In our last issue, we opened this topic with a discussion of what makes the grazing industry different from farming, and how understanding that difference is essential to understanding the role of the rancher as a person who harvests land that would be unharvestable by any other worker/provider. Then we promised to discuss reasons why land taken out of productive use by ranchers can become land that loses its value to anyone, even ranchers.

In taking up this topic we recall a saying—a bumpersticker, even—from some 15 to 20 years ago: “Cattle Free by ’93” (it later became “Cattle Free by ’03”) was the message of this anti-rancher outcry. The slogan applied to the public lands of the West. Adversaries of grazers would have nothing less than complete riddance. That is still the agenda— riddance—for a great many people who call themselves environmentalists.

But how “environmental” is that stance, really? There’s been a lot of purported science that would have us take all the cattle off all Western public lands, and of course the anticipated outcome is some kind of imagined natural paradise. But would that in fact actually materialize? What a growing number of biologists believe today is that land bereft of any population of large, heavy, hoofed ungulates such as buffalo or—in the closest approximation possible today, cattle—is land that not only would not teem with biodiversity, but also would turn from green to brown, going from a verdant state to a desert state. “Desertification” is the word, and it was given prominence by an African-born biologist named Allan Savory (his views are searchable on the Web), who pioneered the view that cattle are what can save, or continue to save, the American West from the same desertification that blighted his onetime home of Zimbabwe.

Savory came to realize that what the ground and vegetation need is not exclusion of grazing animals but rather concentrated, intense activity and impact from them. In the days before the settling of the American West, the land got that from the massive, tightly packed, migratory herds of buffalo. These animals hit the land in rotation, and when they hit it they hit it hard. Such patterns will never be recovered in today’s piecemeal, partitioned West, but some approximation of that pattern can be achieved with grazing by cattle.

As writer Lisa Hamilton observed in an article for New Farm, “As the ground changes with [the cattle’s] impact, so does its ability to retain water. The key to keeping water is having something there to hold a raindrop when it hits. On bare, hard dirt, water just rolls away. But after cattle have been trampling around, their hooves have roughened the soil enough that it will catch rain. They have broken dead plants into stems and twigs that lie on the ground and act like so many little dams. And they have laid a foundation for the future: With their manure as fertilizer and their hoofprints as planting pots, they encourage the growth of new plants—the best tool there is for retaining water. The more water there is available, the more varied the plant community will be.”

Overgrazing, according to Savory, is created not by too many numbers of animals, but by too little recovery time between grazing intervals. A 1998 Colorado State University found biodiversity to be highest in moderately grazed lands and lower under heavy grazing, but lowest of all on ungrazed land.

Moreover, grazing stimulates growth and productivity. “If you don’t cut your hair,” as someone once remarked, “it becomes a long, stringy, slow-growing mess over time.” The same is true for rangeland. Grass is healthier if it is mowed down or grazed down. It produces more oxygen for the atmosphere. Being healthier and more vigorous, it retains moisture.

We’ll share more in this vein in a later commentary, but with what space remains let us revisit another topic. It has become increasingly apparent that most of the opposition to cattle by vegetarians and purported environmentalists is criticism that applies only to the practice of fattening cattle on grain.

There are claims out there that 70 percent of all grains and cereals produced in the nation are going toward fattening livestock. In citing these figures, the adversaries of beef feel they are lumping in the blame for all the water use and fertilization and herbicide use and pesticide use that goes with that much agriculture. It is blame that is laid at the feet of not just the grain farmer but also, by extension, the rancher. And this is to say nothing of the allegations about feedlots’ animal waste and other undesirable byproducts.

Whether the “70 percent” statistic is accurate or not, no one will try to deny that a large percentage of the grain being produced is indeed being fed to animals. But if finishing (fattening) animals for slaughter is the problem, then is it wrong to say that the blame for that lies with the market forces that are seeking fatter beef? For it is entirely within the market’s grasp to support and purchase healthier grass-fattened beef. Some will say it is not as flavorful, but others will strongly deny. Some will say it is tougher. That is a harder claim to refute, but there are other ways to deal with this issue also. A grass-fattened steer might yield meat that is not as tender, but there are ways to remedy that. Beef can be ground into hamburger. It can be shredded, chopped, chipped, wafered, or stewed, or otherwise reduced to softer preparations. It can be marinated or slow-cooked at lower temperatures for greater tenderness. The fact is, it is high-grade protein, and even if it had to be put through a meat grinder into the finest paste, it would still be a recipe ingredient that would increase the protein content of any dish and be received as a welcome upgrade, in most quarters and most lands, to the diet. Protein is protein, and as a nutrient it is one of the hardest to come by and the quickest to be in short supply among deprived peoples.

“Environmentalists,” feeling unhampered by these realities or unfazed by them, have decided that you, neighbor, can do without animal proteins in your nutritional regimen. That being the case, it could be time for the ranching industry to place the onus on the end-user, the consumer, for the “sins” of fattening beef. We can be in favor of grass-fat beef. We can be in favor of it even as the meat packers transport the animals to the feedlot. That is not the doing of the rancher. It is the doing of the end user and the meat packer, and of those two, the end user deserves more of the presumed “blame.”

And if finishing cattle on grass is where things do go, then that 70 percent land-use figure will decrease accordingly. Some will say that there is not enough grass to fatten that many cattle. But for every steer that is taken off feed, is there not an equivalent share of that “70 percent” of grain-producing farmland that is freed up for other usage, not being needed for grain production? Why couldn’t that land be put into pasture?

In summary, we who hope to defend the ranching community ought put ourselves into the business of defending grass, not grain. Grass is easily defensible, supremely defensible. The greatest vulnerability here rests upon the industry of fattening cattle, and that is in many respects an industry apart from ranching.