Abstract
Ruminants including domestic livestock, have been accused of causing damaging impacts on the global environment and human well-being. However, with appropriate management, ruminant livestock can play a significant role in efforts to reverse environmental damages caused by human mismanagement and neglect. Worldwide, at least one billion people living in grazing ecosystems depend on them for their livelihoods, usually through livestock production, and for other ecosystem services that affect human well-being. For long-term rangeland sustainability and ecological resilience, agricultural production policies are urgently needed globally to transform current damaging industrial inorganic input agricultural practices to resource conservation practices that enhance ecosystem function. This is supported by evidence that farmers and ranchers who apply regenerative management practices to restore ecosystem functionality create sustainable, resilient agroecosystems cost-effectively. With enhanced management of grazing resources, domesticated ruminants can be used to produce higher permanent soil cover of litter and plants, which are effective in reducing soil erosion and increasing net biophysical carbon accumulation. Incorporating forages and ruminants into regeneratively managed cropping systems can also elevate soil organic carbon and improve soil ecological function and reduce production costs by eliminating the use of annual tillage, inorganic fertilizers and biocides. Ecosystem services that are enhanced using regenerative land management include soil stabilization and formation, water infiltration, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling and availability, biodiversity, and wildlife habitat, which cumulatively result in increased ecosystem and economic stability and resilience. Scientists partnering with farmers and ranchers around the world who have improved their land resource base and excel financially have documented how such land managers produce sound environmental, social, and economic outcomes. Many of these producers have used Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing management as a highly effective approach for managing their grazing lands sustainably. This approach uses short-duration grazing periods, long adaptively varied post-grazing plant recovery periods requiring multiple paddocks per herd to ensure adequate residual biomass, and adjustment of animal numbers as environmental and economic conditions change. Using this approach, farmers and ranchers have achieved superior ecosystem and profitability outcomes. This manuscript summarizes the use of AMP grazing as regenerative tool for grazed and rotationally cropped lands.
Highlights
For the continued delivery of essential ecosystem services supporting the livelihoods of people living in grassland and savanna ecosystems, it is critical to maintain or enhance the productive capacity and resilience (Frank et al, 1998; Janzen, 2010)
These effects have led to impoverishment and loss of soil, disrupted hydrological and biogeochemical processes, contamination of water bodies by fertilizer and biocide runoff, loss of biodiversity, excessive water use and aquifer depletion, and increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions implicated in climate change as noted in the reviews by Lal (2003) and Janzen (2010)
Positive ecological and economic results have been achieved by adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) managers in various climatic areas ranging from mean annual precipitation of arid (200 mm) to humid (+2,000 mm) regions where grazing is practiced in North America, South America, Hawaii, central and southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand
Summary
For the continued delivery of essential ecosystem services supporting the livelihoods of people living in grassland and savanna ecosystems, it is critical to maintain or enhance the productive capacity and resilience (Frank et al, 1998; Janzen, 2010). Biomes that are predominantly grasslands and savannas lost more SOC than the cropland and crop/natural vegetation categories, and the regions that have lost the most SOC relative to historic levels include the rangelands of Argentina, southern Africa and Australia Such massive soil carbon losses have led to the degradation of soil structure, productivity and resilience as well as their capacity to infiltrate, filter and retain surface water, which collectively cool soils. Positive ecological and economic results have been achieved by AMP managers in various climatic areas ranging from mean annual precipitation of arid (200 mm) to humid (+2,000 mm) regions where grazing is practiced in North America, South America, Hawaii, central and southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand This has been independently documented by Montgomery (2017) and Massy (2018). Throughout we focus on how different strategies affect ecosystem functionality, productivity, and sustainability by modifying soil processes that underlie water and nutrient cycling and plant growth (Teague et al, 2013)
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