Can Beef Be Climate-Friendly?
Question of the day for our Factual Friday: can beef be climate-friendly?
It’s something I touch upon briefly in my upcoming book, though not nearly enough as much as I’d like (because it’s really just a tangent and not the primary topic of discussion). Frankly, I think it deserves its own book entirely. It’s a big topic that we’re not talking about nearly enough.
Tyson recently caught some flack from consumers because the Department of Agriculture stamped it as being “climate-friendly.”
What has Tyson done to prove such a statement for its product, which they call “Brazen Beef”? Nobody is really sure, and that’s where the problem lies.
The cattle - thousands of them - are raised on dusty feedlots in Nebraska, according to one publication. The USDA claims these cattle have achieved a “10 percent greenhouse gas reduction.”
When pressed as to how the cattle were able to get to that reduction, the USDA responded that “Because Congress did not provide USDA with on-farm oversight authority that would enable it to verify these types of labeling claims, companies must use third-party certifying organizations to substantiate these claims.”
OK, sure. Fair enough.
Digging deeper, reporters couldn’t find a set of criteria that the third party group was using to verify climate-friendliness. The group did not respond to requests for comments.
And only one farm and one product has been granted the “Climate Friendly” designation from the USDA.
Tyson’s Brazen Beef.
**J&R Pierce Family Farm is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to allow sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products on Amazon. I often link to Amazon when recommending certain products, and if you choose to purchase, I may earn a small percentage of the sale. It costs you nothing extra, and all recommended products are ones that I personally vouch for.**
What is Climate Friendly Beef?
Going further into the Brazen Beef website, there is a bit of promise there - the company claims that ranchers who raise their beef must undergo a qualification process that includes practices like pasture rotation and native range planting, along with the planting of cover crops and nutrient management.
But most of the 10% emissions reduction, you’ll learn, comes not at the cattle-raising level, but in the factory - with materials packaged in plant-based fiber packaging and the reduction of plastic.
I’m not saying that this isn’t a step in the right direction - merely that only Tyson has received the ubiquitous, attention-grabbing label from the USDA to encourage consumers to buy their beef. And because Tyson produces 20% of the beef, pork, and chicken in the US, I find that troubling.
From Will Harris at White Oak Pastures in Georgia all the way back up to our own tiny beef farm in upstate New York, I know plenty of folks who are raising beef that are far more climate-smart than these ones.
It’s misleading consumers who are already skeptical of the beef industry and its impact on the environment - something we don’t need.
Beef - cows in general - have long been the whipping boy of the climate change crusade. That’s not to say that I don’t believe in climate change and livestock’s impact on it - far from it. But I do believe there’s some obfuscation of information in this regard. So let’s talk about it.
First, there’s the well-recited stat (and the percentage varies on where and when you look at it), that livestock agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 22% of all emissions.
That’s significant. However, the problem with this is that the 22% does NOT account for any CO2 that properly managed ecosystems can remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in soils and biomass.
I am not a soil scientist by any means (my grades in Bio and Chemistry when I was in high school should serve as good evidence that I’m not a SCIENTIST by any means), but the science here is fortunately pretty simple.
Breaking Down Soils
Soils are, in part, composed of broken-down plant matter. Because of this, they also contain lots of the carbon that the plants took in while they were still alive. Especially in cold climates, like ours, where the decomposition of plants and other matter in the soil tends to be slower, the soil has the ability to sequester carbon for a long period sof time, which relieves some that’s released back into the atmosphere.
The issue arises when we convert forests and grasslands into heavily tilled farmland. When the soil is disturbed, much of that stored carbon is released.
We’ve attracted more attention to this issue lately, so farmers have been encouraged to do things like planting cover crops and growing perennial and “green manure” crops. Reducing tilling is another helpful strategy, as is managed rotational grazing.
Farmland is truly a gold mine, yet we’re not treating our soil like the black gold it is. We’re losing good soil at a rapid rate - the Midwest is losing topsoil at a rate of up to 1000 times faster than pre-agricultural erosion rates, soil scientists at the National Science Foundation say.
And then there’s the issue of livestock emissions.
Rotational Grazing and Emissions
Rotational grazing can help combat soil erosion and can also improve rates of carbon sequestration. One study of rotational grazing found that farms could increase soil carbon levels to the same levels of native forest soils pre-agriculture after a decade of doing so.
How does this work?
As cattle (or sheep, or whatever grazing animal it is) graze, they trample plant matter, seeds, and manure back into the soil. As it decomposes, it fertilizes and refreshes the soil, helping to build back topsoil while also replenishing nutrients that have been lost from years of intensive agriculture. It also helps the soil and plants recover between grazings so you’re not allowing the soil to be exposed.
This is huge.
And it’s not rocket science, either (because if it was I for sure wouldn’t be writing about it). It’s just the basics of managing animals in a way that’s in the best interests of the land, the air, the water, and, of course, the animal itself.
This is all having to do with carbon emissions, not methane (which is what cattle are predominantly blamed for). Cattle farts and burps (which are known more eloquently as “enteric emissions” or “enteric fermentation”) account for about 30% of all US methane emissions.
However, rotational grazing can help here, too. It provides the animal with a higher quality of forage than if they were plopped in one spot and fed grain or even a consistent supply of the same forage. Variety is the spice of life, and it’s also what makes a healthy gut biome. The more variety that’s in there, the healthier the cattle are, and the easier it is for them to digest their food.
This is basic common sense. Our toddler often makes the case that he could live his entire life on blueberry bagels and chicken nuggets. But we know that wouldn’t be very conducive to a healthy diet. Sure you could stay alive on these things - but you’re not going to thrive. The same goes for cattle. The more variety of the natural foods they’re meant to eat you can incorporate into their diet, the better.
Grazing can help restore ecosystem balance, and while we aren’t a pure 100% grass-fed and finished operation ourselves - and we obviously don’t rotationally graze in the dead of winter, when there’s no grass to be grazed under all that snow - I do think transitioning, at least in part, to a system like this can play a big part in reducing emissions - and in producing healthier, tastier beef.
The Takeaway
We don’t all need to go vegan to start addressing the climate problem. I’d argue against it, in fact - livestock agriculture gets all the hate for the climate issues we’re having, but monocropping of staples like corn, soy, and grains don’t help either (just think of how water-intensive and land-intensive these can be, too, especially when climate-friendly principles aren’t followed).
I’d just argue that we need to be more thoughtful about the way we’re doing things. The devil, as they say, is truly in the details.
