Ethical Beef, Part 5: Agriculture Benefits from Grazing Animals

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“I see the raising of cattle and other grazing animals on grass, which is inherently resistant to industrialization, as an essential part of a more locally and regionally based, more environmentally sustainable food system.”
“I see the raising of cattle and other grazing animals on grass, which is inherently resistant to industrialization, as an essential part of a more locally and regionally based, more environmentally sustainable food system.”
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In “Defending Beef,” environmental lawyer and vegetarian Nicolette Hahn Niman debunks popular myths about meat consumption, arguing that, when done properly, the earth benefits from the production of meat from cattle and other livestock.
In “Defending Beef,” environmental lawyer and vegetarian Nicolette Hahn Niman debunks popular myths about meat consumption, arguing that, when done properly, the earth benefits from the production of meat from cattle and other livestock.

Is eating meat ethically wrong or right? In Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production, environmental lawyer Nicolette Hahn Niman aggregates the research and personal insight to explain how eating meat is beneficial for humans and for the planet, stating that there is a need for meat to be produced the right way. This excerpt, which explains how grazing animals can positively impact the agriculture business and the environment, is from the section, “Final Analysis: Why Eat Animals?”

Buy this book from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store: Defending Beef.

Agriculture Benefits from Grazing Animal Herds

I may once have harbored a notion that by following a vegetarian diet I was choosing a path that ensured nothing would have to die for my meals. But no longer. The more I’ve become familiar with agriculture, the more that seems a gross oversimplification. As I’ve studied the globe’s hundreds of millions of years of change, it’s readily apparent that the earth was never assaulted on such a broad scale until the onset of crop agriculture, an effect that was greatly multiplied with the advent of mechanization. Pastoral animal keeping, however, mimics the functions of wild herds that covered the earth for millions of years. The impact of animal herds is a familiar disturbance to the earth, one that plants and animals can tolerate and actually need. Vegetation will be pruned and stepped on, as it has always been, allowing for a diversity of plants, and for perennialism. Compared with other ways of producing food, the keeping of grazing livestock, when done appropriately, is the most environmentally benign. The best lives for domesticated animals are on grass, and grass provides the most opportunities for wild animals of all shapes and sizes. Raising cattle on grass thus provides habitat for both the domesticated and the wild.

  • Published on Nov 25, 2014
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