Award winning environmental author, Richard Manning says we can reduce water pollution, increase soil-water percolation, decrease flooding, decrease soil erosion and sequester millions of tons of carbon each year by switching from a corn-based animal protein finishing system to one that lets animals harvest their own food from a perennial pasture. And to top it off, we can do all of that and make more money to boot.

In a recent article published in Mother Earth News magazine, Manning makes the claim that farmers and ranchers can produce the same amounts of animal protein using perennial pasture as they currently do using the industrialized feedlot finishing model, if a proportion of corn acres are restored to some semblance of native grassland. We can save the environment and produce much healthier meat at the same time.

I have been a proponent of meat production models that take advantage of the animals’ natural abilities for decades, so grass finished meat is a no-brainer to me. Animals raised and finished on pasture live a much better and healthier life, aren’t prone to becoming obese, and are more able to fulfill their genetic destiny. Healthy and happy animals produce healthy meat. I don’t care what any industry pundit says … fresh grass-finished beef is better for you than box-store meat that’s been injected with “flavor enhancers.”

As a child and student of the prairie, I am also thrilled that Manning makes the point that perennial grasslands, in conjunction with large herds of grazing animals, are precisely what built the fertile, farmable soils that we grow most of our corn and soybeans on in the first place. Plowing a prairie or pasture releases incomprehensible amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere … and over time, the once fertile soil is depleted to the extent that it is little more than a medium for planting seed that will be nurtured with artificial fertilizers. It’s time to pay attention to how prairie soils were made and to use that knowledge to pull carbon back out of the atmosphere.

It’s not only about carbon and the air, however. It’s also about clean water and flooding Many folks don’t realize that water runoff percentages from tilled fields are surprisingly close to those from paved parking lots. If water was air, then perennial grasslands would be the lungs that pull that air back into the earth. Soils high in organic matter (exactly the kinds of soils that develop beneath perennial pastureland and prairie) have excellent water filtering abilities and sponge-like water storage capacities. You only have to look at a lush green stand of Kansas Big Bluestem in August to know that there is plenty of water down there … even though it hasn’t rained for a month.

I don’t suggest that all farmland should be converted back to perennial grasslands, but I am pleased that Manning challenges conventional agriculture and conventional environmentalism to rethink the role that animals might play in creating a healthier and safer food supply and a healthier and more sustainable environment. There is no magic bullet for these global problems. No single lifestyle change, no single food production model, no amount of legislation will fix the messes we have made. I believe that integrated solutions achieved with balanced thought will keep us keeping on ... not anti-intellectual zealotism, no matter how empassioned.

Manning’s analysis points to the importance of open-mindedness to the process. So let’s remove the single-issue blinders and face the true complexity of our environmental and food issues. I know we can do it.

It seems like a no-brainer and revolutionary grassfarmer Joel Salatin has been saying it for decades … it’s official now though, diversity in the pasture matrix is good for grazing animals.

According to a fantastic article in the current issue of Rangelands, which is published by the Society for Range Management, as higher costs and environmental concerns about fossil fuels push more people to buy locally produced food, demand for livestock raised on pastures and rangelands—rather than in feed lots—is spurring a return to greater reliance on native rangelands and cultivated pastures.

“By focusing on a few species, people transformed the diverse world of plants into a manageable domain that generally meets energy and protein needs and limits  intake of toxins,” writes Frederick D. Provenza and his coauthors in the article, “Value of Plant Diversity for Diet Mixing and Sequencing in Herbivores.”

But this practice limits genetic plant diversity and health benefits to livestock from combinations of available plants nutrients, while threatening ecosystems reliant on biodiversity to avoid catastrophe. The researchers suggest a new alternative for livestock grazing that calls for having animals eat a variety of complementary plants. They suggest that these varied plants would provide a range of primary and secondary nutritional compounds, along with greater health and nutritional benefits. No surprise there, but good for the SRM researchers for taking a stand.

The article, “Value of Plant Diversity for Diet Mixing and Sequencing in Herbivores,” is available in its entirety, here.

We’ve done virtually all the rough country mowing at the farm the past two seasons with DR’s 44-inch cut, 17-horsepower, electric start, tow-behind Field and Brush Mower. DR Power recommends pulling the mower with an ATV or garden tractor. We have used both of those motivators and a couple of different UTVs with good success. The danger with using the UTV is that the mower controls aren’t as close at hand as is optimal. The DR tow-behind Field and Brush Mower has performed exceptionally well, considering the abuse it’s experienced.

I will admit to being a mite skeptical to the concept of such a scaled-down mower for rough-country cutting. Until we got this mower, we handled all the rotary cutting with a Bush Hog Squeeler mounted on the 36-hp Kubota’s 3-point hitch. Some of our country is really rough … strewn with chunks of limestone no less … so operating the tractor in our roughest pastures isn’t very comfortable. With their long suspension travel and cushy seats, the ATVs and UTVs eat those bumps for breakfast and come back looking for more.

Behind the Polaris Ranger Sportsman 500 ATV, the DR tow-behind Field and Brush Mower was a dream to operate. I first used the mower to cut some hiking trails around the farm. I was able to make the paths at about 11 miles per hour. The ATV was surefooted and comfortable at that speed, and the Kohler twin-cylinder engine had no trouble spinning the Field and Brush Mower’s blade … except in the thickest and tallest grass in moist lows. In those areas, I had to slow the mowing to about 5 miles per hour. The Polaris/DR Field and Brush Mower combination was also invaluable for cutting the acres of fire break around the CRP, in preparation for the controlled burn we accomplished last spring.

Since I don’t have much luck controlling musk thistles with herbicides, and I don’t really like spraying the stuff, this year I went after the herbaceous pests with the tow-behind Field and Brush Mower. This time, I used the Cub Cadet Volunteer UTV to pull the mower. The mowing was pretty light-duty for the Cub Cadet, but it was surely comfortable mowing. I got so carried away with shredding thistles that I eventually mowed about 20 acres with that combination. Again, the Field and Brush Mower performed flawlessly. Somewhere along the line, the entire front projectile guard on the mower got torn off. It is made of a flexible rubber-like material, and I suspect that some thorny Osage Orange seedlings just grabbed hold of it as I was mowing them down. I think this piece should be replaced with something like chain mail … or it should be available as an option. I didn’t feel worried that the piece was missing when using the UTV, but with the ATV or garden tractor, it would have been potentially dangerous.

This fall, Kate and I cleaned up the fire breaks and paths and mowed a bunch of cedar saplings with the DR Field and Brush Mower behind the Polaris Ranger 700 EFI XP. The Polaris is a dream machine when it comes to mowing … and since it has a speedometer, I was able to document that mowing at 10 miles per hour was easy to do. The Field and Brush Mower is a monster when it comes to chewing up small trees and brush. The 17-horsepower version is rated to shred saplings up to 2 inches in diameter. I know ours has tasted a few trees that were larger. On our last outing, I noticed a couple of bolts that attach the motor housing to the deck had worked loose and fallen out. The machine’s manual indicates that you should check and tighten all nuts and bolts periodically. Considering that the mower has around 60 acres of bouncing around and almost 40 engine hours on it, I am not surprised that some things came loose. I have done no checking or maintenance on the machine other than changing the engine oil.

I continue to be impressed with the quality and utility of the DR tow-behind Field and Brush Mower. Truth be told, the Kubota-mounted rotary cutter never got used this year. I am not ready to sell the Bush Hog Squealer just yet, but it certainly isn’t going to get the hours going forward as it used to in the past.