My Thoughts on the Article: ‘Regenerative grazing is overhyped as a climate solution. We should do it anyway’, Published on August 15, 2024
I have read with great interest the article, Regenerative Grazing is overhyped as a climate solution, by Dr Jonathan Foley, published on August 15th. I deeply regret having to contradict such unprofessional work that is doing great damage to all of humanity as we face global biodiversity loss and desertification fueling climate change. I work daily with small rural family farmers who are on the frontlines of dealing with extreme climatic changes and their effects. We are daily learning the importance of well-managed livestock and its relationship to the great landscapes of all seasonal rainfall areas, their people, and all life that depends on these landscapes. I have never seen or known anything more hopeful for landscapes like ours, except using the tool of holistically managed animals to regenerate grasslands.
Firstly, I will put it out there, as some of you readers are aware, and some aren’t;- “regenerative grazing”, is one of many derivatives of Holistic Management and it’s Holistic Planned Grazing process, published in the book Holistic Management, by Allan Savory and Jody Butterfield (Island Press). First published in the early 1990s and now in 3rd Edition. There are dozens of plagiarizations and derivations due to unethical academic behavior and refusal to acknowledge the origin of such truly groundbreaking discoveries. As Dr Carl Hart, a tenured professor at Columbia wrote in his memoir High Price, the ethical standards in academia are lower than those in the Miami drug gang world in which he grew up. However, regardless of the greatest barrier in these times, we still have to continuously put out our voices whenever we can. This gives us an opportunity to share hope and do our best to continuously create connections in an ever-complex and differently patterned world.
This academic problem is further compounded by an inability to grasp new management discoveries that go beyond academic disciplinary boundaries. John Ralston Saul captures this well, published in his best-selling Voltaire’s Bastards, “The reality is that the division of knowledge into feudal fiefdoms of expertise has made general understanding and coordinated action not simply impossible but despised and distrusted.”
Dr Foley’s article falls short as it seems to be caught in the above description, watering down a process being critiqued without a sincere understanding or knowledge. Holistic planned grazing is designed to manage the complexities of natural patterns and occurrences of an ecosystem. It is also a harvest and re-engagement of old communal knowledge and wisdom innate in these pastoral and agro-pastoral communities.
I live alongside the conservancy and home of Allan Savory in Zimbabwe. This is not only his home but where I did years of work and training after graduating from university. This is the same hub located in the toughest part of the country. It is the home of Holistic Management and it’s Holistic Planned Grazing process. Knowing and seeing how the conservancy has been continuously transforming and evolving for better; Dr. Foley’s utterances are in sharp contrast with reality and readily available material to the contrary, as any scholarly work should have shown up. Incidentally at no time has Savory ever claimed Holistic Planned Grazing is a climate change solution. He has often stated that “…the greatest problem facing humanity is biodiversity loss and desertification fueling climate change. “ That climate change will continue even with 100% cessation of fossil fuel use because of desertification. The only point at which this deadly feedback loop or cycle can be addressed is not at the atmospheric level but at the level of biodiversity loss and desertification. The Conservancy and practicing communal farmer groups have proof that using holistically planned grazing can change the narrative of the world’s desertifying seasonal rainfall landscapes.
Photo of water flowing through an underground spring at the Savory Dimbangombe Conservancy. Photo was taken at the peak of dry season- September 10th, 2023). Grazing planning helps us capture and harvest water through soil. Giving us an opportunity to have the greatest reservoir and ultimately rivers flowing throughout the year with abundance of life in the ecosystem.
This same landscape is home to diverse wildlife. On this same afternoon we spotted a herd of elephants coming from taking a mud bath and a drink at the spring at Dimbangombe conservancy.
A quote from the host of the National Geographic/ PBS documentary filmed here –“If Allan is right, then we may have to completely rethink life on the plains. The message is an extraordinarily powerful one, and it could be the best thing, the absolute best thing that conservation has ever discovered.”
“In a million years, I never thought that cows could be so beneficial for the wildlife I love . . . As an ecologist I was taught that people, and especially their livestock, are the enemy of wildlife, but my journey from Africa to the Arctic to here in Montana, is forcing me to rethink everything I know about conservation.”
Dr M.Sanjayan
For Dr Foley’s interest, and as he will learn should he study the textbook and many other materials available from the Savory Institute. The Holistic Planned Grazing process Savory developed from 1,000 years of European military experience planning in immediate battlefield situations that have high potential of changing without notice or preparedness. He had merely to adapt it to work universally where animals are grazed on any land. It was subjected to International trial in the 1970s , as well as an Advanced Project on the worst desertifying land in the country to see if failure could be forced by excess animal numbers. That ran for 8 years unable to cause failure and became healthy grassland yielding five times the meat per hectare as compared to the 200,000 acre control area that continued to desertify. We have a lot of other shining examples across the world through Savory hubs, evidence produced by small and largescale farmers on the overall improvement of ecosystems, social well being as well as livelihood stability for farmers as their landscape and livestock management moves towards being holistic.
Below are some images of communal grazing areas in Zimbabwe facilitated by Regeneration International partner organization iGugu Trust. (Ndlovu community images).
Grazing areas of communal farming lands, the bottom land plot is following a holistic planned grazing and showing recovery of grass plants, compared to the top plot that has continuous livestock presence. The paddock, grass and livestock all already look unhealthy with high chances of struggling through the tough dry season ahead.
Overgrazing happens when animals are left wander on their own on the landscape, leading to over exposure of grass plants to animals in the growing season, giving them little to no chance for recovery. The grass plant ends up adapting a strategy to “run away from the mouth of a grazer” as shown on the top picture. The bottom shows high animal impact by a large herd over a short period of about 3 days in the growing season.
In the non-growing (dry) season well managed paddocks will have forage, cover and comfort for the stressed environment compared to the top plot where one can already see top soil from lack of ground cover.
I believe Dr Foley is a genuine and well-meaning casualty of our reductionist world-view and education, and I hope he will consider studying this matter more thoroughly, meanwhile retracting such a damaging publication. Millions of people in Africa are suffering and dying because of desertification and they are also flooding Europe. As an African I am deeply concerned as I hope everyone is.