What about our grasslands? Abandoning meat may spell disaster for vital ecosystems

The Kansas Reflector welcomes opinion pieces from writers who share our goal of widening the conversation about how public policies affect the day-to-day lives of people throughout our state. William (Brad) Bradley is a retired co-founder and senior executive of an IT company and manages 2,000 acres of pasture, cropland and timber using regenerative agriculture along the eastern Kansas border.

Recent opinion articles advocate eliminating meat from human diets, or using artificial meat substitutes, to fight climate change. However, many experts believe that grazing animals used for meat are the key to the future health of the most altered, destroyed and endangered ecosystems on earth: grasslands.

That makes plant-based diets potential ecological disasters.

Of the 1.9 billion acres in the lower 48 U.S. states, 788 million are grassland. Globally, grazing animals and grazing land ecosystems evolved together through mutual adaptation. Human history has demonstrated that improperly grazed grasses become unhealthy, and leaving grasslands alone actually degrades them, whereas properly grazed lands become healthier.

Grasslands provide vital “ecosystem services” by sequestering carbon underground in extensive root systems, using up carbon dioxide, producing oxygen, filtering and storing water, providing habitat for other important species, and when grazed, converting cellulose that we cannot digest into high-quality protein that we can digest.

Unhealthy grasslands do less or none of these. Some researchers see grasslands as more reliable carbon sinks than forests. But without grazing animals, we won’t keep grasslands healthy.

Herds of wild animals could be rebuilt to resume their traditional grazing role. Roaming at large requires very large, uninterrupted tracts of land and ability to migrate between Yellowstone-sized wild areas. Replicating these tracts today would require paying for land acquisition; bigger, stronger fences; and reintroducing natural predators to keep herd numbers healthy. Voluntary “rewilding” likely won’t be large enough, soon enough, to make a climate difference.  

Likewise, no one will pay for robotic electric mowers to cut grasslands periodically, with harrows to mimic animal hoof action, or for spreading chemical fertilizer to mimic the manure and urine nature uses. Yet without grazing animals, such artificial measures will be needed to keep grasslands healthy.

Domestic grazing animals only exist today in large numbers because they have economic value. The best way to produce economic value is to properly graze cattle — and sheep and goats — in a sustainable, regenerative way.

Today, 80% of beef is “finished” (fattened) with corn, because it shortens time to market. But, due to increased demand for finished beef, rainforests are leveled so the land can be used for more crops. Cattle are finished in feedlots, which concentrate waste, afflict nearby people with odor and water pollution, and make it more difficult to control disease.

We should instead incentivize converting marginal cropland back to grass and finishing cattle by continued grazing. Grass-finished meat arguably tastes better, but it takes six to 12 months longer to produce. Grass-finished beef and lamb is mostly available today by mail order or from nearby, small custom businesses.

Negative effects of grass finishing include more methane produced per lifetime of the animal, but innovative research in methane-reducing additives or wearable filters for grazing animals can neutralize methane increases attributed to grass finishing.

Some opposition to meat is based on the cruelty of slaughter, not climate concerns, but that ignores the functions of truly healthy ecosystems. Wild animals never die of old age. When they become vulnerable, nature’s quality control inspectors — predators — terminate the animal; not always quickly or humanely.

Humane meat slaughter is achieved by effective regulation, reliable continuous inspection, and using low-stress livestock handling methods. The livestock industry has improved slaughter in response to consumers’ preference for humane and sustainable meat, and more can be done.

Yes, reducing meat in a diet may have health benefits. Personally, I enjoy consuming meat — in moderation.

I especially appreciate the contributions that grazing animals with economic value provide to healthy grassland ecosystems. We should adopt policies to encourage grass finishing, discourage corn finishing, and encourage proper grazing practices.

No one lives on this planet without some environmental impact. All we use or enjoy has an environmental cost. But farmers increasingly use proven techniques that grow crops in an eco-friendly fashion, and graze animals in a sustainable way. Look online for “regenerative agriculture” to learn more. 

Because regenerative agriculture works with nature, not against it, improving our meat production system makes it a genuine climate solution. This would be much more economical, effective, simpler and faster to implement than artificial meat substitutes, “rewilding,” mowing mega-lawns, plant-based diets, or grain-finishing feedlots.

A responsible grazer I know says he is “really a grass farmer — the animals are just the harvesting machines.” He has the right attitude. He makes his money from animals, but he is laser-focused on the health of our fragile grassland ecosystem they graze.

Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.