eat more beef to save the planet a
seemingly contradictory statement given
what we are continuously being told by
scientists and environmental campaigners
and yet so-called holistic management or
regenerative animal agriculture
is becoming more commonly discussed as a
way to combat climate change
with the latest netflix documentary kiss
the ground
also claiming that grazing livestock
animals is beneficial
for the planet so what is holistic
management
holistic management was an idea
popularized by alan savory
a zimbabwean-born livestock farmer
holistic management
is the idea that by mimicking the
rotational patterns of wild grazers
and intensively grazing large numbers of
animals we can reverse desertification
increase the health of soils and also
sequester carbon
savory boldly claims that if we took
just half of the world's grasslands
we could absorb enough carbon to return
the world's atmosphere
to pre-industrial levels so what does
the science
say what is agreed upon is that grazing
animals can sequester carbon
back into the soil however the science
contradicts the claims
made by savory an extensive and detailed
two-year review by the food climate
research network looking at over 300
sources
and conducted by an international team
of researchers
including those from some of the most
highly respected agricultural
institutions
in the world evaluated the claims made
by advocates
of holistic management the piece of
research entitled grazed and confused
discovered that although certain grazing
managements can sequester carbon
at best this could only offset twenty to
sixty percent
of the emissions that will be produced
by grazing animals in the first place
meaning there would still be a
significant surplus making it
impossible for savory's claims to be
true
not to mention that it is estimated only
one gram of protein per person per day
comes from solely grass-fed animals
compared to 26 grams of protein per
person per day
that comes from all other systems of
land animal farming
and yet 26 of the earth's terrestrial
land surface
is already taken by livestock grazing
systems
meaning it is simply not possible for
people to consume animal products
at the same rate that we are now with
the resources
that are available furthermore after a
few decades the soil reaches soil carbon
equilibrium
meaning the soil cannot sequester any
more carbon
at which point none of the emissions
from the animals would be offset
so farmers would either have to start
grazing on more land
increasing the land used for animal
farming or stop the farming
meaning that not only are the claims
made by savory untrue
they are also not an effective
short-term or long-term strategy for
dealing with the problem
either and if we look at the drawdown
report
which was the report cited in kiss the
ground the documentary failed to mention
that shifting to a diet that favors
calories from plants
is four times as powerful in its carbon
capture potential
compared to shifting to managed
livestock grazing
plus a report from the swedish
university of agricultural sciences
analyzed the 11 studies that savory
displayed on his website
at the time of publication many of which
were found to be purely anecdotal
and the reported effects outlined in the
others were considered to be small
especially when considered alongside the
grandiose claims
made by savory i can think of almost
nothing that offers more hope for our
planet
and all of humanity even now several
years later
no review study has established that
holistic management
can achieve the claims made by savory
let alone come close
to matching the significant
environmental benefits of rewilding
and regenerative veganic agriculture
both of which not only improve
biodiversity
but can effectively reduce atmospheric
carbon levels
for example according to the sierra club
a study of grasslands in china reported
that carbon levels were as much as 157
percent higher
in livestock free grasslands than in
grazed grasslands
on top of all of this there is an ever
growing list of more organizations
scientific bodies and institutions whose
work also calls into question
the claims made by savory including the
international journal of biodiversity
which stated that
leading range scientists have refuted
the system and indicated that its
adoption by land management
agencies is based on anecdotes and
unproven principles
rather than scientific evidence also the
journal of the society for range
management stated that savory's claims
are not only unsupported by scientific
information
but they are often in direct conflict
with it
ultimately if the holistic management
approach is about mimicking nature
though wouldn't the best thing to do be
to return the land
as much as possible to nature re-wild
the landscapes
introduce natural animals back into
those landscapes and let nature do the
very thing that we stopped it from doing
by deforesting and eroding these lands
for animal farming in the first place
why mimic nature when nature can simply
exist there
instead the grazing of animals also
increases the compaction in the soil
further damaging soil health and also
disrupts the algal crust
which forms on the top of the soil which
although savory refers to as the cancer
of desertification
actually stabilizes the soil increases
organic matter
and absorbs water and the loss of these
crusts results in increased erosion
and reduced soil fertility and to cap it
all off
even the images that savory uses have
been scrutinized for misrepresenting the
landscapes
that he presents as evidence of the
alleged desertifying effect
of removing cattle with one of the
images of a national historical park in
new mexico
not being desertified from lack of
cattle as savoury claims
but instead the landscape was slowly
recovering from decades of
overgrazing in response to the
ever-growing scientific literature that
questions
his claims savory has responded in the
past by claiming
you'll find the scientific method never
discovers anything
which is not only paradoxical as he has
made appeals to the scientific method
himself
it's a hundred percent based on solid
sounds
but is also a convenient way of
disregarding every scientific report
that debunks his work
whilst we can all agree that we need to
rebuild our soils
and sequester carbon as the science
continues to show
the best way to do this is to reclaim
land that is used for animal farming
and rewild reforest and restore the
habitats
ecosystems and landscapes that have been
destroyed
for livestock production
you