Beef Fact Friday: How Farmers and Ranchers Are Becoming More Sustainable

Farmers and ranchers across the nation have taken drastic measures to improve the sustainability of the food you eat. Learn more with today’s #BeefFactFriday.

----------The below article and photo is from Facts About Beef -----------

When it comes to questions about sustainability, U.S. agriculture sometimes gets a bad rap. We know you might have questions about the sustainability of the food you eat and want to know what farmers have done (and what they are continuing to do) to be more sustainable. Of course, the best people to answer questions about sustainability in agriculture are the farmers and ranchers living it every day. On US News & World Report, Registered Dietitian Toby Amidor interviews five different types of farmers, including Kansas rancher Debbie Lyons-Blythe, to share some of the environmentally-friendly changes in their methods of raising and growing food. 

Debbie Lyons-Blythe,
Kansas cattle rancher

“I live in the Kansas Flint Hills, one of the last remaining natural tallgrass prairies in the world. To protect the prairie, we work hard to maintain the water and water quality in our ponds. The water comes from rainfall on the surrounding hills and is filtered through the grass as it runs into the ponds, providing access to clean, fresh water for cattle and wildlife alike. According to recent studies, up to 75 percent of wildlife in the U.S. lives on farms and ranches. We manage for the entire ecosystem and diversity is the goal – both in wildlife and grasses. That makes for a healthier grassland and healthier cattle.” – Debbie Lyons-Blythe, Blythe Ranch, Kansas.

Read the rest of the article. 

Beef Fact Friday: Raising Cattle is Good for the Earth

We always say that raising cattle is good for the Earth and those living on it, but would you believe it a little more if you heard from the Wall Street Journal? If you answered yes, then you’re in luck! Today’s #MeatyMonday WSJ writer says “cattle are key to the world’s most promising strategy to counter global warming: restoring carbon to the soil.”

The below article is contributed by the Wall Street Journal

By: Nicolette Hahn Niman

People who advocate eating less beef often argue that producing it hurts the environment. Cattle, we are told, have an outsize ecological footprint: They guzzle water, trample plants and soils, and consume precious grains that should be nourishing hungry

humans. Lately, critics have blamed bovine burps, flatulence and even breath for climate change.

As a longtime vegetarian and environmental lawyer, I once bought into these claims. But now, after more than a decade of living and working in the business—my husband, Bill, founded Niman Ranch but left the company in 2007, and we now have a grass-fed beef company—I’ve come to the opposite view. It isn’t just that the alarm over the environmental effects of beef are overstated. It’s that raising beef cattle, especially on grass, is an environmental gain for the planet.

Let’s start with climate change. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, all of U.S. agriculture accounts for just 8% of our greenhouse emissions, with by far the largest share owing to soil management—that is, crop farming. A Union of Concerned Scientists report concluded that about 2% of U.S. greenhouse gases can be linked to cattle and that good management would diminish it further. The primary concern is methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

But methane from cattle, now under vigorous study by agricultural colleges around the world, can be mitigated in several ways. Australian research shows that certain nutritional supplements can cut methane from cattle by half. Things as intuitive as good pasture management and as obscure as robust dung beetle populations have all been shown to reduce methane.

At the same time, cattle are key to the world’s most promising strategy to counter global warming: restoring carbon to the soil. One-tenth of all human-caused carbon emissions since 1850 have come from soil, according to ecologist Richard Houghton of the Woods Hole Research Center. This is due to tillage, which releases carbon and strips the earth of protective vegetation, and to farming practices that fail to return nutrients and organic matter to the earth. Plant-covered land that is never plowed is ideal for recapturing carbon through photosynthesis and for holding it in stable forms.

Beef Fact Friday: Beef Byproducts

Did you know that a beef animal weighing 1,000 pounds will produce 640 pounds of meat product such as steak, roasts and hamburger? When other products and byproducts are considered, 99 percent of the animal is used.

Byproducts are a major part of beef processing. The beef industry strives to be as sustainable and environmentally-friendly as possible, and that's why 99 percent of the animal is used. Check out this ‪#‎BeefFactFriday to see just how often you use beef products.

The moral of this story? There's no such thing as a vegan.