Most everyone by this time has heard about cattle emitting methane from their digestion of grass. Very few have heard mention of the same from deer, goats, sheep, woodchucks, chickens and rabbits, among others. Strictly grass-fed cattle are said to emit around 40% more than those that are in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

I hear from very well educated and generally informed people that we need to limit the number of cattle we keep in the interests of climate change. I would like to pose a question to all of them, which is why the grasslands of the world had sequestered in their soils the most carbon of any area other than the oceans. The depth of the very rich topsoil in a good deal of the Great Plains ran around 9 feet deep! Then along came our Middlebury hero, John Deere. The “plow that broke the Great Plains” resulted in the loss of as much as three feet of that precious soil during the Dust Bowl days.

The answer to the quandary lies in what is sometimes called “the cycle of old methane.” Methane in the atmosphere fairly quickly breaks down into carbon dioxide. In excess, CO2 is said to create global warming. CO2 in the quantity produced by the animals feeding on the greenery stimulates approximately the same amount of vegetation they consume, hence creating the methane cycle. 

The overabundance of lawns that are mowed by polluting machinery produce approximately the same amount of methane as if they were grazed. The fact is that vegetation produces methane whether it degrades in the guts of animals or through oxidation while lying on the ground or from leaf fall in the autumn, etc… 

I’ll note here that when my mother was absent from the family farm, we had super-efficient and environmentally benign mowers for the small lawn — Guernseys on a chain anchored to a crowbar. Her disgust at seeing cow patties on the lawn resulted in my pushing a very worn reel mower, no matter what the temperature. I encourage others to graze their lawns and sequester carbon.

The buffalo were perhaps one of the greatest gifts to the plains Indians. Having evolved there over the millennia they were well adapted to the conditions. To discourage any parasites the birds failed to pick off, they would lie on their backs and squirm around like horses do. Their great weight and the humps on their shoulders resulted in an abundance of water catchments with built-in sumps to provide water for them and their many friends.

 Interestingly, when the great white invaders from Europe (I include the early settlers of both sides of my family in that category) arrived in what is now Phoenix they found an oasis created by similar catchments dug by the natives. The buffalo provided very tasty and nutritious meat and warm coverings for the plains Indians’ bodies and their lodges. Buffalo rugs protected their feet from the cold ground. Small furbearers would have provided their own gifts.

 Today, unfortunately, much of the world’s grassland is under tillage. Tillage, itself, causes oxidation of the carbon in the soil that is exposed to the air. When fields are left open for the winter, like is common in the Champlain Valley, a great deal of soil nutrition is lost. Much of the nutrition in the liquid manure in the manure pits evaporates. More is lost when surface applied. 

Conventional fertilizers, meant to make up for the losses, damage soil life and are of limited usefulness. Their manufacture results in environmental destruction. The lesser methane directly given off by confined animals is due to nutritional supplementation of grains, etc. grown on what was grassland. Cattle evolved to eat grass — not grains. The animals suffer and their food products fail to provide good health.

We’re off on the wrong foot, but thankfully, I see a change of awareness regarding our destructive agriculture. Planting trees is a noble gesture. However, decades pass before trees become efficient at sequestering carbon. Well managed, multi-species grazing is the much quicker and more sensible remedy.

Joe Gleason

Bridport