Written by Lippa Wood, Savory Kenya Hub Leader
On the 28th of June 2018 we held a fundraiser for our hub and conservation project in the Maasai Mara in Kenya at the Goodwood House in the United Kingdom. We managed to raise over $90,000. We chose this venue as we felt it is in a location… Read more »
This papers shows that soils under a grazing method called “simulated holistic planned grazing” (SHPG) have the highest percent volumetric-water content (%VWC) of soils tested under three different grazing methodologies that also included “rest-rotation” (RESTROT), and “total rest” (TREST). The values for volumetric-water content were 45.8%, 34.7%, and 29.8% for SHPG, RESTROT, and TREST respectfully.
During a photo-elicitation process utilized to compare the landscape perceptions of HM graziers with those of more conventional graziers, HM graziers described their use of adaptive farm management techniques to gain outcomes for production and ecosystems alike, demonstrating a system-based understanding of their farms conducive to farming successfully under increased climate variability.
Eighteen (18) conventional and seven (7) holistic, dual-purpose ranches were studied using three sets of sustainability metrics combining economic, social, technological, and environmental indicators. Holistic ranchers have more pasture divisions, higher grazing pressure, greater lengths of time between pasture burns, greater milk productivity, larger forest reserves, lower cow and calf mortality, purchase less hay and feed, and use less herbicides and pesticides than their conventional neighbors, with holistic ranches demonstrating superiority for nine of ten indicators. Higher soil respiration, deeper topsoil, increased earthworm presence, more tightly closed herbaceous canopies, and marginally greater forage availability were found in holistic ranches, suggesting that holistic management strategies are leading to greater ecological and economic sustainability.
This paper does a greenhouse gas life cycle analysis (LCA) comparison of two grazing finishing systems in the Upper Midwest, USA: feedlot finishing (FL) and Holistic Planned Grazing, which the authors refer to as adaptive multipaddock (AMP). It finds that AMP finishing improved soil organic carbon (SOC) by 3.5 tons per hectare per year. This resulted in a net negative footprint (or drawdown) of 6.6 kg of carbon dioxide equivalence per kg of carcass-weight (CW). Thus, for every kilogram of carcass weight produced, over six times that amount was reduced from the atmosphere in terms of carbon dioxide equivalence with all other production related gases accounted for, including enteric and manure emissions.
Monthly updates from the Global Network.
885 Arapahoe Ave. | Boulder, CO 80302 | +1 (303) 327-9760
Savory Institute is a US-registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization. EIN: 45-4134319
Recent Comments