> They also lease land to neighboring ranchers, whose grazing cattle aerate the soil with their hooves and add organic matter and nutrients via manure.
Meat can and should be a part of regenerative ag.
I recently visited a family friend's place/farm. A year ago, the soil was the typical cracked dry light tan clay ground that I have in my yard. It's quite typical in Oregon.
This time, the soil was a dark color with tons of organic material and great water retention. This was entirely due to the grazing. They have goats and an alpaca. Ruminants are excellent for soil health, and the meat they produce is also great for human health.
There's really not that much meat in regenerative agriculture. Given the current per capita consumption of meat in kg, a regenerative ag operation could never accomplish that.
Reducing to 4-30kg of meat per capita per year seems impossible.
No one can even accomplish that with ruminants. That's why there's so much chicken everywhere, because accomplishing that with ruminants is near impossible, so chicken is advertised massively instead.
A nitpick, there's no single food that is great for human health or bad for human health. Diet can contain various things and be healthy and it can also lack meat and be healthy.
I used to think similarly, but now I’m not so sure. Gabe Brown, the author of Dirt to Soil, changed my outlook on animals place in a healthy ecosystem.
On his farmland he puts about 700k lbs of cattle on 1acre of land at a time, rotating those cattle frequently across 40 acres. He claims this practice has been an integral part of his regenerative ag method.
My math came out similarly to yours but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for there to be 150lbs of waste high cover crop biomass in a 6 square meter area.
Again he is rotating these cattle daily and never depleting the crops of any one area, giving them a chance to grow back by the time the cattle are rotated back through.
Another term you can search for to find visuals of what this sort of density looks like is mobgrazing.
You speak as if a goat is a goat, a cow is a cow, a pig is a pig, a calorie is a calorie, and a protein is a protein. No. The world is much more nuanced than that. Ruminants are thee biggest factor is driving soil-building as part of regenerative agriculture. Goats are by far (in my experience) the quickest way to rebuild parched top soil, or just build soil in a place that badly needs it (say run-through dirt that won't even grow lentils).
Well, I did not say that ruminants aren't a part of regenerative agriculture. There's just not that many to support the current meat consumption levels.
If you're going to grow ruminants just on grass, it takes a lot of time and land to eventually sell the meat compared to what's happening now.
We could argue that a reduction from 100+ kg to 4-30kg of meat per capita per year could be supported this way but I have no idea.
I do work at a farm and around farms that use regenerative grazing. It works great.
However as a vegan my hope is that we eventually let animals graze and simply do not kill and consume them. One could argue “the meat is there” but that meat is beings with a heart and a mind. When I see the grazing animals with their babies in toe, I think about how they will be separated and the pain the mothers will go through.
We can take great care of our soil with regenerative grazing but that is quite apart from whether or not we need to treat those animals as mere property and eat them.
My family and I raise all of our own meat and have for many generations going back as long as anyone remembers. I suppose as all things it depends on the specific character and personality of the animal. Many mamas I know of goat, pig, bird species want nothing to do with their babies once they quickly get them taught how to graze and finally off their teats. Others grow attached to their kids and definitely go through separation anxiety if they're separated (don't think it's any easier for your parents once you freely leave the home nest). None the less, I and many of my farming friends (certainly not all) do not treat the animals or plants as property. We treat them as good friends. In fact, they are my best friends, as I spend more time with them than I do anyone else. They live good long lives on high quality soil/pasture/hay/rain water, and eventually we eat them. I don't feel regret or pain at this, though I do miss them as I would all my family members or friends that have passed. I only feel joy and the deepest appreciation, that my best friends gave their lives so my family can live theirs. I feel the same way about all the plants I grow and kill, just so we're clear. I think it's about time we stopped pretending that plants are "lesser" than human or other animal intellectually. It's a false premise.
I'm a meat-eater (have been my whole life), but I've always been partial to this argument. This is why I'm looking forward to lab-grown meat and would pay a bit of a premium for it.
FWIW I am now in year three of veganism and it feels like I have made it past all the "teething" stages to the point where I am absolutely loving my vegan meals. It is rare for me these days to eat a meat or cheese substitute - more like the occasional junk food throwback than a normal meal. Lentils, tofu, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, brown rice, peanut sauce, lettuce, zucchini, and just some of the foods that bring me joy to eat.
Hopefully you're already learning to make vegan meals but if anyone out there is on the fence I highly encourage you to learn how to make delicious vegan food. It's so tasty and you won't feel the guilt of eating meat.
Are there any chefs who unify veganism with traditional cuisines that use lots of animal products, e.g. french or chinese? I would love to be vegetarian but I'm lucky in that my partner makes fantastic traditional food and I don't want to give it up.
Vegan modifications along the lines of 'substitute the meat in your burger for mushroom' seem depressing, like they're unengaged with the balance of flavours in the dish.
For chinese food I would imagine there is a lot of traditional vegan food. Tofu for example originated in China. For lots of chinese dishes with meat, something like Tempeh or Seitan make great traditional foods that can substitute meat.
The thing to keep in mind is that veganism is very common in parts of the world where the right crops grow well. So indian food is full of vegan and vegetarian options like dal (lentils).
One of the things you can do is just get to know the traditional plant proteins like lentils, tempeh, seitan, and tofu. Go find some tempeh at the store, unmarinated. Slice it in to long thin fries, and pan fry them in some olive oil. Brown them on all sides, then add salt. Some super tasty fries that will make you want more. Now next time you cook tempeh do the same thing but cut it in to small cubes. You can add that on top of anything in place of meat and it will be very satisfying.
Then learn to cook tofu and seitan. Eventually you will become familiar enough with them to plan dishes with them.
And for me I found that adding peanut sauce is an easy way to make things tastier. So experiment with that!
Specifically with Chinese you rarely actually need to prepare a dish with meat in it. The savory/fat elements can be brought in via other means, and that often leaves just the sauce that’s very flexible to be used on any number of veggies and great tofu variety.
Remember the vast majority of China was extremely poor until just recently. No ones affording meat. The most traditional cuisines can function entirely without meat.
Thanks for sharing this sentiment, vegetarian here who's been trying to read what I can about ecosystem restoration and such and it's really led to more balanced view around animals/meat consumption.
From your experience is it possible (in a farm context of a fixed amount of land) to just let the larger animals graze in such a way that they can live their natural lifespan? or are there concerns of species overpopulation (and ecosystem degradation) akin to deer on poorly managed land?
No, it's not possible (rather it's possible but not desirable), nor is it natural. The natural thing for ruminants (and humans for that matter) to do, is wander freely from place to place with no limits or boundaries, allowing vegetation to get eaten down (or be left alone) by succeeding populations of all sorts of animals, insects, microbes, etc. Then maybe them coming back through the same spot 8-36 months later, etc.etc.etc. Unfortunately, humans have chosen to abandon this nomadic lifestyle. I think ultimately this is the root cause of our climate crisis, but obviously not one that we will ever be inclined to address.
Many of my dairy animals live through their long natural lifespans; it hurts to see my 14 year old best friend (usually the matriarch of the herd) get torn apart by a pack of coyotes though, or suffer other disease or mechanical injury as a result of old age and bad luck. However, on a large plot of land (say 60-100 acres+) that is not managed, they will surely run out of nutritionally dense foods to eat, as they will freely pick and choose certain stands of certain forbs or grasses, and let others lie dormant (these ultimately going to forest). The result is the highly nutritious choice foods get eaten to death, forest slowly sprouts everywhere else, and animal health suffers as a result. Now, if you had a large mixed herd, it becomes a possibility (think cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, other fowl all living together). Now, if you can take that same large plot of land, and that same mixed herd of various animals and preferably plants, insects, and fungus, and rotationaly graze in much smaller paddocks, you can make magic happen, assuming your soil was dense enough in minerals to keep the animals happy and healthy on pasture alone (unlikely in many parts of the world without mineralizing the soil first).
It's a good question. While I work at a farm, my focus is on engineering our farming robot (see my profile if curious) so I do not have a lot of experience with the animals. It seems like goats could be pretty self sufficient but I'm not sure of the details.
Are you sure that plants don't go through pain? How do you feel about the small animals that cows eat when they graze? I'm sure those little birds and insects feel some pain when the cows chew them up.
No I am not sure that plants don't go through pain. I am however quite sure that animals experience pain, and so I don't want my food system dependent on that. I am pretty unconcerned with wild animals eating other wild animals however, as that seems to be the way of the Earth. I am only concerned with humans confining animals and growing them for commercial consumption, as it is clear to me that we are capable of thriving without such cruelty.
Someone on Twitter told me “you obviously don’t care about the fawn that will lose a leg from the harvester” as if vegetable farmers are out there mowing down deer every chance they get. People come up with weird reasons why “actually the vegans are the monsters”. And this is just me talking about being vegan, I do not criticize people for eating meat.
> They also lease land to neighboring ranchers, whose grazing cattle aerate the soil with their hooves and add organic matter and nutrients via manure.
Meat can and should be a part of regenerative ag.
I recently visited a family friend's place/farm. A year ago, the soil was the typical cracked dry light tan clay ground that I have in my yard. It's quite typical in Oregon.
This time, the soil was a dark color with tons of organic material and great water retention. This was entirely due to the grazing. They have goats and an alpaca. Ruminants are excellent for soil health, and the meat they produce is also great for human health.