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Can different style of cow farming be carbon negative? I've seen one YouTube farmer claiming so but I have hard time believing it. He says bacteria takes carbo

by dvh 3y ago

Can different style of cow farming be carbon negative? I've seen one YouTube farmer claiming so but I have hard time believing it. He says bacteria takes carbon from manure and take it back to the soil but that cannot be more than was present in the grass that the cow ate right? It can put some small amount of carbon back but it will be net positive, not negative.

11235813213455 3y ago
> Can different style of cow farming be carbon negative? Maybe, but with much less animals and a mix of animals (not just cows, but ducks, chicken, ..) and mostly vegetable, that's how it's meant to be in nature Currently animal farms are disastrous: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+animal+farm+impact+on+environment%3F https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+animal+farm+impact+on... total weight of farm animals is 10 times the one of wild animals, which itself is about the same as pets, this is nonsensical
- ch4s3 3y ago
  There isn’t a way “farming is meant to be in nature”. There are all domesticated animals and plants.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    This is how farming is meant to be in nature: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/797805.Tending_the_Wild https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/797805.Tending_the_Wi...
    - ch4s3 3y ago
      This is just the noble savage myth. There is no “meant to be”.
      - hinkley 3y ago
        No, it really isn’t. They had their own stuff going on but they clearly had low input farming dialed in. I think you should read the book. Or, you know, stay flippant. It’s your circus not mine.
        ch4s3 3y ago
        There is no singular they. I’ve read a few books on the topic. You’re ultimately drawing from at best a snapshot of when the Spanish arrived or otherwise when English settlers or their American descendants were encountering populations wrecked by successive waves of disease. So it’s hard to know what things looked like prior and whether there was a stable equilibrium. We certainly know the Yucatán had at one point been basically stripped of trees for slash and burn agriculture. The forest agronomy that may have been practiced in the eastern woodlands probably relied heavily on both burning vast swaths of the land periodically and low population density. I’m not sure what that really does for us. Supporting really small numbers of people with vast swaths of highly fertile land has never really been a big problem.
        11235813213455 3y ago
        For sure we should reduce the total meat & fish production, people eat and waste far too much, just the fact that 1/5th of that production goes to pets say it all After that, I was talking about the equilibirum in nature or permaculture farms between animals and vegetals, which looks nothing like current intensive farming, which produce poor quality anyway. We don't need to eat meat once a day, even once a week isn't needed, more than half people are overweight in rich countries So it'd make sense to do those 2 changes
enkid 3y ago
Sounds like BS to me. Cows would have an environmental impact both by their release of methane when they digest the food they eat, and the hydrocarbons it takes to transport them/their food etc. And the electric power it takes to support them. There's also the issue of opportunity cost, i.e. that farm land could be carbon trapping forest instead. Considering eating beef is much more energy intensive then eating the equivalent vegetarian diet, there's simply no way cattle farm is energy negative just from bacteria taking carbon from the manure.
- msandford 3y ago
  The great plains in the US were legendary for having multiple feet of deep, rich topsoil for farming. Rich topsoil is that which has lots of organic matter in it, i.e. carbon. There are people who say the great plains were built by roaming buffalo herds, grazing on the grasses growing there. So if that natural system was able to sequester carbon it stands to reason that humans could mimic it and in doing so also sequester carbon.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    We should also figure out how many millennia it took the bison to do this and whether other uses for the land could sequester more carbon.
    - goda90 3y ago
      Some regenerative agriculture advocates say soil can build up pretty fast with the right techniques that include animals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk
      - beebeepka 3y ago
        Soil builds up real fast. A few leaves here and there, some dust, a little water and boom: grass, bushes, flowers. All this in several weeks to months. I've seen it happen so many times because our streets aren't well maintained. 5cm soil on concrete, asphalt, rooftops, etc.
KaiserPro 3y ago
It depends on the land they are farming. A decent well managed meadow will be carbon negative. but turning forest into meadow isn't normally carbon negative.

by dvh 3y ago

11235813213455 3y ago

> Can different style of cow farming be carbon negative? Maybe, but with much less animals and a mix of animals (not just cows, but ducks, chicken, ..) and mostly vegetable, that's how it's meant to be in nature Currently animal farms are disastrous: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+animal+farm+impact+on+environment%3F https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+animal+farm+impact+on... total weight of farm animals is 10 times the one of wild animals, which itself is about the same as pets, this is nonsensical

ch4s3 3y ago
There isn’t a way “farming is meant to be in nature”. There are all domesticated animals and plants.
- hinkley 3y ago
  This is how farming is meant to be in nature: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/797805.Tending_the_Wild https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/797805.Tending_the_Wi...
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    This is just the noble savage myth. There is no “meant to be”.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      No, it really isn’t. They had their own stuff going on but they clearly had low input farming dialed in. I think you should read the book. Or, you know, stay flippant. It’s your circus not mine.
      - ch4s3 3y ago
        There is no singular they. I’ve read a few books on the topic. You’re ultimately drawing from at best a snapshot of when the Spanish arrived or otherwise when English settlers or their American descendants were encountering populations wrecked by successive waves of disease. So it’s hard to know what things looked like prior and whether there was a stable equilibrium. We certainly know the Yucatán had at one point been basically stripped of trees for slash and burn agriculture. The forest agronomy that may have been practiced in the eastern woodlands probably relied heavily on both burning vast swaths of the land periodically and low population density. I’m not sure what that really does for us. Supporting really small numbers of people with vast swaths of highly fertile land has never really been a big problem.
        11235813213455 3y ago
        For sure we should reduce the total meat & fish production, people eat and waste far too much, just the fact that 1/5th of that production goes to pets say it all After that, I was talking about the equilibirum in nature or permaculture farms between animals and vegetals, which looks nothing like current intensive farming, which produce poor quality anyway. We don't need to eat meat once a day, even once a week isn't needed, more than half people are overweight in rich countries So it'd make sense to do those 2 changes

enkid 3y ago

Sounds like BS to me. Cows would have an environmental impact both by their release of methane when they digest the food they eat, and the hydrocarbons it takes to transport them/their food etc. And the electric power it takes to support them. There's also the issue of opportunity cost, i.e. that farm land could be carbon trapping forest instead. Considering eating beef is much more energy intensive then eating the equivalent vegetarian diet, there's simply no way cattle farm is energy negative just from bacteria taking carbon from the manure.

msandford 3y ago
The great plains in the US were legendary for having multiple feet of deep, rich topsoil for farming. Rich topsoil is that which has lots of organic matter in it, i.e. carbon. There are people who say the great plains were built by roaming buffalo herds, grazing on the grasses growing there. So if that natural system was able to sequester carbon it stands to reason that humans could mimic it and in doing so also sequester carbon.
- adrianN 3y ago
  We should also figure out how many millennia it took the bison to do this and whether other uses for the land could sequester more carbon.
  - goda90 3y ago
    Some regenerative agriculture advocates say soil can build up pretty fast with the right techniques that include animals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk
    - beebeepka 3y ago
      Soil builds up real fast. A few leaves here and there, some dust, a little water and boom: grass, bushes, flowers. All this in several weeks to months. I've seen it happen so many times because our streets aren't well maintained. 5cm soil on concrete, asphalt, rooftops, etc.

KaiserPro 3y ago

It depends on the land they are farming. A decent well managed meadow will be carbon negative. but turning forest into meadow isn't normally carbon negative.