Grass-Fed Meat
The fastest way to increase the carbon content of a degraded soil is to establish a perennial grassland and graze it with ruminant animals in a proper manner. This fact has been well established both by scientific research and by centuries of practical experience.
What happens, though, when anyone proposes that we convert large areas of degraded cropland to pastures, in order to sequester enormous amounts of soil carbon? Detractors say that to do so would cause worldwide starvation, since statistics based on current levels of pasture production indicate that a pasture typically produces much smaller caloric output than a typical crop field.
That isn’t the entire story, however. Here are some points to keep in mind.
FIRST OF ALL, throughout history the best soils were converted to cropland, while the worst soils were spared the plow and left in pasture. Most pasture acres simply cannot grow crops, because they are too rocky, too shallow, too droughty, too flood-prone, too something to grow crops. Pastures placed on productive ground are often several times more productive than the average pasture.
SECOND, the average cropland is relatively well managed, while the average pasture receives virtually no management: The animals are simply turned out and left to fend for themselves. When a controlled system of grazing management gets underway, even these current pastures on poor soil unfit for cropland can have their meat output doubled or more.
THIRD, cropland usually receives massive inputs of fertilizer and pesticides produced from finite mineral deposits or petroleum, and field operations usually involve petroleum-guzzling machinery. Pastures can be quite productive with no petrochemical inputs; biological processes can provide all the fertility needed.
FOURTH, it’s quite possible for an area of land to produce both a pasture crop and a grain crop in the same year. One example is the pasturing of animals on the crop residue left after a grain harvest, such as cornstalks. Although low in protein, crop residue is quite abundant, and in the United States only a small fraction of it is grazed. What if all of this material were utilized? The meat thus produced detracts not one kernel from
the preceding grain harvest; rather, it is an addition to the world protein supply.
A FIFTH PRACTICE is to plant cover crops on cropland between grain crops. For example, a cover crop of rye can be planted after corn harvest and before soybeans are planted the next year. The corn and soybean crops occupy the ground for only 4 or 5 months of the year. For the remaining 7 or 8 months, the rye soaks up all that otherwise wasted sunlight and converts it into high-protein vegetation in the winter, when quality pasture is most often lacking. The rye also makes a nice protein supplement to the low-protein residue.
A SIXTH APPROACH is pasture cropping, or planting a grain crop into existing pasture land. The grain crop is selected to have the opposite growing season of the pasture; one farmer grows winter cereals such as winter oats in his warm-season grasslands, and another grows corn in the summer in coolseason bluegrass and white clover pastures. This system produces a grain crop, offers animal grazing after the grain harvest, protects the soil from erosion and builds soil carbon.
SEVENTH, comparing bulk calories produced in cropland versus pasture seldom takes into account the nutritional density of meat compared to grain. For example, corn produces an insane amount of calories per unit of land area (if it has large amounts of fertilizer) but not much else in the way of nutrition. It’s basically starch, with a very low content of amino acids, minerals, vitamins. Meat, on the other hand, is rich in almost every nutrient a human needs. Our world as a whole experiences far more protein deficiency than lack of calories. This is why we went down the road of feeding corn to livestock, to take advantage of the nutritional upgrade you get when corn is converted into meat.
EIGHTH, the food produced from pasture is not limited to the meat or milk coming from the grazing of livestock alone. Unlike cropland, which displaces wildlife, pastures offer phenomenal wildlife habitat, and much of this wildlife can be harvested.
A well-managed pasture will have an abundance of birds, wild ruminants such as deer and antelope, rabbits, wild pigs, and, if you aren’t picky, a lot of reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Ponds for watering livestock can also produce fish, mollusks, crustaceans or amphibians for food (if you have never tried crayfish or frog legs, you are missing out).
The trees that provide livestock with shade can be fruit or nut producers and can even become a planned crop. I fondly remember collecting wild blackberries, mulberries and gooseberries from pastures in season. (There is no better pie made than a gooseberry/mulberry pie.)
All told, there is enormous potential for producing grass-fed meat without decreasing the amount of crops grown for human consumption.