Maximizing Soil Carbon Sequestration: Carbon Farming and Rotational Grazing

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In his groundbreaking book
In his groundbreaking book "Meat: A Benign Extravagance," author Simon Fairlie explores whether the hypothesis that vegetarianism is better for human health and the environment holds true. Based on numbers from the UK, Fairlie's well-founded scientific research explores the difficult environmental impact of eating meat along with the ethical and social issues surrounding the future of farming livestock across the globe.
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Using fences and rotational grazing practices, the carbon sequestration of the soils under the cattle herd's hooves can improve.
Using fences and rotational grazing practices, the carbon sequestration of the soils under the cattle herd's hooves can improve.

With research based in deep permacultural theory and a repect for natural systems that flourised long before corporate agriculture and animal factory farms, Meat: A Benign Extravagance by Simon Fairlie (Chelsea Green, 2012) delves into the ethical and environmental impact of eating meat and livestock farming. The following excerpt describes his findings on soil carbon sequestration and how carbon farming and the use of rotational grazing practices when raising livestock could go hand-in-hand. The text is adapted with permission from the chapter entitled “Holistic Cowboys and Carbon Farmers.”

You can purchase this book from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store: Meat: A Benign Extravagance.

In his book, The Carbon Fields, under the heading “No More Climate Change”, Graham Harvey writes:

Our food supply hides a big, fat life-denying secret. It’s something no one in the food and farming business ever wants to talk about. Yet it has the potential to transform the lives of everyone on this planet as well as the lives of future generations. It’s the power of soils to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and to end for all time the threat of global warming.

Soil Carbon Sequestration

  • Published on Aug 21, 2012
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