The necessary role of livestock in regenerative agriculture

[ForFoodsSake]

Unfortunately, once you get sucked in to this debate it seems to goes on forever and a definite conclusion seems elusive, for now at least, however I think the evidence tends to point towards either such cattle being bad for the planet, or inconclusive.

I agree that it certainly seems inconclusive. Thanks for your elaborated response (all of you actually, I really appreciate the civil dialogue and the effort you've all put in to respond).

I definitely have lots more research to do. I think Simon Fairlie's stance, which is much more nuanced than Savory's sensationalist rhetoric, may hold some credence. He states that we drastically need to cut down on meat, but that livestock do ultimately have a role to play.

He talks about the concept of a default livestock system

Fairlie stresses the ecological importance of eating less meat. But while Foer believes meat consumption can never be reduced enough, Fairlie pinpoints the bare minimum where reducing meat consumption any further leads to massively diminished returns because doing so means refusing free meat. Fairlie calls this point a default livestock system, which he defines as “one that provides meat, dairy and other animal products which arise as the integral co-product of an agricultural system dedicated to the provision of sustainable vegetable nourishment.” (42)

Under default livestock, animals are not raised for food and food alone. Their meat, eggs and milk are a welcome byproduct of their conscripted aid in the farming of vegetables. The animals provide labor, they bring otherwise inaccessible nutrients into the food chain through manure and they serve as a food bank. No dedicated crops are grown for them—their diets are mainly waste or grass—but if there is a surplus, it goes to the animals. And then when they need to, humans kill the animals and make their withdrawal.

http://letthemeatmeat.com/post/2773863502/meat-a-benign-extravagance-book-review

Speaking of George Monbiot - this was his response to Simon Fairlie's book: "I was wrong about Veganism. Let them eat meat, but farm it properly" (article below) Do any of you know if he still holds this position?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/meat-production-veganism-deforestation

[brimstoneSalad]

Speaking of George Monbiot - this was his response to Simon Fairlie's book: "I was wrong about Veganism. Let them eat meat, but farm it properly" (article below) Do any of you know if he still holds this position?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/meat-production-veganism-deforestation

He does not still hold this position; he clarified on twitter recently.

Actually, I meant to mention somewhere (been busy) that we'll probably be doing a Q&A by email with Monbiot later this year. I'll post a thread on it soliciting questions in December.

He talks about the concept of a default livestock system

Fairlie stresses the ecological importance of eating less meat. But while Foer believes meat consumption can never be reduced enough, Fairlie pinpoints the bare minimum where reducing meat consumption any further leads to massively diminished returns because doing so means refusing free meat. Fairlie calls this point a default livestock system, which he defines as “one that provides meat, dairy and other animal products which arise as the integral co-product of an agricultural system dedicated to the provision of sustainable vegetable nourishment.” (42)

Under default livestock, animals are not raised for food and food alone. Their meat, eggs and milk are a welcome byproduct of their conscripted aid in the farming of vegetables. The animals provide labor, they bring otherwise inaccessible nutrients into the food chain through manure and they serve as a food bank. No dedicated crops are grown for them—their diets are mainly waste or grass—but if there is a surplus, it goes to the animals. And then when they need to, humans kill the animals and make their withdrawal.

http://letthemeatmeat.com/post/2773863502/meat-a-benign-extravagance-book-review

All of that would be true if we lived in a society with a medieval level of technology, but none of it is true/useful today.
Animals are not better at storing calories than modern food processing and packaging; there's considerable loss in that storage. What's more, today we have things like ethanol production that are even better at absorbing excess production.

Likewise, animals are not very useful as agricultural labor in the developed world (we really don't need to be tilling anyway).
Cows, whatever the number, are not good for the environment. They're not going to beat the very limited tractor use needed in no-till farming.

And contrary to Faielie's claims it's not safe to feed pigs garbage and feces and corpses or whatever and then eat them. Prion diseases are serious.
Chickens are not that helpful in vegetable farming to be worth keeping them; they'll wreak havoc on your crop too, and they probably still need supplemental feed unless your crop has plague levels of insects.

[Jamie in Chile]

What do you mean "this issue"? Just for avoidance of doubt - do you mean the Savory/Monbiot debate, or do you mean dryland farming. I'm not really the expert on any of this although I suppose I could summarise the arguments that I made in this post. Let me think about it.

The general issue of benevolent grazing and speculative environmentally beneficial beef production.

I am not going to start the wiki article on this now. I've got a lot going on at the moment and suddenly got busy. If the other wiki articles I'm doing work out OK we could perhaps look at this again some time early next year.

[brimstoneSalad]

What do you mean "this issue"? Just for avoidance of doubt - do you mean the Savory/Monbiot debate, or do you mean dryland farming. I'm not really the expert on any of this although I suppose I could summarise the arguments that I made in this post. Let me think about it.

The general issue of benevolent grazing and speculative environmentally beneficial beef production.

I am not going to start the wiki article on this now. I've got a lot going on at the moment and suddenly got busy. If the other wiki articles I'm doing work out OK we could perhaps look at this again some time early next year.

Sounds good.
I think since we have the #NameTheTrait argument in there which is kind of negative and down on a (bad) vegan argument, focusing on the good pro-vegan arguments seems smart.

I saw your update, looks good. Should I wait for your second draft to add in some things?