Mar 10 2013: Benjamin Barrington, thanks for the clarification! Unfortunately, as Dr. McDougal said, "People like to hear good news about their bad habits," and the interpretation I used has been the common one on the internet.
As someone who's watching the forests die out in India from livestock overgrazing, I find Mr. Savory's choice of words and the ensuing interpretation to be truly distressing.
Mar 10 2013: George Weurthner's video contains devastating critiques of many of Mr. Savory's claims. Unfortunately, this self-selection of only success stories becomes an echo chamber as any failures are discarded as "poor execution".
Please understand that all systems implemented by humans will have to assume flawed executions.
Mar 10 2013: John, Vitamin B12 deficiency in the US is mostly prevalent among the meat eating population. Please see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency . It is a common deficiency as we've become too averse to consuming unwashed foods.
Mar 10 2013: It is from a systems perspective that I used cost as the litmus test for the claims. Cost encapsulates all the variables in one measure and if the claim is that the recovery process is sustainable and can be done in desert areas where land is dirt cheap and no additional inputs are needed besides the rotational grazing, then the cost has to be less than for other methods where people have to truck in soy, corn, protein meal and antibiotics and pile up the manure under tarpaulins.
We all know that if livestock is managed properly, the land could flourish and even sequester carbon, but the question is whether demand for livestock products has skyrocketed to the point where it has become fundamentally detrimental to the health of the planet.
Mar 10 2013: While Holistic management techniques may have allowed people in local instances to triple or quadruple their livestock population and green the landscape, we are being asked to leap from such local instances to conclude that what the planet needs is a global tripling or quadrupling of its livestock population in order to turn the Sahara green and reverse climate change. However, even in those local instances presented by Mr. Savory, if people had increased their livestock 5 or 6 fold, they would surely have exceeded the carrying capacity of their land, leading to desertification.
Therefore, the question before us is whether our planet is over-saturated with livestock or whether it is lacking in them.
At present, nearly 60 billion animals are raised and killed for food annually, while a Florida-sized area of tropical forests is being razed down every two years mainly to support the livestock industry, even as the industry is creating enormous biotic dead zones at the mouths of every major river on the planet. The evidence in front of our eyes is that the planet is over-saturated with livestock.
I claim that if Mr. Savory's local feats are applicable at a global scale, then ethically raised meat would become cheaper than factory farmed meat at any supermarket. That is the litmus test. If Mr. Savory fails that test, then he must concede that the planet is over-saturated with livestock and stop extrapolating from his local feats to a global prescription. The last thing he would want is to be held responsible for the extinction of elephants, which is a far worse guilt to carry to his grave than shooting 40,000 of them.
If Mr. Savory's techniques will produce livestock feed on land + allow the tripling of livestock population on land compared to standard industry practices, then there must be a clear cost advantage to such holistic management. Standard industry practices require corn, soy, protein meal and antibiotics to be hauled in to feed animals in CAFOs plus the manure has to be collected in large piles and shielded from the elements. These practices cost money.
Therefore, for the claims to be scientifically valid, ethically raised meat ought to be cheaper than factory farmed meat at any supermarket, for it requires no external input whatsoever, other than a well-trained sheep dog. If such a cost advantage cannot be achieved, then there is something wrong with the picture that's being painted.
I work with the poor forest dwellers of India and I can assure you that they mostly subsist on organic vegan food. It is fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and GMO seeds that cost money. Nature's output is free for them.
Current cropping techniques, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides have created biotic dead zones in the ocean since those crop outputs are being fed to livestock day in and day out for months on end in order to fatten the livestock for slaughter. This is a secondary production of human food which is fundamentally inefficient.
Please don't label me as "ethical vegan" or whatever. I'm just questioning the scientific validity of Mr. Savory's claims.
Mar 10 2013: Unless and until ethically raised meat (e.g. at Whole Foods) is cheaper than factory farmed meat at any supermarket, Allan Savory's claims remain scientifically invalid.
Mar 10 2013: Tony, the livestock industry is primarily responsible for converting nearly two-thirds of the land area of the planet into desert. Therefore, it stretches credulity for the industry to now argue that the only way to reverse this tremendous ecological damage to the planet is to triple or quadruple our livestock numbers, while using "holistic management" to create greater Net Primary Production of photosynthesis on the planet.
Perhaps the National Cattlemen's Beef Association could focus on greening the SouthWestern desert in the United States using such "holistic management" methodologies and demonstrate the efficacy of the approach by having this beef be served in McDonalds. In other words, if the cost of production is less, ethically raised meat has to be cheaper than what's being produced using current standard industry practices and not cost an arm and a leg at Whole Foods.
Until then, I shall continue to question the scientific validity of this approach.
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A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
As someone who's watching the forests die out in India from livestock overgrazing, I find Mr. Savory's choice of words and the ensuing interpretation to be truly distressing.
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
Please understand that all systems implemented by humans will have to assume flawed executions.
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
We all know that if livestock is managed properly, the land could flourish and even sequester carbon, but the question is whether demand for livestock products has skyrocketed to the point where it has become fundamentally detrimental to the health of the planet.
A comment on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
Therefore, the question before us is whether our planet is over-saturated with livestock or whether it is lacking in them.
At present, nearly 60 billion animals are raised and killed for food annually, while a Florida-sized area of tropical forests is being razed down every two years mainly to support the livestock industry, even as the industry is creating enormous biotic dead zones at the mouths of every major river on the planet. The evidence in front of our eyes is that the planet is over-saturated with livestock.
I claim that if Mr. Savory's local feats are applicable at a global scale, then ethically raised meat would become cheaper than factory farmed meat at any supermarket. That is the litmus test. If Mr. Savory fails that test, then he must concede that the planet is over-saturated with livestock and stop extrapolating from his local feats to a global prescription. The last thing he would want is to be held responsible for the extinction of elephants, which is a far worse guilt to carry to his grave than shooting 40,000 of them.
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
If Mr. Savory's techniques will produce livestock feed on land + allow the tripling of livestock population on land compared to standard industry practices, then there must be a clear cost advantage to such holistic management. Standard industry practices require corn, soy, protein meal and antibiotics to be hauled in to feed animals in CAFOs plus the manure has to be collected in large piles and shielded from the elements. These practices cost money.
Therefore, for the claims to be scientifically valid, ethically raised meat ought to be cheaper than factory farmed meat at any supermarket, for it requires no external input whatsoever, other than a well-trained sheep dog. If such a cost advantage cannot be achieved, then there is something wrong with the picture that's being painted.
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
I work with the poor forest dwellers of India and I can assure you that they mostly subsist on organic vegan food. It is fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and GMO seeds that cost money. Nature's output is free for them.
Current cropping techniques, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides have created biotic dead zones in the ocean since those crop outputs are being fed to livestock day in and day out for months on end in order to fatten the livestock for slaughter. This is a secondary production of human food which is fundamentally inefficient.
Please don't label me as "ethical vegan" or whatever. I'm just questioning the scientific validity of Mr. Savory's claims.
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
A comment on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
A reply on Talk: Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
Perhaps the National Cattlemen's Beef Association could focus on greening the SouthWestern desert in the United States using such "holistic management" methodologies and demonstrate the efficacy of the approach by having this beef be served in McDonalds. In other words, if the cost of production is less, ethically raised meat has to be cheaper than what's being produced using current standard industry practices and not cost an arm and a leg at Whole Foods.
Until then, I shall continue to question the scientific validity of this approach.