Introduction

This was originally written as a response to a post by Seth Itzkan on COMFOOD in 2019. It’ s a a response to his piece, “Regenerative Grazing can Offset 98% of Auto Emissions in Vermont.” This was originally at: https://www.soil4climate.org/ruminations/regenerative-grazing-in-vermont-can-offset-all-auto-emissions-in-the-statebut I can’t find it today, though I have a copy.

Seth has given us a great thought experiment, especially since so much focus has been on CAFOs as representing livestock production in general, leading to general rejection of livestock production, (“the baby with the bathwater,” over generalized focus on “the cow,” not “the how”). 

Though I’ve criticized rapid simplifications related to climate discussions (such as based upon general misunderstandings of livestock system)s, we do need (adequate) generalizations to educate the public. I see value in this for stimulating thought in the Food and Environmental Movements.

Related to this first point is that the thought experiment reverses a lot of the general sense of agriculture that I find in the urban Food Movement. I’ve argued that there’s an urban and regional bias on key issues, (and the vegan bias is also very relevant here). Mark Bittman has referred to Iowa as the “ground zero” of something or other, and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has referred to Iowa politicians as necessarily the bad ones. Really though we’ve had some of the very best ones, much better than her, on the very biggest farm bill issues, and we have a long history as the center of farm bill reform of these issues, which the Food Movement has not yet come close to achieving. 

For example, local food can be a really big factor in agriculture where there are enormous cities, but very little good farmland available, (but it can’t be a major solution for most farming states, where this is reversed). For urban areas, there’s a huge market for local food with relatively tiny competition. 

So in this interesting little thought experiment, some very urban states would have a very hard time achieving positive results, (cleaning up their acts, being responsible “in my back yard,”) while it’s easy (technically, if not politically,) for farming states in the “fly over” regions to take this major step against climate change. So I think the thought experiment is quite helpful in stimulate alternative kinds of thinking, where the “baby” can be imagined as awesome and fully grown, and not at all a mere example of necessarily filthy “bath water” in the fly over regions.

Seth’s Thought Experiment

The thought experiment is based upon this study of grazing and carbon sequestreation: Paige L. Stanley, Jason E. Rowntree, David K. Beede, Marcia S. DeLonge, Michael W. Hamm, “Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems,”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338?via%3Dihub. Then he uses 2012 data from USDA for acres of grazing in Vermont in 2012, (https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/848B9907-90DE-3833-B54B-3F72039D90CB) and calculates how much carbon would be sequestered at the rate found in the study above. A third piece of data used is the amount of carbon a passenger car emits in a year, (EPA: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle).

That then led to a concluding figure of a 98% offset.

Brad’s Expansion of Data and Findings

For anyone interested in other states, the pastureland data is also found here, and for all states and the United States, (2012, “States by Table,” “Table 8,” scroll down to the second section, pp. 316-323): (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_2_US_State_Level/st99_2_008_008.pdf). I also find that the auto registration for all states is here on a single chart, but for 2017: (https://www.statista.com/statistics/196010/total-number-of-registered-automobiles-in-the-us-by-state/ ). (2017 shows slightly fewer Vermont registrations than 2016, so Seth’s results change from slightly negative to slightly positive.)

One technicality may be that the pasture statistic includes woodland grazing. 

Another thought is that there was much more grazing for most farming regions in the past. For example, in 1950, for Vermont, “Land Pastured, Total was 1,704,107 acres, 9 times the amount of 2012. (See 1954 census, choose a state, (http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/censusParts.do?year=1954 ) then Table 1, “Farms, acreage, and value: Censuses of 1920 to 1954,” then it’s in column 2, 1950 (scroll down). 

For Vermont, however, a lot of that may have gone into woodland over the years. (I’m reminded of Wendell Berry’s discussion in The Unsettling of America about urban oriented people having this as a goal. Quoting David Budbill, “Down-country people come up here [to Vermont], buy a 30-acre meadow, then when you ask them what they want to do with it, they look at you like some kind of war criminal and say, ‘Why, nothing! We want to leave it just the way it is!’” (p. 28) Berry argued that they were avoiding the question of use, denying the larger context of how they actually do live the rest of their lives. Of course, those trees might sequester more carbon, but they don’t provide the food that so many are worried about for the future.)

It’s very different here in Iowa. First, the thought experiment method for 2012 yields much more powerful results for Iowa (net carbon of 1,964,354, using 2016 auto registrations) than Vermont. Since 1950, much of the land went into cropland, (not forest,) and most farms have lost all livestock. Bringing livestock back out of CAFOs and onto most farms using enhanced grazing could lead to very positive results, (depending upon how it compares with corn and soybeans). With the 1950 pasture figure net carbon for Iowa is 11,097,520.

These simple calculations for 2012 show strong positive results for 6 states of the north and south plains, and Missouri (like Iowa, in the cornbelt) (2017 auto registrations). Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, (cornbelt,) which have more cars, yield negative results (much bigger than Vermont for 2016 auto use). All of this turns very positive with the 1950 data for “Land Pastured, Total.” For example, Illinois, which was behind (-4,124,736 tons) for 2012, (Chicago!) moves ahead by 4,181,666 tons with 1950 “Land Pastured, Total.”

On the other hand, for smaller, more urban states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Maryland, the results are quite bad, and even if they could go back to the 1950 numbers, that wouldn’t fix it. Curiously, Rhode Island (-510,759 tons with 2012 pasture and 2017 autos,) ends up beside Montana (+60,590,509 tons) on the list of auto registrations. California, New York, and Florida are quite positive with the 1950 pasture numbers, but only California is positive with the 2012 pasture numbers. So changes to farming systems are key.

Concluding Thoughts

There’s a lot of additional thought to be stimulated here. Hay production is one consideration. Mark Honeyman has argued that alfalfa could make up 30% of a hogs diet. Eastern Iowa also had quite a bit of pasture farrowing in past years. 2012 production of hay in Iowa is only 31% of 1950. 

More studies like the grazing study cited by Seth would be great.