Why Going Vegan Might Not Be a Solution at All
By: Desiree Driesenaar
Tags: Climate Change, Vision, Sustainability, Vegan, Climate Action

Why More Cattle?

Well, what does this all have to do with more cattle?

We live in a broken world. And we want to come to a sustainable, desirable world like I just described. We want to be wise humans living within the ecosystems.

And don’t think that means we will be going back in time, living like cavemen. I’m convinced we will be living in harmony with nature in cities too.

But for that to happen, we need a transition period.

And the most important part of the transition is the restoration of the soil of our planet. We have been degrading the soil for ages and ages by maximizing our food production without care for the land.

We need to increase biodiversity and scientists estimate that at least one-quarter of our species on planet Earth live in the soil.

Soil Food Web for biodiversity. Source: commons.wikimedia

And the damage is so bad by now that farmland and nature reserve land both are very degraded. All over the world. Soil creatures cannot breathe anymore because the layers have compacted. Due to this compaction, water cannot be stored in the soil and plants grow with very superficial roots.

I work with farmers in my home country the Netherlands and the first thing we teach in nature-inclusive farming is that we have to prevent more compaction from happening. We have to stop compacting the soil with heavy tractors. If we don’t do that, all other efforts for creating biodiversity will fail.

The next steps are natural manure to give enough nitrogen and phosphorous to our soils combined with lots and lots of decomposing organic matter to build up humus. The healthy topsoil that our planet needs so badly.

Our agriculture has played a large role in degrading the land. Mindful agriculture can play a big part in restoring our soil to become healthy again. And that’s where cattle and chickens and pigs come in.

Animals are an intrinsic part of the web of life.

Cattle have hooves and they trample the soil in such a way that compaction is solved in a natural way. Chickens have claws and they love to eat the maggots out of the cattle manure. And pigs just love to turn soil with their snouts.

Allan Savory makes the case for more cattle with what he calls Holistic Management. Yes, overgrazing has been a problem degrading our soil. A solution, however, is not to go for less grazing.

Allan says we need more cattle and chickens and pigs doing what they do best, graze our grasslands, poo and trample the soil. We need to make sure the cattle need to be in big herds, grazing very quickly. Pooping an immense amount of manure. And then moving on and leaving the land alone for one of two complete years (natural cycles of plant growth).

I do agree with Allan very much when he says to environmentalist organizations that they need to work with cattle in Nature Reserves to restore degraded soils this way. Yes, we should.

And in this short film, permaculture expert Geoff Lawton gives his perspective on the matter. He gives nuances to Allan’s story that I relate to very much. We need to look at every situation locally and decide what tools of people-and-animal-collaboration works best.

Yes, we need animals.

There’s not a doubt in my mind that we need animals on a healthy planet. So what about the ammonia farts of cows, you ask? Healthy soil will absorb all. The problem is we don’t have healthy soil anymore…

Sorry, dear vegans, I will personally not go vegan. And I do not think that going vegan is a solution to all of our problems.

During the transition period, we need to work together. People in teams with animals to make our planet healthy again. And make sure we have enough food for all. And earn a living in our economies.

We have to find new ways of being together, producing our human food as well as restoring ecosystems.