Tuesday and Thursday mornings at Montana State were always an interesting part of my week. I started my day at 8:00 AM with a National Resources & Conservation class. We discussed rangelands and grasslands, the benefits of rotational grazing, and how to prevent desertification. For those of us unfamiliar with the concept of desertification, it's the process by which fertile land becomes desert, typically as a result of drought, deforestation, or inappropriate agriculture. Now, don't let your blood get boiling yet because this is simply Google's definition.
My professor finished lecturing and proceeded to show us a TED talk by Allan Savory, a Zimbabwe native, research biologist and game ranger in the British Colonial Service of what was then Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia) and later as a farmer and game rancher in Zimbabwe. In the 1960s, he made a breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation and desertification of the world's grassland ecosystems and, as a resource management consultant, worked with a variety of managers on four continents to develop sustainable solutions. His take on desertification? Cattle are the solution.
Allan works around a concept called 'holistic management' with the thought process of regenerating grasslands from an ecological, economic, and social perspective. To give you an idea of what this method entails, it accounts for the needs of the land, plants, animals and people, while aiming to strategically mimic nature and it is built through planning and constant monitoring and replanning. Then, ecological, environmental, and human factors that influence the grazing plan are charted. This provides a clear picture of where livestock need to be and when, and this determines how the manager plans their moves. As the herd grazes according to the plan, dung, urine, and old plant matter are trampled into the ground. Moisture and minerals are carried down into the soil by dung beetles and other organisms. This facilitates healthy ecosystem processes: water cycles, mineral cycle, community dynamics, and energy flow.
So now that we've got this basic concept down, let's analyze it for a minute.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is really cool and a platform for beef producers to build off of, especially when there are debates going on in Congress about whether cattle should be raised in the U.S. But is it realistic? Allan Savory certainly thinks so. After his TED talk came out, there was a bunch of research completed to support and deny this theory.
For instance, D. Briske and colleagues, in their commentary "A critical assessment of the policy endorsement for holistic management," summarize the evidence supporting holistic management (HM) and intensive rotational grazing (IRG). Five major points are presented – distinction between HM and IRG, insufficient evaluation of the contradictory evidence, limitations of the experimental approach, additional costs associated with IRG, and heterogeneous capabilities and goals of grazers to manage intensive strategies. The vast majority of experimental evidence does not support claims of enhanced ecological benefits in IRG compared to other grazing strategies, including the capacity to increase storage of soil organic carbon.
On the other hand, this study completed by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (underneath the direction of Maria Nordborg) concluded that there have been very few grazing studies that have been performed due the level of difficulty and large variability in systems and local conditions. To date, no review study has been able to demonstrate that holistic grazing is superior to conventional or continuous grazing. Furthermore, some claims concerning holistic grazing are directly at odds with scientific knowledge, e.g., the causes of land degradation and the relationship between cattle and atmospheric methane concentrations. Finally, the total carbon storage potential in pasture does not exceed 0.8 tonnes of C per ha and year, or 27 billion tonnes of C globally, according to an estimate in the report based on vary optimistic assumptions. 27 billion tonnes of C corresponds to less than 5% of the emissions of carbon since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Holistic grazing can thus not reverse climate change.
At this point in time (if you've stuck with me this far), you've probably formed your own opinion on whether you want to buy into the whole concept of holistic grazing. No matter what side of the fence you're on, this conversation isn't over and we're going to return to the discussion in the next several weeks when my "Real Talk" series takes to the GHG emissions conversation. However, if I were to jump on any side of the discussion, I would certainly want to see a bit more research on Allan Savory's part. If you stick around long enough to watch the talk, you'll see that he shows some 'before' and 'after' pictures of a certain area that he's helped bring back to life. Although he's got some proof, we need more (in my opinion).
As I think about where the future of this conversation is headed, I think it's got potential, especially as we think about the drought the western half of the U.S. is currently experiencing. Stay tuned for more to come!
ALWAYS REMEMBER TO EAT BEEF.
Lauren
For more research, check out these links!
Holistic Management: https://savory.global/
D. Briske commentary: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2013.12.001