Can we talk about that study on meat and carbon footprints?

I read that piece from the University of Oxford last month about methane from cattle, and I get the math, but it really oversimplifies things. People are jumping to say everyone should go vegan, but grass-fed operations like the one near my town in Iowa actually build soil carbon. Has anyone else looked into the role of rotational grazing in offsetting emissions?

2 comments

2 Comments

allen.amy2d ago

Honestly, I saw that same Oxford study and it did feel a bit one-sided. There's a guy I follow on YouTube who runs a ranch in Nebraska and he's been posting soil carbon tests from his rotational grazing setup showing big gains in organic matter. It makes me wonder if the study's methane numbers would look different if they factored in that kind of carbon drawdown over time.

viola_cooper622d ago

Had a buddy who runs cattle in Missouri. Switched to multi-paddock grazing five years back. His soil tests went from like 1% organic matter to over 4% in that time. That's real carbon going back in the ground, not just sitting in the air. Meanwhile people in cities want to ban beef with fancy charts. But those charts don't measure what happens when you manage land right. His vet bills dropped too from healthier animals. It's just not as simple as the study makes it seem.