Cattle and the Environment

Wonderful pair of articles over at Crumb Trail regarding the impact of cattle on the environment. The first one: Ley Lady Ley starts off: bq. One of the most persistent bits of ignorance peddled by pseudo-environmentalists devoid of either agricultural or ecological knowledge is that eating beef is harmful to the environment. Here is one of Back40's observations: bq. Cattle are perhaps the second best friend of humanity, next to dogs, because they perform the miracle of turning inedible grasses and forbs into edible high quality proteins and fats. Both the protein and the fat are well balanced human foods with the proper blend of amino and fatty acids for health. It is little wonder that traditional peoples from Hebrew tribes to Masai tribes to Ogallala Sioux had or still have a spiritual relationship with cattle and ruminants in general. The second article: Grass Economics continues in the same thread but covers the economics of cattle grazing both on pasture and on land that otherwise might be used for Agriculture. Back40 comments: bq. In the US Cattle are grazed on marginal land, often semi-arid land, that is unsuited to grain monoculture because it is too poor and dry. bq. On good land, the kind used for grain production, it only takes 1 acre to support an AU, sometimes less and sometimes more depending on latitude and the resultant length of the growing season as well as rainfall and fertility. Well over half of the grain produced in the US is used for animal feed. A great deal of grain is exported at subsidized prices less than production cost which depresses world prices and harms developing economies. And more: bq. Grazing instead of grain for meat and dairy production isn't a wild, untested idea. The majority of the world does it this way and can undercut US and European prices. We know how to manage grazing lands for both high productivity and ecological health. We can produce food as well as increase soil depth and fertility, increase biodiversity, reduce both flooding and drought, refill aquifers, and reduce the use of pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and fertilizer. bq. We won't stop grain farming, who wants a world with no bread and pasta, but the current overproduction and overuse of grain is ruining the health of the planet as well as humans and animals that consume it. This is a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to most 'environmentalists' since they usually seem to take the plant grain / don't raise cattle line of thought. The grazing of cattle in a marginal field can actually improve the field. To quote from the first article: bq. For eons the remedy for exhausted grain fields was to convert them to pasture and graze cattle on them. Methodical systems of field rotation and leys were developed to allow continuous use of land though that only delayed final exhaustion, in effect mining fossil fertility until nothing was left but sand and clay. One needs to look at the whole system and not just take jabs at a very narrow element...