Now that we have this nice little thread to discuse holistic grazing, land management, and so on, maybe we should be discussing that instead of Clownven.
Since you seem to have strong feelings on the matter, maybe you can expound upon them and clarify what is and isn't good land management Red Barron.
Approximately 40% of the land surface of planet earth is under agricultural management.
Farming Claims Almost Half Earth's Land, New Maps Show
40% of the land surface is no minor amount, especially since most of the rest is mountains like the Himalayas, deserts like the Sahara, or other types of land not really suitable for agriculture. A pretty good portion of that land is what is termed "
brittle" though. Land like that has low humidity and sporadic seasonal rainfall. Without irrigation its usefulness for agriculture is limited to grazing. However most grazing systems used today are an extension of the models developed in Europe, then supplemented by corn and soy etc... which is grown primarily in more arable land, then fed to livestock in CAFOs. I feel this model we have gotten ourselves stuck into is HUGELY damaging to the environment. The arid savanna is in decline, but the tall grass prairie is completely gone. It's bad for everything. There really isn't anything more destructive to the environment in the US than agriculture. Here is a pretty good brief history and analysis of partly why that is:
NATURAL RESOURCES
CORNELL COOPERATIVE EXTENSION
Modern Agriculture: Its Effects on the Environment
Of course the subject is more complex than that. But it is a good starting point.
Not to be totally pessimistic about the whole thing, and realizing we all must eat, build houses, wear clothes, etc.... I do have VERY strong feelings that it is imperative we completely overhaul agriculture with regenerative models instead of the destructive models primarily used today. Nature can regenerate, but since we have destroyed the natural balance on 40% of the land worldwide, and we still need ever increasing food and fiber throughout this process of badly needed regeneration, that leaves only one option. We have to use biomimicry to tap into nature's regenerative and self healing characteristics in our agricultural models.
In simplified terms what I am saying is that we both can and must use agriculture to heal the land. The old ideas of using up the land with agriculture, then letting it go fallow till it recovers will no longer work. There isn't enough land and there are too many people. So what I consider "good land management" is any management system that regenerates the land and the wildlife and ecology at the same time as it produces food and fiber for our growing population. In my opinion it's really the only option we have left, short of killing off major %'s of population in wars, famines and plagues.
ETA: There is really nothing particularly special about Savory's holistic managed planned grazing, except that it is one of many new models of regenerative agriculture, and it is proven to work on land in brittle environments formerly thought to be impossible to regenerate and be useful for agriculture at the same time.
