MB, Canada | johnwayne360 - 1/19/2024 16:32
If cow farts are ruining the world, how can beef be carbon neutral?
Plants, particularly perennials, sequester more carbon in the soil than they use to grow their above ground biomass. While carbon-neutral grass-finished beef is a very real possibility, I doubt this producer has the level of research to legitimize their claims.
It's why huge herds of ruminants existed on earth's grasslands for millennia without runaway greenhouse gases becoming a problem. It's only when you start adding a bunch of "extra" carbon like fossil fuels or volcanic eruptions does the equation get out of whack. Realistically, soil carbon sequestration is about the only avenue we have left for sequestering large amounts of carbon, since the atmosphere and oceans are essentially already at max capacity. A one percent increase in soil organic matter sequesters about 8 tons of carbon per acre, and the benefits of soil organic matter don't "max out" until over 9% or so when it almost starts to act like a peat bog.
Of course, there are a lot places where moving the SOM by 1% over a person's career is unlikely, but it's certainly not a far-fetched goal in more northern climates. The biggest loss of soil carbon comes the first time a soil is converted from perennials to annuals (estimates are in the 1/3 to 1/2 of total soil carbon is lost). This is why converting grasslands to annuals to grow biofuels is such an ass-backwards approach. We'd be in a lot better carbon balance if we just burned good old gas and diesel, kept our grasslands as grass, and focused on properly managed grazing. |
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