One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture

Contrary to conventional farming wisdom, “overgrazing is less about what the grass looks like above ground and more about what the roots look like underground” (67). Phil explains that while conventional pastures might look healthy, the root masses underneath the ground are likely depleted. Livestock continuously eating the new grass shoots causes this depletion, which results in root die-offs. Overgrazing causes the Great Plains to become thinner, less diverse, and more populated with woody and weedy plants. These conditions increase the risk of desertification. Climate change, which is already impacting the Great Plains through higher-than-average temperatures, also speeds up desertification.

To reverse desertification, Phil believes that ranchers must prevent bare ground with plant diversity. Prairie lands once supported diverse grass varieties. However, officials pushing conventional grazing practices told ranchers that only certain types of grasses should be grown in the Great Plains. This shift, coupled with conventional grazing strategies, destroyed the grass diversity found in the Great Plains. Phil works to ensure that his pastures have a diverse mix of grasses, since this is key to the grassland’s health. Holistic management helped heal Phil’s land. Compared to his neighbors, he has fewer bare spots and native plant species are returning. Moreover, the return of plant diversity to his land has had ripple effects. He has seen more animal diversity, including a greater number of dung beetles, which help move nutrients from manure back to the soil. Phil saves time and money by recognizing and encouraging plant and animal diversity on his ranch.

This chapter describes the CAFO-driven meat production system. In this system, most animals consume grain rather than grass. In fact, the only time cattle eat grass is when they are calves on pasture for the first six to 10 months of their life. Once weaned from their mothers, ranchers only give their cattle grain. Being ruminant animals, cattle and bison are built to eat and digest grass not grain. Grain does allow cattle to fatten quicker. Once the CAFO’s buy the animals from ranchers, they fatten them for slaughter, a process known as finishing. During the finishing process, animals live in grassless feedlots and consume controlled rations of grain. Large CAFOs are thought to be more efficient than smaller ones. As a result, around half of the cattle slaughtered in the US come from just 20 CAFOs (83).

Anderson highlights the troubling realities of the CAFO-driven meat production system. Grain and corn do not have the same nutritional content as grass. Thus, grain-fed cattle are not as healthy as grass-fed cattle. Moreover, conventional grazing, which keeps livestock in the same pasture for too long, makes them more likely to contract worms. As a result, conventional ranchers often give their cattle antibiotics to treat various illnesses. Phil, in contrast, does not. He finds that a healthy diet and minerals work just as well as antibiotics and are not as detrimental to the ecosystem or human health. CAFOs also pump their animals with hormones. While hormones help to fatten the cattle, they are detrimental to the environment.

Despite buffalo being a wild animal, the majority are still grain-finished in feedlots. Anderson argues that this is a “reflection of the agribusiness determination to stick with the grain model” (86). Even though Phil is anti-CAFO, he still sometimes has to sell his buffalo to feedlots because they are the major animal buyers. He does primarily try to sell his animals to individuals who want to finish them on grass. Phil would prefer to sell meat himself, because it is currently illegal in the US for ranchers to slaughter animals and retail the meat. Instead ranchers must sell their cattle to USDA-inspected slaughterhouses.

While meat comes from CAFOs and mega slaughterhouses, this comes with extremely high environmental, health, and social costs. For example, because cattle live in their own manure in CAFOs, after the cattle is slaughtered, “workers peel away his manure-crusted hide, trying to prevent manure from touching the meat, but not always succeeding” (89). The manure contains lethal contaminants, including E. coli. Slaughterhouses kill these bacteria by using steam, chemical sprays, and irradiation. However, if the meat becomes contaminated, the bacteria end up in countless packages around the US, causing serious harm to human consumers.

One possible way to address the environmental and ethical concerns from the conventional meat production system is organic certification. The USDA National Organic Program (NOP) sets the organic standards and controls and enforces these standards. However, there is much controversy surrounding the NOP. For example, board members are often tied to agribusiness and food retail companies. Thus, critics argue that these board members cannot separate the interests of their employers from their decisions on organic food policy matters.

Great Plains Buffalo was USDA-certified organic. However, Phil stopped participating in the program when the government watered down the organic rules. Phil argues that the organic rules have significant loopholes. For example, the government allows the use of parasiticides and vaccines, further supporting that giant agribusiness corporations hold greater influence over organic policies in the US than consumers. In addition, organic animals are still often finished on organic grain. The organic slaughter system is also not that much different than the convention system. Anderson notes that “this is a major problem with the organic standards: they don’t fix the CAFO issue” (95).

Phil would like to see profit defined in environmental terms rather than monetary terms. Carbon, clean water, symbiotic relationships, and fertile soil rather than money will help humans farm forever. To both Anderson and Phil, “the truly successful farmer isn’t the one with the most money, but with the healthiest land” (104). To truly revolutionize the American agricultural system, conventional farmers must see that wealth comes from using nature rather than synthetic chemicals and hormones. This change will not be easy. Giant agribusiness corporations often support candidates that protect and promote their business interests. Court rulings, such as the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, make it easier for corporations and unions to spend large sums of money during election years, ensuring the election of their favorite candidates. Capitalism’s focus on making money also makes it nearly impossible to change how one measure’s the success of agriculture.

The negative impacts that conventional agriculture continues to have on human health, rural communities, farming families, and the environment makes change absolutely essential to a more secure and healthier future. Phil argues that consumers are one way to make this change happen. Consumers must demand real food that does not have high social and environmental costs. Until this happens, super-size agribusiness corporations will continue to control agricultural production in the US. By promoting unsustainable conventional food production, agribusinesses are pushing the system towards collapse. Yet, through regenerative agriculture, like Phil’s holistic management, we can prevent this collapse.