Central Minnesota Political

Properly managed regenerative grazing of beef cattle can result in more carbon stored in the soil than the cattle release into the environment, according to a Life Cycle Assessment Commissioned by General Mills and conducted by researchers at Quantis International. The study was conducted in 2017 at White Oaks Pastures in Bluffton Georgia.  White Oak Pastures regeneratively grazes cattle, sheep, and poultry on three thousand acres of land in southwest Georgia. They call their methods radical traditional farming.   The  White Oak study points out that conventionally raised beef justifiably has a bad reputation because of its large carbon footprint. However, the net carbon dioxide emissions at White Oak was a negative 3.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of fresh meat produced. This compares to thirty-three kilograms of carbon dioxide emitted per kilogram of meat produced in conventional U.S. beef production. White Oak Pasture’s grazing system, which integrates cattle with hogs,

  Some of us on the MN350 Food Solutions Group have been discussing a Minneapolis Star Tribune article from last month announcing that Cargill was going to promote regenerative agriculture on a large school. A couple of other article were circulated as part of the discussion. All of them referred to growing food as “ag” rather than agriculture. I objected, saying we should not take the culture out of agriculture if we wanted a truly regenerative agriculture. One member of the group reminded me generative agriculture was part of indigenous cultures agriculture prior to European colonization. Here is my response to her and, following that, further thoughts about taking the culture out of agriculture.  Thanks Margaret. This is such a huge subject, isn’t it! Yah, I think the culture of agriculture from indigenous people’s perspective is mighty important. But of course there are many indigenous cultures. I once had a conversation about growing potatoes with a Honduran peasant-farmer