"Some of the rarest creatures in Britain have now made Knepp their home, including kingfishers, hazel dormice, scarce chaser dragonflies and purple emperor butterflies. The river has returned to its natural course and the soil is now storing as much #carbon per hectare as a 25-year-old plantation of trees does, according to recent tests."
"Burrell believes that if they had been farming regeneratively all along they may not have been saddled with the debt that forced them to take the decision to rewild in the first place."
This ^^^ is the kind of thing that conservative European farmers need to hear, not the misinformation they get from interests wanting to preserve their business model of selling fertilisers of which the runoff destroys ecosystems on which that very farming depends.
Planting with native grasslands in the American "fescue belt":
"While she believes diverse native grasslands will make pastures more resilient to #ClimateChange, she doesn’t mention that when proselytizing to fellow ranchers. Instead, she talks about increased water infiltration, more abundant wildlife, and improved soil health — and eliminating #FescueToxicosis — things that matter to ranchers no matter their thoughts on climate change."
"Raising cattle is far from lucrative, even in wealthy economies where demand for beef is high. The agriculture department confirmed this month that US beef farmers and ranchers are in dire economic straits. For all their hard, dangerous work, 70% lose money and, excluding government support, their average net income per acre was less than 50 cents."
"A global annual investment of just 1% of the world’s GDP – around $1tn – to pay farmers who choose to transition from cattle husbandry to #restoration and management of native #forests and #grasslands would significantly raise the income of cattle farmers and stimulate rural communities, while rapidly reducing global warming and reversing the global collapse of biodiversity. And that would be a bargain."
Agree, you need to be respectful of what was there at that location before it became a farm. The story at the top of this thread is compelling in that sense.
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