Is it possible to debunk something that most people really don’t know much about? Let alone, something that one isn’t all that knowledgeable about, particularly when it comes to the complex ecosystem processes involved?
I ask this in light of a few recent videos and articles that have attempted to debunk regenerative grazing.
If you think I’m asking a rhetorical question, you’d be correct. The answer to these questions is a resounding no.
It’s all About the Semmelweiss (Paradigm) Effect
The debunkers believe so strongly that they truly know what they’re talking about. They’ve done the necessary research, and they’ve talked to the people they needed to talk to. They have all their ducks lined up in a row to write or create a video about something they feel in their hearts will undoubtedly quash the doubters.
They [think they] know what Holistic Management is; how much land it takes to graze livestock; what impact livestock have on the environment; and, that rewilding is the best solution. They know they’re confident in their current knowledge of ecology, soil science, and animal agriculture.
And that’s the problem right there: the fact that they know.
I won’t bore you to death with it but the problem with having and maintaining such unquestioning confidence is that it discourages a person to think more critically; to question everything. The belief that a person fully knows something is folly. It’s a fool’s game. It makes a person arrogant, and willfully blind to new information that counters their prevailing beliefs and other’s differing opinions.
One man in particular that I will talk about soon has been battling this for five long decades. He’s called it the paradigm effect. It’s the inability to accept new ideas that stand outside prevailing beliefs. These new ideas often get distorted, ignored and ridiculed as being false, or outright vilified. All of these are concerning.
It’s also called the Semmelweis Effect. This is named after a Hungarian 19th-century physician who was ridiculed, belittled and cast to die in an insane asylum for trying to spread awareness about washing one’s hands between surgeries and the maternity ward. Other doctors completely rejected his seemingly-outlandish idea. At the time, medical professionals believed that disease was caused by an imbalance of the four humours and bad air; and, that such gentlemen doctors always had clean hands; why would they ever need to wash them?
Thus in context to this post, the writers and YouTubers have this prevailing belief that they know what they’re trying to debunk. The only problem is: they don’t know.
This brings me back to my rhetorical question asked a different way: how do you debunk a subject you know nothing about? Or rather, how do you debunk a topic when its true meaning has been grossly distorted?
When you Shouldn’t Try to Critique Regenerative Grazing
When trying to debunk a topic such as regenerative grazing or a concept like Holistic Management (HM), we should set up an expectation that one is relatively informed about:
- Basic grassland/grazier ecology
- Basic understanding of [grazing] management
- Basic agriculture knowledge
- That HM is a decision-making framework
In other words, the failure to debunk regenerative grazing is in a lack of understanding of ecology and a lack of understanding of grazing management. If you don’t understand how ruminants graze, how grass grows and harvests energy, and how humans are the big brains behind where and when and for how long domesticated ruminants should eat and poop, then you’ve no business attempting to debunk a simple yet complex topic like regenerative grazing.
If you don’t understand one of the topmost three bullets, you’re more likely to be forgiven for your ignorance. However, if you have the last point wrong, that’s an automatic failing grade.
The reason for this is simple. Regenerative grazing goes hand-in-hand with Holistic Management. However, HM is not another term for a type of [regenerative] rotational grazing. In fact, regenerative grazing is encapsulated by Holistic Management; not the other way around. Simply because HM is a decision-making framework.
Therefore, any attempt to debunk Holistic Management on these grounds also fails. This means that all institutional research papers that were written to publicly denounce HM as “unscientific” or “foo-foo dust” or whatever, were basing their conclusions on a false premise.
I fully understand and hold myself accountable that such a statement makes me sound like an anti-science heretic. However, I’m speaking on the grounds of someone who has done an incredible amount of research on Holistic Management. I didn’t go to these very papers to tell me about Holistic Management; I went to the very source from whence the idea of HM came.
My research kept me asking this question: If Holistic Management is really a complete bunk, why are there so many practitioners and ranchers so willing to show the whole world how implementing Holistic Management into their daily operations has helped them successfully regenerate the landscapes on their farms and ranches? That, and create healthier social dynamics between themselves and their families, and helped them be more profitable?
I could not find an answer.
No doubt these researchers who thought they did the world a service by publishing such papers were actually criticizing grazing systems. Ironically, Allan Savory himself was the very first scientist to critique grazing systems. That, I find interesting.
In other words, these institutions basically, after first rejecting it, distorted HM into something that it wasn’t.
Therefore, really: How can you debunk something that has been adulterated into something that it’s not?
The Flaws Behind Institutional Science & Research
This comes on the coat-tails of that 2011 Grazed & Confused report by Garnett et. al. That 131-page report was a meta-analysis of 300+ research papers that discussed so-called “all”-things grazing, Holistic Management, and grass-fed beef. But the paper is massively flawed.
Garnett and her peers really didn’t talk about “all-things grazing.” The report used ivory-tower mathematics and computer models to “prove” that carbon sequestration potentials reach some sort of equilibrium after so much time. Realistically, we’ve no idea when this “soil carbon equilibrium” will take into effect; Nature doesn’t follow man-made computer models! It also attempted to debunk Holistic Management by using papers with the false premise I just discussed. It completely ignored new research on soil ecology. It completely ignored new recently-published literature on adaptive multi-paddock grazing (AMPG; a pseudonym that was coined by Dr. Richard Teague and Dr. David Johnson, among others, because research institutions refused to accept research papers that talked about Holistic Planned Grazing®). I could go on and on.
Grazed & Confused was basically a “research paper” written by those who didn’t understand neither basic ecology nor grazing management. Yet, debunkers of regenerative grazing still love to wave it in front of our faces like it’s the gospel of truth, even though it’s not. As such, my criticisms stand: please don’t try to debunk something you’ve very little understanding of. It’ll save your dignity and your fragile ego from getting incinerated by those who know better than you.
Trust me: I’m speaking from experience!
I can’t go without saying that regenerative grazing–and regenerative agriculture–is needing more research studies to back it up. However, it pains me when people would sooner have a stack of dry sheets of paper in their hands than to get their shoes dirty and go out to see the results for themselves. It’s that paradigm effect kicking in again.
See, as much as I like perusing through scientific article after scientific article, they only tell a tiny part of the story. Grazed & Confused proves this. That tiny part has been made sterile and isolated away from the larger picture. This tiny piece which gets examined closely loses its ability to show the researchers how it is a part of a larger whole. It’s like taking a single jigsaw puzzle piece out of a 1000-piece puzzle and studying it intently, then basing one’s conclusions on that one piece… all the while ignoring 999 other pieces.
This is reductionist science at its core. It’s been the way things have been studied for many years. Ignore all sorts of variables that will skew the results, set very specific parameters, formulate a hypothesis based on this, and away we go. Like I said; it’s all very sterile.
And yet, people take stuff like this as set-in-stone truth.
I myself am not anti-science. I love science. Science is awesome! There are always neat things to learn in the world of chemistry, physics, biology, quantum mechanics, and engineering. But I think people have a flawed view of what science really is. Science isn’t just what you read in academic literature. There’s so much more to it than that.
Science and Regenerative Grazing
Science is not something that is set in stone. It’s always prone to changing, evolving, and adapting with new discoveries, new theories, and the continuation of deepening one’s understanding of how and why things function as they do. It’s pure stupidity to think that certain scientific knowledge is static; especially when there are new findings that call it into question!
I say this because there is a lot of research out there that has studied grazing in the past. Much of this research has been done on grazing systems. Such grazing systems include continuous set-stock grazing and calendar-date rotational grazing. A lot of these studies have shown how grazing is–has been–detrimental to native plant communities, the soil, riparian areas, water bodies, soil crusts, and wildlife. They were right to report these findings.
However, using this research in the context of regenerative grazing is where the foolishness comes in. I suspect that such research is utilized because the parties don’t understand what regenerative grazing involves. They hear a brand new term and automatically seek to discredit it. Classic Semmelweiss Effect.
What’s wrong with finding out what it is first? Honestly, making assumptions and rushing to conclusions before asking lots of questions does more damage than vice versa. Again, I’m speaking from experience.
Why doesn’t a person inquire first before rushing to conclusions? Because of that God-damned Semmelweiss Effect! We’re so certain that we know what we know therefore we don’t feel the need to ask questions about things we’re certain we know the answers to! When we’re not so certain, well that’s where we have the awesome liberty to ask as many questions as we like, no matter how dumb they seem, and learn more than we thought we knew possible.
When we make the habit of assuming we’re wrong about something and detach ourselves from our beliefs and opinions, we’ve just liberated ourselves from the chains of willful ignorance. We’ve just opened up more doors of discovery for ourselves.
It’s not easy to detach from what we strongly believe in. I know it’s tough for me. But it’s a necessary thing in order to move forward.
The problem, though, is not with individuals working on this virtue within themselves; it’s the institutions. There’s a level of stupidity and molasses-in-January slowness of major scientific institutions to accept new (and proven) concepts like Holistic Management. There lie the inherent frustrations of trying to get the necessary science out to disprove the hypotheses that a) regenerative grazing doesn’t work and b) regenerative grazing isn’t a viable environmental solution that will help with fighting climate change and desertification. Scientists like Dr. Teague need to find holes in their egotistical political framework to get these important studies published. If that means creating a pseudonym for Holistic Planned Grazing (as Adaptive Multi-Paddock Grazing), well so be it!!
Thus, the frustration in hearing about yet another video or article that “debunks” regenerative grazing (and Holistic Management) comes with the continued use of research papers that haven’t done a damn thing to debunk either. Not only that, but conveniently ignores any new scientific articles that have recently come out that point to the amazing benefits of AMPG (aka regenerative grazing).
My personal pet peeve is the inability to distinguish the difference between different types of grazing. This is usually associated with the popular urban myth that livestock animals take up too much land.
Why Debunk Regenerative Grazing When You Can’t Distinguish Differences in Management?
Perhaps it’s a pet peeve, maybe it’s more amusement. However, it is rather irksome when I come across a media source that tries to debunk regenerative grazing then points out the “we need more land to support more grass-fed livestock” false narrative.
This narrative comes from what’s realistically pervasive: there’s a whole lot of continuous grazing still going on.
Letting a small number of animals roam a large area over the summer isn’t good management. This is what continuous grazing is. Rather, I should say that it’s non-intensive management. It just involves checking fences now and then, and making sure the animals have enough water and mineral available. The only moving comes when it’s time to bring the animals back home.
There are so many problems that come with managing this way though. I’d like to discuss a lot more about this in the Forages & Grasslands for Ruminants section in a future post, so I’ll keep it brief.
Animals have the ability to choose what they eat and where to go. They have their favourite areas to eat, and not-so favourite areas to avoid like the plague. The areas that get too much attention get overgrazed. Areas that get avoided are under-grazed. This encourages weeds, soil compaction, more bare soil (in brittle environments especially), decrease in favourable plant species, brush encroachment, and so on.
The producer gets concerned and tries to find quick-fix solutions such as pesticides, mowing, bush-hogging, or tilling up the entire pasture to start over again. All the while remaining blind (or trying to) to the cold, hard truth that their management is to blame.
Yet, the livestock gets the blame. When the producer phones up an agriculture consultant about this pasture issue, usually he’s told that he needs to destock; reduce the number of animals he’s got on the land. Or, to go find more land. This is a reductionist solution.
The logic behind such a solution is far too simple: Expecting that there’s less forage available for the animals to eat, then there should be fewer animals on the land itself.
There’s a huge problem with this logic: Animals are still able to go wherever they want, and eat whatever and whenever they want. Logically, if the animals really are the problem, where’s the control in where they eat and when they return??
It’s too bad there are not many who think like that. Especially the debunkers of regenerative grazing…
The management thing sounds so counter-intuitive when I mention it: control the animals in where they graze, and the result is even more forage than you can imagine. Get more animals on the land and control their movements in a timely manner to get the necessary amount of trampling, manure deposition, plants eaten, and saliva trickling down to the soil. All to stimulate growth, open up the canopy, get armour on the soil, and increase biodiversity.
Naturally, people think I’m stupid and crazy when I state such a thing. Allan Savory himself has received as much, and a lot more, flack for trying to educate policy-makers, producers, government personnel, and others about concepts like this. But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work.
In fact, the late Neil Dennis went out of his way to try to prove the concepts of Holistic Management wrong. He was very much a skeptic, and a bit irked at his wife for dragging him to an HM school, but went anyway and kept his ears wide open. He went back to his farm and put all that he learned to practice, and made the discovery that what he learned in fact worked, well and beyond his wildest imaginations!
Many other producers had done similar and made the same discoveries. Many were at their wits’ end because their farms were failing and were desperate for something that could help them get back on track. Others were just as skeptical as Dennis and wanted to prove it wrong. A couple I personally talked to told me that the amount of forage they got–without purchasing a bag of fertilizer or bag of seed–blew their minds. “It’s like buying another farm for free,” they told me. My pasture walks on such farms didn’t deceive me either.
This is newfound hope that I would’ve never dreamed of myself. Such as-of-yet anecdotal evidence (scientific research is still catching up) shows that these claims that there’s a need for more land are bogus. Changing the way animals are managed, in moving away from a continuous grazing system to one that is more management-intensive, reduces the land needed for more animals. It should feel really good to be chasing grass.
Not only that, but there are millions of acres of cropland that could be returned back to some form of perennial vegetative community. Also, many acres of cropland could also use greater animal impact and higher diverse crop rotations that integrate livestock. That, alone, easily solves the “need more land” conundrum.
Do you know what else easily solves the “need more land” fallacy? Understanding what Holistic Management is all about.
Really, What IS Holistic Management?
Holistic Management is a decision-making framework. It literally has nothing to do with grazing livestock.
It was developed by Allan Savory over much trial and error and studying the desertifying landscape of Rhodesia–now Zimbabwe, his home country. Never a livestock farmer, Savory has been so much more a biologist and ecologist, with his entire life being dedicated to finding solutions to save wildlife. More specifically, he has made it his life’s work to finding out what’s wrong with our management in how it causes biodiversity loss and land degradation.
I can tell you that he found out why; the hardest job now is implementing it in society.
In a post on the Ethical Omnivore Movement website detailing the anti-regenerative grazing debacle, Allan’s daughter Sarah Savory gave the best Cole’s Notes version of what Holistic Management is all about (bolding is mine).
What Allan has […] discovered is that human management is the root cause of land degradation. Our physical and financial stability depends entirely on the health of earth’s ecosystems. He has developed a management framework that enables anyone (from individuals to governments) to make decisions or develop policies that successfully manages the social, economic and ecological complexity our decisions [have an impact on.] [It also ensures] that they have the best possible ecological outcome while simultaneously considering the unique social and economic circumstances the decision is being made in at any given time.
When we adjust our management and begin using the Holistic Decision-Making Framework, we learn how to develop and use a Holistic Context as a “magnetic north” to guide all our decisions. A Holistic Context is a statement describing the quality of life we want for ourselves, which we tie to a description of what the health of our environment must look like far into the future in order for us to have the quality of life we desire, and to ensure physical and financial security for ourselves and for many generations to come.
Then, before making any decision or taking any action, we run through [seven filtering] ‘context checking questions’ [used in holistic decision making] that we ask ourselves to help us determine whether the action being considered will be simultaneously socially sound, economically viable and ecologically regenerative in our particular situation at the time of making the decision [relative to our holistic context]. We also use the testing questions when we want to compare a couple of potential decisions/practices/actions/enterprises in order to figure out which one of them will be the most appropriate.
Basically, Holistic Management is that one missing piece we’ve all been wondering about. It’s the type of context check-and-balance that allows us to stop examining that one puzzle piece and instead look at all the puzzle pieces as a whole. Not a “system,” but a whole.
When you see HM in that light, you begin to see why none of the people or institutions stuck in their reductionist paradigms have really been successful in debunking it.
Not only that, but I think you also see how there’s so much more hope and potential for regenerative grazing than what the debunkers want you to believe.
And that’s a beautiful thing.