MAN AND NATURE

Co-Development or Co-Destruction?

WHAT GRASS FARMING HAS TO OFFER

By: Harry and Gwen Carr

Grass farming is a more healthy and environmentally sustainable method of raising livestock than fattening at factory feedlots where grain is the predominant feed. Animals that naturally eat grass are healthier raised on forage as opposed to grain. The meat raised from these animals has "good fat", muscle building agents and cancer preventative substances. Grass farming builds topsoil, rather than depletes it and it is a good carbon sink for a world threatened by global warming. The quality of life for the animals, plants and humans farming and living near the farm is greatly improved.

Our quality of life is inseparable from our health. We all know someone who has passed away due to cancer or heart disease. Often for those that recover the debilitation is great. The link between our agricultural practices and health is obvious. While we are more than what we eat, diet is a big factor in our worst national health problems. Bad diet equals ill health. The ideal human diet provides a balance of two types of fat, Omega 3's and Omega 6's, weighing a bit heavier on the side of the Omega 3's. The average American diet is very heavy on the side of the Omega 6's.

Much of the grain grown in the Midwest is fed to ruminant animals. Ruminant animals are the ones with multiple stomachs that evolved eating grass, leaves and other fibrous plant materials-- not grain. The effects on the meat of ruminant animals eating grain are very negative: their fat becomes unbalanced in favor of Omega 6 fatty acids and unhealthy for humans. However, meat from ruminant animals raised on pasture is rich with omega 3 fatty acids and CLA. All grass fed meat contains high amounts of omega 3's, as opposed to the Omega 6 fatty acids prevalent in grain fed animals.

CLA, which is short for conjugated linoleic acid, is a natural cancer preventing substance primarily found in red meat; it is found in greatest concentration in grass-fed lamb. CLA is also said to naturally augment muscle building and weight loss. According to the May 2005 issue of the Stockman Grass Farmer, some of grass-fed meat's benefits include: 500% more CLA, 400% more vitamin A, 300% more vitamin E, 75% more omega 3, 78% more beta-carotene. So, our bodies are more healthy when we follow nature's lead in how we feed our animals. Not surprisingly the environment is also preserved and enriched when we follow natural patterns for livestock raising.

In mid-western agriculture, by focusing on annual grain crops, we have been mining the topsoil. When we acquired our Stelle farm it had an 18" drop between the ground on the fence line and the rest of the land that has been tilled and used to grow grain the last 50 years. Our current practice of tillage in the Midwest deposits a truckload of this topsoil in the Mississippi River every five minutes. This causes a hypoxic zone to form in the Gulf of Mexico. Hypoxic means too little oxygen, death to marine life, and death to the shrimp farming industry, among other things. The gradual loss of our topsoil results in the eventual loss of our ability to grow these crops without excessive costly inputs. The ever-increasing costs of these inputs already are placing a heavy burden on the current midwestern grain farmer. This year the fuel and fertilizer costs on average have increased $24,000 per 1000 acres farmed. Our current method of grain farming in the Midwest is simply not economically or environmentally sustainable.

While there is a place in our diet for grain, there is not a place in our ruminant animals' diet. Elimination of feeding grain to our ruminant animals would transform our midwestern agriculture. Picture grasslands similar to our original native prairie as far as the eye can see teeming with wildlife. The temperature of our original native prairie was 10 degrees cooler in the hot of the summer due to the moisture transpiring though the leaves and stems of the grassland plants. The carbon absorption of grasslands exceed that of forests due to the vegetative state the plants stay in when properly rotationally grazed. Many grassland bird populations have declined as much as 90% due to the increase in row crop farming. How nice it would be to see these populations restored.

Nature as Man can be a force for great destruction or a force of great renewal and abundant production of life. Can we find our way out of the misguided method of agriculture we are currently engaged in which has rapidly deteriorated our world?