The Brown Revolution: Increasing Agricultural Productivity Naturally ("holistic management")

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http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/09/the-brown-revolution-increasing-agricultural-productivity-naturally/245748/

The Brown Revolution: Increasing Agricultural Productivity Naturally
By Lisa M. Hamilton
Sep 29 2011, 9:00 AM ET

A team of ranchers in South Dakota are using holistic management techniques to regenerate our ailing grasslands and fight climate change

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The underlying technique is called holistic management, and was developed by biologist Allan Savory in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) beginning in the 1960s. He saw that the arid grasslands on which the region's people, livestock, and wildlife depended were succumbing to desertification. In looking for a solution, Savory recognized that the grasslands had evolved out of a symbiotic relationship with large, grazing herbivores. In time he saw that the same was true of similar ecosystems around the world, including that of western South Dakota and the rest of the Great Plains, with its once-great herds of bison.

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The basic premise of holistic management is to use livestock like wild animals. But whereas bison on the Great Plains moved through the landscape by instinct, now ranchers must supply that direction. Rather than simply turning cattle into a pasture, these ranchers conduct them like a herd, concentrating bodies to graze one area hard, then leaving it until the plants have regenerated. The effect can be tremendous, with benefits including increased organic matter in the soil, rejuvenation of microorganisms, and restoration of water cycles.

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According to Howell and his colleagues, there can also be an exponential increase in the land's ability to sequester carbon. Savory explains in his paper "A Global Strategy for Addressing Global Climate Change" that there are already 12 million hectares (29.7 million acres) of rangeland managed holistically in Australia, Africa, and North America. Increasing those soils' organic matter by one percent would remove 3.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) from the atmosphere. (For context, he offers that "the annual total emissions from all sources for the year 2000 was an estimated 44 gigatons.") Savory goes on to argue that increasing the organic matter by just 0.5 percent across all of the world's 4.9 billion hectares of rangeland would sequester 720 gigatons of CO2e; increasing it by two percent would sequester 2,880 gigatons. In a nutshell, the Brown Revolution consists of sequestering massive amounts of carbon by bringing holistic management to the world's arid grasslands.

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[GliderGuider]

1. I can't tell you how good this article makes me feel. Thank you.

People like Jim Howell - who combine an awakened, globalized ecological perspective with means, motive and opportunity - are the ones Gaia is counting on to help turn our stampede away from the cliff ahead. Each of us has some action we can take to shift our corner of the herd. No matter what the size of our opportunity, it's time to seize it. The situation won't get any better if we wait.

[xchrom]

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