How can raw meat for dogs remain sustainable in the future?

Modern industrial agriculture, including typical beef production, currently makes a significant contribution to global warming (GW). But the good news is that it does not need to. Cows can actually be part of the solution to feeding the world and reversing GW. Indeed, research suggests that they are fundamental to sustainable agriculture for the future of humankind.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Modern farming involves feeding a lot of grain and soy to cattle for beef and dairy production. The animals are typically turned out to graze for weeks, depleting the land of nutrients and trampling any chance of flourishing ecosystems. Meanwhile, corn-heavy and grain-heavy feeding results in high greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels.

However, in her excellent 2021 book called Defending Beef, Nicolette Hahn Niman argues that there are more significant sources of greenhouse gasses. These include the fossil fuels needed to grow the corn and grain as feed, the artificial fertilizers required for high yields, and the transportation of feed over long distances to the cattle farms. This is especially the case in the US, but the situation is similar in Europe.

What about the benefits?

Allowing cows to roam freely on pastures, consuming a diet of grass and forage to which they are biologically adapted, helps to retain carbon and nutrients in local ecosystems. Moreover, cattle convert a resource humans cannot otherwise use – grass – into beneficial products.

In his entertaining and enlightening 2012 book called Folks, This Ain’t Normal, Joel Salatin, the US-based regenerative farming guru, explains that the health and volume of soil worldwide can be enhanced by mimicking the roaming herds of cattle found in prehistoric times. This ancient system also encourages myriad ecologies.

Cows and the climate

Both authors agree that well-managed cattle and small, local, mixed animal/arable farms are the only way to avoid complete erosion of our topsoil caused by industrial agriculture. Indeed, grass grazed by cattle in carefully managed 2-3 day rotations within electrically fenced-off areas on a larger field, has been shown to turn grass into a vast, powerful fixer of atmospheric carbon. See Joel Salatin’s TedX talk entitled ‘Cows, Carbon and Climate’ for more details.

The authors also agree that grass-fed cattle produce less methane than industrially raised animals. Additionally, they point out that gasses from our bovine friends are insignificant (in greenhouse terms) compared to petrochemical emissions from fertilizer factories. When a factory-made artificial nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) fertilizer is applied to vast industrial mono-crops like corn, wheat and soy, nitrous oxide (NO) is produced. NO is 10 times more active as a greenhouse gas than methane from cattle, and it also remains in the atmosphere for longer.

Cattle hold the key to the future

In her 2009 opus called The Vegetarian Myth, the poetic yet strident nutrition researcher Lierre Keith supports Salatin’s and Hahn Niman’s thoughts on how essential beef is to the future planet. She argues vegetarianism is not the answer to feeding the world. All three influential writers agree: well-managed beef production is crucial for a healthy tomorrow.

In fact, cattle are not only vital as a source of beef products to feed us and our pets, but they are also essential in stopping millions of tons of soil from drying up and blowing away due to devastating modern farming practices. And once the soil is gone, it’s not coming back. Therefore, cows are the lynchpin of wellmanaged, small, local farms to feed the world. These farms – and the cattle on them – hold the key to the future for us all!