Holistic Management: Sustainable Livestock Practices for Land Restoration

Holistic Management: Restoring land with livestock

In a world facing increasing impacts of climate change, there is a need for sustainable agricultural practices to help in the regeneration of our degraded lands. Holistic management offers this, using livestock as a secret weapon to combat desertification and land degradation and set right the misconceptions we have about them. In grazing our grasslands mimicking ancient herd behavior, their trampling, eating, and manure form the perfect formula to restore degraded land.

Land degradation is a severe problem worldwide. Intensive agriculture, land use, and climate change all contribute to it, and it is expected that about 2 billion hectares of land have been degraded in the past millennium (FAO, 2023). This is a problem for farmers since it affects the fertility of arable land, making it increasingly difficult to grow crops or keep livestock.

In the current agricultural system, livestock is often managed intensively and unsustainably in stables or permanently grazing pasture. This way, livestock often overgraze areas while emitting considerable amounts of greenhouse gasses. On top of this, around 75% of all livestock feed is sourced from only 7 countries, which is then exported to the rest of the world (IFIF, 2022). The distance between the areas where feed is produced and the animals' locations is often very big (Figure 1). Furthermore, forests are often cut down to make space for growing animal feed, leading to deforestation. All these factors contribute to a general conception that managing/gathering large livestock populations is very harmful to the environment and puts too much strain on our lands. This, however, is not necessarily true.

Figure 1. The lack of synergy in our current agricultural system

In this article, I will explain why it is not the animals themselves that cause environmental problems but the way that they are managed. This theory is based on Alan Savory's life’s work, which proposes a radically different way of managing livestock: Ηolistic Μanagement.

Ηolistic Μanagement Strategies for Livestock

Holistic management is a way of managing our degraded grasslands, pastures, or natural areas, working with livestock as a true restoration army. This method shows a way to keep livestock in large numbers and thus produce food while also restoring the land they are grazing. Alan Savory, a Zimbabwean researcher in ecology and biology, developed the holistic management framework. He based it on the natural way that herds of herbivores used to co-evolve with grasslands, being constantly on the move.

4 main principles were developed on which the holistic management framework is based. This article will explain these concepts.

A holistic view of the functions of nature

Nature consists of many separate aspects, ranging from molecular to cosmic levels (Gosnell et al., 2020). Instead of viewing all these aspects as separate, independent parts, the Holistic Management mindset looks at all these aspects as being connected, forming a whole (Savory & Butterfield, 1999). In order to describe the whole, you would have to look outside of the whole to see in which greater wholes it is a part of and inside of the whole to see the parts it consists of (Savory Institute, 2023).

Figure 2. Understanding the whole.

This all sounds a bit philosophical, but in practice, this would mean that, for example, in order to have a healthy farming system, you first need to understand all the separate aspects that are parts of your farm (animals, crops, humans) and also the bigger system that your farm is part of (other farms, a region, a country, a river) (Figure 2). This thought process is important in developing a holistic view since it helps you understand all the ins and outs of the land you manage.

The brittleness scale

The brittleness scale can describe the type of environment you are in. It describes the moisture/water availability for plants, the distribution of humidity throughout the year, and the breakdown rate of dead plant matter (Figure 3).

Figure 3. The Brittleness scale (Savory Institute, 2023).

On the non-brittle end of the scale, there would be an environment with constant humidity available to plants, which is evenly distributed over the year. Plant matter breaks down fast and easily.

On the other end of the scale, brittle environments have irregular moisture availability based on rainfall. Rainfall events are seasonal and thus also irregular, and moisture availability is not constant throughout the year. Therefore, the decomposition of dead plant matter is very slow (Savory Institute, 2023).

In these brittle environments, herbivores are needed to ensure and speed up plant decomposition. Their grazing, trampling, and manure play an important role in the decomposition of dead plant matter. Suppose no herbivores are present in brittle environments. In that case, dead plant matter will form a layer on the soil, inhibiting new, young plants from growing since they block sunlight (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Difference in vegetation in brittle environments without or with herbivores.

This would eventually cause a decrease in new plant growth or even desertification (Savory & Butterfield, 1999). Thus, the brittleness scale is very important in understanding your environment and the role that livestock could play in keeping vegetation growing.

Predator-prey relationship

The predator-prey relationship is based on the natural behavior of herding animals. When big herds of herbivores still grazed our grasslands, the presence of predators made sure that the herbivores stuck together closely and stayed constantly on the move.

Savory tries to mimic these behaviors in his holistic management framework by herding the animals to keep them close together and on the move. While doing so, the big herds of herbivores trample the grasslands. This trampling ensures that the soil is broken up, that dead grasses are trampled into the soil while their seeds are being spread, and that manure is immediately incorporated into the soil. In turn, this manure contains beneficial bacteria supporting the decomposition of plant matter, which are often lacking in brittle environments (Savory Institute, 2023).

Figure 5. Phases of animal impact on soil and plants. Adapted from A Deep Dive into a Holistic Management Insight: The Predator-Prey Relationship, ACHM Online.

The trampling of animals thus improves soil aeration and fertility while enhancing new plant growth by distributing seeds (Figure 5). Furthermore, trampling dry, oxidizing plant matter also enhances new plant growth (ACHM, n.d.-b).

Overall, the trampling of the animals in large, dense herds can have very beneficial effects on the decomposition of plant matter, especially in areas high on the brittleness scale (Savory & Butterfield, 1999). It is important to acknowledge the beneficial effects that herbivore herds can have on our degraded lands. This could help restore these lands while maintaining livestock.

Plant recovery time

An often overlooked but crucial factor in holistic management is time. In order to restore grasslands using holistic management, the plants need enough recovery time. This means the balance between overgrazing and over-resting pasture must be found.

Figure 6. Healthy vs. Overgrazed Grass. Adapted from The Function of Time in Environmental Recovery, ACHM Online.

When a plant is grazed, it immediately invests in regrowth, using energy. If the plant is grazed again too shortly after, there will not have been enough time for the plant to recover, and eventually, it will die. This is called overgrazing (Figure 6). Repetition of this overgrazing will finally result in plant death. To prevent this from happening, grasslands should not be grazed for long periods, giving the plants enough time to recover after being grazed (ACHM, n.d.-a).

Plant recovery time is linked to the previously mentioned predator-prey relationship. If this relationship is absent, a herd of herbivores will relax and likely spread out more instead of sticking together. This can result in selective grazing, meaning that only some plants are being grazed repeatedly while others are not. If this happens, an imbalance in the pasture can occur, where over-rested plants are alternated by overgrazed plants (Savory Institute, 2023). Knowing the recovery time of the plants in your pasture takes observation and monitoring, but it should be taken seriously since it is a crucial step in restoring the land being grazed.

Now that the four principles of holistic management have been explained, we should take into account that every environment, piece of land, and plot is different. To apply holistic management, you must know your land completely, using the principles mentioned in this article. Once this is achieved, holistic management can be put into practice by designing a grazing plan, a land plan, a financial plan, and ways to ecologically monitor your progress.

References

Cover picture: https://savory.global/holistic-management/

ACHM. (n.d.-a). The function of time in environmental recovery – Africa Centre for Holistic Management. Retrieved July 4, 2024, from https://achmonline.org/2023/02/01/the-function-of-time-in-environmental-recovery/
ACHM. (n.d.-b). The Predator-prey connection – Africa Centre for Holistic Management. Retrieved July 4, 2024, from https://achmonline.org/2023/01/20/a-deep-dive-into-a-holistic-management-insight-the-predator-prey-relationship/
FAO. (2023). The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2023 – Avoiding and reducing losses through investment in resilience. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc7900en
Gosnell, H., Grimm, K., & Goldstein, B. E. (2020). A half century of Holistic Management: What does the evidence reveal? Agriculture and Human Values, 37(3), 849–867. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10016-w
IFIF. (2022). International Feed Industry Federation – Global Feed Statistics. https://ifif.org/global-feed/statistics/
Savory, A., & Butterfield, J. (1999). Holistic Management, A New Framework for Decision Making. Island Press.
Savory Institute. (2023). Holistic Management. Savory Institute. https://savory.global/holistic-management/