Regenerative Grazing

For Fact Sheet: Grazing in general, and Alan Savory's regenerative grazing and Holistic Management methods in particular, are environmentally unsound.

Context: Alan Savory advocates for increasing livestock as a way to reverse climate change and reverse desertification. His views were spread by a Ted Talk in 2013 titled "How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate Change" that went viral with 5.3 million views. The technique is called Holistic Grazing Management (HGM) using Intense Rotational Grazing (IRG), aka Regenerative Grazing

Even the most cursory review of the research on the topic reveals that not only is there no science behind the claims, but the science also points clearly in the opposite direction. "The actual evidence is thin on the ground and contradictory." and "scientific studies in support of Savory’s approach are scanty. Such evidence as exists is generally anecdotal, based on surveys and testimonies rather than on-site measurements." https://www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/project-files/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf

According to George Monbiot, "Then there was a major study conducted, reviewing 300 papers on this subject, to see whether his claims, such as his holistic ranching could suck all the industrial carbon out of the atmosphere, whether that stood up. They found there is simply no evidence for such claims at all, that they are wildly wrong. And unfortunately, those claims, because they’re highly attractive to people, because they create the impression that you can eat meat and save the world, are simply not based on fact." https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/29/george_monbiot_ending_meat_dairy_consumption

A paper published in the International Journal of Biodiversity in 2014 titled "Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems" concludes that none of the claims of Holistic Management hold up to scientific scrutiny. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/163431

A review published in the Agricultural Systems concludes that "the vast majority of experimental evidence does not support claims of enhanced ecological benefits in IRG compared to other grazing strategies, including the capacity to increase storage of soil organic carbon." https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2013.12.001

This article in the Guardian which cites many other sources shows why these claims, particularly in regard to climate change, are false and misleading: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/aug/04/eat-more-meat-and-save-the-world-the-latest-implausible-farming-miracle

Other sources: http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2013/03/18/alan-savory-gives-a-popular-and-very-misleading-ted-talk/