permaculture

[Will Carey <cure@rtinet.com>]

Claude...

I'm guessing that you're quoting from a previous email (below) by Abe
Collins? You didn't refer to him, but I did a bit of research about the
Cimmaron Dairy reference and found this link to his HRM class offerings:

<http://vtcommons.org/node/316>

So he's evidently quoting Allan Savory about the amount of soil building and
CO2 reduction.  My copy of Holistic Management is buried at the moment, so I
can't look up a reference, but it sounds like something Savory would say.
And it could be true..I don't have any references to look up.

But there's a problem with the quote at the bottom:  methane emissions from
the bovines..... And frankly, all ruminants.  Methane is a much more
destructive greenhouse gas than CO2, from what I remember.

While I'm a meat-eater and dairy consumer myself... And speaking as a man
who just threw a bale hay to the heifer about 15 mins ago..... We need to
re-evaluate some of our blanket assumptions about "Grass Fed=Good."  In
general, yes,it's better than feedlots, but free range doesn't mean free
lunch. I hope we'll start taking a systems view of the pasturing and feeding
of ruminants.  

We can probably cut down the methane production of ruminants by re-thinking
the use of "predigested" feeds like silage.  If we could also think of
incorporating alcohol fuels as a bi-product of the silage making process, we
get a double yield:  alcohol fuels for the machines and low-methane-emmision
cows, etc. 

And if you add to that the use of high-yield grasses... Such as bamboos...
Planted long the nutrient-reuptake bioswales at the bottom of pastures...
And use those for the silage/alcohol fuel making, you get a third benefit of
clean run off from the grassland pastures.  Which cuts down on algal growth
in the ponds, creeks, ditches, etc...making the "nutrient sump" area easier
to clean. Giving you a fourth benefit.

So the system looks like this:

Pasture runoff =>Nitrogen fixed in Bamboo Bioswales => Bamboo chopped for
Alcohol Stills =>Predigested "Stillage" fed to Cattle=>lowered Methane
emissions from ruminants and Biofuels yield.

The late Simon Henderson... Our Bamboo Guru in Seattle.... worked with
Washington State Extension service on field trials for this sort of thing.
They had great yields and good results for nitrogen uptake.  But the results
have not been published, according to Daphne Lewis, who worked with Simon on
the project.  

I posted something about this before..... If anybody's interested in
following up on this, let me know.  I'd love to see

Will from Oregon 


on 1/27/06 09:00, permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org at
permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

>    Our atmosphere is comprised of the waste gases of life on earth,
> or life within a living earth.  The atmosphere is the breath of
> Gaia.  By increasing biodiversity and building topsoil,  through
> eating the meat and dairy produced by holistic grassfarmers, humans
> can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to pre-industrial levels
> within a decade.
>    I hope that this news gives you hope."