickens and bovines and "go vegan". Would sure be nice if some of these could be charged with stewarding some land and having the responsibility to sustain themselves, preserve the land and feed a local community......then report back.
Hundreds of years ago millions of bisons roamed almost all over America. Is not reasonable that even when this grazing animals were eating carbon levels remained stable, I do believe this video is biased instead of looking for grazing animals that were already in the environment. Another thing is that carbon even with regenerative grazing has a carbon loss because cows are being degraded elsewhere. With more carbon in the ground, more cover in the soil the carbon uptake increases dramatically.
Private jet owners need you to eat less meat, dairy and eggs - please comply generously 😁
Total rubbish! An integrated approach with 24 hour rotational grazing and well designed Agroforestry is one of the only ways to restore our land and atmosphere. This is a huge difference from growing corn and soy and shoving the cows into feedlots. Please try and make a real case with real data!
So, since you seem to have a strong opinion about it, did you read the entire report? Did you carefully go through their methodology and the data? The solution is not shoving the cows into feedlots, it’s consuming less beef and dairy. The way I see it is that if we continue to eat small amounts of beef it should come from well managed small scale grazing like silvopasture.
As a multi-generational farmer and person who has spent a lifetime on the land without transitioning to factory farming practices, I am very disappointed in the information presented in this video. It continues to vilify the bovine, yet never compares regenerative livestock farming with commercial factory farming practices in play to produce the bulk of fruit and vegetables that make it to the grocery store or processing facilities. In spite of animal released gases on pasture, greens, vegetables, and fruit production burn fossil fuels for tilling, seeding, watering, spraying, fertilizing, harvesting, cleaning, packaging, and processing. A 1200 - 1400 pound pastured beef animal can feed a lot of people top quality, unprocessed protein, as well as supplying leather for clothing, bone meal and blood meal supplements for growing produce, and of course, protein and minerals for pet food. Fossil fuels have to mined, refined, and transported great distances with each step generating a great deal of carbon into the atmosphere without ever putting any back into the ground. My biggest objection to this video is the fact that it has ignored nature at its best. There was a time when extremely vast herds of ruminants grazed the natural grasses around the globe without causing global climate change. We have only seen agricultural endeavours run into problems when small-scale farming was pushed aside by corporate factory farming to mass produced. poor quality food for the masses based on profits.
Globally, there are over 130 species of ruminant animals that are nature-designed to be grass and brush eaters. Let's put the carbon footprint on the backs of those who are really responsible - the corporate greed sector of humans.
Our goal for the future of this planet should be to live within the production of our small regional areas...eating what grows in your area; a concept that worked well up until the last two generations of humanity. We should stop eating over-processed foods with chemical additives and unhealthy processing methods. With today's technological advances in sustainable food production, every home can produce at least a portion of the food consumed. From growing walls, to roof-top gardens, to patio planters, even apartment dwellers can grow a surprisingly large amount of healthy food. With sunken greenhouses and thermal heat pump systems. tropical fruit can be grown in cold growing zones without using fossil fuels. The rich may not get richer, but the population will be far healthier.
disappointed because the science reduces the profits you make by exploiting animals..?
@@charlescarmichael56 Not everyone on this continent lives their life to stockpile money. Some of us live a more meager life while regenerating the land and protecting eco-systems for the benefit of our grand children and beyond. What have you done?
@@lgrantsimmons i haven’t sent any animals to be tortured and murdered in a slaughterhouse for food we don’t need to eat.
Cows & Bulls = Mature males weigh 450-1,800 kg (1,000-4,000 pounds) and females weigh 360-1,100 kg (800-2,400 pounds)
The average Stegosaurus was about 30 feet long, between 9 and 13 feet tall, weighed about 5.5 tons (11,000 pounds).
Methane would have also been produced by other herbivorous dinosaurs, most notably members of the Thyreophora (shield bearers), such as Stegosaurus.
The time life of methane is somewhere in between 7 to 12 years. So all the methane produced by dinosaurs is already gone, like, many, many, maaaaany years ago. The levels of current methane are a consequence of animal farming, not dinosaurs.
That's not relevant, you should define the emissions of all dinosaurs and compare it with those of all cows to make a point. A hundred small cows will certainly emit more than one big dino.
Most important, the atmosphere that the dinosaurs lived in was completely different. We would all die in short time if we were to time travel to that time.
Also there was a balance as shown by available fossil and geological records.
A newly planted forest is a net carbon emitter for the first 20-25 yrs of its life so present policy of paying multinationals millions of pounds of taxpayers money to greenwash is contributing to world carbon emissions for that period as well asremaving valuable food producing land.If livestock only produce 11.6% of global emissions maybe we should be looking at the near 60% growth in human population in 70 yrs who are the real polluters.
So let's put a bunch of cows on California forests
The problem with that is we would have to put about 2.4 billion cows in those forests to be able to feed 10 billion people in the next 20 years or so. Given that the soil only absorbs between 20% to 60% of the emissions from the cows while keeping in mind that their diets on grass and natural pastures produce more methane, that just wouldn't be sustainable as there would be just too many of them; It would only work if humans reduce the population drastically or the consumption of meat and focused on a predominantly plant based diet.
In nature there's 100 prey animals per 1 predator because of space and environmental balance, we just don't have the space or capacity for grazing all those animals.
Grass fed animals require more space than factory ones and so if we decided we didn't wanna put them in forests but instead destroy more to open up enclosed grass lands then that would be worse because these animals wouldn't be able to migrate like they do naturally and so the soil would reach the carbon equilibrium faster.
If the animals are allowed to migrate miles and miles away like they would do naturally, it still wouldn't be viable because of the points I made in the first paragraph (just too many and not good enough carbon absorption).
A plant based food system would only require half the land we currently use, helping the rest of the land we use turn back into forests and obviously trees are so much better at trapping carbon and creating more biodiversity than grass. To save the planet we also need to restore that not just carbon sequestration because if there's no biodiversity, no bees, no birds, etc, food doesn't get pollinated and distributed and so all life is doomed.
@John Sanchez I could be wrong but I think the point he is making is not that we can feed the world's population by clearing California forests but rather that if you are going to clear something it would be good to wipe out all those explosively fire producing Eucalypts found in places like California and Australia. I think it was a throw away line more than anything.
That said I think you are way off track. Malnourishing people as vegans is not good for our species and holistic agriculture encourages biodiversity. You think that using petroleum based fertilizers and poisoning the heck out the environment as is needed to produce plant foods will make bees and birds abundant but that is just vegan bs not real life.
If done correctly that could improve the land and reduce the wildfires.
That's the worst flawed bunch of propaganda I ever witnessed.
But you wouldn't be biased at all??
When done correctly grazing livestock sure greens things up.
How many can do it “correctly”? And can we scale it up to feed a significant amount of people?
@@LeanAndMean44 Yes, it can be easily scaled to feed a significant amount of people. It's mostly just a change in how they are managed. It's simply a matter of giving the grass time to grow and seed every year instead of leaving the cattle to graze wherever they feel like hanging out. Most people I've seen do that by dividing up pastures that are grazed months at a time into smaller pastures and moving the cattle between the pasture every week or so. This causes enormous increases in grass production, some have documented an increase of ten fold.
Check out Allan Savory's ted talk on the subject, he's the one that started this movement of how to graze to restore the land.
it does the opposite. producing enough meet to feed the world by grazing animals will increase the amount of land required and lead to a lot of deforestation and irreversible environmental destruction
@@Fulano5321 In his ted talk, Savory LITERALLY falsified evidence by using images that did not show what he claimed. literally NO STUDY until today have proven ANY of his claims, in fact they have ALL REFUTED his claims: the 2017 FCRN Oxford University study called Grazed and Confused found that holistic grazing is not a long term or short term solution for climate change, as the soil can only sequester 20-60% of the emissions of the animals themselves, and after just a few decades the soil reaches carbon saturation and cannot sequester anymore. The Drawdown report also found that a vegan diet is 4 times more potent in carbon sequestration than grazing animals. Not to mention the massive environmental destruction that is NECESSARY for any and ALL holistic grazing methods because of how much land it uses. The 2018 Oxford university Poore and Nemecek study found that a vegan word would reduce agricultural land by 75%, while meeting nutritional demands of everyone, ENDING world hunger and deforestation, while reducing food emissions by 73%, and reducing many other environmental issues. If you TRULY want to help the environment, you should be vegan. See challenge22.com for professional nutritional guidance and diet plans for FREE!!
@@charlescarmichael56 Okay so you're telling stories to try to sell a product... I've personally seen managed grazing do exactly what Savory says it will on tens of thousands of acers across half a dozen states in the US used by a dozen businesses. How can you claim what Savory says is unproven? Unless you're just picking what you want to believe. For example: How can a cow emit more carbon than what they eat?
not without no till ?
Rubbish
More methane is produced by rice farming than cattle. And the majority of greenhouse gas emissions attributable to agriculture are the result of soil carbon loss from plowing.
Yes, many of us could eat less rice and choose other grains. And rice production can be improved to produce less methane. And we can use no-till farming methods. Why not do these things AND reduce meat consumtion? www.drawdown.org/solutions/improved-rice-production
www.drawdown.org/solutions/conservation-agriculture
Please read the article “Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint” from “Our World in Data”.
I’m confused! So the paper admits that soil carbon sequestration works but it might not work forever? So we shouldn’t do it at all?.
And we shouldn’t convert grasslands to croplan but we should eat more crops and less ruminats?
What is clear is that it takes more land for animal agriculture. About 80 % is used for animals and animal feed. Switching to a plant based diet would require a lot less land. Land that could be used for rewilding, which would reverse climate change.
Who’s going to pay for framers ranchers for land to be unused and rewind?
Wild buffalo and large ruminates are gone. We can use cattle to rewind massive grass lands. Rotational grazing increases wildlife on grass lands.
In short: *GO PLANT-BASED*
Why do we keep playing MENTAL GYMNASTICS instead of accepting the facts?
That seems a lot of research and wordfarts to draw the conclusion that we need to moderate our consumption of animal foods. Something that we already know and that health advice has been telling us for a long time. The research leaves out so much important criteria, and by choosing the parameters that were chosen it limited the conclusion that could be drawn.
The trouble with all this focus on animal GGHG's is that it draws the focus away from the number one problem we have to address. The Human fetish with burning fossil fuels. You could stop all livestock farming today, and it would not make much difference, global warming is still going to rise beyond 2 degrees.
The CO2 emissions resulting from fossil fuels can never be put back in the soil without increasing biodiversity. Modern farming methods for crop land and meat production decrease biodiversity. There needs to be farming to produce our food . Mixed rotational farming involving pasture fed livestock (different from grassfed) and crop/fallow rotation is the only way that will lock this Co2 back into the soil.
According to EU the addition of co2 from the long term cycle (oil, coal and gass, 80% of emissions) to the short term cycle (biological emissions) is the problem, not biological emissions (natural and normal) from grass that goes through an animal.
Great little overview of a thorough paper. My hat off to these researchers for being brave enough to tackle what they know to be an issue most people (i.e. people with vested interests in our destructive status quo and people who don't like science when it doesn't pat them on the head, which is most people) would prefer to sweep under the rug.
Bonus: watching ill-informed advocates of ecological degradation, animal exploitation, cancer, and flooding hazards (of course I'm talking about the soil compaction brought on by grazing large herbivores as intensively as possible) give themselves ulcers and frothing at the mouth in the comments.
Wondering why they reviewed sources of emissions from producing animal feed 4:03? I assume it is for grass-fed cattle that are also fed grains? Anyone know?
Extremely biased opinion. They made it blatantly obvious But they have no clue the property grazed livestock inside a rotational grazing program are fed grain at all.
Great example of begging the question.