The Environment

It should come as no surprise that animals raised in their natural environment are better for the environment.

Animals raised on pasture:

• Enhance soil and stream conservation
• Increase wetlands
• Stimulate more vigorous native plant growth
• Increase perennial grasses
• Slow global warming - Grazed land store more carbon than any other source (row crop, wood lot, un-grazed grass).

Pastured animals return nutrients directly to the soil by self-fertilizing, thus reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.  In contrast, all the feed given to cattle in a feedlot must be grown elsewhere. The nutrients which are removed from the soil at harvest time, must be replaced with either chemical fertilizers or other animal waste.  In the Midwest, this practice has resulted in large quantities of nitrogen run-off flowing down the Mississippi river and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico.  There is now a thousand mile dead zone in the Gulf where all forms of life are absent.

Feedlots are a serious environmental issue because of the water and waste that comes from them.  These feedlot "by-products" contain hormones and antibiotics that find their way into our environment.  Downstream from feedlots, researchers are discovering fish with odd sexual characteristics.

Grassfed cattle require limited use of fossil fuels for production and feed delivery.  Twenty percent of our imported petroleum is used in agriculture.  It currently requires over 250 gallons of fossil fuel to finish one American Steer, that calculates out to a 1/2 gallon of fuel to produce 1 pound of beef.  Grain feeding turns beef cattle into fossil fuel guzzlers.  In contrast, grassfed beef runs almost entirely on solar energy.