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Life Saves the Planet

The Environmental Benefits of Grass Fed Beef

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Date and time
Monday, March 29, 2021

Grass-fed beef producers in the U.S. have begun a movement to restore soils and stabilize the climate with a fundamentally different approach called regenerative grazing. This method builds on nature’s own system of pulling carbon from the air and storing it in the soil. Sixty million buffalo lived on the Great Plains at one time. The prairie had deep, productive soils, 8 to 10 feet down, thanks to the symbiosis of the large herbivore, plants, photosynthesis and soil microbes. In more recent times, poor farming methods have sent this stored carbon back up into the atmosphere as C02. Current scientific research helps us understand the mechanisms and methods by which grazing can foster carbon sequestration, protect against droughts and floods, and increase crop yields many-fold to feed growing populations. Ridge Shinn founded Big Picture Beef in 2015. Its mission is to establish an environmentally sustainable and economically viable model of producing beef through managed grazing—no feedlots and no grain, ever. His vision is a system that produces healthy animals, healthy food, healthy soils, and fair wages for farmers.

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Ridge Shinn is the founding CEO of Grazier LLC, aka, Big Picture Beef, a 100% grass-fed beef company partnering with farmers throughout the Northeast United States. Early in his career he became interested in heritage breeds of livestock and co-founded the group now known asThe Livestock Conservancy. He was also the founding director of the New England Livestock Alliance, which helped farmers find markets for their meat. In addition to managing his Devon herd in central Massachusetts, Ridge has consulted all over North America, in New Zealand, England, Uruguay, and Argentina, and for the Lakota of the Cheyenne River Reservation. His work has been recognized in Smithsonian, the Atlantic, the New York Times, and Time magazine, which dubbed him a “carbon cowboy.”
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