Seeing the Big Picture, Part II
It's pretty easy to make gardens, yards, and small spaces into spots that are welcoming to wildlife while continuing to produce food, and other things useful to humans. But what about large tracts of land that produce enormous amounts of food such as the American Midwest? Won't we reduce yields precipitously if we attempt to make room for fauna and the flora that support them? While there will most likely be drops in production in the short term as we transition to food production within functional ecosystems, if we don't make the transition we will experience eventual collapse as lands lose the capacity to grow crops in the absence of increasing inputs.
The dominant narrative right now is that while agriculture is inherently destructive and has a very large carbon footprint, the main culprit is animal agriculture, which should be curtailed if not entirely phased out. Non-animal agriculture gets a pass; there's little discussion of the enormous destruction it is wreaking on the land and atmosphere. When Europeans came to what is now the Midwest, they found incredibly rich prairie with topsoil many feet deep. In the years since John Deere's steel plow first bit into prairie soil in 1837, much of that topsoil has disappeared. Or rather moved to a different place: the atmosphere.
Grasslands hold immense amounts of carbon in their soils, which is released by plowing. To replace organic matter, crop residues may be left in the fields, or manure may be spread, but as long as land is plowed it will continue to release carbon until organic matter is exhausted. Industrial non-animal agriculture relies on large inputs of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation to maintain yields. It also requires very heavy equipment (and lots of diesel fuel!) to plant, care for and harvest the crops. Lifeless and compacted soils are the norm in areas that once teemed with life. While cereal and vegetable agriculture is appealing to people who care about animals and their welfare, these conditions say otherwise.
Part of the argument against animal agriculture is that it's inefficient since it requires many pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat. Take animals out of the equation and we'd have way more food for humans. This argument ignores the problems outlined above. We could eat the products, (hope you really like GM corn and soybeans!) but we're still left with degraded landscapes and carbon emissions. Instead of framing the problem as animal agriculture versus plant-only agriculture, we need to think in terms of industrial versus regenerative. Regenerative agriculture seeks to make a good living for farmers, maintain yields of highly nutritious foods, and restore degraded landscapes. Tune in next time for the methods farmers are using to achieve these goals.
