Ranchers, scientists tell panel grazing can capture warming gases

E&E News
By Phil Taylor
June 26, 2014

Well-managed livestock grazing can help soil capture and store more carbon dioxide, resist drought and erosion and generate more forage, creating a win-win for the climate and ranchers, rangeland experts told a House panel yesterday.

One scientist from Texas A&M University said "regenerative grazing," which allows plants to recover before they are grazed again, can restore the functionality of degraded ecosystems and allow the regrowth of valuable plants that suck up CO2.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, said he's interested in whether such grazing techniques can be applied widely on public lands and whether they are economical.

"If the answer is 'yes,' atmospheric CO2 sequestration in soils holds the potential to be an exceptionally cost-effective way to address many of the concerns of those who see climate change as our overriding threat," Bishop said. "If pulse grazing and other related agricultural practices really will sequester carbon while also increasing soil health, drought tolerance, biological diversity and resistance to wildfires, we truly will have a win-win solution."

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was more circumspect.

He said that he was glad the committee was discussing the issue of climate change, but that public lands grazing comes "with baggage," namely that it does not return enough revenue to the taxpayer.

"As we saw with the recent [Cliven] Bundy debacle on public lands in Nevada, grazing can be a very contentious issue to say the least," Grijalva said. "We have to talk about all aspects of the federal grazing program," including the "ridiculously low [grazing] fee."

But by and large, yesterday's hearing was marked by little partisanship and hewed mostly to the scientific merit of using cows to transform rangelands into better sponges of CO2.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said the hearing was "refreshing" and was an important oversight function. Bishop said it was an important way for lawmakers to "think outside the box" about solutions to climate concerns.

Richard Teague, the scientist from Texas A&M, said rangelands worldwide are "a huge sink" for greenhouse gases but that many are impaired by past concentrated grazing.

"Poor grazing management that maintains grazing pressure without respite for plants to recover causes degradation, while grazing that defoliates plants moderately and provides for recovery before the plants are grazed again reverses degradation and increases the amount of carbon sequestered in the soil," he said.

John Wick, a rancher from Nicasio, Calif., who spoke on behalf of the Marin Carbon Project, said he's implemented a grazing regime that accelerates the growth of grass, which both feeds the livestock and sucks carbon from the atmosphere, storing some of it in the soil through the production of more root biomass.

He said ranchers in his region increase the carbon storage of soil by spreading manure collected from dairy farms onto the soil. The sequestration could support carbon markets in California, he said.

But Tommie Martin, supervisor in Gila County, Ariz., said regulations on public lands sometimes make it difficult to move livestock frequently enough to allow regeneration of the plants.