21st Century Ranching: Protecting the Environment for a Sustainable Future

The public narrative on grazing seems to be overwhelmingly negative.  It seems like the PR campaigns of environmental and animal rights activists, though misleading if not completely false, are abundant and largely winning the hearts and mind of a well meaning but otherwise naive audience.  This is evident when news agencies take activist environmental propaganda and cite them as majority opinion or fact.  I noticed this recently in an article by NPR when they wrote about grazing and cited the Center for Biological Diversity over and over on why all grazing, no matter what, is bad for the environment.  The victory of these environmental groups over the years is evident it the parade of regulations that has steadily driven ranchers out of business. 

The fact of the matter is that grazing can be a tool to manage the landscape and can be good for the environment.  I started with Alan Savory's TED talk.  If you haven't watched it the gist of it is that high intensity short duration grazing can restore grasslands, knock back shrubs, and increase the carbon holding capacity of soil.  He's a little over board and a bit optimistic with his whole "cure global warming" shtick, but his methods have been quite effective in many areas.  

Savory Institute Before and After photo of how high intensity grazing can restore grasslands

Today's rancher has more to think about than just feeding livestock.  There is a holistic consideration of what type of forage, the diversity on the landscape, watershed quality, soil stability, and environmental sustainability.  There are intangible benefits to grazing that are very difficult to quantify.  What is the value of the landscape vs condos?  Environmentalists are quick to point out how much a tree is worth with its soil holding capacity and converting CO² to oxygen, yet they fail to look at a landscape carefully managed by a rancher in the same way.  Increasing biodiversity, increasing herbaceous cover, reducing soil erosion, protecting watersheds should all be viewed as beneficial products of the sustainable ecosystem all carefully managed by the rancher.  That is worth a lot and should be acknowledged. 

Figure from the National Audubon Society's Grazing publication. 

Grazing is also effective as a specific tool in land management.  The National Audubon Society is not a ranching society, yet it uses cattle grazing at different intensities as an effective tool to benefit a wide diversity of birds.  The Nature Conservancy is not a ranching society and yet they use cattle grazing to maintain grasslands.  Targeted grazing of invasive weeds have been used effectively on such notables as leafy spurge, spotted knapweed, Japanese Brome and yellow star thistle.  And grazing strips near fences has been used to reduce fuel loads to protect homes from wildfire.  The benefit to using grazing in these scenarios is that you are not only effectively accomplishing your goals, but selling the livestock means that this becomes a low cost, or a cost neutral, management tool.  Cost neutral when mechanical, chemical, or prescribed fires can cost hundreds to thousands per acre.  That is huge, especially for those non-profits who already have tight budgets. 

A devastating fire in the Sagebrush Steppe, stopped at the fence where grazing reduced fuel loads.

Cows used on the side of the road to eat weeds and incorporate native seeds into the soil.

The 21st century rancher is more than just a livestock operator converting forage into dollars.  They have to understand the intricacies of biodiversity, hydrology, soil ecology and how that relates to their specific landscape in order to improve and sustainably use the land.  It really should be appreciated for the biodiversity that is promoted and the landscapes that are protected.

Genetic Modification: just one of many tools for the future.

Image by: James Kennedy

The documentary "Bullshit! (GMO)," by PeÅ Holmquist and Suzanne Khardalian, covers a wide range of topics such as globalization, patents, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), Bio-piracy, and Indigenous knowledge.  The hero of the film is Vandana Shiva, a rather intelligent hard-line environmentalist who is staunchly against much of what the industrialized world has to offer.  Though there is a lot that can be talked about, I'll focus on her opposition towards GMO crops.

First I'd like to define GMO.  That is, an organism that has been genetically modified through artificial means.  I say this mainly because the documentary fails to make a distinction between GMO and corporations such as Monsanto.  This seems to be a flaw in many discussions about GMOs; as if it is impossible for non-mega-corporations to splice genes and that the only two possible genes involve pesticides and herbicides.  In fact Vandana seems to have a very narrow definition of GMOs.  She states in the film that all GMOs had a virus as a primer and all GMOs have added antibiotic resistance markers.  Both these statements are simply not true.  There is more than one way to genetically modify an organism, and the genetics involved can include anything, not just antibiotic resistance.

 

 

There is a place for organic farming, and Vandana's pride and enthusiasm in organic farming is well founded.  However, I see a lot of hypocrisy in the pride she has in her carefully created genetic stock of seeds.  She brags about how this specific variety has been specially selected to use less water and to provide more nutrition.  How that variety has less gluten and low elasticity.  She has delicately and deliberately woven the genetics of her stock, and boasts how she plans to spread her genetics to the world.  And yet she turns around condemning those who do the same through technology.  Now it is easy to sympathize with her as the talk of GMOs get woven in Monsanto, corporate greed, and one sided global trade deals.  But Vandana has also railed against GMO's, such as Golden Rice, that were specially created to help people.  Golden rice has been heralded as a grain that can prevent 500,000 cases of blindness and 2 million deaths a year in impoverished areas.  The rice was specifically designed to grow in poor soils and to provide enhanced nutrition.  And yet the fearmongering from the anti-GMO crowd has also demonized this grain and the potential it has to prevent malnutrition.  Countless lives are lost while an existing solution is locked in debate.

A similar situation exists with the threats looming over the global rice crop.  Rice is the number one crop used by people worldwide.  However, the climate is changing, atmospheric carbon is rising and variability in precipitation and temperatures are increasingly unpredictable.  Because of this, plants with the Carbon-3 (C3) photosynthetic pathway such as rice are at a disadvantage in many regions.  There are predictions that increasing temperatures will lead to a collapse in rice production with massive famines to follow.  One solution, a solution that is currently being heavily researched, is to splice a more efficient photosynthetic pathway into rice.  Depending on the magnitude of the crisis this has the potential to save tens, perhaps hundreds of millions.  Research and implementation here does not need to be stalled and halted by those who don't understand the technology they fear.

Dying Rice Plants.  Photo: LSU Ag Center

My point is that genetic modification is a technology with a lot of potential.  Like all technology it can be abused.  Monsanto is very good at genetically modifying organisms.  They have been a bit too general in its patents, and they have been overly aggressive in protecting those patents.  Though much can be said there, it should not distract from the potential of the technology at hand.  The world is a changing place and genetic diversity and genetic variety are important.  A promising new variety of crop should be valued, just as Vandana values her specially selected genetic stock.  At the same time the specifics of those genetics should be valued, and if the need arises to spread those genetics, be it through hybridization, natural selection, or genetic modification, it should not be stopped simply out of fear of the latest technology.   

Should we fear these as well?

   

 

The problem with footprint calculators

I took the Global Footprint calculator from the Global Footprint Network.  I scored a horribly unsustainable but relatively low (for an American) 3.9, but only because my life is a little more minimalist than I'd care to admit.  I'm always a bit skeptical about these ecological footprint and carbon calculators.  Oh I like the general concept, and there is a need to reduce our global impact.  But it seems that the more dishonest calculators are programmed to reinforce a political agenda while the more honest calculators fall victim to global generalizations at the expense of the facts on the ground. 

For example, this footprint calculator valued the difference of a vegan vs. a pure carnivore at 0.8 earths (with 50% local food).  That's a pretty large gulf considering that a well rounded vegan diet requires the long distant import of a wide variety of vegetables...especially if you live in Tucson (A vegan friend of mine hated living in Tucson and found paradise in Portland, Oregon).  Of course global meat production is known for its inefficiencies.  A 2006 United Nation report, titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” calculated that the global beef production contributed to about 18% of the worlds green house gasses.  The report exaggerated a little in that it added in slash and burn clear cutting of the rainforest and the CO2 produced in fertilizer production, but it was still a damning report.  Based on that data beef can be viewed rather negatively, however, that was a global average.  The United States is very efficient in meat production...with the EPA estimating a global annual greenhouse contribution of 3-5%.  Within the US there is also a wide variety of efficiencies, from feed lot dairy steers to open range cattle.  I'd argue that rangeland forage and water are a renewable resources, and sustaining that system conserves and maximizes biodiversity.  So meat from these sources would have a very low footprint cost.  Of course I am looking at the extremes of the calculator (vegan vs. carnivore), but the gist of the calculator is that meat is always bad and vegan is always good, and that's simply not true.

X Diamond Ranch in the White Mountains

Another generalization within this calculator, and many others like it, is the view on energy costs.  Here the obsessive global mantra is that renewable is good and everything else is bad.  When electricity consumption is set to $466 a month the footprint impact of just that energy is 3.3 earths without renewable energy, but only 0.4 earths with renewable energy.  Now renewable energy can be a low cost alternative.  Minus the manufacturing costs and transport, once installed there is little addition impact.  As solar panels on roofs this would lower a person's impact, but that is not how we do renewable energy in this country.  No, we crisscross the wilderness with invasive weed spreading roads for bird slaughtering towers and clear cut acres upon acres for solar panels.  That energy is renewable, but it is about as far from green and minimizing your footprint as you can get.  

 

Ivanpah Solar Power Plant.  5 square miles of clear cut Mojave Desert

Now I know the point isn't accuracy at the individual level.  The point is to demonstrate that our lifestyle is not sustainable and that various parameters we all live by impact our unsustainability differently.  I get that, and I get that the general infrastructure and services of our nation make us unsustainable by default.  A calculator can be a good guide in understanding where we as individuals and we as a nation need to change to better our future, especially as we approach 10 billion people.  We do have to start somewhere and there are steps we can all take to reduce our global impact.  However, the calculator still needs to be relevant at the local level to be influential enough to convince people to change.  To do that the calculator needs to be very careful to avoid generalities that don't represent facts on the ground.