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In the past couple of articles for the South Kinni farmer group, I’ve talked about incorporating soil health principles into row crop fields. These fields represent a huge portion of our landscape, and they’re very important. However, pastures have a big impact on our watersheds as well. And when you consider that about 60% of the corn grown on Wisconsin farms goes to feed livestock, it becomes clear that how we manage our animals is quite connected to the crops.
When people think of livestock and water quality, they often think of concerns with manure management. That’s a fair pairing sometimes, because when we have many animals confined to the same space for a long time, the manure buildup can become a huge challenge. So why am I suggesting beef can protect a watershed? Because as many folks in the grassfed world like to say, it’s not the cow, it's the how. Ecosystems are meant to have animals on them, but in natural systems, the herds move across the landscape, leaving where they’ve just grazed so it can rest and re-grow.
Let’s talk about pasture. If you remember previous articles we’ve shared in this newsletter, we’ve talked about some key principles of soil health: cover the soil, keep a living root in the ground, minimize soil disturbance, and biodiversity. Now, if you picture a healthy pasture, all of those factors are met. Pastures have living roots in the ground 365 days a year, they should not have bare ground, they are infrequently, if ever, tilled up and most experienced farmers will try to protect them from being torn up by livestock during the wettest seasons. And diversity? Nothing beats a good mix of pasture plants plus all the bacteria coming out the back end of the cow to add biological diversity to the landscape.
While much of the beef at the supermarket comes from large-scale grain-fed operations from Nebraska and even Brazil, many farmers in our local watersheds do sell pasture-raised cattle. As noted earlier, most of the corn grown on the landscape goes towards feeding livestock. The remaining large slice of that pie largely goes to ethanol production. While we have many row crop farmers doing good work to grow crops and protect the landscape through management and engineered field practices, healthy pastures still see MUCH less erosion and less nutrient loss to the watershed than cropped fields.
Farmers who are keeping tall pastures and healthy livestock on them are creating a sustainable profit on land that would often otherwise be cropped and likely to see sediment and other compounds leaving those fields. Because of this, omnivorous lakeshore residents and river-minded folks would be well-advised to find a local farmer in your watershed who is managing beef through what we call “rotational grazing” or “adaptive management”. These terms mean the farmers are moving the cattle (or bison or other livestock) through different pastures before the pastures become over-eaten and degraded, and allowing their pastures to rest periodically without livestock on them so the plants can bounce back afterward.
There are many resources to learn more about grass-fed beef and the benefits. But the best option is often to connect with local farmers in your area. If you’re interested in buying beef that protects your local waters, we can help you find a farmer who can help you fill your freezer. A Google search of grass-fed beef or local Facebook marketplace might help, but if you want help finding someone whose management matches your values, we can help you connect through your local Farmer-Led Watershed Council or your local Wisconsin Farmers Union chapter.
Thanks for reading, next time, we’ll walk through a couple of local farms.
Tara Greiman-Daun is the Director of Conservation & Stewardship for the Wisconsin Farmers Union and assists local Farmer-Led Watershed Councils locally to enhance local farm economic and environmental sustainability.
To contact Tara, you can reach her at tdaun@wisconsinfarmersunion.com at 715-492-0329 or follow your local Farmer-Led Watershed Council on Facebook.com/farmerledwatershed.