Living Report: Regenerative Agriculture vs. Rewilding

Evidence from 100+ studies analyzing better grazing vs. dietary change plant-based with rewilding.

Updated Last: November, 2025

*Our living reports are continuously updated, evidence-based resources designed to evolve with emerging science. Each report critically examines complex food system topics to inform public dialogue, policy, and education.

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Cite as:

Carter, N. (2025, November). Regenerative Ranching vs. Rewilding – Evidence from 100+ studies analyzing better grazing vs. dietary change plant-based with rewilding. Institute for Future Food Systems. https://iffs.earth/living-report-regenerative-agriculture-vs-rewilding/

Key Findings

Animal agriculture already occupies more land than all of North and South America combined, while providing only ~12% of global calories.
Offsetting methane and nitrous oxide from global cattle and sheep would take about 135 Gt of carbon, nearly twice the carbon stored in all managed grasslands, showing how limited grazing land is as a carbon sink.
Across a meta-analysis of 109 studies, removing livestock consistently increased plant and animal diversity, while grazing reduced native species richness.
Rewilding land freed from animal agriculture could remove around 8 billion tonnes of CO₂ each year, roughly one-fifth of current global direct GHG emissions, or about the same as eliminating all emissions from the U.S. and EU combined.
Many complementary solutions are shared, from improving plant-based farming with intercropping, cover crops, and higher yields, to the co-benefits of agrivoltaics, new technologies, and cultural shifts in how we produce and consume food. Together, these can restore ecosystems, stabilize the climate, and build a resilient, thriving food system.
Based on over 100 peer-reviewed studies, this analysis finds that dietary change plant-based with rewilding provides far greater environmental benefits than any grazing-based approach. They restore land, draw down carbon, rebuild soil health, improve water and air quality, and revive biodiversity. Collectively this makes plant-based and rewilding one of the most powerful solutions to the climate and ecological crises.

Summary

The livestock industry is the single largest human use of land on Earth, occupying at least 37% of the planet’s ice-free surface (United Nations Climate Change and Land Report, 2019).

This land footprint comes at a cost: widespread wildlife habitat loss, declining biodiversity, and significant greenhouse gas emissions and carbon drawdown loss. In the context of accelerating ecological degradation, livestock systems (especially ruminant grazing-based ones) play a central role in driving land-use change and environmental pressures.

Yet instead of scaling back, the industry is rebranding. Enter regenerative agriculture and regenerative grazing, buzzword-heavy concepts marketed as a win-win for meat, soil, biodiversity, and the climate. It is being sold as the answer to our environmental crisis.

But does it actually hold up under scientific scrutiny? Or is this just another well-funded detour delaying real solutions?

This report explores the best available science on the topic. It defines what regenerative agriculture actually is, lays out the peer-reviewed studies, debunks the myths, and shows some industry’s tactics. It also explores truly transformative solutions, from rewilding and plant-based conservation agriculture, to agrivoltaics and food system shifts that regenerate nature without livestock at all.

With no regulated definition, the term regenerative agriculture is now widely misused to promote farming methods that are neither regenerative nor sustainable.

While not all regenerative grazing is “Grass-finished” or “100% grass-fed”, the land and climate context of those methods are important precursors to shifting types of grazing. Grass-finished beef refers to cattle eating grass or hay their entire lives. Many believe this type of beef is better for the environment partly because they are eating what ruminants naturally eat. In reality, “grass-finished” beef uses more land and generates more planet warming pollution than conventional beef, worsening other environmental issues (Garnett et al., 2017).

“emissions per kg protein of even the most efficient grass-fed beef are 10 to 25% higher than those of industrial US beef and 3- to over 40-fold higher than a wide range of plant and animal alternatives” (Eshel et al., 2025)

Grass-finished ranching, in many cases, negatively impacts the climate more than feedlots (grain). Including the broader ecological costs, such as displaced trees, vegetation, and wildlife, the impact is significantly worse.

Grass-finished requires more emissions (~19%), uses more land (~25%), and is far from scalable (27% of current US beef could be met) (Clark & Tilman, 2017; Hayek & Garrett, 2018).

_{Figure 2 from Clark & Tilman (2017) on the response ratio of the environmental impact of grass-fed and grain-fed beef. A ratio greater than one indicates grass-fed beef has higher impacts; a ratio less than one indicates grass-fed beef has lower impacts.}

The ability to shift our current food system’s demand for meat to grass-finished, let alone so-called regenerative grazed meat that uses more land, is not biophysically possible. If the US wanted to match the current factory farmed beef to grass-fed – and not alter their beef consumption – existing pastureland could support just 27 % of current production (Hayek & Garrett, 2018). Another finding of the study was that methane emissions would rise by 43% due to longer lives (from about 20 to 30 months) and a more fibrous diet.

Whether grass-finished or not, new niche methods of grazing cattle are being called regenerative (ie. holistic, adaptive multi-paddock, mob grazing, etc.). Yet an abundance of farm-scale and meta-analyses show:

there is no long term storage of carbon,
these practices still don’t offset the cattle’s own methane emissions and often even increase them, and
analyses of these methods rarely ever compare to native wild ecosystems that they are risking further displacing (Hawkins, Venter & Cramer, 2022; Reinhart et al., 2021; Hawkins, 2017; Garnett et al., 2017, Monbiot, 2023)

“sadly, regenerative grazing doesn’t always live up to the hype. The climate benefits are often smaller than claimed and only work under limited circumstances. Moreover, the more outlandish claims about regenerative grazing can act as greenwashing for the beef industry. Left unchallenged, this could distract us from pursuing more effective solutions and delay the changes we need to make in the livestock industry.” (Foley, 2024)

Instead, greenwashing grazing is more likely to trick consumers into believing beef is eco-friendly when far superior diverse plant proteins exist with substantial ecological benefits (Ritchie, Rosado, & Roser, 2022; Carter, 2024).

Plant protein production can be a part of conservation agriculture that has historically used practices like intercropping, avoiding monoculture, limiting synthetic inputs and manure, maintaining crop residues, using cover crops, and reducing tillage (Kassam & Kassam, Chapter 21, 2024; Kassam, Friedrich, & Derpsch, 2015; McGuire, 2015). These methods are plant-based by default and boost environmental benefits, can enhance farm profitability, and potentially sequester soil carbon.

Critically, shifting to more plant protein production for direct consumption frees up land. And what we do with that land matters, whether it’s rewilding forests, restoring grasslands, equity land-back programs, or integrating agrivoltaics. The path forward isn’t better cattle grazing. It’s a shift toward regenerative food systems that don’t rely on livestock at all.

Behind the exaggerated grazing claims lies a tangled web of selective science, industry influence, and trade-offs. This report dives into the hard evidence, what works, what’s misleading, and what’s getting in the way of real climate and biodiversity solutions.

If you care about the future of food, ecosystems, or thriving communities, the details matter. Let’s get into them.

_{Graphic created by Mike Wigmore via Nano Banana Pro}

Regenerative: Defined

Regenerative Agriculture is a loosely defined concept that involves many practices, some of which are actively being defined but typically includes grazing cattle (Giller et al., 2021).

For a full picture we need to consider all possible solutions for land. And if a study shows benefits of a type of grazing (e.g., Stanley et al., 2017), we need to ask, compared to what? As this often cited study shows, it is niche and does not compare to the native ecosystem nearby that grazing so often displaces.

The general goal of regenerative farming systems is to increase soil quality and biodiversity in farmland while still being able to operate the business profitably.

It is important to compare this with other land-use solutions, such as rewilding – defined here as restoring ecosystems by allowing natural processes to return, sometimes supported by reintroducing native species and vegetation. Rewilding can be active, through human-assisted species reintroduction, or passive, by simply allowing the land to recover on its own.

Table Debates Summary: “What is regenerative agriculture?”

Regeneration is the renewal or restoration of a body, or biological system (such as a forest). But it has come to mean this:

Regenerative grazing, on the other hand, lacks definition but can be considered to include any version of the below:

Holistic Management (Savory Institute)

“Holistic Management uses a decision-making process to help ensure that the actions taken to restore land and livelihoods are ecologically, socially and economically sound based on the context described by the people involved. In two-thirds of the world that is grasslands, much of the land regeneration involves the use of livestock, which are managed to mimic the behaviors of ancient wild herds in a manner that heals degraded soils, improves ecosystem function, and builds biodiversity” (Savory.Global). Savory’s Holistic Planned Grazing and Holistic Management is now communicated in books, courses, workshops and an international network of regional hubs. The Savory Institute reportedly has 54 centres globally which have trained 14,000 people and reportedly influenced 42 million acres of land.

Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) Grazing

“Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing is a livestock management practice that uses lightweight, portable fencing systems to move animals strategically around a large pasture” (Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research).

Rotational Grazing

“Rotational grazing is where grassland is sequentially grazed and then rested to allow post-grazing recovery of the herbage” (Science Direct).

Mob Grazing

“Mob grazing is short duration, high density grazing with a longer than usual grass recovery period” (Soil Association).

Loose definitions welcome disinformation

Ensuring the agricultural practice definitions and certifications are sound is of utmost importance. As major food corporations embrace regenerative agriculture, their vague goals and unclear targets create gaps in accountability, allowing them to sidestep sustainability commitments and greenwash.

Regenerative agriculture is industrial agriculture

From the outset, the term has straddled a blurry line. It’s been marketed as a solution to ecological degradation while being shaped and steered by industry interests. In 2023, a task force of companies including Mars, McCain Foods, McDonald’s, Mondelez International, PepsiCo and Waitrose announced the launch of a new blended finance framework that could unlock billions of dollars for regenerative agriculture (Sustainable Markets Initiative, 2023).

A few years ago, JBS publicly committed to spend US$100 million on R&D related to “regenerative agriculture” projects by 2030 (ETC Group, 2022). It sounds like a serious effort, until you realize that’s about one-third the amount JBS and its owners were forced to pay in fines in 2020 after pleading guilty to an extensive bribery scheme that helped the company become a dominant player in the U.S. meat market (SEC, 2020).

Given land constraints alone, it’s impossible to change cattle ranching to regenerative methods, without at least first a significant decrease in production and consumption of beef.

It is not to say efforts by leading companies are inherently unwelcome. Large-scale investment could help shift agricultural practices in the right direction. But without strict accountability and independent science based on benchmarks, these initiatives risk becoming empty PR exercises.

Major meat and dairy corporations – including Tyson, Cargill, Land O’Lakes, Perdue Farms, Smithfield Foods, and Danone – have adopted so-called regenerative practices and framed them as climate solutions. This allows them to position themselves not just as less harmful, but as part of the solution to climate change and environmental degradation. These claims are often reinforced by endorsements or partnerships with groups like WWF, The Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Defense Fund, lending them unwarranted environmental credibility (Torella, 2024).

Regenerative agriculture needs to be compared against what the land could be doing instead, like hosting biodiverse native ecosystems through rewilding, or producing high-yield, low-impact plant proteins. In the majority of cases, especially in temperate and tropical regions, land used for grazing or even “regenerative” livestock would support far greater ecological and nutritional value if repurposed.

Any serious assessment of regenerative claims must ask: is this land better used for cattle, or for carbon-rich forests, native grasslands, restored wetlands, or food crops that feed more people with fewer emissions and less harm? Without this broader lens, “regeneration” risks becoming a euphemism for maintaining the livestock status quo.

Learn more:

Science-backed parts of regenerative agriculture

While much of what’s marketed as regenerative agriculture today centers on grazing and livestock, true regenerative practices are rooted in soil-building, biodiversity, and low-impact, plant-based methods.

As Erik Molvar from Western Watersheds Project puts it:

“truly regenerative farming minimizes soil disturbance by retaining ground cover between rows of primary crops, often using nitrogen-fixing species that add nutrients to the soil. Instead of planting a single crop as far as the eye can see, multiple crops are planted together, creating a simple and non-native but ecologically more diverse natural system that offers native birds, mammals, and pollinators a better chance to find suitable habitat. Sometimes regenerative agriculture involves perennial plant species, which over years can invest resources in developing deeper and weightier root systems, sequestering more carbon in the soil. These regenerative farming methods might not approach the carbon storage of the native perennial grasslands and shrublands that originally inhabited the lands they occupy, but they’re a major improvement over corporate mega-farms.” (Molvar, 2021)

No Till

There is a benefit to reducing or stopping tillage. Practices of no-tillage can enhance soil structure and porosity compared to tillage methods, and also reduce their impact on global warming potential by on average 7.6% (Mondal & Chakraborty, 2022; Shakoor et al., 2021). Not tilling the land and using cover crops resulted in 86% less soil loss and erosion than conventional systems (Jacobs et al. 2022). There is likely a spectrum of impacts and benefits here from no-till to low-till systems and more research is welcomed.

Use of cover crops

Using cover crops can enhance the number of soil microbes, thereby boosting soil fertility, nutrient levels, and increasing the soil organic matter by approximately 15-41% (Kim et al., 2020). These gains may contribute to improved water retention, nutrient cycling, and some level of carbon sequestration, especially when combined with reduced tillage and greater crop diversity. Carbon sequestration though should mainly be a focus of wild untouched ecosystems and recovering ecosystems such as rewilded farmland vs. trying to maximize likely temporary carbon sequestration on managed (i.e., ecologically disturbed / degraded) farmland.

Polyculture of plants

Strategies for diversifying crops, especially through the incorporation of a legume crop, can diminish dependence on fertilizers, enhance pest management (thereby potentially reducing pesticide use), augment biodiversity, and foster better soil health (Beillouin et al., 2021).

Green Manures

Use of green manures often used in veganic (stockfree organic) methods like mulch, crop residues, and compost have tremendous long term benefits (Edberg, 2023).

Better definition

To move the conversation forward, we need a regenerative agriculture definition grounded in ecological integrity, land-use efficiency, and public health.

Regenerative agriculture is plant-based, low-input farming that uses cover crops grown to enrich soil naturally, boosts biodiversity, and uses land efficiently enough to allow large-scale rewilding for long-term carbon storage. It avoids methane and livestock waste, lowers zoonotic disease risk, and delivers yields comparable to typical manure-fed crops with far greater long-term ecological benefits.

Big picture: Food systems and global land use

To assess regenerative ranching meaningfully, we need a clear understanding of how today’s food systems shape environmental outcomes. Land use is especially critical, it’s the primary driver of biodiversity loss and one of the most powerful levers we have for drawing down atmospheric carbon dioxide.

“Global food production is the single largest human pressure on Earth, threatening local ecosystems, driving a sixth mass extinction of species, and impacting the stability of the entire Earth system” (Loken et al., 2020).

We’ve turned 50% of the habitable land on earth into farms. Globally agriculture has already cleared or converted 70% of grasslands, 50% of savannas, 45% of the temperate forest, 27% of tropical forests, and ~50% of wetlands (Foley et al., 2011).

This coincides with an increasing number of farmed animals over time. In 1960: about 8 billion land animals were killed per year for food. Then, arable land growing corn, soy, and grain expanded to increase factory farming. Now it’s over 80 billion (not including fish), 10 times as much as 1960 (Our World in Data).

Put another way, world meat consumption has quadrupled since 1961 in absolute and per capita terms. World meat consumption (per capita) even increased between 2000 and 2019 (29.5 kg vs. 34.0 kg). Over the last five decades, global meat production has soared by 402%.

_{Graphic created by Mike Wigmore via Nano Banana Pro}

This is the systematic result of subsidies, lobbying, marketing, funded academics, and governments bailing out conglomerates like Tyson, Cargill, and JBS. The top 10 meat and dairy companies and six largest trade associations, in the US alone, have spent over $330M just on lobbying related to the environment since 2000 (Lazarus, McDermid, & Jacquet, 2021).

By 2050, it is expected that there will be 120 billion land animals killed per year for food (Weis, 2016).

World meat production increase trends to 2050 would require that we convert 80% of existing forests & shrubland for meat & dairy production – an additional 35 million km² of land, equating to the combined area of Australia & Africa (Feigin et al., 2025).

At the same time, several countries appear to be reaching peak consumption of some meats, including New Zealand, Canada, and Switzerland (Whitton et al., 2021). This is based on 2000–2019 trends in 35 countries monitored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This trend applies specifically to beef, pork, lamb, and other meats, but is not even close to peak meat consumption for chicken.

The single largest use of land on Earth is grazing animals. 37-43% of the ice-free land area of the planet is used for animal agriculture (if including extensive pastures and some livestock feed crop land) to produce just 12% of the human food we eat, in terms of dry weight (IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land, 2019).

Compared to plant proteins such as beans, peas and lentils, beef requires six times more water and 20 times more land, and emits 20 times more GHG emissions per gram of edible protein (Ranganathan et al., 2016). Of course not all land is the same, with some areas less suitable for crop production, but in a shift to a plant-based food system and repurposing of animal feed crops to feed people directly, total arable land will also decrease significantly (Poore & Nemecek, 2018).

“In the United States, e.g., beef production requires, on average, 10 to 50 times as much land, irrigation, and fertilizer per kg protein as poultry or pork (3–7) while emitting >10 times more greenhouse gas” (Eshel et al., 2025)

_Via_{Table Debates: What is feed-food competition?}

Of all that land used for farming, 83% of it is directly for animal agriculture (including fish farming) and all of it only returns back 18% of global calories and 37% of global protein consumed (Poore & Nemecek, 2018).

Beef cattle use ~60% of the world’s agricultural land but account for just 2% of global calories and 5% of global protein consumed (Garnett et al., 2017; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012).

The global cattle grazing industry exploits land without accountability, incurring an unpaid environmental cost estimated at $680 billion annually (2013 USD), over seven times the industry’s total revenue (Trucost, 2013). Charging prices that reflect these external costs would render grass-fed operations economically unviable and would ensure users bear the true environmental burden.

_{Trucost, 2013}

The livestock industry wants consumers to believe in better meat claims. Yet, grass-finished ‘grazing-only’ ruminants make up only 1% of global protein supply, as shown below:

_{Garnett et al., 2017}

Grass-fed beef is far from a better choice. It requires 25% more land than conventional beef (Clark & Tilman, 2017) and if scaled up could only meet 27% of current beef demand, according to a US-specific study (Hayek & Garrett, 2018). In contrast, switching just this one food source, from conventional beef to beans, would free up 42% of cropland (Harwatt et al., 2017). A study by Henderson et al. (2015) found that changes in grazing practices leading to any carbon sequestration occurred on just 22% of North American grazing lands. Even on those lands, methane emissions from the cattle likely outweighed the temporary soil carbon gains. The remaining 78% showed no climate benefit, or even worse – net emissions increases (Henderson et al., 2015). So-called regenerative ranching would use 2.5 times more land than typical beef.

Holistic grazing relies on already degraded land to show emissions reductions, but to avoid competing with crops or expanding land use, it must remain limited to existing pasture. It cannot meet current (let alone future) animal protein demand without triggering major land conversion and environmental harm (Garnett et al., 2017).

Yet much of today’s grazing land wasn’t pasture to begin with. Nearly half of it (42.7%) was originally forest or woody savanna before being cleared for livestock, meaning continued reliance on grazing reinforces historic deforestation and biodiversity loss rather than reversing it (Searchinger et al., 2018).

If we take a business as usual approach, the global adoption of current G20 (Western-style) food consumption patterns, by 2050, we would exceed the planetary boundary for food-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 263% and would require up to ‘seven Earths’ worth of biocapacity to support (Loken et al., 2020). Regenerative ranching would demand even more land than that, far more than exists on Earth, to meet current levels of meat consumption.

Alternatively, we can shift to plant-based diets and free up at least 3.1 billion hectares of land (equivalent to 4,700 m² per person) to restore biodiversity and draw down the equivalent of 9 to 16 years of current fossil fuel emissions by 2050 (Poore & Nemecek, 2018; Hayek et al., 2021). Historical trends and global models show this land would naturally return to native vegetation once the economic pressure to produce meat and dairy is removed, sequestering 8 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year for a century. This is roughly one-fifth of current direct global GHG emissions, or about the same as eliminating all emissions from the U.S. and E.U. combined. We need only about 10 billion tonnes of CO₂ removal by 2050 to stay within 1.7°C, meaning a global dietary change plant-based, alone, could deliver up to 80% of the necessary carbon drawdown (Poore & Nemecek, 2018; Rockstrõm, 2025).

Wildlife extinction

Biodiversity loss is not a side effect of the current food system, it is a direct consequence of it.

Wildlife habitats are essential not only for preserving species, but for maintaining clean air and water, controlling pests and diseases, supporting crop pollination, and ensuring ecosystem stability. These services underpin food security, economic resilience, and public health across all societies.

Mass extinctions are times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times in the past 540 million years (Ceballos, Ehrlich, & Dirzo, 2017).

Globally, populations of vertebrates, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish, decreased by an average of 73% between 1970 and 2020; in Latin America and the Caribbean, populations fell by 95% over this 50-year period” (WWF, 2024).

As put frankly by Diaz et al. (2019), “human actions are causing the fabric of life to unravel. Only immediate transformation of global business-as-usual economies and operations will sustain nature as we know it, and us, into the future” (Diaz et al., 2019).

Land use and biodiversity loss are intrinsically linked. A recent analysis of almost 20,000 species of terrestrial vertebrates projected that 87.7% of them will lose habitat to agricultural expansion by 2050 (Williams et al., 2021).

80% of deforestation, 70% of terrestrial biodiversity loss, and 50% of freshwater biodiversity loss is linked to food production (UN Global Land Outlook, 2022; FAO, 2021).

Globally, the biggest driver of biodiversity loss is agriculture (26.1%), with animal agriculture at its core where one-third of cropland is used to grow livestock feed, and cattle grazing dominates global land use. Other major threats include forestry (23.5%), infrastructure (17.2%), pollution (11.1%), and invasive species (10.4%) (Coimbra, Gomes-Jr, & Fernandez, 2020).

It’s not plant-based diets or crops grown directly for human consumption that are driving agricultural land expansion. It is overwhelmingly beef, dairy, and the vast areas of feed crops required to raise and confine billions of livestock that are responsible for the growing land footprint of farming.

Overall, livestock now make up 62% of the world’s total mammal biomass. Humans account for 34%, while wild mammals are vastly outnumbered at just 4%. Together, humans and their domesticated animals are now 30 times the living mass of all of the wild mammals and must compete with them for space and resources (Bar-on, Phillips, & Milo, 2018). The global biomass of poultry globally is three times that of all wild bird species now, and is a major driver of biodiversity loss, largely due to increased demand for feed crops (Bennett et al., 2018).

_{Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass}

Cattle and other domesticated grazers are invasive species. They displace native plants, animals, and historically have been the main tool to displace indigenous peoples. The grasses fed to cattle are mostly bred, cultivated and imported from Europe. Livestock grazing disrupts vegetation in ways that harm small mammals, reducing their numbers and altering species composition. Meanwhile, larger native mammals in areas heavily grazed by livestock face competition and declining food quality. Changes from ungrazed to grazed land tends to favor less diverse, less resilient ecosystems (Schieltz & Rubenstein, 2016).

There is a spectrum to biodiversity impacts from different forms of grazing cattle, but a slight improvement in birds or insects versus previous more intensive uses is minor in benefits relative to a native or rewilded ecosystem (Filazzola et al., 2020).

There is nothing wrong with native ruminants roaming vast areas of protected land. These have many ecosystem benefits and emit far less methane than the 4 billion farmed ruminants today (Ripple et al., 2014). The problem lies in the scale and the ecological disruption caused by introduced grazing animals.

There is a pervasive claim that cows just replaced the methane from wild bison. This is false. At their peak, wild ruminants including bison emitted ~15 Tg CH₄/yr. Today’s 4 billion farmed ruminants emit over 100 Tg CH₄/yr, nearly 7 times more methane (Saunois et al., 2025).

“The livestock sector is currently the single major driver of habitat loss and degradation, which is in its turn a leading cause of species decline and extinction worldwide.” Coimbra, Gomes-Jr, & Fernandez (2020).

“past and present processes, consumption and production of animal sourced foods threatens the world’s biodiversity and makes it arguably the most detrimental aspect of our ecology, from a conservation point-of-view” Machovina, Feeley, & Ripple (2015).

But wouldn’t abandoned pastureland result in ecological issues?

A recent meta-analysis out of the University of Alberta published in Ecology Letters looked at 109 studies on the response of animals and plants to different types of livestock grazing vs. exclusion (unmanaged rewilding). They concluded: “Across all animals, livestock exclusion increased abundance and diversity” (Filazzola et al., 2020). This comparison, along with others, shows that ecosystems with extremes in low precipitation or high temperature (e.g. deserts) can be particularly impacted by grazing which can further damage soil characteristics, reducing already limited plant biomass, and decreasing animal diversity. Other studies also support livestock exclusion (Moradi et al. 2022).

_{Graphic created by Mike Wigmore via Nano Banana Pro}

“As overgrazing has led to long-term degradation of grassland ecosystems (Jarque-Bascuñana et al., 2022, Montenegro-Díaz et al., 2022), grazing exclusion projects have been implemented in many parts of the world (Hancock and Vallely, 2020; Liu et al., 2021, Song et al., 2019). Existing literature has investigated the effect of grazing exclusion on grassland restoration process extensively (Andrade et al., 2015, Gang et al., 2014, Yang et al., 2019). For example numerous studies have shown that grazing exclusion projects can help to improve plant growth (Chen et al., 2012, Jing et al., 2014, McSherry and Ritchie, 2013, Wu et al., 2022b), increase vegetation biomass (Li et al., 2017, Wang et al., 2014), and promote biodiversity of grassland (Li et al., 2017, Mekuria and Aynekulu, 2013).” (Lui et al., 2023)

Livestock exclusion in northern China has significantly promoted grassland restoration, improving vegetation cover, soil carbon sequestration, and reducing desertification caused by overgrazing (Wang et al., 2023). This was a part of The Grain for Green Program in China which is a large-scale initiative that converts degraded farmland into forests and grasslands to combat soil erosion, restore ecosystems, and improve carbon sequestration. Excluding grazing can restore ecosystems by improving vegetation cover, enhancing soil carbon sequestration, and protecting biodiversity in degraded grasslands.

While grazing exclusion does help restore lands, in certain circumstances, grazing has damaged the land so much – stripping vegetation, exposing the ground to wind and rain erosion – that vital topsoil is lost (Neff et al., 2005). This makes it harder, and sometimes impossible over short timeframes (i.e., decades), for ecosystems to bounce back without intervention. Just as our bodies can’t heal without our skin, some lands might need extra support alongside simple exclusion, like adding moisture, nutrients, biochar, seeds and other regenerative inputs.

Advocates of regenerative ranching, however, often claim that cattle help restore land by returning nutrients through manure and stimulating decomposition and plant growth. But in many cases, they are simply recycling nutrients from the system or imported feed, not creating new fertility. If degraded land requires added nutrients, these can be supplied directly, without the methane emissions, soil disturbance, or ecological disruption associated with grazing. Regenerative animal agriculture often involves shifting from more intensive practices to lower grazing pressure. Yet the resulting improvements are frequently misattributed to the presence of cows, sheep, or pigs etc., when in fact they are largely the result of letting the land rest and recover.

Regenerative grazing is frequently claimed to increase biodiversity, but this claim only holds true when compared to worse forms of grazing or cropping for animal feed. On the contrary, massive deforestation, wetland conversion, and grassland conversion for pasture have led to catastrophic biodiversity loss that regenerative grazing can never compensate for, with grazing expansion only exacerbating global deforestation and ecosystem loss.

The industry often omits that grazing practices entail killing off competing wildlife, including predators like wolves and lions, as well as species like prairie dogs, moles and badgers, while simultaneously introducing invasive grasses that harm indigenous ecosystems and species (Schieltz & Rubenstein, 2016).

To properly evaluate regenerative grazing, we need to move beyond surface-level claims and look closely at what the science actually says about biodiversity, carbon, methane, land use, and ecological opportunity costs.

Types of better grazing

Claims about regenerative grazing often position it as an eco-friendly alternative to industrial beef. But these claims vary widely depending on whether cattle are grass- or grain-finished, and whether the practices involved are actually regenerative in any measurable sense.

This section examines the environmental trade-offs of different grazing systems, the limits of carbon sequestration, and the scalability challenges often overlooked.

Grass vs. feedlot finished cattle

To understand regenerative grazing claims, while they are not exclusive to grass-finished systems, it is important to understand the practice first. Firstly, regenerative beef may be grass-finished or feedlot finished. Understanding the ecological differences between these two types of preparing cattle to be beef is key.

Indeed, shifting from feedlot to grass-finished is not wholly bad. Grazing cattle sparsely in comparison to more intensive commodity animal-feed monocrops for example, can be good for improving soil conditions and reducing water use relative to previous practice. However, there are many studies that also show that grazing without the necessary expertise potentially “triggers soil carbon loss by altering plant roots and their control on soil microbial community” (Stefano & Jacobson, 2017).

“We find that pasture-finished operations have 20% higher production emissions and 42% higher carbon footprint than grain-finished systems” Blaustein-Rejto, Soltis, & Blomqvist (2023)

Compared to conventional beef, some grazing-based practices can reduce emissions, but only under narrow and temporary conditions. The evidence shows:

Emissions reductions are modest at best, and often stem from factors that would occur with general diet shifts (e.g., fewer cows, less manure), not from grazing itself.
Many of the credited practices, like tree planting or soil improvements, can be done through plant-based agriculture without involving livestock at all.
Carbon benefits are short-lived; once soils reach saturation, emissions from grazing systems continue to accumulate.
These systems are not scalable, requiring more land than is available, and are typically limited to degraded lands which often compete with food crops, shifting the problem elsewhere.
They rely on offsite inputs (like compost or supplemental feed), which are often ignored in impact assessments but carry their own emissions and land costs.
A plant-based food system achieves far greater emissions reductions and carbon drawdown, without the ecological trade-offs.
Public messaging around “better beef” can intentionally confuse consumers, leading them to believe they don’t need to reduce meat consumption at all.

“Better management of grass-fed livestock…does not offer a significant solution to climate change as only under very specific conditions can they help sequester carbon. This sequestering of carbon is even then small, time-limited, reversible and substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions these grazing animals generate”
“It would be physically impossible for the animal protein production produced today… to be supplied by grazing systems.”
(Garnett et al., 2017).

Listen and watch the below to learn more:

Ellen Fisher Podcast: Ecologist speaks out about what’s killing our planet: Nicholas Carter
Ellen Fisher Debate: Plant vs Animal Regenerative Farming DEBATE | How to Feed the World without Destroying the Planet
Panel – Center for Biological Diversity: Habitat-Fed Beef: Separating Facts From Fiction on Grass-Fed and ‘Regenerative’ Beef
Panel – “Regenerative Grazing” & “Low Carbon Chickens”: How We Can Fight the Greenwashing of Animal Ag “Regenerative Grazing” & “Low Carbon Chickens”: How We Can Fight the Greenwashing of Animal Ag
The Proof Ep 230 (Oct 2022): Can Dairy be Regenerative https://theproof.com/can-dairy-be-regenerative-ecologist-nicholas-carter/
Ep 116 (Jan 2021): Is Grass-Fed Beef Good For Our Planet? https://theproof.com/is-grass-fed-beef-good-for-our-planet/
Ep 111 (Sept 2020): Can Holistic Grazing Reverse Climate Change? A Review Of Kiss The Ground https://theproof.com/can-holistic-grazing-reverse-climate-change-a-review-of-kiss-the-ground/

Holistic grazing

The Savory Institute, founded by Allan Savory, defines Holistic Grazing Management (HGM) as ‘a process of decision-making and planning that gives people the insights and management tools needed to understand nature: resulting in better, more informed decisions that balance key social, environmental, and financial considerations’.

There are many reasons to be skeptical of Allan Savory’s character and colonizing past (Carter, 2024), but keeping it strictly to the science, there are many issues with his proposed solution. The scientific community, even many within the animal science industry perspective, have been critical of Allan Savory’s claims that grazing can reverse desertification and climate change.

A review done the year after Allan Savory’s TED talk “could find no peer-reviewed studies that show that this management approach is superior to conventional grazing systems in outcomes” (Carter et al., 2014). This didn’t stop him from gaining many high-profile proponents of the practices, like Al Gore who stated: “Soil carbon sequestration through regenerative agriculture is the single best way to take carbon out of the atmosphere” (Hagstrom, 2023).

Regenerative agriculture’s most strident proponents (Regeneration International) agree with him claiming it has the power to significantly slow down or even reverse climate change.

The most bold claim Allan Savory has made is that holistic grazing would lower “greenhouse gas concentrations to pre-industrial levels in a matter of decades” (Savory Institute, 2013). Let’s take a closer look at that claim.

In “Restoring the Climate Through Capture and Storage of Soil Carbon Through Holistic Planned Grazing” (Savory Institute, 2013a), it is assumed that 2.5 tonnes of carbon can be sequestered per hectare per year, across 5 billion hectares – about one-third of the Earth’s land surface, and the same area as all current agricultural land including crops – continuously for nearly 40 years.

Savory’s claimed sequestration rate of 2.5 tonnes of C/ha/yr is significantly higher than the majority of other peer-reviewed estimates for pastureland.

The amount of grassland to which this is applied (5 billion hectares) is far greater than most estimates of grassland that can even loosely be defined as grazing land. The IPCC’s 2000 report on land use change, for example, gives an estimate of 3.5 billion hectares. So under this assumption, either holistic grazing would take over all current agricultural land, leaving close to no space for crops (meat-only diet) or there would be expansion into other land like natural habitat, thereby further undermining the claimed benefits.

It is highly unlikely that this constant, high sequestration rate could be sustained for 40 years, since the rate of carbon accumulation declines over time as soils approach equilibrium (more on this below).

Furthermore, Savory’s model does not account for the significant increase in methane and nitrous oxide emissions that would result from raising more livestock to meet meat demand.

A simple calculation shows:
2.5 tonnes of C/ha/year × 5 billion ha × 40 years = 500 billion tonnes of carbon.
This figure, which applies only to soils, roughly matches the total amount of carbon emitted from all sources since the start of the industrial era, estimated at 555 ± 85 billion tonnes (IPCC, 2013; AR6 = 1850 to 2019, 655 +/- 65 billion tonnes)

Of the 555 billion tonnes of carbon emitted by human activities (~1750 to 2011), 68% came from fossil fuel combustion and cement production, and 32% from land use change, mainly deforestation and conversion of grasslands to cropland (IPCC, 2013).

Soil scientist Rattan Lal (2004b) noted that land use changes over the past 7,800 years leading up to the industrial revolution had already caused losses of 320 billion tonnes of carbon from terrestrial ecosystems. An additional 136 ± 55 billion tonnes has been lost between 1850 and 1998, which includes 78 ± 12 billion tonnes (57%) from soil degradation, erosion and mineralisation (IPCC, 2000; Lal, 2004b). This is around 0.5 ± 0.1 billion tonnes of carbon per year, on average.

Of all emissions since the industrial revolution, 43% (240 ± 10 billion tonnes) has accumulated in the atmosphere, 28% (155 ± 30 billion tonnes) has been absorbed by the oceans, and 29% (160 ± 90 billion tonnes) by terrestrial ecosystems (IPCC, 2013).

However, the IPCC estimates that globally, soils could sequester only 0.5 to 1.9 billion tonnes of carbon per year, at most. The upper limit corresponds to just 20% of current annual total carbon emissions. And this estimate assumes no saturation of soil carbon, no reversal from land disturbance, and no losses from extreme weather events increasingly driven by climate change.

Smith (2004a) estimated that soils could absorb at most one-third of the current annual increase in atmospheric CO₂ and only for a limited period of 20 to 50 years.

Even if Savory’s proposal could somehow re-sequester the entire historical loss of soil carbon (using the highest estimate of 90 billion tonnes; Lal, 2004b), this would still account for only about 16% of total emissions since the industrial revolution, of course falling far short of reversing climate change.

While regenerative grazing and holistic grazing has grown in popularity and spun off into hit documentaries like Kiss the Ground and Common Ground, and made it to social media influencers, the evidence continues to build against its claims:

A 2022 meta-analysis of 22 studies by Hawkins, Venter & Cramer found holistic management had no effect on soil carbon or animal productivity and that “Claims about increased production and climate resilience with HM (Holistic Management) are unfounded based on farm-scale studies” (Harkins, Venter, & Cramer, 2022).
A 2021 meta-analysis of 91 publications shows removing cows from the land entirely enhanced plant production and soil carbon storage across grassland worldwide (Su & Xu, 2021).
From a large meta-analysis of available data, Lessmann et al. (2021) concluded that the maximum carbon sequestration potential is in the range of 0.28 to 0.43 Pg C/year—about 3–4% of global anthropogenic emissions and about 10% of the estimated emissions from agriculture.
“This review suggests that most of the management practices associated with the broad term of “regenerative agriculture” are not likely to lead to a large net sequestration of organic carbon in soils.”…”Thus, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, even with best management practices, is not likely to offer a net storage of carbon that can be marketed as a credit to emissions from other sectors of the economy” (Schlesinger, 2022).
A 2020 meta-analysis of 287 papers found “the grazing impacts on the 15 soil properties had no significant changes over the last two decades” (Lai & Kumar, 2020).
A 2020 meta-analysis out of the University of Alberta published in Ecology Letters looked at 109 studies on the response of animals and plants to different types of livestock grazing vs. exclusion (unmanaged rewilding). They concluded: “Across all animals, livestock exclusion increased abundance and diversity.” This comparison, along with others, shows that ecosystems with extremes in low precipitation or high temperature (e.g. deserts) can be particularly impacted by grazing which can further damage soil characteristics, reducing already limited plant biomass, and decreasing animal diversity (Filazzola et al., 2020).
A 2019 meta-analysis of 63 studies reported heavy grazing reduced soil carbon compared to moderate and light grazing. Impacts by moderate and light grazing on soil carbon was not statistically significant. The main reason for the reductions was because they decided to have fewer cows on the land. This would happen anyway with diet change (Tang et al., 2019).
A 2018 meta-analysis of 64 publications found rotational grazing showed a 25% greater carbon soil storage than continuous grazing: “rotational grazing had greater SOC than continuous grazing and was not different from no grazing”. This implies that this improved grazing strategy would be no better at sequestering carbon than no grazing (Byrnes et al., 2018).
A 2017 meta-analysis of 75 studies found “Holistic Planned Grazing does not improve production” (Hawkins, 2017).
A collaboration between the University of Oxford, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Wageningen University and Research (WUR), in their report (Grazed & Confused) in 2017 said “that the extremely ambitious claims that proponents of Savory’s methods make are dangerously misleading” (Garnett et al., 2017).
“Only under very specific conditions can [grazing] help sequester carbon. This sequestering of carbon is even then small, time-limited, reversible and substantially outweighed by the GHG emissions these grazing animals generate…The maximum global potential (of carbon sequestered in these soils), in the most optimistic conditions and using the most generous of assumptions, would offset only “20-60% of emissions from grazing (exclusive) systems: 4–11% of total livestock emissions, and between 0.6 and 1.6% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions – to which of course livestock also substantially contribute” (Garnett et al., 2017).
From William H. Schlesinger, one of the most respected soil scientists in this field, in a 2022 study: “Thus, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, even with best management practices, is not likely to offer a net storage of carbon that can be marketed as a credit to emissions from other sectors of the economy” (Schlesinger, 2022).
Reinhart et al. (2021) discuss the problems with managing livestock grazing to increase the storage of carbon in soils, citing problems with experimental design in nearly all studies to date.
A researcher at Chalmers University in 2016 wrote a review of Allan Savory’s claims stating that “no review study has been able to demonstrate that holistic grazing is superior to conventional or continuous grazing” and that the claimed benefits of the method appear to be “exaggerated and/or lack scientific support” (Nordborg & Röös, 2016).

“Regenerative grazing, applied well and by motivated farmers, could well benefit soils, build organic carbon matter, and then perhaps help sequester some carbon. However the overall gains are likely to be modest, are not exclusive to rotational practices, and will be time limited – and the problem of the other greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide – do not go away” Garnett et al. (2017).

The first column in this graph (shown in brown) indicates the soil carbon sequestration potential as verified by studies like Smith et al. (2008), considered the most optimistic peer-reviewed study. This is compared with much higher sequestration claims made by the Savory Institute, as noted in publications by Itzkan (2014) and Savory Institute (2013). Meanwhile, Garnett et al. (2017) concludes:

“The highly ambitious claims made about the potential for holistic grazing to mitigate climate change are wrong.”

The report finds that emissions from ruminant animals far exceed the potential for soil carbon sequestration.

“Our results show that policies focusing on reducing the ecological impact of cattle would yield the highest benefits for ecosystems, reiterating the call of previous studies (Machovina and Feeley, 2014; Machovina et al., 2015). The combined impact of cattle meat and milk encompassed two-thirds of livestock’s pressure on ecosystems, mostly through grazing. Especially cattle meat showed a disproportionally large pressures on ecosystems, for a relatively small volume of meat supply, and per extension few nutritional benefits. In areas where cropping or vegetation regrowth is possible, cattle grazing hence represents an important waste of land resources, which could be used either to extensify vegetal food production, which can have important ecological benefits (Seufert and Ramankutty, 2017) or for the restoration of natural ecosystems” (Roux et al., 2022).

In sum, Savory’s claims about holistic grazing are not supported by scientific evidence, overestimate soil’s long-term carbon storage potential, and ignore key emissions from increased livestock. Even under ideal conditions, soil sequestration through grazing is not a substitute for broad emissions reductions across all sectors.

What the regenerative agriculture movement has done is set up the foundation for delaying changes away from animal-sourced foods, but also greenwashing other highly polluting industries by positioning themselves as carbon offset avenues.

Learn more on the industry tactics behind this: Harvesting Denial, Distraction, and Deception: Understanding Animal Agriculture’s Disinformation Strategies and Exploring Solutions

Soil and carbon storage

While some advocates of regenerative grazing focus narrowly on short-term soil carbon gains, a broader historical perspective reminds us why soil health truly matters.

Throughout history, the collapse of entire civilizations has been linked to the mismanagement of finite natural resources, especially soil and water. Civilizations such as the Mesopotamians (~1700 BCE, dust storms), Harappans (~1700 BCE, river drought), Mycenaeans (~1200 BCE), Mayans (9th century CE, prolonged drought), and the Norse in Greenland (~1400 CE, cold climate and poor land stewardship) all declined in part due to ecological degradation and the loss of productive soils (Lal, 2024).

Healthy soils are biologically rich systems. Ideally, they contain around 5 megagrams (Mg) of live biomass per hectare in the top 30 centimeters, and include bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and a range of microfauna (Lal, 2024). These organisms are essential for nutrient cycling, water retention, soil structure, and long-term fertility. When soil biomass declines, so does the land’s capacity to sustain vegetation, store carbon, and buffer against environmental shocks.

Soil degradation doesn’t result from a single cause, but from an interconnected web of pressures. Rampant deforestation – over 80% of which is linked to animal agriculture, particularly beef – removes vegetation that stabilizes and replenishes soils. Intensive grazing further depletes soil health by compacting land and stripping plant cover (Crovo et al., 2021). Once-diverse grasslands are often invaded by non-native species, while erosion from wind and water accelerates degradation. Meanwhile, plow-based crop systems contribute heavily, especially considering that 38% of all crops globally are grown to feed animals, including one-third of cereals and over 80% of soy (Lal, 2024; Poore & Nemecek, 2018).

Grazing alone plays a major role. In Brazil’s Cerrado, the country’s largest cattle grazing region, 40% of cultivated pastures are now classified as degraded due to overgrazing and poor land management (Silva et al., 2023).

Total land carbon goes far beyond the carbon temporarily sequestered in farmland soils through regrowth, it includes both aboveground biomass and deep belowground stores. This is why rewilding and protecting natural ecosystems offer not just healthier soils, but the highest total land carbon storage potential.

As shown below, forests provide the best above-ground biomass:

*Statistical spread of above-ground Biomass for 11 types of land use in the tropics, plotted from the data of Ziegler et al. (2012). Box plots represent medians and quartiles, SD and outliers via. (Grace, Mitchard, & Gloor, 2017*)

A common claim made by proponents of holistic or regenerative grazing is that improving pasture management could sequester enough carbon to significantly offset global emissions, even suggesting it could reverse climate change.

In reality, even under optimistic assumptions, the potential is limited. If all grassland soils globally were restored to their maximum carbon storage capacity, the total drawdown would amount to just 12–24 gigatonnes of CO₂ over several decades, offsetting less than 1–2% of global GHG emissions per year, and only until those soils reach saturation (Sanderman, Hengl, & Fiske, 2017).

Ironically, proponents of regenerative grazing argue that livestock can help reverse soil degradation. Yet historically, grazing is one of the leading causes of topsoil loss globally. Cattle strip native vegetation, compact and erode soils, damage stream banks, and contaminate waterways with fecal waste. In many regions, decades of livestock grazing have transformed once-productive riparian zones and grasslands into degraded, arid landscapes. This has led to loss of topsoil, increased sedimentation in streams, and the collapse of aquatic habitats. Additionally, overgrazing of native fire-carrying grasses has disrupted fire cycles in western forests, making them unnaturally dense and more prone to major wildfires.

The data is clear: soil organic carbon (SOC) is substantially higher in undisturbed natural ecosystems. On average, agricultural soils store 25–75% less carbon than their native counterparts (Lal, 2006).

Even within agricultural landscapes, structural elements like hedgerows play a critical role. Soil under hedges stores 40% more carbon than adjacent grazed grasslands, with older hedges accumulating more carbon over time (Biffi et al., 2025).

A comprehensive meta-analysis synthesizing data from over 25,000 primary studies concludes:

“The preservation of SOC (Soil Organic Carbon) can be effectively achieved through the protection of natural ecosystems and the introduction of perennial crops in croplands” (Beillouin et al., 2023)

As an example, 3 U.S. studies reported a decrease in emissions from changes in grazing management (-15% Pelletier, Pirog, & Rasmussen, 2010, -16%Lupo et al., 2013, -66%Lupo et al., 2013) but not counting sequestration would make these farms emit more (+30% Pelletier, Pirog, & Rasmussen, 2010, +37% Lupo et al., 2013, +44% Rowntree et al., 2020) than conventional beef. This further indicates that setting up this type of food system will create more emissions in the long run.

We should not be relying or advocating for livestock to sequester some carbon, when they can’t even come close to offsetting their own emissions.

About 135 gigatonnes of carbon is required to offset the continuous methane and nitrous oxide emissions from the ruminant sector worldwide, nearly twice the current global carbon stock in managed grasslands (Wang et al., 2023)

Sequestering one tonne of carbon offsets the warming effect of only 0.99 kg of methane or 0.1 kg of nitrous oxide per year over a 100-year period. To fully neutralize the methane and nitrous oxide emissions from the global ruminant sector, we would need to sequester 135 gigatonnes of carbon, nearly double the total carbon currently stored in all global grasslands (Wang et al., 2023).

This would require increasing soil carbon stocks by 25% to 2,000%, highlighting the clear limitation: grassland carbon sequestration alone cannot offset the warming impact of ruminant emissions.

Even under the most optimistic conditions, Wang et al. (2023) found that only one cow per hectare could be supported if the goal is to fully offset emissions through soil carbon storage. Yet many intensive grazing operations stock up to five cows per hectare, far exceeding the land’s carbon-offsetting capacity.

“In grasslands, increased intensity of grazing, and the presence of grazing compared to no grazing, had negative impacts on SOC” (Beillouin et al., 2023).

_{Graphic created by Mike Wigmore via Nano Banana Pro}

A 2022 study in PNAS adds to the growing body of evidence that grazing cattle, regardless of management quality, does not meaningfully increase soil carbon sequestration. The researchers argue that even rotational grazing fails to deliver persistent soil carbon gains when accounting for land use, methane emissions, offsite feed inputs, and carbon residence time. In fact, producing 100 g of beef protein requires 10 to 100 times more land than plant protein, undermining claims that grazing is a carbon-smart strategy (Lajtha & Silva, 2022).

Table Debates: The promises of regenerative agriculture: How lessons from the past bring words of warning

Soil carbon saturation: farms vs. wild ecosystems

Carbon saturation level refers to how much organic carbon the soil currently holds, relative to its maximum potential capacity. This potential is determined by local factors like soil type, mineral composition, vegetation cover, climate, and depth. A soil that is 100% saturated has reached its upper limit for storing organic carbon under current conditions. Below that, there’s still room to store more carbon through natural processes or improved land management.

“The former (namely, grasslands and forests), which we refer to here as natural ecosystems for brevity, had on average higher levels of C saturation than did agricultural systems (p < 0.0001; Fig. 2a). Indeed, whereas soils in natural ecosystems averaged 46 ± 3% C saturation, agricultural systems averaged only 31 ± 2% C saturation.” (Georgiou et al., 2022).

Georgiou et al. (2022) show that agriculture, especially grazing, has substantially depleted soil carbon, and most soils under farming are operating far below their carbon-holding potential. On the other hand, natural ecosystems not only store more carbon globally, they’re closer to being saturated, suggesting more effective and stable carbon storage long-term.

However, especially with farmland soil, soil carbon sequestration is time limited. Soils reach “carbon equilibrium” within a span of a couple decades (depending on initial level of degradation, intervention type, and the extent or state to which the system is able to recover), beyond which no more carbon can be taken in without a corresponding loss (i.e. net zero sequestration). This is sometimes referred to as “reaching saturation”, even if soils are locally undersaturated relative to their maximum potential capacity.

Before reaching carbon equilibrium, soil carbon stored in topsoil can be easily lost during drought, flooding and other disturbances, particularly in degraded systems that are less resilient compared to natural, complex systems. In such instances, total emissions might even outweigh any sequestration gains. This risk exists even if we are optimistic with the science on best case scenarios of carbon sequestration from farmland, and especially when we don’t ignore that methane emissions from farmed ruminants aren’t offset (IPCC AR5, WGIII; Godde et al., 2020; Smith, 2014).

Estimated time limits vary, ranging from 20-70 years (Garnett et al., 2017), with one recent study showing sequestration may peak at 13 years before declining towards a new equilibrium. Even with the best grazing management practices, soil carbon sequestration rates are expected to decline significantly (by 53% to 81%) by 2100 (Moinet et al., 2023). Combined with the high variability of soil carbon levels on farmland, this makes soil carbon an unreliable strategy for achieving long-term climate goals.

Even the USDA acknowledges that “carbon stores within grasslands are sensitive to management and are thus vulnerable to losses in soil carbon.”

Wild native ecosystems store more carbon than farmland, and the loss of carbon from soils due to animal agricultural land use is a major and ongoing climate liability. Globally, agriculture has depleted soils by an estimated 133 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon, equivalent to roughly 11 years’ worth of today’s global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels (Sanderman, Hengl, & Fiske, 2017).

A meta-analysis of 66 datasets comparing native forests to agricultural land found a median soil organic carbon (SOC) loss of 31.6% to 52% following conversion to pasture, depending on soil depth (Aryal et al., 2018). Among all land uses assessed, grazing lands showed the most severe carbon deficit relative to their storage potential—indicating just how much carbon has been lost through widespread ranching and pasture expansion (Georgiou et al., 2022).

While grazing reduction and other types of improved management practices can help sequester some soil carbon, the study by Georgiou et al. (2022) concludes that natural ecosystems consistently store more carbon than any kind of managed land, highlighting a huge opportunity: agricultural systems could become meaningful carbon sinks if restored:

This research not only corroborates the principle of soil carbon saturation, i.e. that soils have a limit to the amount of carbon they can store, but shows that using land for extractive industries like ranching decreases a soil system’s maximum carbon capacity. Degraded soils may never reach the carbon storage levels they once had as part of a natural ecosystem, even with restoration.

This report itself estimates that annual emissions from livestock industries exceed the annual sequestration goal they set for all soils by roughly 3 times. “(U)ngrazed grasslands also sequester carbon, often more than grazed ones” (Eshel et al., 2025).

The global soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration potential of agricultural land projected for the coming 87 years was predicted to range between 31 and 64 Gigatones. This is equal to 1.9-3.9% of the average projected 87-year anthropogenic emissions. That’s despite it taking up over 3 billion hectares of the land on Earth and hosting methane-emitting livestock that further contribute to emissions (Jain et al., 2013).

“In terms of short-term climate change mitigation during the next few decades, if all the land used for ruminant livestock production were instead converted to grow natural vegetation, increased CO2 sequestration of 30–470% of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production could be expected.” (Ripple et al., 2013)

Above-ground vegetation further differentiates wild habitat from managed land, which can be substantial, not only in terms of biomass but the overall influence on ecosystem structure and function. Forests, for example, can store more carbon both above and below ground. Even if you don’t count the trees, there is still more carbon stored below ground in forests than there is in the entire grassland system (above and below). Not only do deep roots hold carbon, they also facilitate better transfer and storage of carbon within the surrounding soil (Georgiou et al., 2022). Forests store many times more carbon above and below ground than grasslands (Liu et al., 2012). Old growth forests and large old trees are critical organisms connecting ecosystems and human health and continue to sequester carbon (Gilhen-Baker et al., 2022).

Methane

Around 50% of human-caused methane (CH₄) comes from food systems, mostly cattle enteric fermentation (belches) and livestock manure (Tubiello, et al., 2021; Carter & Urbancic, 2023). Yet, methane is so often sidelined in discussions about improving grazing of ruminants, despite levels having more than doubled since the industrial revolution and reaching their highest in 800,000 years and rising fast.

“Methane levels are not just increasing, they’re increasing faster than they were [in the past]…[I]t’s incompatible with not just 1.5C, but 2C – and has us heading towards 3C if it continues.” Rob Jackson, a professor in Earth system science at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project via Carbon Brief

Livestock methane emissions alone have increased fourfold in the last 130 years, from 31.8 Tg CH₄ in 1890 to 131.7 Tg CH₄ in 2019 (Zhang et al., 2022). They now represent one third of all human-caused methane emissions (Saunois et al., 2024).

Estimates vary, but methane accounts for between 25% and ~50% of the net rise in global average temperature since the preindustrial era. That’s a contribution of about 0.5 to 0.6 of the 1.1-1.2 degrees C of warming to date, and roughly half of warming measured from radiative forcing studies (if factoring in the cooling that accompanies CO₂ with sulphur dioxide).

The way that methane’s warming impact is measured can also minimise its urgency. Using GWP100 (global warming potential over 100 years) devalues it by about 2 times compared to using GWP20 (a 20-year timeframe), which therefore significantly downplays its short-term contribution to warming.

Despite being present in far smaller quantities than CO₂, methane will contribute as much to warming over the next 20 years due to its short-term potency.

When methane and other GHG emissions are measured using CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e or CO₂-eq) under GWP100, global emissions from cattle alone are staggering. If cattle were able to form their own country, they would rank 3rd behind China and the United States among the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters:

– China (2019): 12.1 billion tonnes CO₂e
– United States (2019): 5.8 billion tonnes CO₂e
– Cattle (~2010): 5.0 billion tonnes CO₂e (ClimateWatch, 2022; FAO)

The benefits of methane reduction go well beyond global warming. According to the UN Global Methane Assessment, each year, such reductions could prevent:

255,000 premature deaths
775,000 asthma-related hospital visits
73 billion hours of lost labor due to extreme heat
26 million tonnes of crop losses.

Targeting high methane-emitting foods like beef and dairy also opens up opportunities for nature recovery and land carbon drawdown. Products like these, that are methane-intensive, require vast amounts of land, often at the expense of carbon-rich ecosystems. As Cho, Waite, & Santo (2024) put well: “including carbon opportunity costs alongside agricultural GHG emissions therefore provides a fuller picture of the climate impacts of food purchasing decisions”.

Omitting animal-based products and shifting to plant-based food production, for example, offers significantly greater carbon drawdown potential than any better-meat scenario. According to the IPCC (Fig. TS.5), the maximum soil carbon sequestration potential from grazing lands is estimated at 2.56 gigatonnes (Gt) CO₂e per year. In contrast, one of the largest meta-analyses linking food and environment by Poore & Nemecek (2018) estimates that a global shift to a fully plant-based diet could reduce emissions by up to 14.7 Gt CO₂e per year, more than five times greater than the maximum potential from improved grazing practices.

Feed additives and pharmaceuticals to reduce methane

In recent years, the meat and livestock industry have increasingly pushed for solutions like feed additives to reduce methane. These include Asparagopsis seaweed or pharmaceuticals like 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP). While these may play a role within industrial feedlots, their overall benefits are highly exaggerated. There are a number of other barriers to scale, and the major issue is that it is logistically unfeasible to deliver additives across grazing lands where most of a cow’s lifetime methane emissions occur (Almeida, Hegarty, & Cowie, 2021).

“The IPCC reports that the theoretical maximum potential for reducing enteric methane emissions is 0.8 Gt CO2-eq per year, out of the 2.1 Gt total enteric methane emissions, a maximum reduction of 38%. However, of this technical potential, only 0.2 Gt is economically achievable. What’s more, that total includes feed additives and other strategies like breeding for lower emissions and feeding concentrates. So, only about 10% of enteric methane can be reduced, and feed additives are only a subset of that.” (Project Drawdown, 2024)

“Even if additives could remove all methane from all ruminant livestock, ruminants still require more land to produce a pound of protein than any other kind of crop or livestock, creating immense deforestation pressure given rising demand” (Eric Toensmeier, Project Drawdown, 2024).

Biogenic methane

Some of the same livestock industry advocates and academics pushing for minor fixes like feed additives and pharmaceutical interventions, also peddle myths that biogenic methane (from livestock) has no real warming effect because it is cyclical, i.e. it’s reabsorbed naturally and too quickly to have an impact. The claim that biogenic methane is somehow benign because it is part of the natural carbon cycle is misleading, and part of a disinformation campaign seeking to downplay or dismiss the significance of livestock emissions. While based in some truth, this claim completely ignores the scale at which ruminants emit methane, and the fact that methane is methane, no matter the source. Physics doesn’t differentiate between natural or non-natural sources. Once it’s in the atmosphere, the heat trapping is largely the same.

This is all factored into the various methods of measuring methane as a carbon dioxide equivalent, meaning CH₄ from non-fossil sources over a 20-year GWP is 80 times stronger than CO₂, while CH₄ from fossil fuels is 82 times as strong.

Even livestock industry favourite, Professor Myles Allen states that “cows convert carbon dioxide into methane, which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide for as long as it remains in the atmosphere…so the fact that the carbon atoms in the methane come from the atmosphere in the first place is entirely irrelevant” (Dwyer, 2022).

Learn more about methane and new tactics to creatively account its impacts away:

Seeing Stars: the new metric that could allow the meat and dairy industry to avoid climate action

How we know methane from cattle is heating the planet

Methane from cattle isn’t just a theoretical concern, we can directly observe its buildup in the atmosphere. Much of the increase carries a biogenic isotopic signature, meaning it originates from biological sources like livestock digestion and manure, rather than fossil fuels. And a growing body of atmospheric and satellite data points clearly to cattle as a major source (GHGSat).

In November 2022, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) launched the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS). This initiative uses satellite technology to identify methane “super emitters,” notify relevant actors, and track progress on mitigation.

One striking example came in March 2022, when GHGSat satellites detected methane emissions directly from cattle operations, confirming that methane from ruminant farming is visible from space. This high-resolution satellite data offers unambiguous evidence of the significant and measurable role livestock, especially cattle, play in accelerating climate change.

As the IPCC AR6 WGIII report makes clear:

“…increasing numbers [of livestock is] directly linked with increasing CH4 emissions… continued global livestock population growth between 1990 and 2019, including increases of 18% in cattle and buffalo numbers, and 30% in sheep and goat numbers, correspond[s] with CH4 emission trends” (p. 771).

Methane is likely underestimated

“The EPA’s bottom-up CH4 inventory was challenged by top-down analyses suggesting that livestock CH4 emissions are underestimated by as much as 80% by the EPA (Miller et al., 2013; Wecht et al., 2014)” (Hayek & Miller, 2021).

The GHG emissions estimates produced by bottom-up models can be tested for accuracy by measuring the air above animal operations. Atmospheric measurements of GHGs are taken by instruments on tall towers, airplanes, and satellites.

California airborne measurements were able to distinguish between dairy cattle and other non-dairy animals’ emissions, finding that they were 45% and 69% higher, respectively, than the bottom-up model predicted (Hayek & Miller, 2021).

A study in Nature in 2017 showed that 50-75% of increased methane emission from 2003-2010 is due entirely to livestock (Wolf, Asrar & West, 2017). Massive increases in livestock numbers have led to a 332% increase in methane emissions from farmed animals from 1890 to 2014, and 51.4% from 1961 to 2018. (Dangal et al., 2017; Chang et al., 2021).

Livestock accounts for 37% of all U.S. methane emissions, and cattle are responsible for much of that, producing 86.2% of that methane. About two-thirds of cow emissions come from burps, while the remaining one-third is from manure management. Other sources of methane emissions include natural gas production at 23.9%, landfills at 17.4% and wastewater at 2.8%, according to EPA data.

The EPA actually does show the urgency:

“achieving significant reductions [of methane] would have a rapid and significant effect on atmospheric warming potential” (EPA, 2025)
“methane pollution – one of the biggest drivers of climate change.” (EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, 2022)
“Sharp cuts in methane emissions are among the most critical actions the U.S. can take in the short term to slow the rate of climate change” (EPA, 2022)
Enteric fermentation is the largest single source of methane emissions (EPA Draft Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2021)

Methane is so rarely mentioned by advocates for regenerative ranching, and this is by design. As previously mentioned, even new feed additives that may reduce methane slightly, only apply in feedlot settings where most of the ruminant emissions don’t even occur.

A major reduction of grazing is inevitably needed

To bring ruminant emissions into balance with soil carbon sequestration, emissions would need to fall drastically. According to FAO estimates of grassland carbon storage potential, this would require an 87% reduction in ruminant emissions. However, more data-constrained assessments suggest that up to a 97% reduction would be necessary to achieve that same balance (Wang et al., 2023).

This isn’t just a question of emissions, it’s a land use dilemma. Even if all available grazing lands were optimized for carbon sequestration, they still could not absorb enough carbon to offset the methane and nitrous oxide from current ruminant herds. And attempting to scale these systems further would require more land than is available, threatening forests, grasslands, and other native ecosystems critical for long-term carbon storage and biodiversity.

Academic Tactics Used to Support Regenerative Grazing

One of the key strategies used by the animal agriculture industry and close-tied researchers is to demonstrate improvements in soil via regenerative grazing compared to more intensive forms of grazing, or sometimes the worst forms of industrial plant agriculture. But they consistently do not compare the best forms of grazing, or other cattle raising, against the best forms of plant protein farms.

“First, there’s no academic study anywhere, meeting the necessary criteria, that shows sustained net greenhouse gas removal through soil carbon storage by a cattle farm. Recent research explains why such efforts have failed, and always will: partly because soil carbon soon saturates, while farm emissions continue. Second, the technologies required to demonstrate such an annual shift do not exist. Moreover, to establish that carbon has stayed in the soil, rather than simply cycling through it, you would need to show that the shift had been sustained for at least 20 to 30 years.” (Monbiot, 2024)

A 2020 meta-analysis of 57 studies found that for the USA, Integrated Field Management and Intensive Rotational Grazing reduced emissions from extensive beef, but still resulted in more emissions per unit of beef on average compared to conventional beef (Figure 4b) (Cusack et al., 2021).

There were a few US farms that claimed net negative emissions, however:

Rowntree et al (2016) emission reductions were due largely to reducing the cattle herd by 60%. A reduction in cattle would happen anyway in a transition to a plant-based food system. This farm also supplied half of their feed from off site, thus bringing in nutrients and carbon to the land but at the cost of land elsewhere. One can bring nutrients into plant-based agriculture land as well. The study also monitored results for only two years.

DeLonge et al (2013) switched from using a livestock manure slurry (an emitter) to a compost operation mixing manure and plant waste diverted from a landfill and applied the compost to the land. The reductions were largely due to offsets from avoided emissions from the manure slurry as well as avoided methane emissions at the landfill. A plant-based food system would avoid emissions from manure slurries as well because manure slurries wouldn’t exist, and composting plant material diverted from a landfill can be done in a plant-based food system. Applying this compost to land can sequester carbon without livestock.

Ryals & Silver (2013) got their reductions by bringing in composted green waste from offsite (i.e. yard trimmings and food waste) and applying it to the land. This could be done in plant-based agriculture without livestock.

Drinkwater et al (1998) showed doubled rates of carbon sequestration, but it was because they decided to grow legumes on the land instead of just cattle feed. Planting legumes also reduced pesticide use. Planting legumes will happen anyways with diet change. Legumes tend to be the main ingredient in plant-based meat alternatives due to its high protein content, and are even categorized as a “protein food” along with meat in the US dietary guidelines.

The meta-analysis by Cusack et al., 2021 concluded, “growth in beef demand will likely more than offset GHG emissions reductions and lead to further warming unless there is also reduced beef consumption.”

The compilation of studies below shows a meta-analysis of carbon sequestration from pastureland, and only a couple of studies (right side of the diagram below) have results that are higher than the mean. The ones higher than the mean are non-peer-reviewed and from the industry tied groups like the Savory Institute.

Evidence supporting regenerative grazing soil carbon claims commonly rely on three factors:

External inputs such as fertilizers and improved pasture species, so that soil carbon increase comes from the external inputs, not the grazing method
Decreased grazing pressure to increase pasture growth (and lower yield)
Converting intensive cropland to grazing land. Cropland has seen extreme degradation, so will show carbon increases when converted to grassland, but not compared to rewilding

The below further assumptions are made to justify grazing:

Many papers make assumptions about what various methods will do, but rarely are they measured on site or replicated
None look at the feasibility of it to scale globally, especially given clear land constraints
None show it can be scaled up without a massive reduction in meat consumed
Many studies showing carbon neutral beef factor in restored drained peatlands or reforested areas and avoided deforestation, something that would happen far more if left to fully rewild

As pointed out by agronomist Andrew McGuire, Gabe Brown, a longtime livestock proponent and farmer in North Dakota, failed to communicate many practices and overly assigned benefits to cattle vs. moving hay around on the property (McGuire, 2018).

Gabe Brown, who is a key figure in regenerative grazing, has the below rules, as per McGuire (2018):

“least amount of mechanical disturbance possible.”
“armor on the soil surface.”
“living plant roots in soil as long as possible.”
- Like principle #1, this is one that few will disagree with, but which is hard to implement with crops like potatoes or carrots, because they grow underground and require tillage to harvest them, and with small-seeded vegetables, because they require precise shallow planting which is difficult to achieve with crop residues on the soil surface.
“diversity of plants” and intercropping
- Misses some basics on benefits of wildlife biodiversity, but otherwise a great thing to strive for
Livestock integration

Gabe Brown Claim (not backed by peer reviewed evidence): “Topsoil depth increases from 3” to 14” while soil organic matter (SOM) increases from 1.7% to 11.1%.”

Reality: Increasing soil organic matter by a few percentage points is normally thought of as a long, difficult process, unless you use a lot of imported manure or compost. Of course this is how he did it.

False comparisons

Claims about the carbon drawdown benefits of regenerative grazing typically hinge on a few main tactics:

The use of external additions such as fertilizers and enhanced pasture species, which means any increase in soil carbon can be attributed more to these inputs than to the grazing strategy itself.
Reducing grazing intensity to foster more pasture growth, which generally leads to reduced productivity.
Transitioning from intensive cropland (often feed crop) to grazing land, with the former often being highly degraded and thus showing apparent carbon gains when converted to grassland, but never compared to the carbon gains in rewilding that land to native plants.
Many studies that endorse regenerative grazing are based on lands that have been converted from cropland to grazing land. This land type typically has a higher potential for carbon restoration compared to existing grasslands (Franzluebbers et al., 2024).

The process of measuring and monitoring soil carbon is complex, expensive, and highly uncertain. Results can vary significantly based on sampling depth, soil type, seasonal timing, and management history. These challenges make it difficult to produce consistent, replicable data, and the high costs of long-term monitoring often lead to limited sample sizes and short study durations.

This methodological uncertainty creates room for a wide range of experimental outcomes, which can unintentionally (or intentionally) fuel confirmation bias—especially when researchers or funders are invested in showing positive results from “regenerative” grazing practices. Without rigorous, standardized, and long-term soil carbon assessments, many claims about carbon benefits remain speculative at best.

What often gets left out of these optimistic grazing narratives is methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over short timeframes. Even if some carbon is sequestered in soil temporarily, methane emissions from cattle digestion (enteric fermentation) and manure are continuous and substantial, undermining any net climate benefit. Yet in much of the regenerative grazing literature and promotional material, methane is downplayed or omitted entirely.

Solutions

There are a suite of food system solutions that should be a higher focus than the regenerative ranching movement, as well as options for those living rurally in typical situations where working on the land or at sea is ideal. This is not an exhaustive or comprehensive list, but a few that stand out.

Dietary change

Opportunities to rewild land, enhance carbon drawdown, or explore alternative farming methods will remain limited if we don’t change towards a more plant-based food system. Without a significant change in dietary patterns, freeing up land for these critical environmental efforts will largely stay niche and underutilized.

A recent estimate even put food’s GHG savings from shifts plant-based at 90%: “Our results indicate that the average carbon footprint of plant-based foods amounts to 0.66 kg CO2-eq kg−1, which is only 10.7% of animal-based foods (6.15 kg CO2-eq kg−1)” (Feng et al., 2023).
A 2019 meta-analysis showed legumes had 97% less emissions than red meat per serving (Clark et al., 2019).
A 2017 study shows beans have 99% less emissions than conventional beef in the United States per unit of protein (Harwatt et al., 2017).
A 2018 study showed a fully plant based diet reduces emissions (carbon opportunity cost plus production emissions) by 80% (Searchinger et al., 2018).

A 2018 meta-analysis looked at 38,700 farms and found the best production system they found for growing beef was still several times worse than plant-based alternatives. They also found that our entire agriculture sector could be a net sink due to carbon sequestration if we all adopted a vegan diet (Poore & Nemecek, 2018).
A 2022 study found “Cessation of grazing would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil and water resources, and would enhance/sustain native species biodiversity thus representing an important and cost-effective adaptive approach to climate change” (Kauffman et al., 2022).

_{(Harwatt et al., 2024)}

Crucially, focusing on plant agriculture can produce more calories and protein on less land, freeing space for native ecosystems. Incentivizing a plant-based food system allows us to produce far more calories and protein on less land, freeing up space for native ecosystems to thrive (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). This ties into the law of 10% trophic efficiency, which shows that energy is lost as it moves up the food chain, about 90% of energy is wasted when we feed crops to animals instead of eating plants directly (Cassidy et al., 2013). By shifting to plant-based diets, we can produce more food with fewer resources, while also allowing degraded or non-arable land to regenerate, drawing down carbon and supporting biodiversity recovery.

This pyramid diagram illustrates how energy is transferred between trophic levels in an ecosystem, along with how some energy is lost rather than passed on to the next level (WDiment CC BY-SA 4.0, 2021)

Rewilding

Rewilding is a movement to mass restore ecosystems so native plants and animals can thrive, and to reverse the continued destruction of the natural world.

“Of the 5.2 B ha of land under agriculture in 2024, half of it (around 2.6 B ha) can be spared for nature by 2100. Regeneration of forest on spared land can sequester (store) carbon, increase the renewability and quality of water, strengthen biodiversity and strengthen numerous eco‑system services (Lal 2023).” (Lal, 2024)

There’s many causes of this damage, but it is clear that a main contributor was unnecessarily turning our planet into one big animal farm. More than 80% of all agricultural land is used specifically for animal-sourced foods. Shifting away from these, and rewilding by letting land be, is a practical, inexpensive, and really proactively hopeful solution.

Letting forests regrow naturally can absorb 23% of the world’s CO2 emission every year (on top of the 25% already drawn down by existing landscapes) (Cook-Patton et al., 2020). Shifts in global food to plant based diets by 2050 could lead to sequestration of 332-547 Gigatonnes of CO2 (equivalent to 9-16 years of fossil fuel CO2 emissions) (Hayek et al., 2021).

“Restoring natural vegetation such as forest is currently the best option at scale for removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The livestock sector, having largely displaced natural carbon sinks, continues to occupy much of the land that must be restored” (Harwatt et al., 2020).

One of the most important scientific studies suggests that restoring wild animal populations could contribute significantly to removing carbon from the atmosphere. Approximately 95% of the global target of extracting 500 gigatons of carbon, necessary to meet the 1.5-degree Celsius target, can be achieved through this method, alongside decarbonizing existing emissions (Schmitz et al., 2023). 8.1 billion tons of CO2 can be sequestered from the atmosphere each year over 100 years as natural vegetation reestablished and soil carbon reaccumulates (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). Simply shifting plant based gets us 80% of the way to the 1.5C Paris Agreement carbon sequestration goal.

Various species such as whales, wolves, bison, forest elephants, orangutans, and beavers act as natural climate engineers. This is exemplified by historical instances like the recovery of the wildebeest population in the Serengeti, which restored the region’s carbon-absorbing capacity. Similarly, rewilding efforts in regions like the Arctic and Africa demonstrate the potential for restoring ecosystems and mitigating carbon emissions.

Schmitz et al., (2023) emphasizes the significant role of marine ecosystems in carbon sequestration, particularly through increasing fish populations. Despite some instances of bidirectional interactions between animals and climate, the overarching trend indicates that higher wild animal populations correlate with increased carbon sequestration.

Several actionable steps have been proposed:

Recognize wild animals as integral climate solutions and incorporate them into the nature-climate agenda.
Scale up funding for nature and wildlife conservation by at least tenfold.
Hold companies accountable for wildlife impacts when making climate claims, ensuring alignment with conservation efforts.
Strengthen conservation goals such as the 30×30 initiative to protect and restore natural ecosystems.
Prioritize fish as wildlife, not commodities, as a crucial climate solution (Schmitz et al., 2023)

By placing animals and land at the forefront of environmental discourse, we can mobilize broader engagement and political action. Rewilding presents a tangible and engaging solution that warrants immediate action.

How significant of an opportunity is rewilding?

The loss of forests and natural vegetation dating back to the Agricultural Revolution has released an extreme amount of CO2, equivalent to ~1400 billion tonnes, or 40 years worth of current fossil fuels (Erb et al., 2018)

It is also important to acknowledge that landscapes were historically shaped by human activities, it’s clear that rewilding can be approached in both passive and active ways – either allowing ecosystems to naturally recover or intentionally restoring them to reflect their historical or evolving states.

When agriculturally degraded land is allowed to rewild, even on its own with no hands-on restoration, carbon stocks and biodiversity loss can often rapidly approach pre-disturbance levels (Beyer et al., 2022, Gilroy et al., 2014; Oswald & Schmitz, 2009; Silver, Ostertag, Lugo, 2001).

It’s also important to state that the biodiversity crisis is often framed as a need to protect untouched habitats, but nearly three-quarters of terrestrial nature has long been shaped by human activity, particularly by Indigenous and traditional peoples. Three-quarters of our ‘wild’ places were inhabited even 12,000 years ago (Ellis, Gauthier, & Goldewijk, 2021). Current biodiversity losses are more often due to the appropriation and intensified use of these historically managed lands rather than the degradation of pristine ecosystems, highlighting the importance of empowering Indigenous stewardship for effective conservation (Ellis, Gauthier, & Goldewijk, 2021). Rewilding can take many shapes and forms, but one aspect it’s clear it must not take is the integration of invasive farmed ruminants, at the expense of wildlife and climate breakdown.

Even in regions like Russia, rewilding former farmland and expanding northern forests has significantly increased carbon sequestration. One study found that rewilding efforts raised annual carbon uptake in Russian forests by 39%, reaching 407 million tonnes of carbon (~1.5 billion tonnes CO₂ per year), corresponding with an increase in forest area to 45.7 million hectares (Schepaschenko et al., 2021). This is equivalent to four times the total annual emissions of countries like the United Kingdom or Australia.

Forests

Forests cover around one third of the Earth’s land mass and are the most biologically-diverse ecosystems on land, home to over 80% of animals, plants and insects.

Factoring in biodiversity benefits, ecosystem services, and carbon sequestration, returning and protecting native forests is one of the best environmental strategies. Ecosystems that are more biodiverse actually absorb more carbon. If there’s more deer, for example, in ecosystems without wolves, they eat more saplings which hurts trees growing to the size they need to be for higher C sequestration.

Yet nature is disappearing at a terrifying rate. In 2023, the world lost 10 football (soccer) fields’ worth of tropical forest per minute. “Every year an area the size of roughly 20 million football fields is deforested resulting in roughly 17% of global GHG pollution. Agriculture is responsible for at least 90% of tropical deforestation” (Johnson, 2024).

We lose 2-3% of global forests per year and 42% of pastureland used to be forests (Searchinger et al., 2018).

Since the beginning of human civilization, roughly 12,000 years ago, we have lost over 46% of all trees, likely representing even more in terms of biomass (Crowther et al., 2015). Of the 3.04 trillion trees remaining, 1.39 trillion are in rainforests, with 15 billion trees being cut down each year, equating to 500 trees per second. These estimates, based on global tree density data collected over the past decade, include trees with a diameter greater than 10 cm.

“There are a number of options for capturing carbon. The most effective and cheapest is growing forest, which costs about $50 (£38) for every tonne of CO2, but means the land cannot be used for other purposes such as agriculture.” (Rockstrõm, 2025)

Our World in Data: The world has lost one-third of its forest, but an end of deforestation is possible

Lastly, monoculture plantations of forests are terrible options for our climate and for preventing increasingly common wildfires. Each additional tree species introduced to a plantation could add 6% to its total carbon stocks. A diverse forest sequesters double the carbon than the typical monoculture.

Oceans & Kelp

Much of this report is related to land based ecosystems and agriculture but oceans are as critically important. Oceans sequester about 30% of all carbon that’s emitted. This added CO2 has had significant effects on the ocean. Surface waters are now 30 percent more acidic than they were at the start of the industrial era (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2019).

Macroalgae like kelp sequester around 200 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, comparable to New York State’s emissions. Coastal ecosystems, including mangroves and seagrass, can sequester up to 20 times more carbon per acre than land forests by burying plant material underwater, though ocean trawling disrupts this carbon storage (Eger et al., 2023; Khan, Sudhakar, & Mamat, 2024).

In British Columbia, sea otter recovery has led to a resurgence of kelp forests, now sequestering about 10% of the province’s emissions. However, there is still uncertainty and a lack of research on the long-term implications of growing kelp for restoration efforts.

Harvard: How Kelp Naturally Combats Global Climate Change

Incentivize Rewilding

Financial models estimating that extending area protection to 30% could generate an additional $64 billion to $454 billion per year by 2050. Protecting 30% of mangroves and forests alone would prevent the loss of $170 billion to $534 billion per year by the same year. Protecting 30% of mangroves and forests alone would prevent the loss of $170 billion to $534 billion per year by the same year (Waldron et al., 2020).

More good news is when agriculturally degraded land is allowed to rewild, even on its own with no hands-on restoration, carbon stocks and biodiversity loss can often rapidly approach pre-disturbance levels (Silver, Ostertag, & Lugo, 2001; Jones & Schmitz, 2009; Beyer et al., 2022; Gilroy et al., 2014).

However, the potential benefits of incentivized rewilding are strongly affected by the uncertainty of the future value of carbon and based on the societal value of soil carbon (Lal, 2024).

Costa Rica proved it’s possible. Decades ago, farmers were paid $64 per hectare to protect trees, matching what they earned from cattle and funded by a fossil fuel tax. Critics thought it was unrealistic, but it worked. 97 percent of farmers kept their promise. Debt swaps financed conservation. Small loans became forest guarantees. Forest cover grew from 21 percent to 57 percent in just 33 years.

_{Percent forest cover in Costa Rica since 1940. Data from Hector 2008 and Reid 2018}, _Mongabay.

Better Plant-Based Farming

Livestock-Free Regenerative Agriculture

Optimized plant agriculture, like conservation agriculture that’s been in practice for millennia, also increases SOC, and produces more protein and calories per unit of land (Kassam & Kassam, Chapter 21, 2024; Kassam, 2022).

In 2001, the FAO adopted the term ‘conservation agriculture’, defining it as being based on three principles: minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and species diversification (Bless, Davila, & Plant, 2023).

“There is a myth being propagated that sustainable and regenerative agriculture must includefarmed animals. Some even include farmed animals as a necessary default component in theirdefinition of regenerative agriculture. There is neither a scientific nor an empirical basis for such a sweeping belief. Most crop farms generally have no or few farmed animals, and many farms that are managed sustainably from an ecological viewpoint have no farmed animals” (Kassam & Kassam, Chapter 21, 2024).

According to Kassam & Kassam (2024), the main benefits of farmed animal‐free conservation agriculture (CA) regenerative farming are:

Restoration of soil health and function including the minimisation of soil degradation, runoff and soil erosion and maximisation of water infiltration and retention.
Higher or comparable and stable yields with minimum use of purchased inputs; generally, CA systems require about 50% less production inputs including agrochemicals, fuel and labour and offer double the farm output and productivity than conventional tillage‐based farming (Carvalho et al. 2012; Freixial and Carvalho 2010).
Delivery of ecosystem services including greater volume of cleaner water, carbon sequestration, climate change adaptability and mitigation and reduced damage from extreme climatic events such as drought, floods, heat and cold (Kassam et al. 2020).
Reduced capital investments due to decreased horsepower required for farm operations and increased operating life of farm machinery.

Kassam & Kassam (2024) go on and state that CA systems without farmed animals work optimally, regeneratively and are resilient because they:

Have the ecological and biological foundations for sustainability;
Have enhanced soil health status, biology and functioning;
Have enhanced biodiversity above and below the ground;
Have diverse plant root systems interacting with soil systems;
Enable ecosystem services and benefits to flow to farmers and society;
Have maximum efficiency and system output; and
Enable the regeneration and rehabilitation of degraded lands.

Conservation Agriculture has been rapidly expanding worldwide. By 2018, the global annual cropland area under CA (excluding perennial systems like orchards and vineyards, which are also growing globally) reached approximately 205 million hectares, accounting for around 15% of the world’s total cropland across more than 100 countries. This marks an increase of about 99 million hectares or 93% from the 107 million hectares recorded in 2008, with this growth distributed relatively evenly between the Global South and Global North (Kassam & Kassam, 2024; Kassam, Friedrich, & Derpsch, 2022).

Far more niche, but sharing many of the same principles, is veganic farming.

_{La Ferme de l’Aube | Jimmy Videle}

Veganic farming strictly avoids animal by-products like manure, bone, blood, fish, or feather meals as fertilizers. Instead, plant-based farmers rely on alternative techniques to enrich the soil with nutrients and organic matter.

A truly regenerative agriculture is stock-free organic farming using green manure, and various polyculture practices.

Agroecology as well is a way of farming with nature, not against it. It builds resilience to climate change and disease outbreaks by combining different plants with forest and local biodiversity of animals. The vagueness of it though sometimes includes grazing, increasing methane, risking soil carbon loss, and lowering food yields.

Cattle manure often becomes an environmental pollutant in water systems, spreading diarrheal and other illnesses to humans through water contamination. Rather than producing new nutrients, manure accelerates the decomposition of plant material. Green manure techniques, which operate similarly, can serve as an alternative to cattle manure, while farming legumes like soy produces new nutrients by fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere, reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers and fossil fuels.

In untouched nature, who puts manure or sprays fertilizer into forests? Nobody. Who puts manure specifically on their grass? Nobody. These plants and trees do not need this.

How does Mother Nature farm with animals? Well look at say 85 acres of land. Most of that is Woodland. There would be about one big mammal per acre. Maybe a dozen smaller mammals like rabbits and raccoons. And thousands of insects.

Veganic agriculture has roots that stretch far back, even before the term was coined in the mid-1900s by UK vegetarian activist Geoffrey Rudd. Mona Seymour, a professor at Loyola Marymount University, highlights that the milpa and three sisters crop-growing systems have been practiced in Central and North America for centuries. These systems, which involve growing corn, beans, squash, and other plants together, are a model of sustainable agriculture: beans enrich the soil with nitrogen, corn provides a structure for the beans to climb, and squash helps retain moisture. The modern veganic movement evolved from the organic and vegetarian movements, with some drawing parallels to forest farming—a regenerative practice of growing multiple species together. In Japan, Shumei agriculture also embraced these principles, driven by a belief in harmonizing human life with nature.

Native Americans and Vegetarianism

China’s long tradition of green manure use in paddy fields dates back centuries. As early as the third century, historical records mention the rotation of rice with milk vetch. This practice continued to evolve, and by the 1940s-1950s, a rice-green manure crop rotation system was widely used between the Five Ridges in the south and the Changjiang River in the north. This approach proved effective in boosting nitrogen levels and maintaining soil fertility (Rong-shen & Qi-xiao, 1981).

The German Federal Environment Agency just completed a study that analysed 22 different food innovations in Europe ranging from “agroecology” to “sustainable water cycles” in order to identify first positive experiences from other European countries and to transfer them to Germany (Engelhardt, Brüdern, Deppe, 2020). One key one featured was this Biocyclic Vegan Farming method.

By avoiding livestock farming for commercial purposes and using only plant-based compost, such as biocyclic humus soil, which has a high CO2-binding capacity, the benefits are substantial. The use of green manure, mulching, and biocyclic humus soil not only protects against erosion and dehydration but also boosts CO2 sequestration and promotes permanent humus formation. This growing Biocyclic Vegan movement has farms around the world (map).

Biodiversity thrives through practices like wide crop rotations, mixed cultivation, careful soil tilling, and creating habitats on the farm, including planting hedges and flower strips. Crops grown in biocyclic humus soil reportedly develop stronger root systems that penetrate deeper into the soil. The main challenge now is scaling up the production of this humus soil, which requires a lengthy maturation process to reach its full fertility potential. Industrial compost facilities can help with this challenge, and there is already alot of the infrastructure in cities for this.

Hemp

Industrial hemp is a powerful carbon sink, absorbing 22 tonnes of CO2 per hectare, and with its ability to grow two crops per year, that absorption can be doubled. Its rapid growth, reaching 4 meters in just 100 days, makes it one of the most efficient CO2-to-biomass converters, outperforming agroforestry.

Hemp thrives in diverse soils without chemical inputs, improving soil structure while binding it. Unlike other crops, the carbon sequestered in industrial hemp remains locked in the products made from it. Additionally, hemp can be grown on nutrient-poor soils with minimal water, integrated into existing agricultural land, and included in crop rotations, boosting overall yields.

Hemp as a potential raw material toward a sustainable world: A review

Agrivoltaics

Agrivoltaics is the practice of using the same land for both agriculture and solar energy production. It involves placing solar panels above crops, allowing for electricity generation while providing shade for the plants, which can reduce water usage and improve crop yields in some environments.

“The systems modeled would enable the conventional farming of field crops to continue (and potentially increase yield) by using bifacial PV for single-axis tracking and vertical system configurations. Between a quarter (vertical) and more than one third (single-axis tracking) of Canada’s electrical energy needs can be provided solely by agrivoltaics using only 1% of current agricultural lands” (Jamil, Bonnington, & Pearce, 2023).

28-43% of Canada’s electrical energy can be provided if this is done on only 1% of Canada’s farmland (Jamil, Bonnington, & Pearce, 2023):

The benefits are promising, far more than many other popular farm management proposals:

– water conservation,
– plant protection from excess sun and wind,
– prevents soil erosion,
– can reverse desertification,
– new farm revenue streams, etc

This isn’t always the case but mounting research is showing that strategically placed solar panels over cropland brings an increase in plant yields: Basil; broccoli; celery; chiltepin peppers; corn/maize; lettuce; potatoes; salad; spinach; tomatoes; wheat (Jamil, Bonnington, & Pearce, 2023). A US study found pepper crops increased by 250% when planted in the shade of solar panels because they created a microclimate underneath, shielding the plants from the sun, thereby decreasing water use.

_{(Alexis Pascaris/AgriSolar)}

New evidence shows agrivoltaic systems can keep delivering environmental and economic value even after they stop producing electricity. Unpowered solar arrays still moderate soil temperature by up to 12 °C, reduce air temperature by 6–7 °C, and increase soil moisture retention, supporting healthier soils and higher yields under extreme heat (Jamil & Pearce, 2025). Modelling suggests global co-benefits exceeding USD $580 billion annually across major crops. Their physical structure can function like a permanent shade canopy, protecting crops, conserving water, and buffering farms against climate stress (Jamil & Pearce, 2025).

More research is needed, but agrivoltaics should be considered as a long-term climate adaptation tool as well as a renewable energy project.

Innovation & cultural change

“Transitioning to sustainability will require technological innovations in the short term, but also cultural change to embrace traditional and Indigenous ideas of respect, responsibility, sufficiency, and reciprocity to reduce consumption in the long term.” (Ramankutty, 2023)

Technological advancements, such as plant-based and animal-free meat substitutes, present an unmissable chance to lessen our environmental footprint in the near term. However, these technological improvements might lead to an increase in overall consumption due to the Jevons paradox. To counteract this, a long-term cultural shift is necessary, moving from a focus on growth to an emphasis on sufficiency. This would involve prioritizing the quality of life and experiences over the accumulation of material possessions (Ramankutty, 2023).

While new plant based products that mimic taste and texture of animal-based counterparts will help, cultural and social norm changes are still needed. People often choose and believe things based on their identity. Addressing this and creating captivating new stories is key, ones that blend novel technology and societal changes.

Conclusion

What you eat tends to be far more important, at least at first, than how it was produced (Waite, 2024). An overwhelming body of scientific evidence points to the fact that plant-based eating is far better for the environment than a diet centered around animal foods, even if those foods are labeled “regenerative”, “grass-fed”, “organic”, “local”, and so on (Loken, 2020).

“It is important to note that the alleged carbon sequestration posed by cattle herds in limited circumstances is temporary, not scalable, limited by location, easily disturbed, poorly measured, and does not cancel out the tradeoff that comes with it, which is increased methane emissions,” Jennifer Molidor, senior food campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, writes to Sentient.

This is because animals are inherently inefficient, consuming far more calories and protein than they produce.

“there is no doubt that confronting industrial livestock production and demeatification are pivotal to any hope of building regenerative agro-food systems” (Weis & Ellis, 2020).

Compared to plant foods such as beans, peas and lentils, beef requires 20 times more land and emits 20 times more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per gram of edible protein (Ranganathan et al., 2016). This ratio gets even worse when cattle are ‘finished’ on fields vs. feedlots, since it takes longer for them to reach industry slaughter weight, and also because grass is higher in fiber, which requires more land and produces more methane.

At a high level, the scientific evidence outlines the single clear issue within our food system: farming animals. Farming animals is the single largest driver of deforestation (Henders et al. 2015), habitat destruction (Machovina, Feeley, & Ripple, 2015), and species extinction (Coimbra, Gomes-Jr, & Fernandez, 2020) in the world.

Plant based diets:

Use significantly less land (Clark et al., 2019; Clark & Tillman, 2017; Poore & Nemecek, 2018; Chai et al., 2019; Rosi et al., 2017; Erb et al., 2016; Gerten et al., 2020; Shepon et al., 2018)
Use less cropland (Springmann et al., 2018; Poore & Nemecek, 2018; Shepon et al., 2018; Erb et al., 2016)
Use less water (Kim et al., 2020; Clark et al., 2019; Springmann et al., 2018; Gerten et al., 2020)
Use less fertilizer and pesticides (Springmann et al., 2018)
Can stabilize biosphere integrity and nitrogen flows (Gerten et al., 2020)
Cause less water and air pollution (Clark et al., 2019; Poore & Nemecek, 2018; Burkholder et al., 2007; Burkholder et al., 1997; Domingo et al., 2021; Essen & Auvermann, 2005; Bullers, 2005; Cole, Todd, & Wing, 2000; Wing & Wolf, 2000)
Feed more people (Shepon et al., 2018; Cassidy et al., 2013)
Reduce pandemic risk (IPBES, 2020).

“(G)rowing food exclusively for direct human consumption could, in principle, increase available food calories by as much as 70%, which could feed an additional 4 billion people (more than the projected 2–3 billion people arriving through population growth)” (Cassidy et al.,2013). More than 41 million Americans find themselves at risk of going hungry at some point during the year. The country could feed all 327 million Americans, plus roughly 390 million more, by focusing on plants (Shepon et al., 2018).

Despite all this, better grazing cattle practices, for beef, is touted as a new and progressive environmental solution, despite it having a well documented history, dating back thousands of years, of destroying natural ecosystems, including forests, grasslands, savannas, and waterways. Today, the single largest user of land on Earth is grazing, which uses 60% of the world’s agricultural land but accounts for only 2% of global calories and 5% of global protein consumed (IPCC Report: Climate Change and Land, 2019; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012).

“In light of the urgency of climate change, biodiversity loss, and soil degradation, the magnitude of non-communicable disease, and the immense scale of animal suffering, the need to reduce livestock production and move towards plant-based diets is undeniable” (Weis & Ellis, 2020).

Interestingly, meta-analyses consistently show that removing cattle from local ecosystems increases soil carbon abundance, native animals, above ground trees, and native plants (Filazzola et al., 2020). This makes sense given that, by weight, only 4% of all mammals on the planet are wild, with most of the remainder being livestock (Bar-On, Phillips, & Milo, 2018), which are the single largest driver of habitat loss worldwide (Machovina, Feeley, & Ripple, 2015) as well as a leading cause of species decline and extinction (Coimbra, Gomes-Jr, Fernandez, 2020).

As a result of the immense amount of land required to graze livestock and/or grow food for them to consume, a global shift to plant-based eating could spare more than 80% of farmland, an area the size of Africa, allowing wild ecosystems and species to come back, which would in turn result in about ten times more carbon being stored on those same lands (Poore & Nemecek, 2018; Georgiou et al., 2022).

“Ending domestic livestock grazing offers the best opportunity to restore native plants communities, restore and improve soils, and maximize carbon storage in western steppes and grasslands. True, this takes the ‘agriculture’ out of the regenerative equation, but this is the key to providing truly sustainable local human communities future.” (Molvar, 2021)

Transitioning globally to a plant-based food system could draw down the equivalent of the last 16 years of global fossil fuel emissions (Hayek et al., 2020; Ritchie, 2021). “Restoring natural vegetation, such as forest, is currently the best option at scale for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, and must begin immediately to be effective within the required timescale of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The livestock sector, having largely displaced natural carbon sinks, continues to occupy much of the land that must be restored” (Harwatt et al., 2020).

As Carl Sagan put it, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Credible evidence takes the form of research articles reviewed by experts and published in scientific journals. We have thoroughly sought after evidence supporting the assertions about regenerative “reverse climate change/carbon neutral beef” agriculture. However, findings mainly encompass numerous videos, personal accounts, articles, and interviews. None of the sources that support regenerative grazing possess the exceptional validity required for substantial claims. The research on the topic that’s peer-reviewed and published in credible journals is niche and far from comprehensive.

The overwhelming scientific consensus is clear: transitioning to plant-based diets is not just beneficial but essential for addressing the urgent global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem restoration.

FAQs: Myths & Facts

Claim: Cattle mimic wild bison & buffalo

Reality: Every ecosystem relies on grazers, but introduced domestic grazers, slaughtered early and removed from the ecosystem, cannot substitute the ecological role of native species.

Methane emissions from current U.S. cattle herds alone significantly exceed those of historical bison populations. Even in areas where bison historically roamed long distances, cattle in those areas emit more (Kelliher & Clark, 2010).

Before European settlement, the population of wild ruminants like bison in North America was estimated to be between 30-60 million. Today, the cattle population in North America exceeds 120 million, which is at least 2-4 times higher than the pre-settlement bison population. Globally, there are approximately 1.5 billion cattle, contributing to a total of around 4 billion farmed ruminants.

Wild ruminants, like their domesticated counterparts, emit methane (CH₄) through microbial fermentation in their rumen (USEPA, 2010b). Early estimates by Crutzen et al. (1986) suggested these emissions were between 2-6 Tg CH₄ annually, based on a wild ruminant population of 100-500 million. Pérez-Barbería (2017) later revised this down to 1.1-2.7 Tg CH₄ per year, arguing that the 500 million animal estimate was unjustified. He also highlighted that the 15 Tg CH₄ figure in recent IPCC reports was based on outdated assumptions from the last glacial maximum, when wild animal populations were much larger (Chappellaz et al., 1993). New modelling from Kleinen et al. (2023) supports the view that these historical population estimates were inflated.

With these revisions, methane emissions from wild ruminants are now pegged at just 2 [1-3] Tg CH₄ annually. In stark contrast, the over 4 billion farmed ruminants globally release a staggering 100-120 Tg CH₄ per year (131.7 Tg CH₄ in 2019 according to Zhang et al., 2022 — about 40 to 60 times more than their wild counterparts (Saunois et al., 2024). Even at the peak of the last Ice Age, when vast grasslands supported huge herds of wild ruminants like bison, deer, and antelope, they only emitted around 15 Tg CH₄ per year.

Ecologically, wild bison are fundamentally different from farmed cattle.

Bison can live up to 20 years, while cattle are bred to grow quickly and are slaughtered at just 2-3 years, leading to much higher resource consumption. Additionally, cattle and bison graze differently; bison offer unique ecosystem benefits, such as carrying seeds in their fur that are shed in the spring, helping to naturally sow vegetation and flowers (Rosas et al., 2008).

Bison’s Cold-Weather Superiority: Bison thrive in frigid prairie winters with their thick coats, efficient foraging under snow, and lower vegetation needs compared to cattle.

Cattle’s Impact on Riparian Zones: Unlike bison, cattle congregate tightly in cold seasons, trampling vital riverside vegetation.

Bison’s Vast Roaming and Speed: Bison cover vast areas due to their ability to run up to 55 km/h and pivot swiftly, preventing overgrazing by rarely returning to the same spot for years.

Wildlife’s Net Benefit: Pre-agriculture bison and their ecosystems contributed to a healthier carbon balance, highlighting the overall environmental benefits of wild animals and plants over drawbacks.

Jennifer Molidor, PhD, with the Center for Biological Diversity explains to Sentient: Wild bison are native to the U.S., she says, so they have “evolved with and adapted to native grassland ecosystems in the West. Cattle did not.” Cattle are not native to the U.S., and can be considered an invasive species. They behave differently, Molidor says, in important ways: “they graze differently, cluster differently, eat vegetation differently, and even regenerate differently, while also existing on the landscape differently.” She adds that “while one contributes to ecosystem health, the other cancels out most of their supposed benefits with catastrophic damage to the land, water and atmosphere.” “Wild bison, in [a] true regenerative cycle, die on the land, become food and nutrients for animals and for the landscape, and are recycled into the web of life,” explains Molidor. “Cattle, on the other hand, are removed at a young age and become burgers and veal, and their milk becomes cheese for humans.”
Habitat-Fed Beef: Separating Facts From Fiction on Grass-Fed and ‘Regenerative’ Beef

Wild vs. Domestic ruminants

Native herbivores like bison, elk, antelope, and deer graze selectively and rarely revisit the same plants, allowing grasses and shrubs to recover without long-term harm. Livestock, confined by fences or herding, repeatedly graze the same plants, especially nutrient-rich green ones, causing lasting damage. Native grasses can take up to a decade to recover, but few pastures are rested that long.

Each native herbivore targets different plants. Bison graze coarse grasses, elk prefer regrowth, antelope eat flowers, and deer browse shrubs. This balances plant impacts. Cattle, evolved in Eurasian woodlands, congregate in riparian zones, critical habitats relied on by 75-80% of Western wildlife, leading to habitat degradation. Livestock do not simply “replace” native wildlife; their impacts on ecosystems are far more disruptive (Wuerthner, 2020).

Learn more: Bison vs Cow Greenhouse Gas “Emissions”

Claim: Cattle graze on marginal land not suitable for crops

Marginal land refers to land considered poor quality or low in productivity, often due to limitations such as poor soil, steep slopes, or low rainfall. It is typically seen as having limited value for conventional agriculture or industry. Around two-thirds of agricultural land is classified as marginal. However, not all marginal land is grazed by livestock, and not all grazing land is marginal. And even where grazing land is marginal, there are a number of facts to consider.

First consider that 42% of all pastureland today used to be forests or at least woody savannas before the 1700s (Searchinger et al., 2018). In other words, much of the land now considered “marginal” was not always poor quality; it became that way through centuries of deforestation and ecosystem degradation driven largely by grazing and agriculture.

For context, we’ve removed half of Earth’s original 6 trillion trees. Annually, 15 billion trees are cut down, accounting for about 15% of yearly CO₂ emissions (Crowther et al. 2015). In contrast, afforestation efforts manage to plant fewer than 2 billion trees each year (Ritchie & Roser, 2021). This means we are cutting down eight trees for every one we plant. Much of this tree loss has been to make way for pasture or feed production, and continues at speed.

Then know that, at least one-third of grassland could also be used as cropland (Mottet et al., 2017; Roberts, 2023), undermining the idea that pasture is inherently unsuitable for productive use.

This puts the marginal land myth in perspective.

Then, land designated as “marginal” is not always degraded, and often has inherent ecological and cultural value, even if it isn’t agriculturally productive. For example, native grasslands are not marginal for the wildlife displaced from this land by introduced cattle. Grazed marginal land would be better utilized for rewilding for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, or even growing vegetation to be composted for creating high quality stock-free organic soil.

Even when only counting feed edible by humans, all livestock, including cows, still consume more protein than they produce in the United States (Baber, Sawyer, & Wickersham, 2018) and globally. This is also true by unit of calorie, zinc and iron.

Rewilding the land used for grazing cattle, including grasslands deemed too degraded for growing crops, holds a huge potential for drawing down carbon dioxide if allowed to rest and restore. Rewilding the over 3.5 billion hectares of land used by animal agriculture (37% of all ice-free land) would draw down the equivalent to at least 16 years of fossil fuel emissions (about 8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year) (Hayek et al., 2020; Poore & Nemecek, 2018). Removing livestock grazing in just all native grassland areas (2 billion hectares/20.31 Mkm²) could sequester up to 268 Gt CO₂ by the end of the 21st century, equivalent to about 7 years of fossil fuel emissions (Hayek et al., 2024).

We actually only need about 7-9 billion tonnes of carbon sequestration by 2050 to meet the Paris Agreement, so, put differently, going plant-based and rewilding is getting us 80% of the carbon drawdown we need to achieve the 1.5°C climate target (Smith et al., 2024).

Claim: Grazing cattle upcycle inedible grass into edible meat

Global grazing of cattle only returns 2% of the global calorie supply and 5% of global protein consumed, but comes with enormous social and ecological costs. Grazing cattle is the single largest source of methane emissions, land degradation, and wildlife habitat loss (Machovina, Feeley, & Ripple, 2015). Grazing has serious, negative impacts on the land, regardless of whether it is done on marginal or prime land.

All that so-called marginal land isn’t marginal for the hundreds of native species culled or displaced from their land including key species like native wolves and other carnivores incapable of coexisting with the beef business. The consumption of animal products accounts for more than half of biodiversity loss within key biodiversity areas, and lightly grazed pasture contributes the most (Sun et al., 2022).

Key Stats:

By unit of protein, most livestock feed is actually human edible (Berners-Lee, Watson, & Hewitt, 2018).
At least one third of grassland could also be used as cropland.
Even when only counting feed edible by humans, all livestock, including cows, still use more human edible protein than they produce in the United States and globally (Baber et al., 2018; Berners-Lee, Watson, & Hewitt, 2018). This is also true by unit of calorie, zinc and iron (Berners-Lee, Watson, & Hewitt, 2018).

Below is a global heat map showing where agriculture conflicts with high biodiversity priority areas. Much of the blue (cattle) is what the beef industry would consider marginal land.

Hoang et al., (2023): Fig. 2. Map of land use and conservation priority index for major agricultural commodities. Spatial distribution of land use for five major agricultural commodities colored according to conservation priority (low = light, high = dark) index in 2010. For each pixel, the land-use commodity with the greatest share of the five preselected commodities is shown.

Other specific claims debunked from: Why cows might not be the villains of climate change (w/ Frank M. Mitloehner, Univ. of Calif. Davis)

Industry favoured academic Frank Mitloehner shows a postcard size of paper (folded down from a normal sheet) and claims about a quarter of it (the size of his business card) is agricultural land. This is false. It’s more like 43% of all ice-free land or 50% of all habitable land.

The ⅔ of land is marginal land claim – see the above image of what he considers marginal including most of the blue cattle areas. The American west cattle business is the main driver that wiped out 95% of North American species since expansion including:
- Pronghorns: 35M to 750k (🔻98%)
- Bighorn Sheep: ~2M to 70k (🔻96%)
- Elk: 10M to 1M (🔻90%)
- Bison: 55M to 31k — (🔻99.94%)
- Gray Wolves: ~250k to 5.5k *contiguous US (🔻97.8%)
42% of this so-called marginal land used to be forested or at least woody savannas, then over time, mostly from cattle grazing, became too degraded to grow back its native forest or grow crops.
We are limited to the amount of land to grow crops because of cattle grazing.

For so-called marginal land, if its use as agricultural land is necessary, organic amendments (say introducing plant compost or a diversity of nitrogen fixing perennial crops) and even biochar, are far better for soil improvements than grazing cattle:

*Beillouin et al., 2023: Cropland management options. Fig. 3: Percentage change in soil organic carbon (SOC) due to land management practices.*

Overall, beef requires 6 times more water, 20 times more land, and emits 20 times more GHG emissions – per gram of edible protein – compared to plant proteins like beans, peas, or lentils. So on 1/20th of the land for beef, we can produce plant protein, emit 20 times less GHGs, and rewild the rest, restoring native animals and environments (Ranganathan et al., 2016).

Lastly, if we were to shift to plant-based food system, we would reduce all farmland by over 75% (including a 19% drop in arable land), could feed an additional 3.5 billion people, and improve biodiversity and about every other environmental issue like eutrophication, acidification, and water use (rain and irrigation) (Poore & Nemecek, 2018; Cassidy et al., 2013).

Claim: Cattle can reverse desertification

Cattle grazing is a leading driver of desertification worldwide, degrading soil structure, reducing vegetation cover, and accelerating erosion. According to the IPCC (2019, SRCCL), livestock overgrazing contributes substantially to land degradation in drylands. A global review by Asner et al. (2004) found that grazing pressure is the dominant cause of desertification across more than 60% of vulnerable rangelands.

How to reverse arid close-to desertified areas:

Water harvesting: One of the main challenges in arid environments is the lack of water. Water harvesting techniques such as building swales, terraces, and dams can help capture and retain water, allowing it to seep into the soil and support plant growth.
Soil restoration: Arid landscapes are often characterized by degraded and compacted soils that have low organic matter content. Adding compost, biochar, or other organic amendments can help improve soil structure, increase water-holding capacity, and support the growth of vegetation.
- Biochar was also a means that dates back to Indigenous Amazonians and was “one of the most effective and readily available means to remove excess atmospheric carbon.” (Schmidt et al., 2023)
Planting native species: Introducing native plants that are adapted to arid environments can help stabilize soil, reduce erosion, and promote the recovery of ecosystem functions. It is important to select species that are well-suited to the specific site conditions and that can thrive with minimal water inputs.

This is being done to hold off the Sahara Desert and with the Great Green Wall of China How the UN is Holding Back the Sahara Desert

China Just Turned Its Biggest Desert into a Lush Forest

Claim: We just need to eat less and better meat

It is first important to acknowledge that most regenerative ranching advocates will never admit we need to eat less meat. But there is a common belief within food choices that we need to ‘eat less but better meat’. Often though, the focus is on ‘better’ and rarely enough attention is given to less meat. A shift toward plant-based foods is a multiple win for climate, nature, and animal welfare where shifts between or within animal products just leads to trade-offs (Cho, Waite, & Santo, 2024).

These tradeoff scenarios are important since many organizations are not ready to offer exclusively plant-based. So what is and is not ‘better meat’?

What we find are trade-offs. Chicken may have a lower environmental footprint than beef, but it poses greater risks for pandemics and antibiotic resistance due to the inherent intensive farming practices. Extensively raised beef may seem more ethical because the animals roam, but it still requires more land per pound of meat than any other food.

The most impactful choice is simple: eat less meat, however and wherever possible. From there, focus on supporting systemic changes and community efforts that make fully plant-based eating more accessible for everyone.

Claim: Free range pigs and chickens farmed better can be eco-friendly

The idea of regenerative or free-range chicken farming distracts from the urgent need to shift to plant-based systems. While efforts like Tree-Range Farms aim to improve soil and integrate trees, they still perpetuate the unsustainable feed conversion of poultry, requiring vast amounts of grains that could directly feed humans more efficiently.

Real regenerative agriculture prioritizes plants, high amounts of protein and calories per land area, and rewilding which sequesters carbon, and restores ecosystems. This feeds more people with fewer resources.

For every 100 calories of grain fed to chickens, people only return about 12 calories of meat (Cassidy et al., 2013). That’s almost a 90% loss, which happens because of course these are functioning living animals. Free range chicken would have an even higher amount of feed loss since they’re moving around and functioning more. Largely due to the increased demand for these feed crops, the biomass of poultry globally is now at least three times that of all wild bird species and is a major driver of biodiversity loss (Bennett et al., 2018).

Topics

Report: Regenerative Ranching vs. Rewilding

Evidence from 100+ studies analyzing better grazing vs. dietary change plant-based with rewilding.

Key Findings

Summary

Regenerative: Defined

Loose definitions welcome disinformation

Regenerative agriculture is industrial agriculture

Science-backed parts of regenerative agriculture

Better definition

Big picture: Food systems and global land use

Wildlife extinction

Types of better grazing

Grass vs. feedlot finished cattle

Holistic grazing

Soil and carbon storage

Soil carbon saturation: farms vs. wild ecosystems

Methane

Feed additives and pharmaceuticals to reduce methane

Biogenic methane

How we know methane from cattle is heating the planet

Methane is likely underestimated

A major reduction of grazing is inevitably needed

Academic Tactics Used to Support Regenerative Grazing

Solutions

Dietary change

Rewilding

How significant of an opportunity is rewilding?

Forests

Oceans & Kelp

Incentivize Rewilding

Better Plant-Based Farming

Livestock-Free Regenerative Agriculture

Hemp

Agrivoltaics

Innovation & cultural change

Conclusion

FAQs: Myths & Facts

Claim: Cattle mimic wild bison & buffalo

Claim: Cattle graze on marginal land not suitable for crops

Claim: Grazing cattle upcycle inedible grass into edible meat

Claim: Cattle can reverse desertification

Claim: We just need to eat less and better meat

Claim: Free range pigs and chickens farmed better can be eco-friendly

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