The Great Plains of the United States are majestic.  They also represent one of the most unique and interesting ecosystems in America.   The American Prairie might not get as much attention as the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Ocean but they are just as spectacular.  Traditionally, the Great Plains’ prairie sustained millions of roving buffalo that grazed and kept the prairies healthy and vibrant; in turn a thick blanket of grass protected the plains from desertification, soil erosion and drought. In fact grassland can survive drought for decades while traditional crops perish.  The great Dust Bowl of the 1930’s was a catastrophic example of how tillage crops and drought can result in whole scale environmental exhaustion. This is not the case when prairie land  is covered with grass, and grazed by animals like cattle or bison; the grass creates a thick protective barrier against the grueling sun and keeps the valuable topsoil and water in the ground. 

This is what is so exciting about grass-fed farming, not just is it sustainable but when it is done in places like the prairie of the great plains it is far better for the environment then the growth of soybeans or grains. Not only does grass-covered prairie eat up more than double the amount of CO2 than cropland does they also stave of soil erosion and desertification---which is something cropland exacerbates.  In fact, when environmentalists talk about the toll meat takes on the environment, and the amount of CO2 that are produced in the process, they are speaking about the amount of fossil fuels that go into growing grain to feed livestock. Grass-fed farming is about harnessing the power of the sun and turning the sun into meat.  Not only that, the cattle that graze the prairie are actually helping the ecosystem that they graze: they are part of the ecosystem.

The Great Plains were made for grazing and that is why it is such a perfect sustainable story. Rotational grazing, when done right, can bring the prairie back to its former glory all the while producing high quality protein that is not only healthy for us, it is healthy for the heartland!

The maze of livestock pens and walkways at Chicago's stockyards, ca. 1947 courtesy of The National Archives.

Franny and I talked a bit about the history of Chicago and the rise of the Union Stock Yards and how Chicago’s growth as a financial hub, and city, coincided with the consolidation of agriculture in America in our last blog post. The Chicago meat packing industry was made infamous in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” which chronicled the conditions' of workers and animals in Chicago’s Union Stock yards.  Stories of workers falling into rendering tanks and being ground up in "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard" captivated and angered the nation. Americans where sickened by the conditions and manner their food was being butchered and demanded change.  It was Theodore Roosevelt that brought it with the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Food and Drug Administration.  “The Jungle” changed America.

We are at a similar juncture now. I think that Michael Pollen’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” has introduced the perversity of our industrialized agricultural system for the first time to many Americans; not to mention the news articles about deadly e coli out breaks and stories of young immigrant children being abused in meat packing plants in the Midwest.

Crowd to meet Theodore Roosevelt at Chicago photo courtesy Bain News Service

I think this photo of a crush of Chicagoans congregating to meet Theodore Roosevelt in his reelection campaign really captures for us the momentum Theodore Roosevelt had as he busted trusts. Theodore Roosevelt was a small-government republican but he was able to wrestle a lot of control back from large corporate entities for the benefit of America. The large packers that dominated the Union Stock Yards faced new regulations that helped to make the American food supply safer. Ironically enough today many grass-fed farmer’s will tell you that is the FDA and their strict guidelines that stand in the way of true grass-fed change.  Notwithstanding,  I feel that we have started the dialogue much like Upton Sinclair did back in 1906. We might need to reevulaute the FDA, so that we can make it easier for small producers to compete against large packers, but impetus is now there: Americans want change, and that is the only way change happens.