A good 'un

[grassfarmer]

Tom, I was driving little diesel cars in the early 80s - 1.1 or 1.2 litre. Driving a Corolla currently which we use unless we need to be using a truck.
Not everyone grew up with the fossil fuel wastage of North Americans.
Making new cars has quite a carbon footprint too.

[Klause]

My wife wrote her thesis at the U of S on livestock, carbon sequestration, and methane emissions.


My post was tongue - in -cheek.... notice the wink faces.




All said and done livestock sequester 0.8 tonnes per year more than grain production however is 5% less efficient in a tonne per calorie comparison.


In other words, a toss up. South America I think the advantage was upwards of 6 tonnes per ha towards cattle.


Having to make feed and winter cattle really cuts into it the efficiency up here in na.

[blackpowder]

If my main driver were worth <6000$ and burnt 18 mpg. Why spend 25k to burn 50?

This site gets silly.

[grassfarmer]

Those are "mainstream commodity livestock" figures Klause, those of us practicing alternate ways of managing grass and grazing are getting results towards the S American figures. Feedlots and the grain feeding model leave a big carbon footprint.
We can't banish winter but we can have animals grazing forages for all but 100-120 days versus the 220 feeding day winters commonly practiced on the prairies using fossil fuel grown and harvested feed

[Klause]

Grassy... that may be true... but! And here's a big BUT.

these are averages. Remember my wife is from the Cabri area... they feed hay for jan and Feb... maybe a few days in Dec and march.


Raising cattle in the north interlake is a lot more carbon intensive than southern sk/alberta.


Plus you still have to truck your cattle then truck the beef. That's considering you are calf to finish which few are.


Again meat protein is less dense (compare a cattle liner vs a superB of lentils for instance).

I recall when we were mixed... on a liters/acre basis it took twice as much fuel to cut bale and haul hay than it did to seed spray and harvest.


Yes combines and big 4wds burn around 100 an hr but look at what they get done in that hour vs. How much hay you cut, bale and haul in an hour.


At the same time, and this was the premise of her thesis... a balance is required. Poor land can raise an awful lot of meat protein cheaply and with little environmental impact vs. Trying to grow poor crops on it.


At the same time on highly productive soil meat protein is far less efficient than grwin protein on a cal/acre basis.


Basically... what I'm getting at is we need both and the sooner cattle and grain guys can figure out how to work together instead of gnattering back and forth the sooner we can both make more money.

[grassfarmer]

My point was not so much about fuel usage but about sequestration using grazing management - things like high density mob grazing give the opportunity to sequester so much more than conventional "turn them out on the range till fall" management.
New knowledge, new methods are catching on among some beef producers - as revolutionary as no-till was for farmers.

[cottonpicken]

Look out your window. How many years worth of co2 is in the air right now from the fires.

[grassfarmer]

Smoke from forest fires is nothing new, likely less now than pre settlement of the prairies as no-one was fighting fires then.
Not the cause of the increasing temperatures on earth and not an excuse not to tackle the real causes.

[tweety]

Grassfarmer, how are you replacing the nutrients taken from your grassland that is being grazed?

[freewheat]

Tweety. With sleight of hand. With sleight of hand.

[Hamloc]

Grassfarmer if I understand cap and trade correctly it targets industry and other large emitters by capping what they can emit and in theory encouraging lower emissions by charging for credits to emit. How does this lower the emissions of the average consumer with 2 or 3 cars and maybe an RV. Highways get busier every year. I would say enviro's go after industry because it is political suicide to go after the average consumer. They make us believe only industry will pay costs will be passed down and electricity, heat, fuel and food will all go up. As will the governments total tax revenue. Individual Canadians pay 42% of their income to taxes and 37% to housing, food and clothing and the government wants more, it is a very sad state of affairs.

[tweety]

It would seem grassfarmer has left the building.

[grassfarmer]

Yes, left to do some work tweety.
I'll tell you one thing - we are cycling and putting back more of the nutrients than any other type of agriculture.

[WiltonRanch]

Grass I do agree a closed loop grazing system like you are describing can replenish organic matter and nitrogen through use of legumes. A cow only uses 10% of what they eat and the rest goes out the back as fertilizer. The big if is getting that fertilizer distributed even enough but in the grand scheme I think proper rotational grazing could help with that. Only thing I have trouble with is mining phos potash and even calcium. Short term it won't be a problem but long term it could be if some nutrients aren't replaced. Sure growing deep rooted forages will bring up unavailable stuff from below but it's still mining. When Buffalo roamed they roamed all over the country. There was no such thing as 25 Buffalo to a quarter all summer. They practised high intensity short duration grazing with plenty of rest. When they and all other life died their bodies went back into the system. With beef those nutrients are exported out of the system. Albeit not to the degree of say growing a crop.
There is a place for crops and a place for beef production. The inefficiency of a cows ability to convert unpalatable to human feedstocks like crop residue and grass to beef is also her saving grace if used properly. Where else can you graze crop residue in the field. Maybe supplement a bit but still produce some beef while speeding up the nutrient cycling for the next crop. I know this won't apply to more than a mere fraction of crop farming in the whole scheme but for people like us in our conditions this is a reality. I hate the nattering back and forth but in an area of varying terrain and soil conditions it's the only way you can make a go of it.

[TOM4CWB]

Tweety,

N cycle includes N from thunderstorms in summer. Both Grass and Crop farmers reap this N... differs from year to year,,, depends on storm patterns.