Template:Allan Savory
Animal Husbandry with Allan Savory
How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory
"Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert," begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes -- and his work so far shows -- that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.
"fire also leaves the soil bare, releasing carbon, and worse than that, burning one hectare of grassland gives off more, and more damaging, pollutants than 6,000 cars. And we are burning in Africa, every single year, more than one billion hectares of grasslands..."
One calculation put the burning of one hectare of grass at 14 cars, not 60. But that is looking at the carbon alone. [1]
The release of "oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOCs)" could be far higher and closer to the 60 car number.[2]
Quibbling over the numbers may counterproductive. There are about 2.8 million registered cars in Africa. Burning "one billion hectares of grasslands" which would release as much carbon as 14 billion cars and if you count the "oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOCs)" the damage could more than double or triple even with these incomplete figures.
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See also Running out of Time | Documentary on Holistic Management
http://savory.global | This in-depth documentary explores Allan Savory and how he has used Holistic Management to completely transform his land in Zimbabwe.
Holistic Management was made popular in Savory's 2013 Ted Talk, How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate Change.
This documentary was produced by Trevor Langham and his crew at Fig Multimedia Tech in Zimbabwe. We share this video in hopes that Trevor's amazing work will reach a wider audience to honor his memory.
Critics, naysayers and trolls
After reading countless articles and studies it is clear that one could say that claims for and advocacy of Holistic Management of livestock and grazing or even just eating meat are highly controversial. The opponents are numerous, energetic, and passionate but are not always honest and seldom without bias. They use facts and data which may sometimes be skewed but often misapplied, out of context, or even irrelevant.
Assumption of conclusions as facts are often far more controversial than the premises they or hypotheses they are attacking or at least denigrating.
They often have already accepted that climate change and carbon are a threat and anything that is suggested as excusing or justifying anything contrary to their faith in a hypothesized narrative are dangerous ideas. Promoting or expanding those ideas must, therefore, be putting us all in grave danger, must be counted as evil, and should be band or oppressed.
"The entire so called discrediting of Savory rests on two papers, Holecheck (2000) and Briske (2008), which themselves have been refuted in the academic and professional literature (Teague, Provenza, et al 2008; Teague, Dowhower, et al 2011, Gill 2009b, Gill 2009c). Studies in peer-reviewed academic literature show that Savory’s method works in achieving a full suite of ecological, economic, and quality of life enhancing goals (Stinner, D. 1997, Teague R. 2011), including improved grass density, soil moisture, soil bulk density, standing crop biomass, and soil organic matter (SOM) (Teaque R. 2011) … ” [3]
Carbon-negative
Is it possible that grassfed beef can be carbon-negative in the short term and carbon-neutral in the long term?
Research, led by Paige Stanley, from MSU and Christine Jones, an Australian soil ecologist, believes “The research clearly demonstrates there are no net emissions of greenhouse gas with well-planned AMP grazing, due to the sequestration of soil carbon,” AMP grazing provides “countless other ecosystem services,” “including improved biodiversity, erosion control, increased soil water-holding capacity, and greater drought resilience.” [4]
Janet Ranganathan, vice president for science and research at the World Resources Institute. “Beef is one of the least efficient foods to produce when considered from a ‘feed input to food output’ perspective,” she said. “Only about 1 percent of cattle feed calories and 4 percent of ingested protein are converted to human-edible calories and protein, respectively.”
But that is irrelevant because you are comparing entirely different ecological production within an entire ecosystem.
Using lands for cattle is diversity at its best. It not only saves land from becoming dead and useless but can be carbon-negative in the short term and carbon-neutral over the long ecological timeline. It also prevents fires, erosion while providing diversity to the human diet and cultural biology of the land and to those who live and depend upon the land.
“The impacts ...in his soil health are largely related to soil carbon sequestration and the microbiology that’s going on in the soil that none of us really understand.”
Keyline Principals or Concepts
Keyline design is a technique for maximizing the beneficial use of water resources of a piece of land. The Keyline refers to a specific topographic feature linked to water flow. Beyond that, however, Keyline can be seen as a collection of design principles, techniques, and systems for development of rural and urban landscapes. Keyline design was developed in Australia by the farmer and engineer P. A. Yeomans, and described and explained in his books The Keyline Plan, The Challenge of Landscape, Water For Every Farm and The City Forest.
The following is from Wikipedia
Percival Alfred Yeomans (1905 – 1984) was an Australian inventor known for the Keyline system for the development of land and increasing the fertility of that land. As a mining engineer and gold assayer, Yeomans had developed a keen sense of hydrology and equipment design. Upon his brother-in-law’s death in a grass fire, PA Yeomans assumed management of a large tract of land he later named Nevallan in New South Wales. Here he developed improved methods and equipment for cultivation. His designs won him The Prince Philip Design Award in 1974.
His Keyline principles or concepts (Keyline Design) have been adopted by farm owners in almost every country in the world. Yeomans’ Keyline concepts are now part of the curriculum of many sustainable agriculture courses in colleges and universities across the world. His ideas have also been a key factor in the development of permaculture design. P.A. Yeomans wrote four books; The Keyline Plan, The Challenge of Landscape, Water For Every Farm and The City Forest.
Farming
The Industrial Egg vs The Permaculture Egg
Working Farm - with good information from start up to profit [1]
Regeneration
Published on Mar 29, 2016
The United States is in crisis. The health of our soil resource has declined to such a point that it is not only negatively affecting farm and ranch profitability, but it is also having a devastating impact on everything from our water quality to our communities and even to our health. North Dakota rancher Gabe Brown walks us through a common sense solution to this crisis.
Gabe Brown is one of the pioneers of the current soil health movement that focuses on regenerating our resources. Gabe, along with his wife, Shelly, and son, Paul, own and operate a diversified 5,000-acre farm and ranch near Bismarck, ND. Their operation focuses on farming and ranching in nature’s image.
The Browns holistically integrate their grazing and no-till cropping systems, which include a wide variety of cash crops, multi-species cover crops along with all natural grass finished beef and lamb. They also raise pastured laying hens, broilers and swine. This diversity and integration has regenerated the natural resources on the ranch without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides.
The Browns are part owners of a state inspected abattoir which allows them to direct market their products. They believe that healthy soil leads to clean air, clean water, healthy plants, animals, and people.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
- ↑ The African grass species Pennisetum purpureum was measured to produce 40 tons of dry biomass per hectare per year, of which about 44% is purely carbon. Does releasing the CO2 of 18 tons of carbon produce the equivalent CO2 as 6000 cars?
- CO2 has an atomic weight of 44, compared with 12 for C. So 18 tons of C will become 44 X 18 / 12 = 65 tons of CO2. That CO2 emission is equivalent to 14 cars according to the EPA estimate of 4.6 metric tons / year, much less than 6000 cars.
- But this is purely on the basis of CO2.
- ↑ The original claim was regarding "more damaging" pollution, which indicates emissions other than what's found abundantly in nature, like CO2. Therefore this claim cannot be evaluated on the basis of carbon alone.
- Scientists in 2003 provided this study, which highlighted the need to evaluate many other compounds in evaluating pollution from burning grasslands, specifically oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOCs). By contrast, fuel combustion in cars is very clean in places where gasoline must be produced according to emissions regulations, such as the United States.
- ↑ http://www.paleocorner.com/the-trouble-with-allan-savory/
- ↑ https://civileats.com/2018/04/10/can-responsible-grazing-make-beef-climate-neutral/