westernsky11-blog - Tumblr blog

westernsky11-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The War on Allan Savory

“‘Can is not the same as must.’

‘But if you must and you can, then there's no excuse.” [1]

Let me be upfront about something before we get into today’s post. I understand and respect your dietary decisions. I commend the choice to become a vegetarian or a vegan. We need more people who are committed to ending cruelty and making healthier decisions. But unfortunately, many people with good intentions are not looking at facts which contradict their opinions. It’s easy to assume that meat eating is always bad for the environment and cannot be sustainable. But the reality is that an integration of plants and animals is necessary for growing healthy, sustainable food. Joel Salatin had been preaching this for years. He has been using animals to restore soils and create healthier, more human farming practices. One of his practices involves mobile chicken coops, a technique now used by many farmers across the country and which also utilizes pigs, rabbits and other domesticated animals. The chickens live outdoors year round, eat weeds and pests which can hurt crops, and their droppings also fertilize the soil. [2] [3]

For more information on Joel Salatin I recommend you watch this interview with him and Joe Rogan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZVUoQd-P6o. An even more controversial figure, Allan Savory (picture below) is the godfather of a movement which has spread across the world and the inventor of a technique called Holistic Management. Holistic Management is one of the most important discoveries of our age. It is doing tremendous good for the world and it needs to be endorsed by as many ranchers and farmers as possible. Savory discovered this technique during the 1960’s after a tragic event. He was working in a game park in South Africa which was suffering from desertification and was advised to cull the parks elephants in order to prevent overgrazing. Unfortunately, the park didn’t get better after the culling, it only got worse. Savory loves elephants and he vowed to find a way to avoid ever having to do this again. Then Savory noticed something odd. In the past there were far larger numbers of animals on the grasslands than there are today and yet the grasslands were healthy. He wondered if there were too few animals, not too many. So he bunched as many cattle as he could get into a small piece of land and never let them graze in one place for more than a week. [4]

By mimicking the way herds move in the wild, Savory was able to restore the grasslands. The animals eat the grass then leave dung and urine behind which fertilizes the soil. They act like a plow as they scrap and cut the ground with their hooves. Just like with your lawn, the roots die back at the same length as you cut the stems. When the roots die they store carbon in the soil and healthy soils retain moisture. Streams that had run dry for decades started to come back. Soon In fact, Savory had a new problem. There was no bare ground left to do experiments and no dust for large animals to bathe in. [5]

Savory’s approach is employed by thousands of ranchers all around the world. There are several ranches here in the United States which employ holistic grazing, including Chaffin Orchards in California, Carman Ranch in Northeastern Oregon, Durham Ranch, which uses bison, in Wyoming, and a conduit of Ranches across the west called Country Natural Beef. [6][7][8][9] If you ever have eaten a Guckenheimer, McMenamins, or Burgerville, you may have eaten some of their beef.[10] These ranches should be applauded and supported. Their work will make our soils healthier and our environment more resistant to drought; the problem is not that we are receiving too little rain, but rather that the ground cannot absorb and slowly release the water that it receives because the worlds prairies and grasslands are not being grazed by enough herbivores. Holistic Management “improves grass density, soil moisture, soil bulk density, standing crop biomass, and soil organic matter, an indicator of increases in soil carbon.” [12] What Savory is doing isn’t magical. He’s simply restoring the balance that was lost when wild herds were moved to create space for livestock or confined to national parks.

But not everyone is so happy with what these ranchers are doing. Savory has many harsh critics who insist that his experiments don’t work, including George Monibot [13]. One of my professors at Oregon State, we’ll call this person Free Waterfall Jr. to protect their identity, told me not to trust Allan Savory and to “just look at wikipedia.”

Here’s what Wikipedia actually has to say about him.

Praised by supporters as genius, prophet and visionary, his controversial ideas have sparked fierce opposition from academics, environmentalists, and vegans. Yet his radical approach is gaining ground, with new converts and investors, and total grassland under holistic management topping 40 million acres worldwide. Savory received the 2003 Banksia International Award and won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Prince Charles called him "a remarkable man" and Joel Salatin, dubbed by the New York Times as 'Virginia's most multifaceted agrarian since Thomas Jefferson,' wrote, 'History will vindicate Allan Savory as one of the greatest ecologists of all time.' [14]

Funnily enough, the staff in the kitchen at McNary’s were much more interested [15]. The head chef told me that they receive their beef from Country Natural Beef, a certified practitioner of Holistic Management. [16] Oops!!! I sat down and had a burger, whose patty was made from meat that probably came from one of these ranches. It felt eerie. On the very same campus, I was defying the wisdom of Free Waterfall Jr.

The film Cowspiracy, a docu drama about the damage of industrial farming, assassinates Savory’s character rather than criticize his work head on, going as far as to call him a mad elephant killer. No, I’m not making this up. [17]

"Allan Savory confesses in his now very famous TED talk… that as part of the ‘conventional’ thinking about overgrazing, he authorized the shooting of thousands of elephants to try to reverse desertification on National Parks in South Africa. As an animal lover this was a tragic moment in his life, made worse by the fact that the desertification process actually got worse following the removal of the grazing animals. Savory admits this was the biggest mistake of his life and has entirely dedicated his life to finding a solution." [18]

This shameful smearing doesn’t address the issue of whether holistic management works or not and it leaves out the fact that Savory was advised to cull the elephants by “government appointed, environmental wildlife experts.”[18] Shame on you Cowspiracy!! However, the push back has been nothing less than heroic. In 2014, The Guardian published an article refuting savory’s critics saying, “claims that Savory’s approach has been discredited in the academic literature are based solely on two papers … Both have been countered in academic and professional literature by papers which find that Savory’s method meets the claimed ecological, economic, and quality of life enhancing goals.” [19]. Friendlyjordies, an Australian youtuber, smashed Savory deniers for their insolence in an excellent video,and rightfully so. [20] With the increased threat of water scarcity and the loss soils across the world, we desperately need solutions.

While in Portland a couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the fine folks who work at Carman Ranch in Northeastern Oregon. They had quite a bit of meat; I would have bought some if I had a cooler. They told me they were working on getting some of their meat sold to Burgerville. Fantastic!! They were very much ecologically conscious and advised me to eat less meat. I don’t know if everyone can get behind that, but surely we can all get behind eating healthy beef which is good for the environment.

As much as you can, I highly recommend that you learn about and support Holistic Grazing methods, the most practical way to fight climate change.

References and Further Reading

Blaxter, Joanie. “The Cowspiracy Farce.” Kelly the Kitchen Kop. December 21 2015. Accessed November 23, 2016. Retrieved from, http://kellythekitchenkop.com/cowspiracy-farce/?utm_source=subscriber.

Chaffin Orchards/ "Permaculture Based 2,000 Acre Family Farm Integrating Grassfed Livestock with Orchard Farming." chaffinfamilyorchards.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.chaffinfamilyorchards.com/.

Carman Ranch. “Exacting Standards, exceptional flavor.” carmanranch.com. Retrieved from http://www.carmanranch.com/.

Country Natural Beef, “Healthy Land, Healthy Animals, and Healthy People,” countrynaturalbeef.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.countrynaturalbeef.com/

Durham Ranch. “Welcome to Durham Ranch.” durhamranch.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://durhamranch.com/

Find a Restaurant. “Visit one of these fine restaurants to taste the Country Natural difference.” countrynaturalbeef.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.countrynaturalbeef.com/find-a-restaurant.html

Friendlyjordies. “Defending Cows from Vegans.” Youtube. July 21 2015. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-IFH_oo4HY

Holistic Management International. “Country Natural Beef.” holisticmanagement.org. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://holisticmanagement.org/certified-educators/country-natural-beef/

Livingwell, Joy. “Portable Pens for Pastured Poultry: designs that beat heat, wind, and rain.” ManagingWholes.com February 5 2010. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.managingwholes.com/poultry-pens.htm

Lovins, Hunter L. “Why George Monibot is wrong: grazing livestock can save the world.” The Guadian. August 19 2014. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/aug/19/grazing-livestock-climate-change-george-monbiot-allan-savory

Salatin, Joel. “Pastured Poultry Profit$.” Swoope Virginia: Polyface, 1996.

Wikipedia. "Allan Savory." Wikipedia.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Savory.

Savory, Allan. “How to Green the World’s Deserts and Reverse Climate Change.” Youtube. March 4, 2013. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI.

Youtube. “The First Millimeter: Healing the Earth.” youtube.com. May 12 2015. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGLCb9Z6y7w

[1]. Philip Pullman, “The Amber Spyglass,” (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 174.

[2]. Joy Livingwell, “Portable Pens for Pastured Poultry: designs that beat heat, wind, and rain,” ManagingWholes.com. February 5 2010. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.managingwholes.com/poultry-pens.htm

[3]. Joel Salatin, “Pastured Poultry Profit$,” (Swoope Virginia: Polyface. 1996)

[4]. Allan Savory, "How to Green the World's Deserts and Reverse Climate Change," YouTube. March 04, 2013. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI.

[5]. Ibid

[6]. Chaffin Orchards, "Permaculture Based 2,000 Acre Family Farm Integrating Grassfed Livestock with Orchard Farming." chaffinfamilyorchards.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.chaffinfamilyorchards.com/.

[7]. Carman Ranch, “Exacting Standards, exceptional flavor,” carmanranch.com. retrieved from http://www.carmanranch.com/

[8]. Durham Ranch, “Welcome to Durham Ranch,” durhamranch.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://durhamranch.com/

[9]. Country Natural Beef, “Healthy Land, Healthy Animals, and Healthy People,” countrynaturalbeef.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.countrynaturalbeef.com/

[10]. Find a Restaurant, “Visit one of these fine restaurants to taste the Country Natural difference,” countrynaturalbeef.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.countrynaturalbeef.com/find-a-restaurant.html

[11]. Allan Savory, "How to Green the World's Deserts and Reverse Climate Change," YouTube. March 04, 2013. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI.

[12]. Youtube, “The First Millimeter: Healing the Earth,” youtube.com. May 12 2015. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGLCb9Z6y7w

[13]. L Hunter Lovins, “Why George Monibot is wrong: grazing livestock can save the world,” The Guardian. August 19 2014. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/aug/19/grazing-livestock-climate-change-george-monbiot-allan-savory

[14]. Wikipedia, "Allan Savory," Wikipedia.com. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Savory.

[15]. McNary’s is insanely good at being sustainable. We should set up a restaurant like it in every city.

[16]. Holistic Management International, “Country Natural Beef,” holisticmanagement.org. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://holisticmanagement.org/certified-educators/country-natural-beef/

[17]. Joanie Blaxter, “The Cowspiracy Farce,” Kelly the Kitchen Kop. December 21 2015. Accessed November 23, 2016. Retrieved from, http://kellythekitchenkop.com/cowspiracy-farce/?utm_source=subscriber.

[18]. Ibid

[19]. L Hunter Lovins, “Why George Monibot is wrong: grazing livestock can save the world,” The Guardian. August 19 2014. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/aug/19/grazing-livestock-climate-change-george-monbiot-allan-savory

[20]. Friendlyjordies, “Defending Cows from Vegans,” Youtube. July 21 2015. Accessed November 26, 2016. Retrieved from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-IFH_oo4HY

0 notes