Regenerative Livestock Management #3
Welcome back, folks. Robin Hood here to talk about why regenerative livestock production matters. First I defined a couple of terms and addressed the question of what regenerative agriculture means. Last time, I addressed the question of what it looks like.
So, why does it matter? Short answer first:
If our scientific community and the evidence of our eyes is to be believed, the suitability of our planet for human habitability depends on it
If evolutionary biology and the evidence of the 20th century have meaning, our health and well-being depend on it
Robin!, you say. Are you off your rocker? That’s pretty bold.
OK. Let’s take each assertion in its turn.
The suitability of our planet for human habitability depends on it.
Tony Lovell does a great job of bringing data to the conversation to clarify what all of the “carbon” jargon means in real terms. In his TEDxDubbo talk titled Soil Carbon - Putting Carbon back Where It Belongs - In the Earth, Tony points out the well-known curve of carbon increase in the atmosphere called the Keeling Curve. The salient point is the jagged line superimposed over the main curve. What is the jagged line? Well, that jaggy bit is the seasonal variation of carbon DONE BY NATURE ITSELF!
Every year Nature somehow REMOVES about 15 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere, but then it adds it back. That seasonal variation is caused by the boreal forests of the northern hemisphere. Excuse me? Boreal forests of the northern hemisphere? Yeah, that’s the forests across the top of the globe, which unlike rainforests, are largely deciduous (they lose their leaves every year) and when combined represent the largest terrestrial carbon-sink. Those forests take carbon out of the air to create biomass - leaves and stems - and release oxygen as a byproduct. The carbon goes back into the atmosphere through oxidation because there is nothing to incorporate it into the soil - insufficient animal impact.
What is the significance of 15bn tons of carbon? That’s 16 years of the total world coal trade or 2.4 years of the total world coal consumption. Our scientific community tells that we have a countdown timer running to the point of no return. Nothing in the technological arsenal can even come close to moving that much carbon in anything close to the necessary time frame. Biology can.
There are some 12 billion acres of grassland that could sequester carbon biologically. They are unfortunately desertified or undergoing desertification. The good news is that the only thing preventing them from being carbon sinks rather than carbon sources is MANAGEMENT.
That means you and me teaching, persuading, and DOING regenerative agriculture. This picture, taken from Tony’s presentation, shows three pairs of properties. The places in each pair are adjacent to one another and differ only in their management practices. Each pair of pictures was taken on the same day. So, same climate, same season, same everything except for how the land has been managed for each pair. They are Sonora desert, Mexico; Day Creek, Arizona; a riverbed in Zimbabwe.
Our health and well-being depend on it
The planet’s herbivores are part of nature’s carbon cycling machinery. Plants capture sunlight and through the magic of photosynthesis take air and a few trace minerals and turn it into food. Herbivores concentrate that food for the omnivores and carnivores next in the food chain. Each link in the food chain is closely attuned to the inputs it receives from the preceding link. Urbanization has separated us from our historical food sources, especially since the turn of the 20th century. The rise of industrial agriculture has created soils that are barely alive, unable to deliver the micronutrients to plants that they once did.
Andre Voisin’s “Lliputian ploughmen,” the flora and fauna of the soil have been more than decimated by the use of the plow, herbicides, and pesticides. That microbiome (microscopic world) in the soil actually transports nutrients and water to plants in exchange for the sugars and starches produced by the plants - a barter economy under our feet!
What happens, though, when the microbiome is deserted? Micronutrients get to be very scarce. Charles Massy (Call of the Reed Warbler) asserts that industrial agriculture has created "...drug-addict plants waiting for their industrial fix of just a few restricted nutrients..." Our own bodies are attuned to receive micronutrients from our food. Just take vitamins, you say. Note that a synthesized chemical is not equivalent to its biological analog. No technology has EVER reproduced the complexity and subtlety of biology (please don’t confuse complexity with complication).
Glyphosate (Roundup) is everywhere. It is water soluble. It is in you, in your gut, in your brain. Right now. It’s used to kill plants some of us don’t like. It is used in corn fields, soybean fields, on yards and gardens. It is in your steak, in your bread, in your milk. It is used to kill plants. How does it affect the microbiome in your gut?
The 20th century has seen the rise of diseases like cancers to levels and frequencies never seen before in human history. Dementia and Alzheimers’s are increasing in frequency. Correlation is not causation, but as in tobacco and air pollution, the data are sending a strong signal.
Eat food that grew up close to its natural state (know your farmer). Eat food from nearby whenever you can (don’t bathe it in gasoline or diesel). You probably will not be endowed with super powers as a result, but your body just might feel better about things.
The bottom line is that we have a problem, but it can be solved.It cannot be solved with technology, but it CAN be solved with biology. And solving it with biology comes down to individual decisions by you and me every day. How do I raise my animals? How do I protect my garden? Where did that bacon come from?
We can change the world one bite at a time by favoring those who manage regeneratively and refusing to participate in the industrial food production model.
Think on these things.
Robin Hood
Hood Family Farms