I was visiting a farm in the Southeast a couple of years ago, and our visit happened to overlap with another guys, who’d come (I guess?) to pitch the well-heeled owners on his amazing regenerative ag breakthrough.
Yeah, regenerative grazing, whatever that is, won't turn a dessert into a garden. There's as much snake oil in the ag world as in any other industry. But careful livestock grazing, along with cover crops and other soil health practices, can return farmland that's been row cropped to barrenness back to a more robust productive state. Flooding becomes less frequent and severe, and drought is more easily managed, all while native fertility increases. So, I hope readers of your piece won't confuse intentional practices that really do benefit soil health with nonsensical claims of turning the dessert into paradise.
Thank you for writing about this so clearly, in a way that the obvious questions you raised in your narrative about where the hell is the water going to come from, both for the plow or the cow, should have made the proponent of these theories wary about their outcomes. Nonetheless, it seems to me that these approaches to agriculture were, or have been, taken as direct implementations of some sort scientific principle or hypothesis that predicted their success.
My question is, when you write about the plow that "This...was a scientific hypothesis, and a very popular one.”, what were the primary sources (i.e., scientific research, publications, etc.) for this scientific hypothesis?
I do share your concern about the hyperbole used by some proponents of holistic management, regenerative grazing etc. And there are certainly landscapes that for the lack of rainfall are real desserts and there is not a big deal we can do about it. I would certainly not spend any money on projects promising turning desserts into fertile grasslands (or forest for that matter) in distant ecosystems.
But I believe that there are also a lot of landscapes which are very dry where cattle actually can make some difference. Also in hot climates. And if not cattle, then camels....I am no meteorologist but my understanding is that there are possiblities to influence landscape level water cycles, through vegetation management. In addition, there are areas which are desserts but there is seasonal rainfall which can be managed in various ways. There are many indication the the hooves can break up the hard surface pan and rain can "percolate" instead of causing flash floods, fpor example.
I do think that the holistic management proponents should show a bit more humility, but I also think that apply to those that write off their claims as scams.
Yeah, regenerative grazing, whatever that is, won't turn a dessert into a garden. There's as much snake oil in the ag world as in any other industry. But careful livestock grazing, along with cover crops and other soil health practices, can return farmland that's been row cropped to barrenness back to a more robust productive state. Flooding becomes less frequent and severe, and drought is more easily managed, all while native fertility increases. So, I hope readers of your piece won't confuse intentional practices that really do benefit soil health with nonsensical claims of turning the dessert into paradise.
Thank you for writing about this so clearly, in a way that the obvious questions you raised in your narrative about where the hell is the water going to come from, both for the plow or the cow, should have made the proponent of these theories wary about their outcomes. Nonetheless, it seems to me that these approaches to agriculture were, or have been, taken as direct implementations of some sort scientific principle or hypothesis that predicted their success.
My question is, when you write about the plow that "This...was a scientific hypothesis, and a very popular one.”, what were the primary sources (i.e., scientific research, publications, etc.) for this scientific hypothesis?
Thank you for turning a complicated discussion of this alleged outcome of regenerative farming into a fun read. I mean … „cow middleman”? Brilliant!
I do share your concern about the hyperbole used by some proponents of holistic management, regenerative grazing etc. And there are certainly landscapes that for the lack of rainfall are real desserts and there is not a big deal we can do about it. I would certainly not spend any money on projects promising turning desserts into fertile grasslands (or forest for that matter) in distant ecosystems.
But I believe that there are also a lot of landscapes which are very dry where cattle actually can make some difference. Also in hot climates. And if not cattle, then camels....I am no meteorologist but my understanding is that there are possiblities to influence landscape level water cycles, through vegetation management. In addition, there are areas which are desserts but there is seasonal rainfall which can be managed in various ways. There are many indication the the hooves can break up the hard surface pan and rain can "percolate" instead of causing flash floods, fpor example.
I do think that the holistic management proponents should show a bit more humility, but I also think that apply to those that write off their claims as scams.
I did visit a holistically managed cattle farm in Namibia some years ago. And we wrote about it in this book, published by the FAO, https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/273929/