Grass farmer

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Sometimes farmer Joel (Monday and Tuesday posts) calls himself a grass farmer. He sees it this way:

Sunshine drives the energy of our planet. It's captured in photosynthesis by plants, especially grass, which sequesters carbon into the soil. Herbivores trim the grass, fertilize it, and trample that biomass into the ground where it undergoes biological decay and becomes fertile soil.

Herbivores processing grass like this on Joel's farm produce 4x more annual biomass per acre than does the rest of the Shenandoah Valley. More biomass pulls more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and has more soil building capacity. Cows beautifully do what they were made to do-- nurture the Earth.

Here is Joel's TED Talk.


(cont'd tomorrow)