Holistic Grazing Management Alvaro Rigel Gallegos Rivero, Ralf Otterpohl “The technology we wield today has greatly expanded the ways in which we can alter our environment and that, combined with the exponential increase in our numbers, has magnified our potential for causing damage. How, more than ever, we require the ability to make decisions that simultaneously consider economic, social and environmental realities, both short and long term. Given an appropriate framework for organizing management and decision making, we should be able to do this.” (Savory 1998, p.7) Abstract The demand for food increases globally and this increase is exponential. To supply such a vast demand, farmers try to intensify the productivity of their land and livestock. Measures are mostly taken based on short term outcomes. This type of production is mostly not sustainable. Soil is depleted from its nutrients and organic matter and erosion is increasing dramatically, while productivity is dropping. Livestock can have a devastating impact on natural resources, but it also has the capability to restore the health of an ecosystem with substantial economic benefits. Holistic Grazing Management (HGM) has been developed as an ecosystem approach by Allan Savory. Pasture land is subdivided into small paddocks with a one to a few days of grass supply for the whole herd. The choice of paddocks follows a scientific approach and requires good knowledge of the characteristics of land and climate. Empirical practices in several regions of the world show promising and inspiring examples on how agricultural management can create a balance between productivity and ecology. Animal droppings in conventional pasturing will dry out and often be lost to the humus, while in HGM the droppings are coming in much higher volume and will be worked into the ground by hooves. Practical research of Joel Salatin has supplemented HGM with combining cattle grazing the paddocks with utilization of the same plot 3 days later for pastured chicken. These have different food preferences and eliminate parasites in the cow dung by feeding on them, too. Keywords: Holistic Grazing Management, Livestock, Sustainable Farming, Ecosystem Restoration This is a working paper reflecting ongoing work. Comments and suggestions are welcome, please refer them to [email protected]. The final version of this paper will be published in the RUVIVAL Publication Series (https://www.ruvival.de/reading/). For quotes and citations, please use the final version, or ask for special permission. Holistic Grazing Management by Alvaro Rigel Gallegos Rivero and Ralf Otterpohl https://www.ruvival.de/livestock/ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. ruvival.de Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................................... 2 Conventional Livestock Production: Environmental Impact ................................................................... 3 Holistic Grazing Management - Concept ............................................................................................... 3 Scientific Skepticism .................................................................................................................................... 4 Ecosystem Restoration ................................................................................................................................ 5 Other Approaches ...................................................................................................................................... 6 Economic Impact .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 References .................................................................................................................................................. 10 Introduction Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems (Steinfeld et al. 2006). It is important to understand the relationship between an increasing demand for livestock products, erosion and exploitation of water and soil resources. Holistic Grazing Management (HGM) is an interesting option for sustainable farming. This method is at the same time a way out of ethically inacceptable livestock farming, which gives animals free range and natural fodder. This ensures product quality, whilst reducing the ecological footprint, especially important in times of a rising demand for grass-fed livestock (Pollan 2006). Cereals roots and tubers are losing their share in average diets to meat, dairy products and oil crops (FAO 2017; Harrison 2002). Between 1960 and 1999, meat consumption in developing countries rose by 150 %, and that of milk and dairy products could rise by further 44 % (Harrison 2002, p. 5). Between 2000-2010 there was a global growth in production of meat of 2,6 % and a 2,5 % of eggs, milk, and processed milk (FAO 2013, pp. 172–6). In developing countries, the demand grows faster than production, causing a trade deficit. Meat production will rise steeply from 1.2 million tons in the late 1990’s to 5.9 million tons in 2030, despite the fast growing exports from producing countries in Latin America, while in milk and dairy products the rise will be less steep but still considerable, from 20 million to 39 million tons per year. It is projected that the growth will be boosted by industrial enterprises. Production from recent years shows a growth twice as fast as that from traditional mixed farming systems and more than six times faster than grazing systems (FAO 2013; FAO 2017; Harrison 2002). The shift towards unsustainable practices takes place on different scales, from small-scale farmer driven deforestation to large scale deforestation driven by distant urban growth (Biello 2010). Conventional Livestock Production: Environmental Impact Livestock’s role in deforestation is of particular importance, especially in tropical rainforests, where the largest net losses of forests and resulting carbon losses occur. In tropical Latin America 2 for example, land used for extensive grazing has increased continuously over the past decades and most of this increase has been at the expense of forests (Steinfeld et al. 2006). Rainforest conversion is dominated by the establishment primarily of pastures, but also cropland, irrespective of the characteristics of soils, climate regimes, and topography. In addition, soybean and cereal production primarily destined for feed production has unleashed a wave of events leading to the destruction of natural habitats over vast areas through deforestation (Steinfeld et al. 2006). The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing, among other, to water pollution, eutrophication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilisers and pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of water resources above and below ground. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed (Matthews 2006). Livestock is a source for air pollution, causing about 50 % of methane, 24 % of nitrous oxides emissions and 26 % carbon dioxide (FAO 2018; Gerber et al. 2013). Holistic Grazing Management – Concept Holistic Grazing was first proposed by Allan Savory, according to whom holistic resource management is a wildlife management technique, even where there are no livestock on the land (Savory 1983, Rangelands, p.155): ‘It is a watershed management technique even where there are no livestock on the land. It is riparian and fish management technique. It is also a method of managing livestock on the land whereby livestock can be used to reverse desertification process very economically with or without fencing. It is also a method of managing livestock on ranges or on planted pastures whereby greater production can be achieved both from the land and the animas and with greater profitability than conventionally. It is a method of making conventional range management techniques economically sound there they were economically unsound.’ According to HGM concepts, agriculture in its commercial form is producing more eroding soil than food, while transportation and energy play an equal, if not lesser role, as ecosystem deterioration on GHG emissions. The problem with ecosystem deterioration is that, due to human intervention, the ecosystem cycles are already broken and cannot preserve natural cycles which support life. The Holistic Grazing view is that livestock needs to be managed correctly to preserve these cycles and thus, the ecosystems (Coughlin 2013). Grass that is not consumed does not biologically decay; it turns into dead dry matter, woodier in texture, which is no longer consumed by animals. Since it has not decayed, it oxidizes over long periods of time, not allowing the natural process of decay to occur and therefore not allowing 3 new grass to grow during the next year or growing season. This eventually smothers and kills the grasses in the area, allowing for woodier vegetation to grow, clearing soil from grass and therefore releasing carbon