5 Environmental Benefits of Regenerative Grazing
In Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World, Lynne Pledger and Ridge Shinn discuss how regenerative grazing can offer health benefits for consumers, livestock, and the environment alike. This practice has the power to not only improve our health and the broken food system, but can also provide a variety of environmental benefits as well.
The following is an excerpt from Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World by Lynne Pledger and Ridge Shinn. It has been adapted for the web.
Regenerative Grazing: The Environmental Benefits
Through advances in soil science and ecology in recent decades, we have gained understanding of the mechanisms by which regenerative grazing can achieve all of the following:
- increased soil fertility
- stable hydrology and protection against erosion, floods, droughts, and desertification
- increased biodiversity above and below the soil line
- reduced greenhouse gas emissions: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide
- more stored carbon
This list of environmental benefits may sound too good to be true, so let’s examine the specific processes that bring about each of the five outcomes we’ve listed.
Increased Fertility
Fertility is a complex dynamic that is not achieved by simply adding fertilizer. Productive soil depends upon robust populations of living organisms, most of them microscopic, carrying out myriad functions that support plant growth and health. Cattle contribute more than manure to this dynamic—as we have explained, the grazing itself, properly managed, stimulates nutrient cycling. The following components combine to increase fertility:
EXUDATES. Soil ecologist Christine Jones points out that “every plant exudes its own blend of sugars, enzymes, phenols, amino acids, nucleic acids, aux- ins, gibberellins, and other biological compounds,” but she often refers to exudates as “liquid carbon.”8
In the beginning of this chapter, we described the process by which grazing stimulates pasture plants to exude some of their stored carbon into the soil. These root exudates fertilize the soil either directly or via the bodies of microbes that have eaten the exudates.
MODERATE GRAZING. Graziers move the cattle from a paddock after they have eaten only the tops of the plants (ideally less than half). A short grazing period ensures that enough of the plant remains to conduct pho- tosynthesis, and thus to regrow quickly and completely.
In each paddock, short grazing periods and long recovery periods allow microbes to multi- ply, to make water and soil nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, available to the pasture plants, and to stabilize carbon in humus. The regrown plants will be eaten by the cattle on their next rotation through the pasture, the timing of which is managed by the grazier, based on an assessment of conditions.
TRAMPLING VIA MOB GRAZING. Much of the vegetation that remains after grazing will be trampled, which is another benefit of the regenerative approach. This allows more sunlight to reach the photosynthesizing leaves. The cattle’s hooves crush plant residues and press the organic material into the soil so that microbes have access to it quickly and decomposition can begin. Their hooves also bury seeds, and the hoofprints create mini- reservoirs that promote seed germination.
Trampling is most effective if the cattle are numerous and moving close to one another. In evolution, this instinct to bunch was a defense against predators. Today, graziers achieve effective trampling by using a technique called mob grazing, which works with the cattle’s herding instinct. Graziers keep the numbers of cattle high in proportion to the size of the paddock, and move them frequently to the next paddock so they always have fresh grass in front of them to eat. Careful monitoring and adaptation are important to achieve the benefits of trampling while avoiding undesired depletion of vegetation.
MANURE. While eating and trampling, cattle also deposit their manure and urine throughout the paddock, thus enriching the soil without the need for a manure spreader powered by fossil fuel. Dung beetles have a unique and important role in manure handling. Found on every continent except Antarctica, these insects quickly remove animal manure from the surface and bury it, subsequently using some of it for food and for incubating their eggs. Thus, the manure supplies the soil with both nutrients and beneficial microbes from the ruminant’s digestive system. In addition, the dung beetles’ tunnels help with rainfall infiltration.
DECOMPOSED SOIL LIFE. Dead roots, weed residues, green manures that decompose, and the remains of dead mycorrhizal fungi, bacteria, and other soil life are additional sources of fertility that accumulate in great quantity with well-managed grazing.
Land that has been grazed by regenerative practices can yield more than high-quality beef. The improved acreage can be used for crops as well as pasture for livestock, or it can be planted with cover crops that extend the grazing season. Crop yields will be more abundant than on land that has not been grazed regeneratively.9
Whether the land is managed for crops or perennial pasture or a system that integrates livestock and cropping, it will yield significantly more biomass (plant material) than it did before it was improved by regenerative grazing. A research study led by Steven I. Apfel- baum compared conventional and regenerative grazing management and found that biomass was 300 percent higher with regenerative management.10
Scientists tell us that soil anywhere in the world is potentially fertile in terms of mineral nutrients.11 The key is having a diversity of soil microbes—particu- larly fungi—to make the nutrients available to plants. Fertility is achieved by improving ecosystem function rather than by purchasing inputs to add to the soil. Richard Teague offers this time frame for seeing farmland rejuvenate:
Most tillage and chemical-based farming operations have diminished or destroyed the soil biota, but with management changes based on regenerative principles they can quickly recover. When you get rid of the elements suppressing key soil microbes and you start having a biodiverse mix of plants, you can get a response within a year or two in terms of soil regenerating.12
Stable Hydrology and Protection Against Erosion, Droughts, and Floods
Droughts and floods are two sides of the same coin. Either can occur if soil lacks the capacity to hold water. Teague notes that regenerative grazing improves this capacity:
Where regenerative AMP grazing has been practiced in semi-arid and arid lands for some time, plant productivity and biodiversity have been elevated, plant and litter cover have increased over the landscape, and nitrogen-fixing native leguminous plant species and pollinators have increased. This has resulted in re-perennialization of ephemeral streams and watershed function.13
In 1996, USDA soil scientist Sara F. Wright made an important discovery that has helped scientists understand how healthy soil structure allows rain- water to infiltrate soil and be retained or gradually released as needed.
Wright discovered the natural mechanism that gives soil a healthy “crumb.” (Some people have likened healthy soil to chocolate cake.) She identified a sticky material in soil, which she named glomalin. This organic (carbon-based) material is produced by mycorrhizal fungi and is found on their long hyphae.
In addition to sealing the hyphae (which allows them to transport liquid as part of the carbon-nutrient exchange), glomalin creates soil tilth by binding soil minerals—silt, sand, or clay—and organic matter together to form soil aggregates, which range from granules to pea-sized lumps. Well-structured soil is well aggregated, which means that the soil is better able to withstand erosion because the particles can’t be torn apart by wind and rain.
While it is the organic matter, with its “glues and gums,” that facilitates the formation of aggregates, their effectiveness in holding water is in large part due to the spaces between them.14 Well-aggregated soil is said to be a carbon sponge. In an interview with Acres U.S.A. magazine, microbiologist Walter Jehne compared the carbon sponge to a cathedral:
What’s awe-inspiring about a cathedral are the voids and the ethereal spaces—the nothingness they create—not the bricks and the cement. Well-aggregated soil is like a cathedral…About 66 percent of a healthy soil is just space, air—nothing—and that creates massive capacity for the sponge to hold water…Creating these cathedrals—these spaces and surfaces—is fundamental for both soil hydrology and biofertility.15
Without the spaces that characterize good soil structure, rainwater accu- mulates on the surface, causing flooding, or it runs off, causing erosion. Even in the Northeast, where we generally have adequate rainfall on a yearly basis, a carbon sponge in the soil is necessary to keep grass green and growing during dry spells, and to buffer heavy rain events.
Jehne goes on to explain that the organic matter that improves the structure of the soil also helps cool the climate:
Water vapor is uniquely powerful at absorbing heat…When water evaporates from the land’s surface or is transpired by vegetation or forests, that heat gets transferred from the Earth’s surface up into the atmosphere, cooling the [Earth’s] surface. . . . Most of that heat gets dissipated back out to space from the upper atmosphere. That process accounts for about 24 percent of the Earth’s natural hydrological cooling…We need green plants and organic matter in the soil to keep that whole hydrology working.16
Increased Biodiversity
One of the management goals of regenerative grazing is to increase biodiversity. Where grasslands are not grazed, light quickly favors the tallest plants, which results in a few tall species dominating. But grazing removes light as a limiting factor and enhances biodiversity as other plants can compete.17
There is a positive correlation between plant diversity and microbial richness.18 Microbial diversity is also enhanced by drilling a mixture of cover crops into the same pasture, which should include short, medium, and tall plants; both warm-season and cool-season plants; and both broad-leaved plants and grasses. Short grazing periods and long recovery periods will lead to myriad species of microbes performing the various functions of healthy soil systems as plant biodiversity increases. Rancher Gabe Brown has noted:
If you want a healthy, functioning ecosystem on your farm or ranch, you must provide a home and habitat for not only farm animals but also pollinators, predator insects, earthworms, and all of the microbiology that drive ecosystem function.23
A diverse pasture also increases habitat for larger wildlife—invertebrates, mammals, birds—even while cattle are grazing.24 (Regarding birds, see sidebar “From Desert to Diversity.”) Diversity not only allows for multiple synergies among plants and animals, but is also a hedge against species extinction.
With billions of species on the planet and most of them microscopic, their relationships to one another are so complex that it is not possible to predict the impact of extinctions on the natural systems that sustain us.
According to a United Nations report released in May 2019, plant and animal extinctions are occurring at a rate that is at least a thousand times faster now than in the time before humans were on Earth. This is alarming because the Earth’s eco- systems include countless interdependent processes, such as those described in this 2019 opinion piece by Ferris Jabr:
Trees, algae and other photosynthetic organisms produce most of the world’s breathable oxygen, helping maintain it at a level high enough to support complex life, but not so high that Earth would erupt in flames at the slightest spark.
Ocean plankton drive chemical cycles on which all other life depends and emit gases that increase cloud cover, altering global climate. Seaweed, coral reefs and shellfish store huge amounts of carbon, balance the ocean’s chemistry and defend shore- lines from severe weather. And animals as diverse as elephants, prairie dogs and termites continually reconstruct the planet’s crust, altering the flow of water, air and nutrients and improving the prospects of millions of species.25
Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Distinct from the larger industrial model of beef production, 100% grass-fed beef offers profound potential for reducing greenhouse gasses.
METHANE
Many allegations about cattle’s contribution to atmospheric methane may be true for conventionally raised cattle but are not true for 100% grass-fed beef cattle raised regeneratively.
Bovines raised with regenerative methods eat higher-quality forage than cattle raised conventionally. Green, leafy plants offer cattle better nutri- tion than corn and concentrates. Cattle digest higher-quality forages more quickly, reducing methane burps and lowering the amount of methane that the animal generates.26
Methanotrophic bacteria significantly reduce emissions because they live in pasture soil (among other places), and as cattle graze, these bacteria oxidize methane as their sole energy source.27 Of course, this beneficial process does not occur where cattle are housed in a feedlot—or when cattle are removed from the pasture environment and enclosed in stainless steel rooms to measure their methane output. Also, tillage, nitrogen fertilizers, and bare land destroy methanotrophic bacteria.28
Scientists are also learning more about how water vapor transpired from pasture plants creates an oxidation zone whereby hydroxyl radicals break down methane.29 Again, this process takes place in the context of a pasture, not in a feedlot or stainless steel box.
Because grass-fed beef cattle are not confined, they drop their manure all over the pasture. The manure and urine deposits are not concentrated and are processed by dung beetles. There are no manure piles or lagoons that release methane, as occurs in CAFOs.
NITROUS OXIDE
This potent greenhouse gas is formed and released in waterlogged areas where nitrogen fertilizer has been applied. By contrast, in a regenerative sce- nario mineral nitrogen is supplied (as nitrate or ammonium ions) to the plant by soil organisms as part of the natural system referenced at the beginning of this chapter. Farmers and ranchers should reduce and eventually eliminate the application of chemical fertilizers, including nitrogen, thus preventing the formation of nitrous oxide.
CARBON DIOXIDE
In addition to preventing the formation and release of carbon dioxide in the ways we’ve described, there are additional factors to consider when comparing the carbon footprints of corn-fed and grass-fed beef. The corn-based diet that fattens conventional cattle is dependent upon heavy fossil fuel inputs, notably from synthetic fertilizers, diesel-fueled tractors, and other equipment used in the production, processing, and storage of corn.
In contrast, regenerative grazing makes good use of readily avail- able resources: energy from the sun; low-tech tools that require little or no fossil fuel inputs; natural soil systems that can flourish on their own in perennial pasture; and the efficacy of cattle, pasture plants, microbes, dung beetles, and other organisms in the soil community that allow grassland ecosystems to function.
A 2018 report looking at greenhouse gas emissions associated with both feedlot finishing of livestock and regenerative pasture finishing notes that soil organic matter is 40 to 75 percent carbon, and soil erosion contributes to the release of carbon dioxide. The report notes further that such soil erosion on land used to produce cattle feed crops “should be incorporated in beef LCA [life-cycle analysis] accounting but has generally been excluded.”30
Increased Carbon Storage
Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—while absolutely necessary— are not enough to address the climate change that is already under way. It is urgent that we pull carbon from the atmosphere and store it safely beneath the surface of the soil. In contrast to high-tech schemes such as engineer- ing the clouds to refreeze the poles, or piping carbon dioxide to undersea storage units—two proposals that are under consideration—regenerative grazing fosters natural systems to sequester carbon, that is, systems such as photosynthesis and the activities of soil microbes.31
Studies that purport to show the climate footprint of beef tend to ignore the significant carbon sequestration that grass-fed beef production can achieve with regenerative grazing.32 As noted, mycorrhizal fungi pass some of the carbon from plant roots into the soil, where it is stabilized in humus. Because of the ways that regenerative grazing safeguards soil microbes and enhances soil functioning—including carbon sequestration— the result is greater soil carbon concentrations than conventional grazing or no grazing.33
Multiple studies have shown that regenerative practices enhance, rather than inhibit, natural soil systems that sequester carbon, which is why 100% grass-fed beef operations can offer a net climate benefit, as expressed by Richard Teague in an interview:
Our field research shows that even simple grazing, when you look after the grass reasonably well, will put more carbon in the ground than the emissions emitted by the cattle grazing—up to about three or four times as much. In the more sophisticated grazing systems we have been studying, there is an order of eight times as much carbon dioxide equivalents being sequestered into the soil as is being emitted by the cattle.34
Notes
8. Christine Jones, “Soil Restoration: 5 Core Principles,” Eco Farming Daily, https://www.ecofarmingdaily.com/build-soil/soil-restoration-5-core -principles/. This article originally appeared in the October 2017 issue of Acres U.S.A. magazine.
9. W. Richard Teague et al., “The Role of Ruminants in Reducing Agriculture’s Carbon Footprint in North America,” Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 71, no. 2 (2016): 156–64, https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.71.2.156.
10. Steven I. Apfelbaum et al., “Vegetation, Water Infiltration, and Soil Carbon Response to Adaptive Multi-Paddock and Conventional Grazing in South- eastern USA Ranches,” Journal of Environmental Management 308 (April 15, 2022): 114576, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114576.
11. Christine Jones, “Light Farming: Restoring Carbon, Organic Nitrogen, and Biodiversity to Agricultural Soils,” Amazing Carbon, http://amazingcarbon .com/JONES-LightFarmingFINAL(2018).pdf: 6; Elaine Ingham in conversation with Ridge Shinn.
12. Jennifer Hayden, “Cattle Are Part of the Climate Solution: A Conversation with Rangeland Ecologist Richard Teague, PhD, Analyzing the Role That Adaptive Multi-Paddock Cattle Grazing Plays in Sequestering Carbon,” Rodale Institute, August 28, 2020, https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/cattle -are-part-of-the-climate-solution/.
13. W. Richard Teague, “Forages and Pastures Symposium: Cover Crops in Live- stock Production: Whole-System Approach: Managing Grazing to Restore Soil Health and Farm Livelihoods,” Journal of Animal Science 96, no. 4 (2018): 1519, https://doi.org/10.1093/jas/skx060.
14. Jones, “Light Farming.”
15. Tracy Frisch, “Interview: Supporting the Soil Carbon Sponge,” Eco Farming Daily, https://www.ecofarmingdaily.com/supporting-the-soil-carbon-sponge/, originally published in Acres U.S.A. 49, no. 4 (April 2019).
16. Frisch, “Interview: Supporting the Soil Carbon Sponge.”
17. Steven L. Dowhower et al., “Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions as Impacted by Soil Moisture and Temperature under Continuous and Holistic Planned Grazing in Native Tallgrass Prairie,” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 287, no. 106647 (2020): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee .2019.106647.
18. Lan Liu et al., “Relationships between Plant Diversity and Soil Microbial Diversity Vary across Taxonomic Groups and Spatial Scales,” Ecosphere, Janu- ary 7, 2020, https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002 /ecs2.2999.
23. Gabe Brown, “Dirt to Soil: Excerpt,” Resilience.org, November 6, 2020, https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-11-06/dirt-to-soil-excerpt/.
24. W. R. Teague et al., “The Role of Ruminants,” Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 71, no. 2 (2016): 156–64, https://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156.
25. Ferris Jabr, “The Earth Is Just as Alive as You Are,” New York Times, April 20, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/opinion/sunday/amazon-earth-rain-forest-environment.html.
26. Cheryl Anderson, “Rotational Grazing Is Green,” Progressive Farmer, April 2016, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58b5e62629687fdc87a1ad5b/t/59160a16893fc0e34e149bde/1494616604828/Progressive+Farmer+%E2%80%93+April+2016+-+Rotational+Grazing+Is+Green1.pdf.
27. Ronald S. Oremland and Charles W. Culbertson, “Importance of Methane-Oxidizing Bacteria in the Methane Budget as Revealed by the Use of a Specific Inhibitor,” Nature 356, no. 6368 (1992): 421–23, https://doi.org /10.1038/356421a0.
28. S. Tiwari et al., “Methanotrophs and CH4 Sink: Effect of Human Activity and Ecological Perturbations,” Climate Change and Environmental Sustainabil- ity 3, no. 1 (2015): 35–50.
29. Peter Bruce-Iri, “Methane Sources, Sinks, and Uncertainties,” October 2021, https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28627.71201.
30. Paige Stanley et al., “Impacts of Soil Carbon Sequestration on Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Midwestern USA Beef Finishing Systems,” Agricultural Systems 162 (May 2018): 250, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy .2018.02.003.
31. “Climate Change: Seven Technology Solutions That Could Help Solve Crisis,” Sky News, October 12, 2021, https://news.sky.com/story/climate -change-seven-technology-solutions-that-could-help-solve-crisis-12056397.
32. Stanley at al., “Impacts of Sequestration on Life Cycle Emissions.”
33. Teague et al., “The Role of Ruminants.”
34. Emily Payne, “Dr. Richard Teague: Regenerative Organic Practices ‘Clean Up the Act of Agriculture,’” AgFunder News, June 21, 2019, https:// agfundernews.com/dr-richard-teague-regenerative-organic-practices-clean-up-the-act-of-agriculture.html.
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