Food production should be good for the land, not bad for it.
When you choose grass-finished beef from a regenerative minded farm like ours, you’re not only helping yourself and your family live the life you want. You’re also helping to promote environmental stewardship.
Areas of land that are used for food production are often looked at as “sacrifice areas”. The assumption is that food production is going to have a negative impact on the ecosystem. We assume we need to kill everything else to grow food.
We shrug off the negative impacts, because… after all… we need to eat.
As a consequence, land used for growing food typically doesn’t support a diversity of life or have a positive impact on the environment.
It is also accepted that we have to set aside areas or take areas out of food production to provide conservation benefits. “Farm the best, conserve the rest”, is a phrase you may have heard before.
While that statement is well intentioned, it falls short. In our area nearly all the land might be considered “the best”. South central MN has some of the most productive land in the world. Many counties are 80 to 90 percent cropland. That doesn’t leave much room to provide ecosystem benefits.
The truth is that we should be practicing good conservation on all of the land and especially land that is used for food production.
The land where our food grows should be healthy and full of life if we expect it to produce food that will allow us to be healthy and full of life.
Good farming is good for the land.
At our farm, we have been converting annual cropland for corn and soybean production to pastureland with grasses and forbs for finishing beef. Here is a list of some big environmental benefits that come with this change in management.
6 Environmental Benefits of Grass-finished Beef
1. Reduced nitrates and phosphorus in our water
Well managed pasture does not require inputs of synthetic fertilizer which tends to end up in our surface water and groundwater. In a diverse perennial pasture with good grazing management, nutrients are cycled and made available to plants throughout the growing season. Similar to a native ecosystem! Manure nutrients are applied to the land slowly by the animals rather than being concentrated and applied in large quantities that the land cannot handle. Continuous living cover also prevents nutrients from being lost to our water.
2. Reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
When we convert cropland back into perennial grassland, carbon is sequestered from the atmosphere. Most cropland in our area is tilled multiple times per year. This stimulates a release of carbon into the atmosphere. Annual crop production in this model also requires major inputs of energy in the form of fuel for farm equipment and synthetic fertilizer production. Perennial pasture stops the losses and starts putting carbon back into the soil.
3. Improved water infiltration and reduced runoff.
Well managed pasture is like a sponge! When a raindrop hits the ground, it is either going to either soak in or runoff. We want to soak in as much rainfall as possible, instead of letting it runoff. Keeping the ground covered with a diverse mix of living plants leads to excellent soil structure which is necessary for proper water cycling.
The picture below shows the results of a rainfall simulator demonstration. An inch of water was applied to the trays with an overhead sprinkler. Runoff is captured in the front jars and infiltration is captured in the back row of jars. Compare my pasture on the left to the standard cropland practice next to it. Nearly all of the water that fell on the pasture infiltrated, while nearly all of the water that fell on the conventional tillage cropland ran off.
4. Provides critical habitat for wildlife
Grassland bird populations have declined more than 40 percent since 1966. Mostly due to habitat loss from conversion of grasslands to cropland. As we have converted cropland back to grass for finishing beef, the birds have responded quickly. I’ve observed birds nesting on our farm that I never saw when I was growing up here. Including my favorite, the bobolink, which is on Audubon’s list of Grassland Priority birds. Pollinators also love the diverse mix of flowering plants in our pastures.
5. Virtually eliminates soil erosion
Keeping the soil covered stops erosion from wind and rainfall. I think this is common sense, but we’ve failed to put this knowledge into practice. Most of the land in our area is left nearly bare in April, May, and early June when we receive most of our rainfall. This leaves the land prone to soil erosion at the most critical time. Well managed perennial pasture is covered with living plants year-round to absorb the impact of rainfall and hold soil in place.
6. Improved human health.
This may not occur to most as an environmental benefit, but I’ve written to you about this before. We as humans are not separate from the environment. We are members of a living ecosystem. What we do to the environment, we do to ourselves. When we produce food in an environment that mimics nature it has higher nutritional value and reduced levels of toxins which leads to better human health.
Thank you for being here with me to help care for the resources we all depend on.
Herman