Regenerative Grazing Debunked
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2021
- Will regenerative or holistic grazing really save the world from climate change? A look at the recent study on White Oak Pastures, claims of carbon negative beef, and alternative solutions.
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Quantis 2019 Report on White Oak Pastures:
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Quantis Nestle Bottle Report: www.nestle-watersna.com/sites...
NY Time Article on Polyface Farms:
www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/op...
EPA's Methane Global Warming Potential vs CO2:
www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/unde...
Methane Emission Undercounted, NYU Professor Hayek:
www.issuelab.org/resources/36...
26% of Terrestrial Surface for Grazing:
www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm
38% Of Habitable Land for Livestock:
ourworldindata.org/global-lan...
Protein Emissions, Nuts Average Carbon Negative:
ourworldindata.org/less-meat-...
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Crop Rotation Sequestration Nature Study:
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The point of regenerative grazing is not to grow beef, it is to grow grass. If a farmer is focused on the former they're not doing regenerative grazing.
it's about the soil actually
@@elloohno1349 because grasslands generate soil.
@@lewissmart7915 actually you have it backwards. Soil comes before forage.
@@slk1451 you can't build the soil without growing things in it.
Actually any organic matter can create soil. But in the case of regenerative farming, it’s all about maintaining SOIL health through rotating crops or grazing.
Hey, first off thanks for covering regen ag, I practice regen grazing along with veganic ag, and I agree with a few if your points like land usage and whatnot. Overall I’d like to see more vegans as I believe we do have to much meat demand. That being said I believe you made a few critical errors here.
1st off, methane, so the biggest thing in this section was the omission of the action of methanotrophs in your analysis. Healthy soil has much much more of these and they do an incredible job of gobbling up methane produced by ruminants, so much so that if the soil is healthy enough it can eliminate almost all the methane that would’ve made it into the atmosphere. 2nd this is much more minor but it’s true none the less, I’m sure most of you guys have heard of the red seaweed food additive that can eliminate up to 99% of ruminant methane production. Couple that with fact that seaweed is literally the best way to sequester carbon in the world and whose production takes zero land and actually creates habitat in the sea, seems like a win win. Now the reason I say it’s more of a minor point is because it’s not commercially available yet, but it will be very soon, probably by the end of the year. So I don’t fault you for not bringing it up. Also when you started talking about how methane production you started talking about all animal ag and said that were likely underestimating methane output, but those systems don’t compare to regen ag systems due to the formerly mentioned methanotroph action. I think the reason for the variant between the top down and bottom up analysis is the action of methanotrophs and their complete lack of them in conventional feed lots.
Now one thing that I think is a big disservice in this video is how you did not mention how incredibly degraded our soils actually are, the UN put us at 55 years of harvests left. The reason I think this is such a disservice is because nothing has shown the efficiency of soil regeneration like these grazing techniques. You mention vegan permaculture and rightly say we need to limit tillage, but unfortunately you failed to mention how much slower these processes are and more importantly how they are not applicable they are to large swaths of countries due to climate. Also you didn’t mention how they aren’t scalable to large farms, And are primarily only applicable to small market garden style farms. I can go into detail on any of that further as I’ve utilized a lot of those practices for years now.
You were absolutely right about carbon saturation, but we have such vast amounts of degraded soil that I think we should address that pressing problem 1st. Especially in light of the livestock dietary advancements I mentioned earlier. Also regen ag very typically uses lest implements than standard ag, you also endorsed roller crimping cover crops, and what is powering those roller crimpers? Fossil fuels right? In fact vegan ag at scale will lead to a marked uptick in fossil fuel usage, another problem with using large implements is their soil compaction effects.
All your Land usage facts were on point, except a little mis directed, for one thing since a lot of these practices are mob grazing and resting land for 60+days they actually act as natural habitat for wildlife just as much as livestock habitat. A lot of systems are designed to work within the natural habitat and use silvopasturing techniques that plant a lot of trees and turn straight pastures into more savana like habitats. I am currently grazing in silvopasture right now.
Your critiques of the chicken meat produced by these systems are again correct but again a bit misdirected. So first off the chickens provide a real jobs on the farm, their main action is to follow the ruminants and scratch apart their poop to get at fly larvae, stopping the pest cycle, in doing this they also spread the manure for better fertilization, that all being said by pasturing these chickens you can actually reduce grain usage by 20%-30%, all this is meaningless to vegans as the chicken you eat eats 100% less grain as you don’t eat chicken. I say this so I can frame my next point. There are regenerative grain production practices that not only build soil, but also stack production of meat on top. This is called pasture cropping and is so versatile it can be practiced in cold or warm climates from North Dakota to Australia. So combined with the grain reduction from pasturing I think this is a great way to be more sustainable.
I’m sorry this is so long, it’s just an incredibly nuanced. Anyway thanks for covering regen ag.
Chickens are about the only environmentally stable animal to be used in agriculture (and even they have limits), but anyone who advocates for using large animals like cows or pigs for regenerative agriculture has no idea what they are talking about. No amount of seaweed can ignore the realities of large animals damage to soil like compaction, erosion, and mycelium network disruption.
As someone who majored in environmental sciences and minored in soil science, you seem a bit delusional.
@@cabinboy5282 I am very glad that you have those degrees, I can tell you that everything you said is true about mycelium, compaction, erosion when it comes to standard grass fed operations and certainly in CAFO.
Its not in any of the science and the massive amounts of soil testing I have done on my farm, and the other regen farms I visit. Its literally the stated Goals of regen ag to increase Mycelium and decrease erosion, and improve Soil compaction, which is a non issue when you have the thick forage for animals to walk in, and the root growth stimulation breaks up and aerates the soil, so it actually accomplishes the opposite to what you say it does, at least in my case, and every case I have personally seen. Now all of my anecdote is from my farm and the results from it, and the 40 other regen operations I have seen results and soil tests from, literally none suffered from what you are describing. I could get on board with what you were saying if I had not seen the opposite in all my years doing this, and from the results on my farm.
I understand why anecdote form some shlub like myself would not be convincing to you.
I guess you're right about permaculture but permaculture isn't really in a place to endorse or preclude animals.
If grazing animals were the antithesis to permaculture why would an almost plurality of permaculture practitioners who is stewarding large amounts of land use grazing animals? Maybe we could ask them why they unnecessarily use grazing animals like this and destroy there land? Its not for the money I can assure you that, There is an old saying that the only money in permaculture is in teaching it.
Its funny you mention chickens, I completely disagree with you there, They require a large amount of grain, I put up with the externalized impact of chickens because they do so much other good stuff on the farm like pest and parasite control, composting, fertilizing, Light tilling.
I would like to know you’re ideal way to produce food? As someone who studied soil science like yourself I am curious your opinion. I am not one to parrot the most grandiose claims of regen ag advocates, but To me even if Regen ag had half the capabilities it says it does, in light of the alternatives, it’s vastly superior.
I wonder why mic didnt like your comment...
Thanks for sharing that. I am vegan myself but I fully support the regenerative agriculture movement. To me it seems logical that bigger animals are part of restoring the eco systems, just depends on how they are managed. I don't know much about farming but I fully resonate with the philosophy behind this movement which is about honoring and respecting nature.
I'd rather see people eat regenerative meat once or twice a week than vegans eating fake gmo meat. For me it's all about quality.
@@KatinkaLucas exactly, I’m all for a reduction in meat overall, whether that’s with more vegans or with more people just reducing there personal consumption.
Given that such a large percentage of soils around the world are degraded and that regenerative farming can rebuild soil so fast, for example 25cm in 3 years in Ridgedale, isn't this still a good thing? Can growing only crops with no animal inputs do that? And anyway much of the world 's farmland is not suitable for crops. I don't want to get into the morality of eating animals but if people are still eating meat then surely less and better quality is a good way to go. If people eat significantly less than the more land required for better meat argument becomes irrelivant. There seems to be no universal agreement on what regenerative agriculture is and I think you have to look at every possible aspect. For example some regenerative enterprises are far more diverse than the one mentioned. Some are practicing agroforestry and silvopasture. I think small scale regenerative farms based on holistic management and permaculture principles can be very exciting. The potential for increasing biodiversity on such farms is amazing and some insects require the animals, their footprints and manure for part of their lifecycle.
I don't see a moral argument in eating meat or not eating meat other than the way factory farms operate, but to eat meat or not to not eat meat is meaningless on moral grounds. I see plants as just as alive as animals, ive been a vegetable/medicinal plant farmer for the last 8 years...and if you learn to listen carefully you will understand the world of plants, its just that plants are less like a human than an animal, we seem to project aliveness on others that look and act more like we do because we understand that but just because we dont understand the way plants act doesn't mean they're less alive and deserving of life. Take for example the oxalic acid in spinach, to me that communicates the the plant is not interested in being consumed and they are producing this substance to deter humans, to me this is clearly a communication defense mechanism in the same way that a human would say "no" or an animal would cry out, its just a different communication style. I do think there is a difference energetically in consuming animals and plants. meat is heavier but has probably more nutrition overall and vegetables are lighter, maybe more spiritual in energetic experience. Both are valuable and offer very different things but I can't see a moral argument worth having here
@@cressraciti Interesting argument, but I think it's a matter of scale. I think you, I, and vegans would all agree that minimising unnecessary suffering is/should be a common goal.
If that's the case, then even if we ascribe as equal the perceived suffering of plants, animals, and humans, then seeing as raising animals for slaughter is a far less efficient method of producing food than simply skipping the middle-man and eating plants directly, by choosing vegetarian/vegan, we can drastically cut down on unnecessary suffering of both plants and animals.
Don't forget that the grasses that ruminants feed on are alive too, and what we fondly recall as the "freshly mown lawn smell", is actually a warning to nearby grass that danger is afoot.
The only way to completely eliminate anthropogenic suffering is to end the species, which I don't think anyone here is arguing, but when there's an option available that's more ethical, sustainable, healthier, and (in must countries) cheaper, than doesn't it make sense to choose that option?
Well said! Its sad that these types of videos are being put out... They really do more harm than good for the animals (and the Planet) they claim to want to help. This does not even BEGIN to cover the many wonderful types of sustainable and regenerative farming practices that are out there and how much they are helping the planet on MULTIPLE levels, let alone how much better the lives of animals would be if factory farming were replaced by the methods used on small regenerative ag farms and permaculture farms. Thank you for sharing!
@@stardust4459 it's joyful anytime the truth is being shared. So no, it's not sad that these truth videos come out.
@@cressraciti love this
Such anger from both sides. No wonder humans can not get on a sustainable path. Until we can figure out how to get along with our own species, it will continue to be impossible to co-exist with all of the other organisms that we MUST SHARE this planet with for much more than a mere blip in history.
Thanks
I agree we need to get along but the two sides are not a level-playing field in terms of destruction. Is it wrong to get angry about selfishness and egos that put taste above ethics and survival of the planet, preventing pandemics etc? Would it be wrong for slaves to get angry about their oppressors? Not exactly the same of course...
It’s like putting Solar Panels on the roof of a Coal electricity plant to power its lights!
Hahahahahahaha omg 🤣
Mic, the rocket scientist doesn't also seem to realize that Quantis did both the LCA for Impossible Foods and WOP. Same exact company. The 2019 numbers were also part of the the 2020 peer reviewed papers. Same analysis. Mic is such a dumb ass some times.
Funny how Manic Mic and his so-called expert don't realize that CO2(e) in both GWP 20 and GWP100 are both flawed methodologies. Why? Methane is a short lived gas compared to CO2, so they're not equivalent. That's why Dr. Myles Allen and his team at Oxford developed GWP* to account for these lifetime disparities. Methane in the troposphere is constantly being oxidized by hydroxyl radicals back to cyclical CO2 and water.
But the WOP LCA didn't use GWP* because that's not the scientific convention. Using GWP 100 is. If the LCA used the more accurate GWP* method, WOP's numbers would have been about 4 to 5 times BETTER.
Mic the manic vegan also needs to learn how the microbial carbon pump works. What gets saturated is the labile carbon in the top 12 or so inches. But the microbial carbon pump continues to pump out root exudates that feed microbes (bacteria and fungi) that turn over every 7 to 14 days. Those microbes become the necromass which is the basis for additional soil organic matter.....that guess what? HOLDS MORE SOIL ORGANIC CARBON. Soil isn't a finite bath tub....As long as there's photosynthesis, in healthy soils there's always more SOM formation, both POM and MAOM...so would help if Mic the Manic Vegan had a clue as to what the newer microbial soil science paradigms are. His commentary is comically stupid.
His expert has the bottom-up and top down methods backwards. Bottom-up over counts...top down is showing the opposite.... when proper inventories of C12, C13 C14 carbon are accounted for, most top down analysis is showing that the largest source of increasing CH4 in the atmosphere is coming from coal bed gas and fracked gas NOT enteric methane. There however was some confusion with these different carbon isotopes in 2016, since these newer fossil fuels have both signatures from biogenic and thermogenic sources of CH4 so they were originally mis-attributed to animal agriculture. There's also a lot of flux with CH4 emissions from a number of sources, and CH4 amounts are also contingent on the availability of hydroxyl radicals [OH]. So once again, Mic's analysis is really bad. .
I understand there are companies taking advantage of the green idea while maintaining those bad practices, but grazing animals are part of the ecossystem in many areas of the world. It is possible to mimic their natural existence with domestic animals, maintaining those ecological functions that restore land and are beneficial to biodiversity. In Portugal we have massive problem of undergrazing because all shepherd disapeared and that's one of the problems causing major wildfires. I have sheep in my land and over time I can tell a difference on the biodiversity of insects and herbs growing here. The world was not all covered in forests, there were meadows and prairies that were maintained with herbivores, the largest they are the more they are able to maintain those areas by grazing and trampling small bushes and trees. Think of bisons in America or horses, aurochs, also bisons here in Europe. And think about all the plant associated with pastures that wouldn't exist if pastures weren't a natural habitat. Without those animal all would be covered by forest before human intervention in tha landscape.
Exactly those areas should be forests...
Before human intervention there were much more forests, and people burn down those exactly for the reason to help big herbivores spread. This is a common practice since we could control fire.
@@FreeFromAllThings so you mean there were no natural prairies or natural herds, for example of bison in america, or zebras, antilopes, buffalo etc in africa?
@@anateresamatos6212 in many parts of Africa this grazing is natural, because the climate wouldn't allow forests to grow. But yes in Northern America, prairies are "made" by humans, mostly to help the bisons spread.
You're completely overlooking that regenerative ruminate agriculture doesn't have to evolve eating animals. If you let Buffalo wonder around the plains you get 8 foot stands of native grass and diverse ecosystems with little rainfall, but if you try to make that same preserve without Buffalo you get an ecosystem that's constantly returning to sand desert ie the dust bowl but slower.
You can achieve the same effect by forcing cows to move regularly between small blocks which has the advantage of working better to create small grasslands at the cost of more human interaction. All the homesteaders I've met that use this method claim it actually cut their workload in half because moving the cows between temporary barriers is easier than having to maintain everything needed to grow food (tractors are awful and break a lot). But on the other hand all of them were basically breaking even selling a couple cows at 4x the market rate so it's not exactly viable unless there is a government subsidy for habitat restoration, or your a homesteader that just wants to go off grid instead of make money.
Farmers need to learn to sell and market. They don’t have a viability issue they have a branding issue. Liver king gets branding. He’s selling pills and protein for 50-60 bucks a hit. Making bank. Branding and increasing the value of your product with words and video will be key.
I'm from New Zealand, You are right - there were no mammals in NZ prior to human settlement (except some native bats) , however we had / have a very diverse avian population. Over the millennia of Isolation in the absence of mammalian predation, some of these developed into the largest birds in recent history eg Moa (ratite), Haast Eagle. NZ is also an Island nation so lots of sea birds - all in all there is / was a lot of bird instigated soil biological activity seed spread in droppings e.t.c. I think you are missing the point when you say NZ is an example of how animals are not needed for soil fertility.
Also one of Savorys points is that herd animals are most important in arid climates, the more humidity=the less grazing animals are needed for the plants lifecycles.
So correct me if i'm wrong but New Zealand is pretty humid on average, so he needs to account for that as well.
@@larllarfleton New Zealand has an oceanic climate and gets a LOT of rain. So he's definitely missing something.
This lady gives is a great presentation about her farm and how regenerative grazing can do many good things in NZ,
ruclips.net/video/EauOfH9U-9Y/видео.html
That's silly because that's a small country. Murica had more bison than cows today...
@@larllarfleton Aridity is not an essential ingredient - however arid zones can go brittle and desertify the fastest. Savory's point is that herbivores are essential for the quickest reclamation of any soil that has been degraded by human activity. As long as they have something to eat they will improve the soil biology.
Hi Mic, I think we could all benefit from a live stream of you and I talking about your false claims about regenerative agriculture. I live in a community that practices true regenerative agriculture. I have over ten years of living here in the lifestyle. Much of your information is incorrect. It is far better for the environment to eat regenerative food including beef, chick, fish, shrimp, and pork than supporting the corporate monoculture that is currently destroying the world. My real name is JUSTIN DOLAN, I live in the first house on the right at St. Michael's Sustainable Community. I have attended four Universities and lectured at others. I was a Major crimes investigator and Vegan.
and yet those aren't the only two dietary options (regenerative animal vs monoculture conventional ag (which is mainly done to produce animal feed, not human food anyhow) ). and have you heard of regenerative cropping? It's way less emissions intensive than regenerative cattle per calorie of edible food.
the facts around methane emissions are unavoidable for cattle production, and yes, EPA numbers are too-low. the environmental footprint of beef (regenerative or otherwise) are vastly higher per calorie than fruit & vegetables and even grains when you multiply out the land-use, water-use, energy-inputs, toxic outflows (like manure ponds) and GHG emissions. Order of magnitude ~100x fruit and vegetables.
yes regenerative has benefits, but Alan Savory has massively oversold them, especially the great big lie he tells when he says "its the only way to save mankind (from climate change)". He's a snake oil salesman, who happily murdered thousands of elephants on a hunch and now brags about his "error".
@@bashful228 yes but if farmers rotationally graze there would be no need for farmers to grow food for agriculture. Also a lot of his stats are off in this vid.
@@bashful228 Hi, I'm a farmer. First, only small percentage of land is usable for vegetable farming, considering the need of irrigation too. It means pumps and so on. Second the vegetables are more productive, but only because they are "miners", they require huge amounts of impunts. Third, theese imputs usually are animal imputs (blood meal, feather meal, fish meal, bone meal and manure). You could change it for less rich compost, but compost create a huge amount of CO2 emissions that vegans never take in account. Fourth vegetable production is seasonal, so it mean huge amount of shipping for long distances, while animal products aren't seasonal and can be local. Usage of land is not a point, some soils can produce only grasses and you can harvest only small amounts of it without depleting the soil, in such situation you can't farm vegetables or crops, herbivore animals are the best way to utilize the grass production. Some how now that there are a lot less herbivores than in the last 100 000yers, the methan production is so much worse, but wasn't a problem for thousands of years? So what would you eat in winter without shipping veggies and fruits from across the world? pasta, bread and sugar?
Agriculture is unfortunately orders of magnitude more complicated than 99% of people think. Soil types, clima, weather, amount and type of imputs and outputs for each crop... if you don't know theese facts you shouldn't really comment as if you have "THE SOLUTION".
I understand being vegan for ethical reasons, but there is no sustanaibility or regeneration in veganism.
@@Darynifiction This is an excellent summary, thank you.
@@bashful228 CH⁴ missions related to meat production are dealt with by the nature of the pastures ruminants need (hydroxil ions). Let's see if you can get through the Science. Walter Jehne providing all the answers.
ruclips.net/video/123y7jDdbfY/видео.html
No mention of the benefits of manure fertilizers vs. synthetic petroleum based fertilizers.. Currently we are using oil to fertilize mono crops and THAT is very unsustainable..
ruclips.net/video/Ce40y8clI4M/видео.html
Lol... people believe this nonsense.
the crops waster for the concentration camps feeding !? over 80 percent of all resources are wasted and stolen for feeding and fattening concentration camps and breeding-knifing corpses WHILE starvation exists.
watch the video.
You've killed what little french I know 😭
The "eau" letters together make an "oh" sound
But otherwise great stuff man :) Keep it up
Guess meat-eaters don't need Cinderella or Snow White when they can believe in fairy tales about sustainable animal farming
So true. Lolz
👏👏👏🤣🤣🤣👍👍👍
Sustainable animal farming only exists in the imagination of non vegans and anti vegans. It doesn't actually happen in real life.
@@davidthescottishvegan so how did millions of bison live on American prairie??
@@frederiksmees5503, how many millions? And how many humans were there on the whole continent before 1500 CE? On a related note, what generally is relationship between the populations of herbivores/grazing herds and predators?
Beans not beings. ✌🏾
@Vegan Games
Groan.
(Good... I'm impressed but...)
Groan.
🥰
Oh my I just loved this word play
Love this!
Beans are disgusting though.
@@83uwb
Worse yet...
the peasants are revolting.
I'll get my coat.
😁
Factory farming is actually more eco-friendly because is uses less land, not to mention that it’s the only way to produce as much flesh as the planet is consuming for the price tags we pay.
Denial is a stage of grief. Just give it up and go vegan!
Land usage is important but not even close to the right metric for environmentally sustainable.
@@wadebacca my point was that the only viable choice we have is to switch to farming plants only.
We could be producing the same amount of food we are now with just 30% of the land we’re using, not to mention distributing it better and with renewable energy.
@@PBandJames1 it’s only viable if our soil is healthy, our soil is not healthy and vegan ag cannot appropriately address this. Vegan ag is like driving your car without changing your oil, you could say “ I’m eliminating 5 qts of oil every 5,000 Kms” but all your doing is hastening the cars demise. I’ve been researching and practicing permaculture for over a decade.
@@wadebacca I haven’t studied this field much. Let’s assume what you’re saying is true: humans will need the aid of ruminants, even in carefully planned permaculture systems proportionate to our needs.
There’s still no ethical excuse to not make that a vegan system. We don’t need to exploit, control, or eat animals. We do it for pleasure and profit.
@@PBandJames1 yeah, I absolutely see where your coming from, I do it for self sustainability reasons, I live in Canada with no access to locally grown fresh vegetables for many months, and I raise sheep for compost for my garden as much as for meat and milk. Putting that aside, let’s say we are raising animals for ecological purposes with no slaughter, these animals naturally breed in high numbers because of predation. So our options are to breed these animals and just let them get jacked by predators, or curtail there breeding. Breeding instincts are the strongest instinct in many of these animals, I question whether it’s more moral to allow for the conscious suffering of curtailing there breeding over just killing them, which entails no suffering, I fully admit that this is unjust killing, but life circumstances are not always just, especially when the alternatives are wild animal predation which entails conscious suffering and death, curtailing breeding which entails years of conscious suffering leading to eventual death, which all life does in the end, or just killing and eating them which entails just death.
Am I missing another option?
Also loved the vid and the info.
I love pigs. I read about pigs in the book Animal Liberation. It was the first animal that I stopped eating. It has been four years now. There is a better, more compassionate, and more loving way to live our lives.
I have a hard time believing cows are a problem variable in the equation. Looking at North America prior to cows there were millions of bison. Animals and plants have a pretty symbiotic relationship. I can much more easily buy into other sources of waste, excess and pollution being problems.
We have less cows now then we have is past generations, people are also eating less meat.
@@dabbking in the US, sure, globally however, the cow population has gone up 50% since 1960s
@@OatmealTheCrazy also there is a lot more cars globally now
10:07 wouldn't the plant growth also sequester methane? these numbers seem off. Also, are they really feeding animals from off-site sources EVERY year or just the first year(s) whilst they re-establish some of the ecosystem?
@@christopherbeddoe406 chickens are monogastric though... They have one stomach. Besides, video said “mostly fed”, not exclusively fed. Looks like you’re looking for a reason to be angry.
@Tyelar Rhead methane breaks down in 15 years
@@Geogaddii ruclips.net/video/QMvpop6BdBA/видео.html&ab_channel=SavoryInstitute watch this WHOLE lecture then get back to me!
no plants do not digest methane. there's sub subsoil bacteria that eat methane as it percolates up through the soil from anaerobic decaying organic matter down below… but the idea these digest all the cattle methane even in regenerative systems (which are better in lots of ways) has never been established in science and there is a significant amount of evidence that the opposite is true, methane production in regenerative systems is still significant.
@@collinmallett1206 Savory is a snake oil salesman, a man who happily killed tens of thousands of elephants and now brags about it as a "mistake".
Great video Mic
You have debunked one farm’s claims, not the entire method. Regenerative grazing should be used in CONJUNCTION with regenerative crop farming, that is how the system works. If conventional crop farmers start to incorporate grazing animals, and conventional livestock farms start planting crops, you can easily get to 2.5 times the area for the same amount of animals because the area is shared between two previously separated farming sectors. Your whole approach is positioned by your own wold view and drips with bias.
No bias. Using animals for grazing does not require us to eat those animals. It can be a symbiosis relationship.
So needed because of that new Netflix documentary Kiss The Ground. I wonder if you can do a shorter version in layman’s terms in order to share it with those who cite this documentary.
I agree. Most of the people who cite things like “eco beef” are people who are obviously too lazy to really look into things and (as Mic and the Doc said) just want to quickly latch onto something that supports bad habits. I doubt they will objectively sit through a 20 minute video.
I was just watching it. Very sad. I guess Woody Harrelson is no longer a vegan or he wouldn't be doing the narration, I assume. I came here to hear Mic's de-bunk and post the link on fb and twitter.
@@JaneWeeks yes, excruciatingly disappointed in the celebrities that were featured. Vystopian trigger.💔
@@bw1955 unfortunately it’s this video that might be too lazy to look into the actual science, there is lots of talk of methane emissions but no talk of methane cycles, there is lots of talk of vegan alternatives, but no talk of the huge problems inherent in those practices, I don’t know if it’s the regen ag people that have the data problem here.
@@wadebacca can you specifically say how this video is wrong and how the methane cycle justifies the huge land, water, and resource wastes of farming animals? What are the “inherent” issues with vegan alternatives? Are you talking about Beyond or Impossible Burgers?
Unfortunately this discussion excludes a lot of information/includes misinformation and pseudoscience on the fact that holistic grazing not only improves the health of grasslands because it restores the ecological niche or large grazers in a natural landscape, but also acts like farmers graze grass to the soil when in fact they rotate them daily to prevent this very thing that leads to soil erosion. Why ignore all of these facts and more??
Because Mic the Vegan has an Agenda and isn't above playing fast and loose with the facts aka lying.
a lot of land used for grazing was not naturally grassland, prior to human clearing and occupation of the land! In Australia that is very much the case, and some of the indiginous grasslands we human cultivated through periodic burning.
They ignore these facts because they have no logical argument. They have no clue how it actually works and have no desire to learn to educate themselves. But instead make dumbass claims
because he's vegan and hates it being told it's not good.
@Daniel Bifröst Regenerative grazing, if true, is an argument for having animals on the land to aid it. Not an argument for eating said animals. (aka, consuming them outside of that ecosystem and shit them out somewhere else). That's a leap we can only take if we think animals are morally inconsiderable, which is irrational and wrong.
The fact that land might need grazing animals on it is not an argument for why we should treat non-human animals as property or objects we are free to violate as we see fit. It might mean we have to live WITH grazing animals, respecting them, letting them live their lives and die of old age or other ways not involving human desires for meat. Instead regenerative grazing has become a way to argue for (exaggarated) meat consumption and animal exploitation.
As long as those grazing animals are considered "human food items", as much as "climate fixing machines", we will breed them, prematurely kill them, consume only parts of them, shit them out in some urban sewer, make money from killing them, mutilate them and genetically manipulate them to fit our use for them as food. And that's the same slippery slope that got us into factory farming, and is incompatible with any "natural" system.
The Great Plains grasslands of N America had 60 million migrating bison. Arid climates need arid-adapted ruminants to maintain soil. Bison. Cows are water-adapted. Of course the rest of the biotic community is also vital including prairie dogs, beavers, & wolves. Temperate grasslands are the most endangered ecosystems on the planet, & all have large migrating ungulate herds as integral contributors. Some biologists define bison as keystone to the Great Plains.
So many native animals are killed for plant agriculture as well. One of countless examples, monarch butterfly habitat is being decimated for avocados, & activists are being killed. Burrowers, ground-dwelling birds, native grazers, native primates, native predators are all either being killed outright or slowly from loss of habitat & migration corridors.
I am a certified permaculture designer who lives on a silvopastured orchard. We are in a mega-drought, & our soil is holding water better than next door with no grazers. This is a very small herd that our neighbor moves around to several locations. It can be done beautifully in a polycultural system on a smaller scale. 'Industrial' food production is ecocidal whether plant or animal.
Buying plant based foods grown hundreds to thousands of miles away, packaged in plastic, shipped in diesel trucks is not going to help climate change, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, or ecosystems collapse. Relocalization is the way to go. What can your specific climate support? Maybe your biome can support a vegetarian or even a vegan diet. Mine can't. I eat about 90% localvore within 20 miles of my home, around 40% within 1 mile of my home, including wild foods. I am grateful. What did Native peoples in your biome used to eat? What can you grow, preserve, share with your community, year round within seasonal limits? Relocalize, & eat with the seasons.
I think "Mic" needs to do a deeper dive into his own "agenda". Animals are needed if you're farming the same land over and over. Did traditional lands "need" animal grazing? No, but they weren't being farmed either. Please Mic, logic and reason!!
Yo vegans can you name a single vegan indigenous culture? Oh yeah that's right, the vegan diet came out of white colonial culture. It's purely a issue of privilege to not rely on meat as a source of nutrition.
Yeah but what’s your justification for not being vegan?
Regenerative grazing is bullshit, no pun intended
Mic has a way of explaining it grazefully.
Why? Makes sense to me. Cows eat grass. Then they are moved to another area to eat grass. Grass grows back. Makes sense to me.
@@rubygreta1 There's not enough land to move them around as much as they should move. The landscape handles migrations better than field confinement, and they eat away all of certain kinds of plants and leave others, reducing plant and animal diversity and compressing soil. Even grass fed cattle are supplemented typically with grass or alfalfa raised on other plots.
@@roku3216 that only happens in open field grazing, mob grazing has the opposite effect where the cows eat everything not just there favourites before moving off.
@@wadebacca If you've been part of cattle farming, you will soon learn they never eat everything, and what they do eat can soon become reduced or disappear from the land, There is not enough land available to all but a select very few ranchers, who want to make money, to have such a lofty approach to grazing, and I have yet to see a single parcel of land improved by cattle. (I grew up raising cattle and saw all the ranches in the area, plus feral cattle living in the wild. The best scenario I saw were the half dozen wild ones who at least did no harm on around 1,000 acres.) Even wild bison damage the land they live on if they can't visit each spot briefly twice a year and move on. The National Bison Range in MT can only keep between 350 and 500 bison on 18,500 acres, giving on average roughly 46 acres per bison which are regularly "culled" and managed to keep within acceptable environmental standards for the refuge. www.hcn.org/issues/53.2/indigenous-affairs-tribes-reclaiming-the-national-bison-range (an interesting article on the bison range you might enjoy)
Whatever supposed merits there might be it remains a fact that slaughtering the victims on farms is wrong. Just as slavery was wrong. Permaculture is regenerative. Humanure is regenerative. And no one needs to be slaughtered.
We're doing sustainable food production on 11 acres in Puerto Rico, and even discontinued raising truly free range chickens for eggs (even without buying meds or feed for them) because we realized that we can grow more food without chickens than we can with chickens. OR... the amount of work and monetary inputs for infrastructure like fencing in our growing areas would exceed the value.
Same marketing technique as American Spirit Tobacco...
"We're sooo much different than other cigarettes."
... and listening to Alan Savory really gives me the creeps.
😶
I was debating his daughter last week. She's in denial.
@@Fearzero
I was in denial for years... then the Egyptian government withdrew my visa.
I'll get my coat.
🥰
Seriously though. Lemme know more about the debate with La. Savory.
☺️
@@PercivalBlakeney Haha dad jokes never get old. It was on FB. I posted a bunch of stuff from a science based article done by Sierraclub.org and she just ignored it completely. Wasn't much of a debate because she had no answers for my questions about lack of replication of her father's work and lack of support by the scientific community at large.
@@Fearzero
People generally ignore arguments that prove them wrong and demonstrate that we have to switch off the TV and get on with stuff.
Essentially the ,"Aw gee Mom, do I have to do my homework? ... tidy my room? ... take out the trash? ... be nice to the relatives?" attitude.
"Science and technology will cure all of human ills, except the last and most pernicious... that of human apathy." - Helen Keller.
Well done for taking her on though.
😊
@@Fearzero, they always run from that article because it's researchers at agricultural universities and working ranchers that most effectively debunk Savory's nonsense. If the people who would love for you be right are saying you're wrong, then it's time to re-evaluate your life.
over simplification like this is a red flag...those who think they know seem to actually know the least, you're never going to translate a highly interconnective eco system into something this simple. The more you learn many perspectives the more you will start to grasp at the grandiosity of our living world so everyone should be skeptical of anyone who seems to have a motive like this
Never ceases to amaze me how quickly one who believes something will latch on to anyone who spouts anything that “proves” their thoughts. Also if you point out the potential bias in one study it behooves (pun intended) you to point out the potential bias in the other.
This is basically a commercial ag critique. How does this relate to small homesteads and farms that are not producing massive amounts of food for sale to corporations?
Dude. You are missing the whole point. No other tool can be used to reverse the effects of desertification and it just so happens it can feed people at the same time.
Rewilding without ruminants is absolutely viable. Dude
@@EternalJourneys do you have an example? Of regenerative agriculture without animal inputs? Otherwise that feels like truth by assertion.
I'm permaculturalist and I've done a fair amount of research and not found a single working example of a sustainable veganic system.
@@rorylee3582 I don’t have an example of regen ag. But there are plenty of people out there successfully producing and using plant based fertilisers. That, and the comfort of knowing that most plant ecosystems on earth came into existence without ruminants.
@@EternalJourneys no, not really.
@@EternalJourneys you can have your "comfort of knowing" if you want. But the reality is that none of the ecosystems we have access to can function without animals. I cannot take any "comfort" based on systems that disappeared millions of years ago 🤷♀️ but you do you bro.
I do not totally disagree with all of the points but I found this video as biased as the studies you tear down almost totally on the association of the funders. I suspect facts and figure that are just given as truths. For example: were the methane bottom up examples and calculations using grain finished beef numbers or were they using grass finished numbers? Is there top down information for the grazing lands you are questioning or is the top down methane numbers from conventional agriculture. While honest in mentioning grain was brought in to feed the chickens, chickens are relatively efficient protein producers. Does your analysis account for market changes from more expensive beef and a move toward other non-crazed meats. You may have a point on diminishing returns on grazing lands, but is there a model where the grazing land moves over long periods of time restoring more and more fields? I guess my main point is this was more of a biased debunking video than a real look at the impact of moving from conventional agricultural methods.
Very intelligent rebuttal....thank you
"For example: were the methane bottom up examples and calculations using grain finished beef numbers or were they using grass finished numbers"
Methane emissions from cattle eating grains are typically lower than that of pasture fed cattle, especially the cattle on the northern rangelands of Australia where the grasses have a lot of cellulose and are harder for the cattle to digest. Also you can more easily add dietary supplements to reduce methane to lot fed animals simply because they never move around and have regular human contact.
All these dietary interventions to reduce methane only go so far and the costs can be prohibitive, especially the seaweed additives which would require a massive production of a particular type of seaweed on a scale comparable with the land mass of grazing land itself to produce enough. and then that would all need to be collected, transported and distributed to cattle. Forget it.
thanks, Mic 💚
I have been waiting for this info. Thank you Mike
Anyone here heard of Garland Farms?
Glad Mike is debunking misinformation🙏🌱
tried to have a debate on one video and i couldn't take it. would completely ignore my questions and just say random things that are nowhere near true... that channel is pure cringe.
@@WTFisMYname24 I’ve had similar experiences.
Well Mic has has his share of misinformation and debate fails when it comes to eating plants and plaque reversal. Talking about cringe... Wish Mic would admit that and restore his credibility.
ruclips.net/video/PXFqwi6cCwU/видео.html
@@robertusga ahhh that's actually interesting but it's an hour long. I don't have enough time to watch. May I ask what was it that Mike got wrong?
@@robertusga He already made a response to that, even several, if I remember correctly. Afterwards he kind of back paddled because he thought about it again but he was really open about all that.
YES!! I am really sick of seeing the environmental movement embrace regenerative grazing as though it's the solution, and only factory farming is the problem. It's time for people to realize that animal ag is inherently inefficient compared to plant ag. Plant based is where it's at!
I think you typo’d at the end there, lol
Right on. Plant based is where it's at and that's a fact.
I'd be genuinely intrigued by an argument that would support your claim that the time has come for people to understand that animal ag is inherently inefficient compared to animal ag.
@@v.a.n.e. >animal ag is inherently inefficient compared to animal ag
Lol
As long as humans are present on the earth we are going to reshape the land. The things we can do to reduce this at least a little should be tried. For some that's going vegan, for others that's planting trees and going renewable. It's not realistic to assume the whole world will adopt one person's idea on how to fix the problem so encouraging people to do what they can should be the main goal.
What about the unnecessary suffering caused to living sentient beings for a 15 min taste pleasure?
Maybe. But if inaccurate data is being used to promote a solution, then it need to be debunked and the facts set straight.
@@EternalJourneys if you wanna talk about inaccurate data, look no further than the Data Mic uses. Just google “methanotrophs” and wonder why it wasn’t mentioned in this video.
Literally no regenerative ag person would disagree with you about cover crops and food forests. Those are great things and are encouraged.
How do you engage with the fact that North America used to have orders of magnitude more animal impact on the land pre European settlers? North America was jam-packed with Bison, Elk, deer, caribou, moose, beavers, water fowl, migratory birds, birds of prey, bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars, etc..
Yes, and the system functioned and was productive, and provided ecological services. The issue is how we are grazing, the system can handle intensive grazing, and in brittle environments, requires it in order to function ecologically.
You made a very good video. I’m a farmer and do study permaculture and regenerative agriculture. Generally speaking what you says reflects the realities in the US but in the rest of the world the picture is quite different. Holistic Management was born in Africa and It is a great tool to organize effective communal grazing practices that don’t degrade the land and instead regenerate it and keep it on balance. You cannot plant in certain areas because they are too degraded but you can use animals to restore ecological functions as water infiltration and than move to more diversified farming practices but you still need the animals in order to keep balance on the cycle of nutrients, especially in environments where humidity and rain are not homogenously distributed during the year. Prohibiting Intensive animal husbandry, meat prices would go way up, more than double, people would start to eat it less and many things could improve. Remember that an animal is the saving account of a farmer.
It can definitely be the same in the US.
Interesting! Lots of open range grazing here in the southern Sierra Nevada. I always thought it was strange that cattle are allowed to graze in the Golden Trout Wilderness area, but apparently preexisting grazing rights were the issue there. The upside is that the number of cattle is much less than it was in the 1990s. So, I guess that's progress. And on a related topic, what about using goats to clear under brush as a way to reduce forest fires? We had some extremely serious fires this last summer and the snowfall so far this year isn't looking too good so far!
Goats are great at brush and kudzu clearance. Chickens are good at bug clearance. Sheep also eat weeds, cows won't touch and vice versa.
Forests do need to be managed (and humans have been doing it for thousands of years), otherwise you get a forest fire hazard in the making. Whether it's through selective logging or forest-based agriculture, both outcomes are beneficial over simply doing nothing.
Why not restore the forest with it's natural imhabitants? They did the job before humans arrived. We need to let nature do it's thing more!
@@bread9905
Humans are animals. And vegans are idiots because that’s not how humans developed. these systems wouldn’t be made in humans would not be making near the impact. If it wasn’t for all the liberals congregating in big cities. When we were a more rural society, the environment was far less impacted. We also had a better society that wasn’t brainwashed and co-opted by a lot of nonsense.
@@Magnulus76 fire is part of nature. Forest lands need fire. It’s the idiots on the left that prevented forest fires for decades that caused the problems in California. Lightning causes forest fires which regenerate the land. It is a necessary part of managing a forest to be healthy. People are screwing up the forest, not nature and animals and by people I’m talking about people on the left that think there shouldn’t be forest fires.
This reminds me of my frustration with the documentary "Biggest Little Farm" :(
It is hard to think it's bad though when you see the improvement of their soils why is it bad I'm not picking btw I am looking to be educated
@@staceyrobson5697 not only soil improvements, but this doc also showed the huge Benefits of integrating animals to deal with pests, seems like vegans would prefer to drive up and down their fruit tree rows with a tractor and insecticide/herbicide instead of feeding the snails to the ducks.
I'm in the process of buying an acre of land. Going to start some veganic polyculture to prove how viable this system really is. Great vid as always!
How's it going 2 Year's on?
@@Madronaxyz I put it on hold to save up so I can get something more substantial. The one I was hoping for was local but the sale fell through :c
@@isaweesaw good luck 👐👐
This will be a good one since I keep encountering it on social media.
IKR! It’s also funny how 99% of animal products come from factory farms, but all these omnis I encounter are getting it from pastures...
@@manilak4415, and then if ask them how that would scale to sustain the global population of meat-eaters, they'll be like: "Why does it matter? It only matters what I do!"
@@manilak4415 OMG, seriously! It drives me crazy.
it does scale, I would actually recommend reading a proper book on the topic rather than RUclips videos ;) ‘Sacred cow’ would be a good start.
@@MarkusWaas, a primer on the laws of thermodynamics ought to be enough.
Brilliant. Thank you so much for addressing this. This argument has been driving me nuts
Vegans have a lot going for them, but this video omits key aspects of the science and therefore presents a very stilted results. He didn’t mention, methane cycling, just straight emissions, and used conventional feed lots data to talk about emissions, didn’t mention that vegan ag requires more fossil fuels and large implants that compact soils, or that it’s not possible in a lot of cold climates. Didn’t mention regenerative ways of producing that grain for chickens and pigs. So don’t think this is a slam dunk, vegans and regen farmers should be teaming up to end the evils of factory farming and promote the soil building practices that curtail the existential threat of soil degradation.
As a lover of regenerative meat agriculture it was hard to listen to this video. However I always find it annoying to hear the argument that people just want to hear what they want to hear. Firstly that argument applies to everyone so really there is no point in bringing it up. It would be trivial to find the same video same this about all the vegans watching this. Secondly the actual picture is definitely not as clear cut as you would make it out to be. Having done my own research i would say it's complicated. Environmental science isn't that easy. It is easy to count co2 emissions. I think that is the real sin. We focus too much on emissions and lose sight of the bigger picture. I think we can agree that regenerative forms of agriculture are better than conventional. Plant based regenerative is just about as popular as the animal version, that is to say both are small. If you want to promote permaculture do that. I don't see how a take down of regenerative animal agriculture helps. Although you did claim this cooperate conspiracy with purly circumstantial evidence. I don't like big agricultural either. But then you don't like WOP either and your guest called them frauds. Where is the proof?
I want to eat meat. And I want a healthy ecosystem. I don't think it's wrong to want both. I don't think it is physically impossible. If regenerative meat has benefits, why can't we celebrate and build on that.
I think this video takes the tone it does because that's what you got to do to get attention on youtube. No one wants to watch a fair and balanced discussion of pros and cons of different agricultural practices. People want to see the takedown. But is that what's good for the world?
Thanks, there were also many methodological errors in how the data was presented in this video, like you said it’s not as easy as extrapolating small sets of emissions data and completely ignoring nature cycles like the methane cycle like is done here.
Veganism will always be a multifaceted argument. It doesn’t just stand on the environmental leg. I can’t claim to be an expert on regenerative meat, I’m just hearing about it. From what it sounds like even if it’s better for the ecosystem it’s not widely available and wouldn’t be able to provide the amount of animal flesh people consume right now. If anyone is buying from any other source they’re contributing to factory farming.
What I can say is “wanting” to do something doesn’t make it ethical or kind. There are so many reasons to not eat animals, it might just be me but I can’t think of a single good reason to eat them.
@@rosehalladay5843 I eat them because I think eating locally is of primary importance, and I can raise all my own meat with very little work. Raising all my vegetables is an incredible amount of labour. Plus the provide the most glorious compost for my garden and improve the fields they graze. Seems like a win win.
@@wadebacca putting aside the ethical and health reasons for being vegan, you’re in a unique position that hardly any people have access to. Most people can’t raise their own animals or even have their own gardens.
It’s simply not sustainable on the scale we currently consume animal products.
@@rosehalladay5843 your absolutely right, I would agree with the statement that we need an overall reduction in meat consumption, but I cannot agree with the idea that there are “no good reasons, not to be vegan”. In your original comment you stated it’s not widely available, but it’s videos like this that are criticizing companies for adopting it. Veganic ag, which is the only alternative close to regen ag is as far as sustainability is even less wide spread, does this mean people shouldn’t adopt it?
Thanks!
THANKS SO MUCH!
I’ve been hearing more about this recently. Thanks for the vid
Watching one 20 minute video of guys sitting in white rooms quoting “studies” is never going to convince me over 3x a week 20 minute videos for the last 3 years out on the land (Greg Judy). Edit: I’m science based, and I rarely eat chicken, beef, pork, lamb or goat, but you HAVE to see the transformation of soil and fields that have been managed in a regenerative way to see how they can store rain, sun and carbon before you make a decision. You can’t judge all grazing by conventional grazing, conventional ranching, where they use ivermectin, a pesticide that destroys the life in the soil. Watch about 8 hours of Greg Judy’s best vids from the past three years. Cloven hooved animals, whether you want to eat them or not, are the future of carbon sequestration. But their grazing HAS to be managed. It’s an art and a science.
What an absolute load of total bullshit. Whenever I see land which has had this bullshit performed on it, I can't help but shake my head and think about how vastly inferior they are to forested lands, literally by orders of magnitude.
Cloven-hooved animals are *NOT* the future of carbon sequestration, *AGROFORESTRY* is the future of carbon sequestration.
Mike, i would love to hear more about regenerative agriculture. It did not yet become clear to me if regenerative agriculture with animals can be beneficial to the land or not. Obviously it is not when you practice it wrong like WOP does. Maybe you could also make a video about RA with plants. 🌿🌾🌱 I would love to see this becoming mainstream.
Maybe you could comment on the Netflix movie "Kiss The Ground"?
😄
Don't you think that if there was such a thing as regenerative ag without animals, that mic would be aware of it? and actively sprooking it already?
As far as I'm aware such a system doesnt exist, all regenerative agriculture I know of utilises animal inputs.
@@rorylee3582 I am sure I've read of a farm in the US doing something like regenerative cropping without animal inputs. There was also a case study from israel a year or two ago. Here is another one, though the article isn't clear on whether animal inputs are used: www.oneearth.org/case-study-5-worlds-cheapest-maize/
@@graememcelligott8874 without livestock it's possible. Without animals it's not.
@@rorylee3582so tell us how animal shit served as regenerative agriculture for many millions of years then? 😂😂 yet ‘scientist biased writer Mike’ always ignores that due to his ideological obsession.
@@aryaalessia4492 I dont understand your question. Agriculture hasn't existed for millions of years.
I think it's all about everything in moderation. The US isn't going to give up eating meat but if we could persuade people to eat meat sparingly we could reduce negative health benefits and help the land by not artificially saturating it with animal agriculture. Regenerative farming has a place in my opinion with the perspective that it is a step in the right direction which can be built upon from there. We're all on the same team and talking as if there are two sides and only one is right is not going to persuade anyone to change. I'd appreciate videos in the future that are not focused mainly on cancelling another perspective than your own.
In depth and factually accurate. Honestly the vast majority of people wouldn't want to or be able to digest all those stats. Thanks so much Mic, it's really a pleasure. I'm still making my transition to veganism and it really started because of the environment. Like you and the doctor said, it's really hard to hear something you like, is bad. If we're all trying to change for the better, I think we deserve factually-accurate data. Thanks again dude, keep it up, it's definitely hard work but I can't stress how much I appreciate it!
It was actually very shallow explanation, it completely omitted the concept methane cycling, used CAFO data and extrapolated it onto regen systems, completely ignored the fact that there is regen grain production called pasture cropping, and ignored the soil crisis we’re heading towards. And also ignored the huge shortcomings of vegan ag.
@@wadebacca I hope he sees this and addresses your points (I'm not familiar with some of them). I do know there's plenty of plants that have been shown which help recycle the nutrients within the soil. Also while I don't doubt for a second grazing and whatnot is needed, it's a little surprising to hear when if the primary objective is less resources to produce nutrition, vegan agriculture has "huge shortcomings". That would suggest the way to harvest more plants to feed on... is to decrease them?
@@dripshameless5605 yeah, I’ve been practicing veganic ag, regenerative ag, and permaculture for over a decade now, the shortcomings I am talking about are things like a the restrictions on climate where vegan ag works, it’s reliance on tillage at large scale ( very bad for the soil) or plastic sheeting which is labour intensive way less efficient and only works at market garden size. Just to name a few, one of regenerative ages biggest pluses is that it can be practical in almost any environment
@@wadebacca oh you've done it yourself, that's awesome! I really hope he sees your comment and responds. Thank you!
@@wadebacca Hey also, how is veganism against regenerative ag? I'm learning about it right now. I'm not vegan but basically it's just about not wanting to harm animals right? So shouldn't vegans also support a system, where animals are given a good life (hopefully), AND help replenish the environment? I don't see the problem between vegans and regen ag, what am I missing? Ofc this is all under the assumption that the animals are not being harmed.
Lots of false assumptions here about rotational grazing. The fields you drive by are not grazed in tight rotations & moved up to twice a day like Allan Savory describes.
In PROPERLY managed pastures, there can be plenty of deep rooted plants such as trees, wildflowers, & wild grasses.
In most places on the planet, the idea of reaching carbon saturation anytime soon is insane.
You could get your hair straightened and comb it forward like Spock, or get it permed like everyone did back in the 80s to get a consistent curl, or you could wear a baseball cap or other headdress so that you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Hats, that’s what I started doing after I got tired of buzzing it off, which is another option. Or wigs, like you used to do back in the day. You’re a swell fellow Mic The Vegan and I appreciate all of the work that goes into your videos.
Question: Not related to this video. Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn in his reversal of Heart disease wants people to eat a handful of leafy greens 6 times a day with vinegar. My question: He says to boil the greens for about 6 minutes. IS there a reason for it to be boiled and not eaten raw? Is there a reason? This takes a lot of time and raw greens taste a lot better.
Thank you so so much for making this video!
The biocyclic vegan certification program in Europe is showing that we can grow our food without animals. In fact, it’s better for the land.
You should interview or debate Gabe Brown or Ray Archuletta so that people can see differing opinions other than your own so they can decide how to interpret the facts themselves instead of depending on you to decipher the facts for your audience.
It would make your argument stronger.
There's a reason why he won't.
To quote George Carlin, “It’s all bullshit and it’s bad for ya.”
From my somewhat limited experience working in sustainable ag this is the biggest thing people hold onto for justifying raising cattle/chickens/whoever for production and profit and don’t even question whether the ecology or the animals are even really in a thriving relationship (as much of a relationship with the natural ecology as they can have since we have bred them in completely unnatural ways. By natural I mean nonhuman inflicted elements or beings of nature).
It was just obvious to me that it wouldn't work considering the amount of land it would require (grazing land in the US already huge). At best this might work in a "plant-based society" for the few holdouts among the wealthy willing to pay top dollar for beef.
@Tyelar Rhead Yes, I agree completely. Pastoral societies don't subsist substantially on the flesh of animals, they never have. They might milk the animals and eat them once in a while, but they aren't going to eating animal flesh every day as is common in western countries. That requires intensive agriculture.
I can look up the hillsides around the valley here and see which land parcels are grazed and which are left wild, and immediately know which is which because the grazed ones lack plant and animal diversity, plus show greater effects of erosion.
yo, what's up!!
its not the cow, its the how.
@@Gustav4 It's also the cow. Even the open range ones where I grew up degraded the lake shore and there were some that went feral in the woods, so those five or six did relatively little damage to the thousand acres they wandered on. I guess if you have 200 acres per animal of prime arable land, then it's possible.
@@roku3216 exactly the open range ones are the problem, the intensively grazed ones are the ones building soils.
@Jonah Whale No desertification has and is being caused by reductionist management which made people put livestock in the wrong place and burned everything to death. Now we have holistic management we can use to make decisions so we can start get the outcomes that we desire.
What do you think about Richard Perkins Ridgedale Permaculture in Sweden? He does Regenerative Agriculture.
Good night Mic. On this subject I was wondering what you think about the consumption of meat from goats fruit of mountain and forest grazing. Here in Spain I understand that it helps to maintain the firewalls. I ask because being a vegetarian I read about the deaths caused by agriculture (much lower than those of industrial livestock that feed with the product of agriculture), but I do not know how many deaths per calorie would occur when consuming meat from these goats. This left me intrigued and didn't find much about it. Thanks a lot :)
goats also produce methane 🙂
I went vegan for about a year. Worse decision of my life. Eat more beef.
You never were vegan.
Veganism is about the ethics, it's not a diet.
@@Azarilh actually I did. And my brain turned to shit.
@@WWFarms51 So stopping paying for the exploitation and slaughter of animals turned your brain into poop? I don't see the logic.
Just like the people hell bent on proving regenerative grazing is the future you have made up your mind in advance and are just juggling numbers to favor your to point. This is not debunking anything. You latch on to veganism like meat eaters latch on to beef.
How about mixed diverse local food, befitting its context, instead of silver bullet solutions.
There were some rash assumptions and no debunking of a lot of mob grazing claims first off, Just like veganism comes from a idea to do good so does regenerative grazing and is definitly being highjacked by other interests.
If you are serieus about debunking, debunk this:
Grassland neutralises most of its CH4 this way. Water vapor from plants H20 turns in OH because of sunlight OH +CH4 = CO2. OH is hunderfold present to CO2 ("just have a think" has a great video on this)
Carbon storage in grasslands is way quicker than forests so it could be great transition to forestry.
Also bringing back native prairie in the US, is basicly climax ecosystem with maximum biodiversity how is that not one of (y)our goals.
2/3 of agricultural land is claimed to be not avaible for cropping due to accesibility and terain so grazing woult be great if it werent for methane (wich is no isue unless truely debunked).
Polyface is very clear on there (very local btw) grain use, there was no need to debunk that, i dont know about WOP in this regard. The manure is captured in the soil anyway so it is stored even thoug it is not in such a direct way as with cattle.
Yeah, that was what i felt from him as well, he's just trying to make the numbers play for him.
A new kind of solar panel that starts spewing co2 after into the air... gee solar panels wear out and need replaced so gee they do
Cows and methane... they also can be supplemented with kelp to have next to no methane emissions.
Land use, most land is unsuitable for grain production.
Plant height and soil depth, might be that they need to allow their gras to mature at some points to reseed the plants and push roots deeper
Your ignorant
I don't eat meat but I fell for that Ted talk. I was thinking of growing numbers of deer, elk, moose etc..
You fell for this though.
Read Sacred Cow The Case for Better Meat
Funded by stuff, found a study that was made by the same guy and it was not cool.
Land was previously depleted and therefor numbers are skewed (land previously depleted by vegetarian food production).
Methane big bad. Methane is also broken down over time. Northern America have always had a lot of ruminants, so net methane level does not increase. Can be completely ruled out of the picture if one does not want to offset methane emissions from landfills with killing the world's ruminants.
Methane measured from the air above was not from the grazing site, if it was from grain fed cattle it is not relevant. Obviously not relevant since methane in it self is not relevant.
Uses more space, excellent for the environment. Close to vegan like countries like India and Bangladesh are more polluting and have higher Co2 emissions than USA.
wow what a nice video. thank you for doing this as i think maybe about a month ago i had a debate with someone on youtube and they brought up how these animals are necessary for the land and all those other kind of crazy sounding claims that i couldnt even respond on as anything to do with the environment wasn't really my field of study. this is really helpful as a starter :)!
That might have been me! I can tell you where this video went wrong if you want.
@@wadebacca tell me
@@rajulrathi9886 well, this was three months ago, but I did a pretty lengthy write up in the comments here highlighting a few of the problems back then.
This bull poo is a major free bee in my fair trade cotton bonnet, so I am SUPER HAPPY that you are addressing this insidious, dishonest, patently harmful proposition. How many times do the proponents of "regenerative" ag have to be debunked before they give up? A few more times, evidently. TFP : )
It would be nice if we were debunked using thorough methods instead of ones that omit key details like methane cycling. And a host of other skewed tactics.
ground would never reach an carbon fullness because there is constant roots growing witch means constant bacteria and fungi that consume it and because of the grazing makes sure that the plants are constant growing and the beef might not be negative in carbon upon itself but if put together with the amounts of carbon absorbed into the ground and admitted from the cows it makes it a lot less carbon that is exerted into the atmosphere plus yes it might not be so affective in his region where he live because its only a half a year growing season but imagen that same farming strategy in country's where growing season is all year round it would be able to double those amounts of carbon uptake into the ground with the same amount of cows so you would be negative in carbon emissions since there is always something growing
The timing of this is perfect! Sending it straight to my dad lol
Mike, I can't emphasize enough what a hero i think you are. Thanks for doing everything that you do. You helped change my and my families lives. Much love brother
Yeah, such a hero, spreading misinformation and dangerous lies because of his VERY clear bias, yeah... such a fucking hero 🤣
A big issue with veganism is the use of bees in pollination, and the escalated use of toxic poisons to produce the extra veg, considering rising costs and supply issues of these toxic poisons
The bees are used for pollination only because there are a lot of bees form the HONEY industry. Otherwise, they'd use alternative methods like wind pollination. No need to use bees.
What extra veg you are talkin about? If everyone went vegan, we would need to produce less food, cos guess what animals eat-
In fact currently almost 50% of current crops are used to feed the farmed animals to produce way less food in the form of animal food ( from 3% to 17% only! That is a big waste of food ).
@@Azarilh wind pollination is not anywhere near the same as insect pollination, that is an evolutionary fact.
The protein replacement of meat is not confined to feedlots/sow stalls/battery hens/fish pens. A great quantity of meat is harvested outside of plant friendly growing conditions, climate, geology, post cropping management. The majority of global farming is from 2ac/2ha mixed family farms,
@@billiebruv A long portion of the animal industry is built in places where they removed natural habitats. 60+% of the reason of Amazon forest being chopped down is for animal industry.
And almost 50% of all crops we have, are destined to feed the animals, which in exchange give back about 3 to 30 % calories. So there is a huge loss of food, water, land, natural habitats, nutrients...
@@Azarilh i agree that large scale industrial animal production is greatly flawed, and needs to be banned, but, there is no chance of removing animal protein from the global diet, asia and africa have a large population of hungary mouths
@@billiebruv As i mentioned earlier, animals are fed our crops, which converts poorly into way less animal based food. For beef, for example, 97% of the calories from the plants the animals ate, are lost forever, and you get only 3% of those calories in the form of beef.
So if you truly want to feed the hungry, you should go vegan.
Also, non industrial animal farming is even more unsustainable then the industrialised one. As it uses even more land.
Even with the industrialised farming, if the entire world would eat as much meat as Americans do today, we would need another planet for all the space required to produce all that meat. ( it was 137% global land required in 2011, meat consumption increased since then, so t's probably about 150% now. )
Good video. I remain unconvinced about the 'regen ag' or 'green beef' etc triggered by Savory. As a meat eater I in the UK I buy free range vension or organic beef, so I follow this debate closely. Savory's holistic management system has thrown a lifeline to the beef industry and as you say often ends up as a greenwashing exercise. Two points: 1. Agri Industry realise consumers are looking for an eco beef product so there is rrom for a new certification label here. 2. Savorys's holistic management is a planning tool that brings in social, environmental, and financial elements to planning. Clearly this example went heavy on the financial aspect. As you imply holistically planned systems imply a lower beef production for to meet environmental targets. So we need to eat less store fed beef and pay more for the 'eco beef'. Like that's going to happen.
Can you please make a video on the no longer vegan Sarah Lemkus and her family? I am really worried about her claims (insta stories) as I have vegan kids myself and being vegan for 8 years now... Thanks a lot! Keep up an amazing work and content! 👍
@@theterriblepuddle1830 wow, that's a nice comment! 👍
I farm in the Midwest. Just starting to integrate livestock into our operation. What steers you toward vegan?
Read the book Sacred Cow The Case for Better Meat.
Please give your children fat and protein. They need to grow and thrive .
@@edwardciucci fat and protein is abundant on a vegan diet.
An important topic! Keep up the amazing work! 😊👍
Do a video on Sacred Cow please!
Regenerative Agriculture gives me jaundice in my yet too orange face
The one thing you're missing from the discussion is how much of the conventional beef is raised on incredibly low rotation pastures until the feedlot, practically wasting that land by comparison.
Yes intensive rotation uses up to 3x as much total pasture land, but it uses that land far more efficiently and doesn't involve all the ecological and ethical consequences of a feedlot.
Including all the emissions produced and toxins dumped and soil lost and land used growing grains and legumes for the aforementioned feedlot.
Not to mention the fact that when the animals are rotated out and the land is rested for 60+ days it’s basically returned to nature for that time.
There is a new doco(based on boom Sacred Cow) that my partner (a flexiterian ) is asking me (a vegan) to read/watch. I would love your thoughts on this 🙏
Great Doc actually, but someone as biased as Mic wouldn't like it, i presume, he's completely against meat, it doesn't even matter if it's healthier or better for the environment.
@@MaxIronsThird maybe but that doesn't make Sacred Cow scientific and neutral / reliable in many claims
@@spiral-m what doesn't make it scientific or neutral? Have you watched it?
I came to a channel looking for science about grazzing run by a vegan... yikes. Such 1st world problems.
I am a vegan regenerative organic farmer but I did thought pasture raised animals were better than CAFO and most of my friends & family eat a SAD. So I would encourage them to eat pasture raised organic. Your video makes me question that. Thanks.
Just to clarify I don't raise animals, just plants for human consumption, although some of our grain does go to feed animals.
His video omitted (hopefully not on purpose) an important thing called the methane cycle, which healthy soil enables. He also used CAFO emissions and extrapolated outwards and applied it to regen ag.
So interesting, I'm into the permaculture scene so hear about this alot, up till now I'd never even thought of questioning it and had just figured we'd have to work this out without harming the animals
I’ve been researching and practicing permaculture and regen ag for over 10 years now, this video is good at tempering expectations, but it has some key omissions, like the state of soil health, the efficiency differences in soil building between vegan and regen ag grazing, the lack of talk of methane cycling that occurs in these systems, and the scalability and climate restrictions of vegan ag.
@@wadebacca Lol anyone who actually studies permaculture understands how inefficient using grazing animals is because of the realities and inherent problems of migratory grazing animals themselves.
Permaculture, while not necesary to be vegan (chickens are pretty useful and sustainable actually), absolutely doesn't require large grazing animals and including these animals is in almost all cases antithetical to permaculture practices and goals.
@cabin boy Did I state they were necessary for permaculture?
@@cabinboy5282 what realities & inherent problems?
I’m not a doctor, but I am a 7th generation farmer and rancher. I doubt you even approve this comment but I’ll toss my 39 years of Agg hat in the ring. I 100% agree that modern farming practices are a mess. There are false claims in every aspect of Agg, especially in the new BeyondMeat system. I’ll also point out that you omitted over 99.9% of the farmers with published information about regenerative Agg involving animals.
Bahahah lmao love the trendy diy leaf decor😂🌱
Great video, thanks the debunk Mic! I was reluctantly starting to fall for it...
By the way, the link to the plantbasedata takes me to a 'Page not found'
I’d look into some of the ways the data was stilted in this video, I like vegans and think there should be more.
He didn’t mention methane cycling, just straight emissions as if those go straight to the atmosphere and stay there. Also he used a conventional ag feed lots for his emissions data, didn’t mention all of the issues with vegan ag, like its inability to scale to large productions, its extreme inefficiency in cold climates, and how slow it is at building soil, which is important as we have less than 60 harvests of soil left.
@@wadebacca I realize that I’m 3 months late, but I hope you know that methane is lighter than air. Almost all of it is going to float its way up to the stratosphere. And any “methane cycling” that happens there turns each methane molecule into water and a CO2 molecule.
@@broddr yes exactly! And with proper management you sequester a great deal of that CO2, and under ideal circumstances you’d cycle the majority of that methane, those ideal circumstances are what Regenerative ag aims to accomplish. So that’s why not mentioning the methane cycle is important. Just quoting to out of animal emissions is not accurate, especially using CAFO emissions that don’t achieve those ideal circumstances.
Reg grazing isn't perfect but you should definitely check out the book Sacred Cow The Case for Better Meat or the doc based on it.
You guide lines regarding methane are based on conventional cattle production in feed lots with concrete floors that have nothing to compare with grassland where the carbon is sequestered to the soil, feeds it's biology and grows grass again as well as increases the organic matter and root systems, contrary to the tillage and mono crops farming way of feed cattle with grains.
Regenerative farming improves soil fertility, biological life, organic matter build up (carbon sequestration),soil aggregation, water infiltration is increased and water retention is increased. I could go on. Look into Gabe Brown and Steve Kenyon for a farmers perspective if you want to learn the facts on this subject.
So Mic, with your viewpoint that beef production is bad for the environment (more true for grain fed and grain finish) , it is Not true for grass fed and grass finished beef. If your had analysed the above mentioned regenerative farming soil benefits you would see how Environmentally friendly regenerative pasture grazing is.
By the way, if countries with grassland and you will find rumenants , New Zealand was a red herring, totally irrelevant and totally misleading. But I guess when it comes to debunking for political reasons or big Agg. Corporate financial backing , your hands were tied.
Does anyone know what did he study?
Even as a wannabe vegan with medical issues I have to pay close attention to all the food cycle it intersects.
I see this a lot, thanks Mic.
Great work Mic! This was a big one and something that's coming up more and more. That Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground talks about it too. Also, while he's expressed remorse for it, back in the 1960s, Allan Savory advocated for the slaughter of 40,000 elephants to reverse land degradation - to no effect. Once bitten twice shy as far his advice goes!
I don’t even need to read this Mike the vegan says it all.
OK, so it´s a good idea to have wild cows, but still you don´t have to kill them or molest them in any way.
Mikey!!...I was waiting for this!! I've been looking up Allan Savory and his holistic management crap for the past couple of weeks and I felt something didn't add up!! I knew there was something off about the whole "more cattle will save the planet" BS.
Mic is not an sustainable agriculturalist and it shows. Vegan permaculture is like removing rock, paper or scissors from the equation. Ideologies & science arent compatible.
Decreasing biodiversity opposes the fundamental permaculture principle that biodiversity is sustainable. Seriously promoting vegan permaculture is flabbergasting. And that cover cropping and grazing are mutually exclusive...
Bovine heards arent inherently misplaced, theyre a part of the prarie ecosystem.
Sincerely - a sustainable agricultural science student
Why dont you have conversation with somebody who understand ecosystem processes and post that video? you would get so debunked to a point where you would never step outside your door again.
So a healthy ecosystem needs to import 50% grain feed from external sources?
@@y37chung Also, get Allans book from 2016
Can you please post your video on IG so they can be shared there?
Ruminant grazing/farming has never been efficient or sustainable on a large scale to feed a civilization.
At one time old Tokyo (Edo) was the largest city on earth prior to Perry's contact, with millions of inhabitants, and it was sustained with zero ruminant consumption and intensive organic farming.
Some environmental influencers on RUclips have been saying lately that Regenerative Grazing is mostly based on wishful thinking and lacks clear scientific evidence. Some have even retracted or corrected videos they have released that were positive about the trend.
Meat consumption was also limited and even banned by some leaders in Japan over the years. Due to land use being so limited
@@mommalydia It was mostly due to religious reasons. At one time Buddhism was the dominant religion in Japan, so the emperor tried to forbid the killing/eating of mammals.
@@Magnulus76 I went to Japan and studied at their museums. I would not say it was mostly due to religion. They didn’t start heavily including meat (other than fish) in their diets until trade with the Dutch opened up in the 1800’s.