Episode Links:

Previous We Are Carbon episodes that include the climate benefits of grazing animals:

• The Significance of Regenerative Agriculture – Special Compilation
• We Can Regenerate – with Finian Makepeace of Kiss the Ground
• What is Regenerative Agriculture – with Caroline Grindrod of Roots of Nature

Recommendations from Richard-

To Watch:

• King Corn documentary
• Kiss the Ground Movie (available on Netflix)
• Carbon Cowboys
• Temple Grandin Movie (Staring Claire Danes)

Books:

• Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katherine Heyhoe
• Steak by Mark Shatzker
• The Dorito Effect by Mark Shatzker

This Episode of the website: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/podcast-episode/scaling-regenerative-agriculture-grass-fed-beef/

[Find all the above as clickable links on this page].

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In this interview I’m joined by Richard Tufton who helps us to mull over the challenges and what might be needed to scale up regenerative meats within the supply chains to supermarkets, and build greater public awareness about purchasing options.

We’ve frequently heard about the role of ruminant animals in the healing of land and sequestering of carbon – Find links above to previous episodes that explain that in more detail.

But with such huge numbers of livestock being raised in more industrialised feedlot systems, the narrative gets very muddied, with cattle frequently branded as the climate enemy.

Richard shares that in the US alone 120,000 head of cattle are slaughtered everyday for meat production. That sounds horrifying, but it’s a reality, it’s where we’re at and it’s a huge contribution to our food system.

So this is a complex conversation and it could be taken in many directions but our biggest focus in this discussion is that only a tiny, tiny percentage of those animals are regeneratively raised.

Producing cattle in systems that are healing to the land is also proving to be hugely beneficial to the farmers who adopt those approaches, but there are big barriers to shifting things in that direction at scale.

Whatever your views on meat I think it’s a conversation that everyone can take interest in because, as Richard concludes, ultimately it’s the consumer who has the power to change the system.

He bring us insights from a career hands on within the meat supply chain first within his home country – the UK, and in more recent years as chief sustainability officer for one of the largest suppliers of natural and organic meats going into the US supermarket system.

He helps us to consider what might need to be done to provide purchasers with both the convenience and the understanding to make choices that could really scale things up for regeneration.

The most available path might be for each of us to take an interest and build our knowledge, so Richard shares some great additional resources for you to take a look at after you’ve listened – you’ll find the links above.