How Raising Grains Harms 'The Planet'

Ever had vegetarians, vegans and other space aliens bug you about eating more grains? Sometimes they base it on bad diet-and-health information, but more and more lately they whinge about ‘the planet.’

But what’s really good for the land? Grain and soybean farmers tear up their fields every spring for spring plowing. This allows the topsoil to wash away in some circumstances.

Most farmers use loads of chemical fertilizers on grain crops. They may know no other way, or they may not be able to get farm loans if they are not good fertilizer users. This chemical bath also runs off and ends up in the water supply.

Some farmers have the wealth to ‘go organic’ and get organic certification. They dump animal manure on their fields, which also does no good things to the water supply. Others plant ‘cover crops’ and plow them in, leading to more land damage and potential topsoil loss.

Pesticides and herbicides are so usual that farmers can buy genetically engineered corn and soybean seed which can take bigger doses of herbicides. These also can run off the fields and into the water supply.

But look at the animal grazers— both the ‘grass-based’ ones that finish their animals on grass, and the ones who use grain fattening. Even the grain-fed animals gain most of their weight during their months on pasture. And grass-finished meat is shown scientifically to be nutritionally superior to humans, as well as avoiding that nasty grain-growing habit.

Rotational grazing is most often practiced, so the animals are always getting fresh grass at the peak nutrient level for grazing. Grazing land, no matter what grazing method is used, is far more rarely plowed up and replanted, and fewer chemicals are used.

In addition, much of the land used commercially for livestock grazing is not suitable for plowing down and grain planting. It’s too hilly or too dry or too wet in places. Livestock grazing produces much human food from land which could not produce grains or other vegetarian food. 

Livestock grazing is more gentle on the earth, and more natural. Long before humans herded domestic livestock in North America, vast herds of buffalo fed off the land, providing meat to American Indian hunters and their families.

Grain and soybean consumption are the practices which hurt ‘the planet.’ They also hurt humans by replacing their natural diet, rich in meat, with a cheap high-carb substitute which is making so many fat, diabetic, and unhealthy.