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About
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ENVIRONMENTAL
BENEFITS
BETTER FOR LAND, WATER and WILDLIFE Your purchase of Alderspring Ranch Grass Fed Beef benefits the environment in two important ways. First, it allows us to continue to improve the ecological condition of Alderspring Ranch. We’re excited about some of the things we are doing, and invite you to learn more. Second, environmental benefits accumulate because of the sustainable way grass grown beef is raised compared to feedlot beef. These include lower fossil fuel costs, better water quality, less soil erosion, and greater natural diversity. According to David Pimentel, a Cornell ecologist who specializes in agriculture and energy, the corn we feed our feedlot cattle requires a surprising amount of fossil fuel energy. Growing the corn used to feed livestock in this country takes vast quantities of chemical fertilizer, which in turn takes vast quantities of oil. Because of this dependence on petroleum, Pimentel says, a typical steer will in effect consume 284 gallons of oil in his lifetime. This is probably an underestimate. Additional fossil fuel costs accumulate in trucking animals, |
Caryl stacking hay on a neighboring ranch. Hay is pulled up the beaver slide by a team of horses. The stacker's job is to neaten and compress the pile so it doesn't topple. |
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Water pollution from feedlot-raised beef is a growing concern. At Alderspring Ranch, we are careful about keeping the water that flows through our ranch clean. We have fenced cattle away from streams and riparian areas. We do everything we can to keep the valuable nutrients in cattle manure on our pastures rather than allowing it to escape and become water pollutants. We use a permaculture system of pasture maintenance. We do not plow and seed annual forages. We improve pastures through grazing management and hand seeding. This approach eliminates soil erosion, and works to build the organic matter and fertility of soil.
Finally, we avoid monocultures. We rejoice in our brushy fenced breaks that are home to deer, nesting birds and small mammals. We try to encourage the growth of cottonwoods along our ditches to supply shade for our cattle, and habitat for raptors that then reduce our rodent populations. We allow the wetter areas of our ranch to grow native sedge meadows, and graze these carefully to avoid hummocking.
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ADDITIONAL READING AND LINKS
Environmental
Benefits of Grass Fed Beef
Forage-fed
ruminants on top for energy efficiency; Pigs & poultry fare poorly
due to high grain & housing inputs
What an animal takes in and puts out as energy has long been a popular item of discussion. Economically, the input/output ratio determines the profitability of the farm. Environmentally, the use of non-renewable resources and demands on the sustainability of farmland are increasingly more important. Alan Fredeen and Peter Havard of the Nova
Scotia Agricultural College presented their findings regarding this question
to the NSAC symposium on sustainable agriculture entitled "Reducing the
Non-renewables", last April in Truro. Respectively members of the Departments
of Animal Science and Engineering, their research has been aimed at examining
the relationship between the input of non-renewable energy and the output
of useful energy with the goal of identifying areas for improvement.
They defined the non-renewable energy inputs to animal production as the energy equivalent of fuels for operating machinery and ventilation, drying crops, production of inorganic fertilizers, and production of machinery and buildings. Energy outputs were defined as the energy equivalent of human edible products of animal production and animal wastes used as fertilizer. "Utilization of non-renewable inputs is currently not governed by efficiently. Their use is based on supply and price," the authors noted, adding that there has become the necessity for conservation, both for sustaining development and limiting damage to the environment. They identified two approaches for improving the efficiency of animal production: the traditional approach is to increase inputs, taking advantage of the essentially fixed requirements for maintenance in animal production; the alternative approach is to lower energy inputs, such as switching from warm to cold housing or using natural ventilation systems. Using work done by Southweil and Rothwell in Ontario in 1977, the authors presented production efficiencies from non-renewable energy inputs. They ranged from a low of 0.23 (output over input) for poultry (meat) to a high of 1.65 for heavy lamb. "Efficiency seems to be affected most by housing design and by cereal grain input. Beef and sheep production systems, with potentially lowest housing and grain inputs, are most efficient" they stated. Beef energy output/input was 1.15, dairy was 0.64 (cheese) to 0.94 (milk) and swine was 0.62. They also compared the effects of different animal feed inputs for provision of dry matter. Using Nova Scotia yields, barley corn, corn silage, soybeans, hay, haylage and pasture were stacked up against a purchased and delivered feed concentrate. No surprise that the energy inputs for pasture were lowest, at 14-26 Mcal per tonne (range is based on yield variations), and that the feed concentrate were highest at 1,343 Mcal per tonne. In the middle were corn at 10382478, barley at 699-1004, soybeans at 489-1096, corn silage at 401 -512, haylage at 232-363 and hay at 190297. |
