Livestock in the Landscape: Optimal Carrying Capacity of Land for Livestock

• Lindsay Whistance stated her concerns as to how livestock is (mis)represented in the narrative around climate change.
• Livestock play a crucial role in functioning ecosystems, improving fertility, managing weeds and making room for other species to thrive, with associated biodiversity benefits. Under-grazing can be as damaging to ecology and landscape as over-grazing. With no apex predators, population control of species needs to be managed.
• Lindsay concluded: “There is a place for human food – animal-derived products – but this (meat, dairy etc) should come as a consequence of planetary health and ecosystem health, first and foremost.”
• Simon Fairlie highlighted the role of livestock in recycling ‘food waste’ and how that has been disrupted by disease scares and regulations. “Animals are a necessary part of an agricultural system“
• Organic and biodynamic farmer Richard Gantlett‘s Yatesbury House Farm in Wiltshire is storing 10x more carbon than it is emitting. Rotational grazing allows the herd instinct to manifest itself. By fencing in the crops, not the cattle, they are developing a forest farm approach that allows the cattle to roam in the woods, accessing shelter and diverse nutrition through browsing.
• Richard said: “We need to respect and revere our cattle. We aim to respect all life on our farm. It’s not the type of food that is important, it’s the system that the food has been grown in.”

Watch the video to find out more!