35 percent of public lands — 155 million acres — are used for livestock
grazing in this country. And almost all of it is destructive;
overgrazing
can destroy native vegetation, damage soils and stream banks, disrupt natural
processes and contaminate
waterways
with fecal waste.
But not the lands managed by Glenn and Carol Elzinga and their seven
daughters: At the Elzinga family’s Alderspring
Ranch in May, Idaho, they have implemented a
practice called "inherding.” These practices have transformed dryland
grazing on their 40,000-acre public land allotment from those that harm the land
to those that heal.
Most ranchers in the US practice "continuous grazing" — turning cattle out onto
public lands for the summer and rounding them up three months later. But continuous
grazing is the bane of those trying to preserve our country’s dry grasslands.
Most of these grazed areas are now so degraded that they’ve lost their
biodiversity. There are few trees, if any, left by the waterways; and there is a
lot of bare ground.
As Glenn says, "Cattle follow the 2 ‘Gs’: Gravity and Grass.” With
the continuous grazing that most ranchers use, the riparian areas become so
damaged because the cattle spend all of their time grazing (and pooping) by the
water. With the loss of grasses and woody species by the waterways, there is no
habitat for what Glenn calls the 3 "Bs" — Birds, Bears and
Beavers. Beavers are considered a keystone species because they fell woody
plants, which helps slow down the water. Without vegetation and beaver dams,
water flows more quickly off the land — causing first erosion and then
surrounding land that dries out more
quickly
because of the lost water. And the ripple effect goes on ...
Instead of "continuous grazing," the cattle herded by the crew at Alderspring
continuously walk. It's an incredible thing to watch. Picture this: 500 head of
cattle with their heads down, sneaking a bite here and there — walk through any
given spot on the range in a matter of minutes — guided by the crew on
horseback. And the Elzingas don't allow the cattle to return to that spot again
for 3-7 years, depending on rainfall. These are dry areas and recovery is slow!
Not only is this approach to grazing better for the land and the cows — another wonderful side effect of managing the herd in this way is that the meat raised
on a more diverse landscape is much healthier for us, too. While cattle in a
feedlot eat mostly corn (that they never evolved to eat), the cattle from
Alderspring graze on 2,500 different plant species. Studies have shown that the
thousands of diverse plant phytochemicals can then accumulate in the meat. The
Elzingas have had metabolomic tests done on their beef compared to thousands of
beef samples from around the world: The omega-3 fatty acids from the beef at
Alderspring Ranch exceed that of
omega-6.
One benefit leads to another.
“Instead of acting on an ecosystem, we became part of it,” Glenn says. “That's
the vision that changed for us. When we partner with nature like that and become
part of ecosystems, to me that's what Real Organic is.”
The sad thing is that many people are totally against grazing in the West
because continuous grazing of cattle devastates the landscape. But by keeping
the cattle and the aftermath of their presence out of the waterways, the
Elzingas have shown us a better way.
“We all drink out of the creeks,” Glenn asserts. “We don't purify or filter the
water and we never get sick. It’s like what water was meant to be. It's
beautiful — and I can't do that on anybody else's grazing allotment, because
it's fetid. It's got fecal matter floating down it and it's got sedimentation.
It's wrong."
It turns out that, like beavers, ranchers are a keystone species, too — it is
human management that has cascading effects. We hold the keys to whether our
public lands are nurtured or destroyed. We are the agents of change. And while
the Elzingas bring us hope, the cattle industry at large would do well to take
notes.
Co Director, Real Organic Project
Published Sep 9, 2024 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST