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Grazing animals are often blamed for harming the environment — but it’s not the animals that are causing harm, it’s how humans manage livestock and the land they live on, according to the Savory Institute.
The Savory Institute is a global network of farmers and land managers working to “facilitate the large-scale regeneration of the world’s grasslands and the livelihoods of their inhabitants, through “holistic management.”
In a new video, the institute says:
“We as humans have managed them [by] treating livestock like cogs in a machine rather than complex living beings with minds of their own. Thankfully, there’s another way for dealing with complexity called ‘holistic management.’”
Holistic management is a framework for making decisions “that honors the whole system — plants, animals, people and land — instead of maximizing one at the expense of the other,” the video explains.
“It optimizes the whole and aligns our actions with the rhythms of the living world, allowing us to make decisions that balance environmental, financial and social well-being.”
The living world is comprised of “beautifully and infinitely complex adaptive living systems” that are interconnected, so “the way we manage decisions amidst these complex living systems matters,” the institute said.
Holistic management creates ‘photosynthetic powerhouses’
Rather than sequestering livestock on industrial factory farms and feeding them grain, or having them continuously graze on a pasture for extended periods of time without allowing plants to rest or regrow, ranchers can use “holistic planned grazing” methods — sometimes called “regenerative” or “rotational” grazing — so “animals get to the right place, at the right time, with the right behavior,” according to the institute.
Holistic planned grazing mimics the ways wild herds once grazed, they said.
Regenerative grazing isn’t a new idea. Several Indigenous tribes, including the Navajo Nation, used similar methods over 80-mile spans in a balance that involved the conservation and preservation of ecosystems, EcoWatch reported.
When animals are intentionally rotated on areas of land, plants get time to grow back so the land maintains a level of groundcover, which protects the soil from erosion and runoff from rains.
Moreover, the land doesn’t suffer from soil compaction due to the same areas being constantly trampled by livestock.
Rotating livestock also distributes manure more widely, which acts as a natural fertilizer and reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.
“Grasslands become more productive and resilient, creating a photosynthetic powerhouse that pulls carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil,” the institute said.
‘It’s a lot easier to work with nature than against it’
When managing complex systems, “we must shift from ‘control’ to ‘cooperation,’” according to the Savory Institute.
Cooperating with nature can create win-win situations that benefit the entire ecosystem — and without harmful additives like pesticides and herbicides.
Fourth-generation Texas rancher Adam Isaacs told The New York Times he uses his cattle — rather than herbicides — to cut down on weeds.
“We let cattle stomp a lot of the stuff down,” he said. This adds organic matter to the soil and exposes it to oxygen, which helps grasses and other desirable plants grow, which in turn makes the pasture healthier.
“These cows are my land management tool,” Isaacs said. “It’s a lot easier to work with nature than against it.”
“The appropriate time-managed grazing systems will not kill a single plant and will increase the biodiversity of native plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms in the farm ecosystem,” according to Regeneration International, a nonprofit with 250 international partners working to accelerate the global transition to regenerative food, farming and land management.
Additionally, a researcher who reviewed 58 studies on regenerative grazing and biodiversity said the soils enriched by regenerative grazing had “increased microbial bioactivity, higher fungal:bacteria biomass, greater functional diversity, and richer microarthropods and macrofauna communities.”
Grass-fed beef higher in vitamins, antioxidants and beneficial fatty acid
Cows raised using holistic management methods and fed grass throughout their lives are healthier for people to eat, research suggests.
Most cattle in the U.S. are grain-fed, meaning they start out eating grass but then are fed “specially formulated feed based on corn or other grains.” Formulated feed contains corn and grains grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, growth hormones and antibiotics.
Grass-fed beef — meaning cows that have only been fed milk, grass and other greens throughout their lives — is typically leaner than grain-fed beef.
Grass-fed beef also is higher in key nutrients, including vitamins, antioxidants and a beneficial fatty acid that has been associated with improved immunity and anti-inflammation benefits.
Watch here: