Water​
 

Why Local, Grass-Fed Beef, and the latest Regenerative Agriculture Movement is Still Problematic 

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We often hear people arguing that grass-fed beef is not only better than factory farmed meat, but that it can actually be beneficial for the environment. While we definitely need alternatives to the industrial farming model, we do not need to default to a system which exploits animals and introduces even more non-native species into the ecosystem. 
 

• Grass-fed beef is worse than factory farmed meat in some ways. Because the cows are allowed to live longer (it takes longer for them to reach 'market weight') they actually consume more water and release more greenhouse gasses than factory farmed cows. In the end, they weigh less than a factory farmed cow, so it takes more grass-fed cows to feed the same number of people. 
   

• It takes a great deal more land to raise grass-fed beef that it does to raise a factory-farmed cow. If everyone on earth only ate grass-fed beef, we would need multiple planets to have enough room for that much grassland. (see the 'Privilege' section on our Social Justice page). 
   

• About 75% to 80% of grass-fed beef sold in the U.S. is grown abroad, from Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America, according to a 2017 report from the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Many U.S. customers who want to support local food are likely unaware of the foreign origin of most grass-fed beef. By law, if meat is "processed," or passes through a USDA-inspected plant (a requirement for all imported beef), it can be labeled as a product of the U.S. Therefore, 75-80% of grass fed beef Americans eat, comes with the added environmental cost of being shipped around the world. 
   

• We often hear people say it is better for the environment to eat locally so that's why they're eating animals, but that has been debunked. In places as diverse as the journal Science Daily and the Harvard Business Review, it has been shown that even vegetables flown in from around the world still has a lower carbon footprint than eating animals raised locally. Of course, if you can get locally grown plant foods, that is the best scenario.
   

• “Regenerative Agriculture” describes farming and grazing practices that claim to mitigate climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle.  According to 'Regeneration International', the key to regenerative agriculture is that it not only “does no harm” to the land, but actually improves it. We posit that by introducing a non-native species (cows) onto a land, it is inherently doing harm by displacing native species. 
   

• Nassim Nobari writes brilliantly about this in an article for Seed the Commons entitled: 'A Call to Counter the False Narrative of Regenerative Grazing': 
  
  "Proponents of regenerative agriculture misrepresent vegans as advocating for ecosystems without animals. They posit that animals fulfill integral functions in their ecosystems and that without them, an ecosystem can only be unhealthy and an agricultural system can only be unsustainable. Nobody is disagreeing with them, but we don’t need to commodify animals for animal life to be present. In fact, grazing in California is wiping out the diversity of animal life to make way for a few species we have decided to subjugate and profit off of.
  
  In the United States, farm animals are exotic species that were introduced by settlers and that have been in conflict with native wildlife since the beginning of colonization. The native Tule elk and bison could be fulfilling their ecological roles as ruminants, instead they continue to die off and to be killed because ranchers are given preferential access to land and tax dollars. Apparently all the talk of needing ruminants to build soil is less appealing when we can’t line our pockets with them.
  
  The false dichotomy between veganism and sustainable agriculture serves to protect a culture of carnism but it also harms the environment, as the environmental movement fails to consider the potential benefits of shifting to plant-based ecological farming systems. Domesticated animals are not a necessary component of ecological farming and doing without them would help protect biodiversity, save water and land, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and still build soil to sequester carbon.
  
  Even if large ruminants or herbivores were indeed absent and necessary to a given region, why can’t we imagine bringing animals into nature without commodifying them, micromanaging their whole existence and cutting short their natural lifespan? It is also curious that, when it comes to animals, the problems caused by the near-extinction of native species are to be solved by bringing in more of the invasive species. This is the opposite strategy that we have with plants. I often witness the care that conservationists apply to the restoration of native habitats: native species are replanted, areas are fenced off and invasive plants are diligently removed or even sprayed with pesticide, one by one, to give native plants a better chance. Cows are responsible for the loss of food sources and habitat of native animals–and somehow more cows are the solution?
  
  The cows introduced to California were not merely a byproduct of European presence but rather a key driver and mechanism of colonization. Present-day pro-grazing propaganda recycles ideas of Manifest Destiny, whereby the land is brought to its full potential through European agriculture. These days, the narrative is that cows are necessary to “heal” the soil and save us from a catastrophic future. The public buys it because of convenience (you can have your steak and feel virtuous too) and because Eurocentrism and the cultural legacy of settler colonialism endow pro-grazing arguments and imagery with intuitive appeal."
   

• As Angel Lynn writes in her article entitled 'Gentle World':
  
  "People think this is better – the ideas of grass-fed and free-range are very popular – but what is happening is that farmers are stealing the land from the wildlife to use for cows and whomever else they’re grazing. This often requires killing wild animals through trapping, shooting or ‘aerial gunning’, poisoning and many other ways. These animals are exterminated so we can use the land to graze food animals. Wild horses are also rounded up; there are many places in the U.S. where wild horses live on the land and they just round them up and corral them so the land can be used to raise cows. It’s horrendous.” In the Bay Area, organic dairy farming has caused the deaths of native Tule elk due to fencing and competition over water and forage, yet dairy farms continue to successfully market themselves as stewards of the land."
   

• The American Wild Horse Campaign describes the problem in an article entitled: 'Thousands of Wild Horses May Be Killed So You Can Eat Meat". 
  
  "Wild horses have already been relocated to make room for cattle ranchers, who claim that resources are too limited to support the horses. What they fail to mention, however, is that resources are being used to feed cows who are raised and killed for human consumption.  And this won’t be the first time wildlife has been culled to make room for the meat industry. Millions of wild animals are killed every year as the meat industry encroaches on wildlife habitats.
  
  In fact, more than half the land in the continental United States is used to raise animals for food. In 2013 more than 2 million wild animals were killed because they were seen as a threat to animal agriculture industries. These included more than 75,000 wolves; 3,700 foxes; and 419 bears. The fact is that by consuming animals, you indirectly support the destruction of wildlife populations.
  
  A significant way to protect wildlife is to withdraw support of the meat industry altogether by adopting a responsible, compassionate plant-based diet." 
  
  Slaughtering horses for food is illegal in the U.S., but a market exists beyond our borders, in Europe, Japan and Russia. This is why  trailers full of horses, are regularly sent into Mexico and Canada, where slaughter is legal. Last year, 81,573 horses made the trip. They were mostly slaughtered for one reason only: so Americans can eat grass-fed beef. 
   

• Allan Savory, from Zimbwabe, has been one of the leading proponents of using livestock to restore ecosystems and to 'mimic nature.' Although his ideas have been widely embraced by those looking for reasons to continue eating meat, many of his theories have been debunked and do not hold up to scrutiny. 
   

• In addition, it is important to know about Allan Savory's background. His leading team members (Director of Research and all co-founders of the Savory Institute) are derived entirely from the meat and dairy industry. Most of them own and continue to operate very large cattle and other livestock ranches for the purpose of slaughtering, selling, and eating meat, not necessarily to improve grasslands. Savory supervised the killing of game animals and advocated the mass culling of elephants and hippos, convinced that they were destroying the habitat. He called for a project to slaughter more than 40,000 elephants — until it came under heavy criticism when officials realized that these gentle, innocent giants were not the problem.
   

• You can read James McWilliams article entitled All Sizzle and No Steak, Why Allan Savory's TED Talk about how  cattle can reverse global warming is dead wrong here. 
   

• You can read Saving the World With Livestock? The Allan Savory Approach Examined , by Dr. Richard Oppenlander here.